This is the 5th Draft of this contest/website.
News
- New SC.ZIP uses Allegro 3.11.
- Added links section. For all the resources used here. If you
would like to add a link please email
me.
- First submission. It's still in beta, but it will be one of my
contributions.
- SHELL.C includes byte-swapping code. If you would like to
improve it go ahead, and email me of your results.
- Corrected errata in judging info. See new scoring methods.
- Errata in SNDFRM.TXT. Mono is signified with a 0, not a 1.
- Deadline for contest is now April 10th 1999, which is also a
Saturday (better day to do testing.)
Welcome
to BATTLE, which stands for Battle Against Taking Too Long for data
Exchange. This site is geared towards the advancement of data compression
and also as a reference for various algorithms. Therefore the purpose
of the contests is to find who can write the best algorithms.
There are strict rules for participating in BATTLE, however everyone
who visits this site will benifit somehow.
There are three catagories:
- General Data Compression
- Image Compression
- Sound Compression
Within each catagory there is three contests:
- Overall Compression Ratio
- Overall Compression Speed
- Algorithms for small computers (which means they can run without
great complexity or memory requirements)
I mentioned contests, but there is no actual prizes. What you win is
ultimate fame, and glory! You will be known as the current winner.
Contests
The first contest deadline is April 10th, 1999. At that
time all submissions will be judge according to their criteria (Ratio, Speed,
Requirements) and the results will be placed on this website.
Judges
Curently I am judging the 3 'general compression' contests.
Michael Schindler is judging
image compression and Jeff Gilchrist
is judging Sound compression.
The judges are responsible for finding the test data, no later then
March 4th 1999. If you want to help them find
data that meets the criteria, please email them. They would appreciate the
help.
Both the sound and image utilities are in here and
is 440KB. Both programs work, but need work. Feel free to submit
changes. If anyone could 'code proof' them, I would appreciate it. They
both need an x86 running dos. The image viewer needs a 24-bit display.
It can autosize to 1024x768, 800x600 and 640x480 as needed. Sound requires
a SB16 compatible sound card.
Small Sound Samples are here. The stereo one is called
sample1.dat it is 2.6MB. The mono one is called
sample2.dat it is 1.3MB. Both are in the BATTLE
sound format. Both were created by ModPlug Tracker (Olivier Lapicque), the
actual music was created by Future Crew (Sample1) and Martin Samuelsson
(Sample2). Both files should be 15 seconds. If you have a better sample
and would like to post it please make a comment.
Sample images of VLA are available here and are
750KB all together. There is one example of each type. The 8BPP image really
bites. If you have a better one, please make a comment.
The overall goal of the contests is to provide the programmers of the
world with a good rich resource of compression algorithms
Rules and Regulations
There is a master set of rules, then there are rules for each category.
The master rules are as follows:
- All submissions must be original code. They may not be copied from
pre-existing packages, or sources. You may base your algorithm
on a pre-existing package however.
- You may not base your code on a current submission. You can
base it on previous submissions (for any previous contest), with
the authors permission however.
- All submissions must follow the programming API as defined in
the shell program. This is to keep testing
fair and simple.
- All projects must contain a working 'makefile' for GCC.
- All projects must compile with GCC (DJGPP)
- All projects must interface with SHELL.C
- Submissions must be in either '.tar.gz' or '.zip' format.
They will be stored in '.zip' format on the site.
- All submissions must be in ANSI C, with proper comments.
Source-Shrouding is NOT permitted. The source
code must compile with either GNU C (DJGPP for ms-dos) or LCC
(LCC-WIN32). Other compilers are accepted (for testing). Judgement
will be performed either in Win95 (command prompt) or ms-dos.
- All submissions must be emailed to
here.
- You may release copyrighted or patented software (must be your own),
however, the source code must be submitted with the intent of
allowing it to be used in free software (non-profit).
(See FSF for more info).
Any disobediance of these rules, will require re-submission.
Rules for General Compression Contest
The rules for 'General Compression Algorithms' are as follows:
- All of the master rules.
- Must be able to compress TEXT (7bit) and BINARY (8bit) data files.
- Must be lossless
- The test will consist of 5 Text files (english), and 5 Binary files
(3 Program Files, 1 Image (8bpp palette), and 1 Sound File (mono))
Rules for Image Compression Contest
The rules for 'Image Compression Algorithms' are as follows:
- All of the master rules.
- The file format is documented here
- The test will consist of the following categories: 8bpp palette
images, 8bpp grayscale, and 24bpp color.
There will be
five 8bpp palette images, three 8bpp grayscale and two 24bpp color
files.
For a total of ten images.
- The algorithm must be able to handle all 3 formats (it may
perform internal conversions)
- The algorithms may be lossy. Judgement will be out of 10,
10 being the image is lossless, and 1 being the image is
bad (quality). This is upto the judge.
Rules for Sound Compression Contest
The Rules for the 'Sound Compression Algorithms' are as follows:
- All of the master rules.
- The file format is described here
- The test will consist of 4 files. Two big files, and two small
files. The big files are 5 minutes long (one stereo and one mono).
The small files are 15 seconds long (one stereo and one
mono). Only the small files are posted.
- The algorithm must be able to handle stereo and mono data.
(It may perform internal conversions)
- The algorithms may be lossy. Judgement will be out of 10,
10 being the sound is lossless, and 1 being the sound is
bad (quality). This is upto the judge.
Sub-catagory contests
Rules for any Compression Ratio contest
The rules for 'Maximum Compression Ratio' are as follows:
- All of the master rules.
- All of the category (General, Image or Sound) rules.
- Memory limit is: 32MB total per file
- Time Limit: 1 hour per file.
- Points are awarded on compression ratio. As follows:
Points = (1 - (output_size / input_size)) * 100
Rules for any Compression Speed contest
The rules for 'Compression Speed' are as follows:
- All the master rules.
- All of the category (General, Image or Sound) rules.
- Memory limit of: 8MB total per file.
- Time limit of 20 minutes (1200 seconds) per file.
- Points are award on time. Which is calculated as:
time_in_seconds = (compression_time + decompression_time) / 2
insize = size on input file
outsize = size of output file
All the above values are averages for the test suite.
Points = (1200 - time_in_seconds) * (1 - (outsize / insize))
If you are over 1200 seconds you are disqualified.
- Speed is measured on the judges computer. The test will be
performed under DOS. They will be compiled with DJGPP v2.02 and the
following switches: '-O3 -mpentium -fomit-frame-pointer
'.
Rules for any Minimum Requirements contest
The rules for 'Minimum Requirements' are as follows:
- All the master rules.
- All of the category (General, Image or Sound) rules.
- Memory limit of: 0.25MB (256 KB)
- Points are awarded on the compression ratio vs. memory used.
- Can't use any floating point hardware. (Includes 'float', 'double'
and 'long long' data types).
- There is a bonus point for using only 8-bit and 16-bit data types.
- There are bonus points for memory usage too. Points are awarded like so:
Points = (256KB - (memory_required_in_kb)) * (1 - (outsize / insize))
Links
This is the 5th draft of this contest. I expect many changes to
take place. I welcome your input and expect this site to be benificial.
I will be adding a submissions page to this site, so you can view others
submissions.
If there are any problems with this draft, or if you have any questions
please email me at
tomstdenis@goplay.com. I am glad
to help. If you put 'BATTLE: ' as the first word in the subject I will
be able to respond faster. (I get alot of email)
This site is hosted on Tripod.Com
Last changed: March 2nd 1999
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