pylibjxl 0.3.7

Fast Python bindings for libjxl and libjpeg-turbo with GIL-free encoding/decoding and native async support.

pylibjxl

Fast Python bindings for JPEG XL (libjxl) and JPEG (libjpeg-turbo)

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pylibjxl provides efficient, high-performance Python bindings for libjxl and libjpeg-turbo. Built with nanobind, it features GIL-free encoding/decoding and native async support for maximum throughput.

✨ Key Features

• 🚀 High Performance — C++ core releases the GIL during heavy computation.
• 📦 Metadata Excellence — Full support for EXIF, XMP, and JUMBF metadata.
• ⚡ Async-First — Native asyncio integration for non-blocking I/O.
• 🖼️ NumPy Native — Directly encode from and decode to ndarray (RGB/RGBA).
• 🔄 Lossless JPEG Transcoding — Bit-perfect JPEG ↔ JXL roundtrips.
• 🎯 Thread-Safe — Persistent thread pools with resource control via threads parameter.

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🛠️ Installation

Install from PyPI

# Recommended: Using uv
uv pip install pylibjxl

# Or via standard pip
pip install pylibjxl

Install from Source

uv pip install git+https://github.com/twn39/pylibjxl.git --recursive

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Quick Start

🖼️ Basic In-Memory Operations

import numpy as np
import pylibjxl

# Create a test image (Height, Width, Channels)
image = np.random.randint(0, 256, (512, 512, 3), dtype=np.uint8)

# Encode to JXL bytes
data = pylibjxl.encode(image, effort=7, distance=1.0)

# Decode back to NumPy array
decoded = pylibjxl.decode(data)

💾 File I/O & Metadata

pylibjxl handles EXIF and XMP metadata seamlessly.

# Write an image with EXIF metadata
exif_data = b"Raw EXIF bytes..."
pylibjxl.write("output.jxl", image, effort=9, exif=exif_data)

# Read image and its metadata
img, meta = pylibjxl.read("output.jxl", metadata=True)
print(f"Loaded image shape: {img.shape}")
print(f"EXIF size: {len(meta.get('exif', b''))} bytes")

🔄 Lossless JPEG Transcoding

Reduce JPEG file size by ~20% without losing a single bit of information. The resulting .jxl can be restored to the exact original .jpg.

# Convert JPEG to JXL losslessly
pylibjxl.convert_jpeg_to_jxl("input.jpg", "input.jxl")

# Restore the bit-identical original JPEG
pylibjxl.convert_jxl_to_jpeg("input.jxl", "restored.jpg")

⚡ Async Support

High-performance non-blocking I/O for web servers and data pipelines.

import asyncio

async def main():
    # Async encoding
    data = await pylibjxl.encode_async(image, distance=0.0)
    
    # Async file reading
    img = await pylibjxl.read_async("input.jxl")

asyncio.run(main())

🏗️ Batch Processing (Context Manager)

Using the JXL context manager maintains a persistent thread pool, providing a significant speedup for batch operations.

# High-performance batch conversion
with pylibjxl.JXL(effort=7) as jxl:
    for i in range(100):
        img = jxl.read(f"input_{i}.jxl")
        # Process and save as high-quality JPEG
        jxl.write_jpeg(f"output_{i}.jpg", img, quality=95)

🚀 FastAPI / Asyncio Integration

pylibjxl is designed for high-concurrency web servers. By using a shared AsyncJXL instance, you can limit the total number of native worker threads, preventing resource exhaustion under load.

from fastapi import FastAPI, UploadFile
import pylibjxl
import numpy as np

app = FastAPI()

# Create a single shared runner with a fixed thread pool (e.g., 8 threads).
# This prevents thread explosion even if 1000 requests arrive simultaneously.
runner = pylibjxl.AsyncJXL(threads=8)

@app.on_event("startup")
async def startup():
    runner.enter()

@app.on_event("shutdown")
async def shutdown():
    runner.close()

@app.post("/encode")
async def encode_image(file: UploadFile):
    # Read bytes (non-blocking)
    content = await file.read()
    
    # Offload decoding to the shared C++ runner (releases GIL)
    # Concurrent requests will be serialized at the runner level if needed,
    # preventing CPU oversubscription while keeping the event loop responsive.
    image = await runner.decode_jpeg_async(content)
    
    # Process image...
    
    # Encode back to JXL
    return await runner.encode_async(image, effort=5)

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📈 Performance & Stability

pylibjxl is engineered for high-performance production environments where throughput and responsiveness are critical.

