The digital representation of an image requires a very large number of bits. The goal of image coding is to reduce this number, as much as possible, and reconstruct a faithful duplicate of the original picture. Early efforts in image coding, solely guided by information theory, led to a plethora of methods. The compression ratio reached a saturation level around 10:1 a couple of years ago. Recent progress in the study of the brain mechanism of vision and scene analysis has opened new vistas in picture coding. Directional sensitivity of the neurones in the visual pathway combined with the separate processing of contours and textures has led to a new class of coding methods capable of achieving compression ratios as high as 100:1.