Minmaxtallennus

Minmaxtallennus is a Finnish compound term that can be translated as "min–max storage." It denotes a class of simple, often lossy, data-reduction techniques in which only the minimum and maximum values of a dataset segment or block are retained rather than every individual datum. The retained extrema form a compact envelope that summarizes range information while discarding intermediate detail.

The method is implemented by partitioning a sequence, image or other multidimensional data into blocks and recording each block’s minimum and maximum. Variants include hierarchical schemes that store extrema at multiple resolutions and sliding-window approaches for streaming data. Because reconstruction from minima and maxima yields only coarse approximations, minmaxtallennus is typically used where range information is more important than exact values.

Common applications include telemetry and sensor logging (for long-term trend monitoring), quick range queries in databases, lightweight loss-tolerant compression for embedded systems, and preview representations for large images or time series. Advantages are simplicity, low storage overhead and fast computation. Limitations include loss of intra-block detail, sensitivity to outliers, and limited utility when precise measurements are required.

Related concepts include envelope compression, min–max normalization (a different operation used in scaling), lossy compression methods and block-based summarization techniques.