🚀 Key Benchmarks

Tested on Apple M2 Pro (1440x960 RGB Image)

JXL Encoding (pylibjxl vs. pillow-jxl-plugin)

Both libraries are tested using the same effort parameter (1-11) to ensure a fair comparison. Higher effort results in better compression but slower encoding.

Effort Level	pylibjxl	pillow-jxl-plugin	Scaling
Effort 1 (Fastest)	~14.1 ms	~13.2 ms	Low latency
Effort 4 (Balanced)	~25.4 ms	~21.8 ms	Optimal mix
Effort 7 (Default)	~100.8 ms	~94.1 ms	Best compression

Decoding Performance

Format	pylibjxl	pillow-jxl-plugin / PIL	Improvement
JXL Decode	8.8 ms	11.9 ms	~26% Faster
JPEG Decode	17.0 ms	18.2 ms	~7% Faster

🛠️ Architecture Highlights

• GIL-Free Execution: The C++ core releases Python's Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) during all heavy encoding and decoding tasks. This allows for true multi-core parallelism when using Python's threading or concurrent.futures.
• Native Async Support: Unlike standard Pillow-based plugins, pylibjxl provides native asyncio bindings. This prevents event-loop blocking in high-concurrency web servers (e.g., FastAPI, Tornado).
• Zero Memory Leaks: Extensive stability testing (500+ consecutive rounds) shows that memory usage stabilizes after initial warm-up, with no ongoing growth.
• Optimized Memory Management:
  • Adaptive Buffering: Employs an intelligent buffer growth strategy during encoding to minimize reallocations while handling high-entropy images.
  • Runner Reuse: The JXL context manager maintains a persistent thread pool, eliminating the overhead of creating/destroying threads for every call.

[!IMPORTANT] For maximum parallel throughput in multi-threaded environments, use the free functions (pylibjxl.encode, pylibjxl.decode). For maximum serial speed in batch processing, use the JXL context manager to reuse the thread pool.

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📂 API Reference

🖼️ JXL In-Memory Operations

encode(input, effort=7, distance=1.0, lossless=False, decoding_speed=0, *, exif=None, xmp=None, jumbf=None) -> bytes

async encode_async(...) -> bytes

Encodes a NumPy array into JPEG XL format.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
input	ndarray	required	uint8 array of shape (H, W, 3) or (H, W, 4)
effort	int	7	Speed/size tradeoff [1-11]. 1=fastest, 11=best compression.
distance	float	1.0	Perceptual quality [0.0-25.0]. 0.0=lossless, 1.0=visually lossless.
lossless	bool	False	If True, enables mathematical lossless mode.
decoding_speed	int	0	Decoding speed tier [0-4]. 0=default, 4=fastest decoding.
exif	bytes	None	Optional raw EXIF metadata.
xmp	bytes	None	Optional raw XMP (XML) metadata.
jumbf	bytes	None	Optional raw JUMBF metadata.

# Synchronous encoding
data = pylibjxl.encode(image, effort=9, lossless=True)

# Asynchronous encoding
data = await pylibjxl.encode_async(image, distance=0.5)

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decode(data, *, metadata=False) -> ndarray | tuple[ndarray, dict]

async decode_async(...) -> ndarray | tuple[ndarray, dict]

Decodes JPEG XL bytes back into a NumPy array.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
data	bytes	required	JPEG XL encoded bytes.
metadata	bool	False	If True, returns a tuple including a metadata dictionary.

