ISO 18381:2013 establishes a data compression algorithm applied to digital three-dimensional image data from payload instruments, such as multispectral and hyperspectral imagers, and specifies the compressed data format.

Data compression is used to reduce the volume of digital data to achieve benefits in areas including, but not limited to:

• reduction of transmission channel bandwidth;
• reduction of the buffering and storage requirement;
• reduction of data-transmission time at a given rate.

The characteristics of instrument data are specified only to the extent necessary to ensure multi-mission support capabilities. ISO 18381:2013 does not attempt to quantify the relative bandwidth reduction, the merits of the approaches discussed, or the design requirements for encoders and associated decoders.

ISO 18381:2013 addresses only lossless compression of three-dimensional data, where the requirement is for a data-rate reduction constrained to allow no distortion to be added in the data compression/decompression process.