Symmetry and Asymmetry in Data Compression

A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Computer".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2026) | Viewed by 1014

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Koroška cesta 46, SI-2000 Maribor, Slovenia
Interests: computer graphics; geometric modeling; computer geometry; CAD/CAM systems; geometric design with geometric features; geometric design with geometric constraints; multimedia; virtual reality

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Data compression represents one of the most traditional disciplines in computer science with the first, still used, solutions created in the late 1940s. At the end of the last millennium, it experienced a boom, coinciding with the invention of the Internet and the rise in digital multimedia. In recent years, however, new paradigms are re-emerging, built on the foundation of machine learning, cross-domain generalisation and knowledge transfer, and predictions based on higher semantic features rather than on the limited context of a few samples. In this Special Issue, authors are invited to submit high-quality research or review articles that address the impact of the topics below, as well as other topics related to the symmetry or asymmetry of the choice, design, analysis, and use of data compression algorithms in general, or in specific data domains.

  1. From a data perspective, symmetry denotes the repetition (semantic feature) of data patterns in their original or transformed form. Research topics include, but are not limited to, symmetry detection, representation, classification and organisation with the goal of enhancing data compression.
  2. From an algorithm perspective, the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric data compression algorithms implies differences in the design and use of the two categories.
  3. Time-varying data are sometimes characterised by a somewhat symmetric behaviour over time, which can improve their compression.
  4. The relationship between lossless and lossy compression on the one hand and exact and approximate symmetries on the other is also of research interest. A lossless algorithm achieves a clearly better compression when exact symmetries are identified in the data. Symmetrisation can thus be an important preprocessing step in data compression.

Dr. David Podgorelec
Prof. Dr. Jie Yang
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • data compression
  • symmetry detection
  • algorithm analysis
  • exact and approximate symmetry
  • lossless and lossy data compression
  • symmetrical and asymmetrical data compression algorithms
  • spatial, time-varying and non-geometric data
  • feature-based data compression
  • error control

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

25 pages, 892 KB  
Article
Rabbit: Adaptive Lossless Compression for Floating-Point Time Series via Temporal Locality-Aware Dynamic Encoding
by Qinhong Lei, Wenhui Chen, Yan Wang and Ya Guo
Symmetry 2026, 18(4), 558; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym18040558 - 25 Mar 2026
Viewed by 531
Abstract
With the advancement of IoT technology, a vast amount of floating-point time series data has emerged, posing significant challenges for data storage and transmission. To address this issue, the efficient compression of floating-point time series data has become increasingly important. In the field [...] Read more.
With the advancement of IoT technology, a vast amount of floating-point time series data has emerged, posing significant challenges for data storage and transmission. To address this issue, the efficient compression of floating-point time series data has become increasingly important. In the field of lossless compression where precision loss is not allowed, compression and decompression are a symmetrical and reversible transformation. The optimization of its encoding and decoding strategies remains the current optimal path for lossless compression. Based on the existing lossless compression algorithms for time series, this paper proposes Rabbit, which is a new floating-point time series data stream lossless compression algorithm. This method can perceive the data characteristics and, by leveraging the temporal locality of the time series, predict the branch distribution of the data stream during compression, thereby dynamically encoding the flag bits. This algorithm designs a TOE encoding method specifically for the significant bits to reduce the number of compressed bits. Compared with traditional floating-point compression schemes, its performance has been significantly improved. Experimental evaluations on 28 datasets show that this algorithm consistently outperforms existing methods with an average improvement of 4.15% over the baseline ACTF algorithm. Notably, on datasets such as server31, server34, and server41, the compression ratio can be reduced by up to 43.04%. Additionally, the compression and decompression time metrics have improved by 4.27% and 3.74%, respectively. Overall, Rabbit offers an effective lossless compression approach for floating-point time-series data, improving the compression ratio without compromising encoding/decoding throughput. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry and Asymmetry in Data Compression)
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