# Basic decode
img = pylibjxl.decode(jxl_bytes)

# Decode with metadata
img, meta = await pylibjxl.decode_async(jxl_bytes, metadata=True)
print(f"EXIF size: {len(meta.get('exif', b''))} bytes")

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💾 JXL File I/O

read(path, *, metadata=False) / async read_async(...)

Reads a .jxl file from disk and decodes it.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
path	`str	Path`	required
metadata	bool	False	Whether to return metadata alongside the image.

img = pylibjxl.read("input.jxl")
img, meta = await pylibjxl.read_async("input.jxl", metadata=True)

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write(path, image, ...) / async write_async(...)

Encodes a NumPy array and writes it directly to a .jxl file.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
path	`str	Path`	required
image	ndarray	required	The image data to encode.
...			Supports all parameters from encode().

pylibjxl.write("output.jxl", image, effort=7, distance=1.0)
await pylibjxl.write_async("output.jxl", image, lossless=True)

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📷 JPEG Support (libjpeg-turbo)

encode_jpeg(input, quality=95) -> bytes / async encode_jpeg_async(...)

Encodes a NumPy array to JPEG bytes using high-speed libjpeg-turbo.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
input	ndarray	required	uint8 array of shape (H, W, 3).
quality	int	95	JPEG quality factor [1-100].

jpeg_bytes = pylibjxl.encode_jpeg(image, quality=90)

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decode_jpeg(data) -> ndarray / async decode_jpeg_async(...)

Decodes JPEG bytes to a NumPy RGB array.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
data	bytes	required	JPEG encoded bytes.

image = pylibjxl.decode_jpeg(jpeg_bytes)

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read_jpeg(path) / write_jpeg(path, image, quality=95)

Stand-alone JPEG file I/O operations using libjpeg-turbo.

img = pylibjxl.read_jpeg("photo.jpg")
pylibjxl.write_jpeg("output.jpg", img, quality=85)

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🔄 Lossless Transcoding (JPEG ↔ JXL)

jpeg_to_jxl(data, effort=7) -> bytes / async jpeg_to_jxl_async(...)

Transcodes raw JPEG bytes into a JPEG XL container losslessly.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
data	bytes	required	Original JPEG bytes.
effort	int	7	Transcoding effort [1-11].

jxl_data = pylibjxl.jpeg_to_jxl(jpeg_bytes)

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jxl_to_jpeg(data) -> bytes / async jxl_to_jpeg_async(...)

Restores the original JPEG bytes from a transcoded JXL file.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
data	bytes	required	Transcoded JPEG XL bytes.

original_jpeg = pylibjxl.jxl_to_jpeg(jxl_data)

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convert_jpeg_to_jxl(in_path, out_path) / convert_jxl_to_jpeg(...)

File-to-file versions of the above transcoding operations.

pylibjxl.convert_jpeg_to_jxl("input.jpg", "output.jxl")
pylibjxl.convert_jxl_to_jpeg("output.jxl", "restored.jpg")

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🏗️ Context Managers

JXL(effort=7, distance=1.0, lossless=False, decoding_speed=0)

AsyncJXL(...)

Sync and Async context managers that maintain a persistent thread pool.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
effort	int	7	Default effort for operations.
distance	float	1.0	Default distance for operations.
lossless	bool	False	Default lossless mode.
decoding_speed	int	0	Default decoding speed tier.
threads	int	0	Number of worker threads for the shared pool (0 = auto).

with pylibjxl.JXL(effort=7) as jxl:
    # Uses persistent threads for all methods
    img = jxl.read("input.jxl")
    jxl.write("output.jxl", img, distance=0.5)

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ℹ️ System Information

Function	Return Type	Description
version()	dict	Returns library version (major, minor, patch).
decoder_version()	int	Returns libjxl decoder version integer.
encoder_version()	int	Returns libjxl encoder version integer.

print(f"pylibjxl version: {pylibjxl.version()}")

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📜 License

BSD 3-Clause License