Quanta - image optimization service

Quanta is a microservice for JPEG image optimizations built using Swift programming language. It is similar to other online tools like jpegmini.com, tinypng.com or compressor.io but it is an in-house solution and based on a proven solution like MozJPEG.

Compared with other mozjpeg wrappers, this software has low memory overhead and fast performance, which can help with horizontal scaling with a large number of instances and simultaneous requests.

More information

We used Swift and Vapor 3 to handle HTTP requests. Check also excellent libraries without which quanta can't work:

• mozjpeg

Requirements

Quanta requires MozJPEG to be installed on host.

MacOS

Run brew install mozjpeg.

Linux

You can use the provided script install-linux-dependencies.sh to compile and install mozjpeg. Also, follow official documentation in the repository: https://github.com/mozilla/mozjpeg

Installation

Run make to compile the software.
Go to .build/release/ directory and run ./quanta.

Getting started

There are multiple ways to use Quanta to recompress the JPEG file:

• REST(-ish) API
• proxy method
• via GUI

REST(-ish) API

Quanta provides REST API. This simple endpoint optimizes image by normal HTTP request and returns image (JPEG).

!!! note Quanta always preserves original format. If you send JPEG - you will get (optimized) JPEG.

Usage

$ curl -x POST https://quanta.com/optimize/jpg/ -H "Content-Type" \
    --form fileBytes=@/tmp/file_to_optimize.jpg
    --form quality=75
    --output /tmp/optimized_file.jpg

According to the table below, as a result, you can get binary data or JSON struct with an error message.

Status code	Response	Headers
200	image (binary data)	Content-Type: image/jpeg X-Quanta-Ratio: <float>
400	JSON describes error	Content-Type: application/json

Proxy method

The easiest way to integrate with an external system because quanta get an external resource and processing it and send you optimized version.

Usage

$ export IMAGE_TO_OPTIMIZE=https://quanta.com/images/quanta.jpg
$ curl -x GET https://quanta.com/from/?url=$IMAGE_TO_OPTIMIZE&quality=20

GUI

Simple UI allows you to upload pictures and compare various compressions settings.

Summary

Method	Endpoint	Method	Purpose
REST-ish API	/optimize/jpg	POST	batch processing
Proxy method	/from/?url=<url>&quality=<1..100>	GET	batch processing or quick preview
GUI	-	-	one-time optimization

Benchmarks

In this section, you will find information about the performance of quanta. All samples are from the production of Allegro.

Name	Description	Size	Preview
Sample #1	a few colors, headings, irrelevant details	88 kB (960x252)
Sample #2	3 main colors (red, white, black), irrelevant details	88 kB (960x252)
Sample #3	a text (black on white), details with various colors	508 kB (1600×572)

Performance

typical_banner_1.jpg

Quality	Optimized file size	Elapsed time
65	33 kb	160 ms
70	37 kb	149 ms
75	42 kb	158 ms
80	49 kb	157 ms
85	58 kb	168 ms
90	71 kb	262 ms

Size reduction between 16.889% and 61.0427%.

typical_banner_2.jpg

Quality	Optimized file size	Elapsed time
65	30 kb	257 ms
70	34 kb	258 ms
75	39 kb	197 ms
80	47 kb	179 ms
85	55 kb	175 ms
90	74 kb	197 ms

Size reduction between 13.4709% and 64.1687%.

typical_banner_3.jpg

Quality	Optimized file size	Elapsed time
65	107 kb	724 ms
70	117 kb	722 ms
75	130 kb	724 ms
80	151 kb	741 ms
85	175 kb	730 ms
90	217 kb	791 ms

Size reduction between 55.7364% and 78.1365%.

Quality comparison

Details

JPEG

Image	Original	Quality 75
typical_banner_from_showbox.jpeg	77 kB	55 kB