This paper presents a new progressive image transmission (PIT) design algorithm in which the resolution and resources (rate or distortion and storage size) at each transmission stage are allowed to be prespecified. This algorithm uses the wavelet transform and tree-structured vector quantizer (TSVQ) techniques. The wavelet transform is used to obtain a pyramid structure representation of an image. The vector quantizer technique is used to design a TSVQ for each subimage so that all the subimages that constitute the image at the current stage can be successively refined according to the resources available at that stage. The resources assigned to each subimage for the successive refinement is determined to optimize the performance at the current stage under the resource constraints. Normally, the resource constraints at each stage are determined by the specification of the transmission time or distortion for image data and the storage complexity of the TSVQ. The resolution at each stage is determined/specified according to the application or as part of the design process to optimize the visual effect.