what is fano coding?

Answer 1

Shannon-Fano coding is a technique for constructing a prefix code based on a set of symbols and their probabilities (estimated or measured). The symbols are arranged in order from most probable to least probable, and then divided into two sets whose total probabilities are as close as possible to being equal. All symbols then have the first digits of their codes assigned; symbols in the first set receive "0" and symbols in the second set receive "1". As long as any sets with more than one member remain, the same process is repeated on those sets, to determine successive digits of their codes. When a set has been reduced to one symbol, of course, this means the symbol's code is complete and will not form the prefix of any other symbol's code.
For more information, see :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon-Fano_coding

Answer 2

In the field of data compression, Shannon-Fano coding is a technique for constructing a prefix code based on a set of symbols and their probabilities (estimated or measured). The symbols are arranged in order from most probable to least probable, and then divided into two sets whose total probabilities are as close as possible to being equal. All symbols then have the first digits of their codes assigned; symbols in the first set receive "0" and symbols in the second set receive "1". As long as any sets with more than one member remain, the same process is repeated on those sets, to determine successive digits of their codes. When a set has been reduced to one symbol, of course, this means the symbol's code is complete and will not form the prefix of any other symbol's code.

The algorithm works, and it produces fairly efficient variable-length encodings; when the two smaller sets produced by a partitioning are in fact of equal probability, the one bit of information used to distinguish them is used most efficiently. Unfortunately, Shannon-Fano does not always produce optimal prefix codes; the set of probabilities (.35, .17, .17, .16, .15) is an example of one that will be assigned non-optimal codes by Shannon-Fano

Answer 3

It's actually 'Shannon-Fano' coding and it's a type of compression coding using variable length codewords.

In practice, it's very much like Huffman coding.


Doug

Answer 4

It's hardly ever used because it's so complicated. You make prefix codes based on symbols and probabilities. It's very complicated and hard to explain. It's very efficient but hard to do if you don't know exactly how to do it

Answer 5

check it out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression/Shannon-Fano_coding