1. A method for encoding a sequence of frames as one or more compressed bitstreams, the method comprising: obtaining, by a processor, a sequence of frames in an order; performing a wavelet transform on each frame of the sequence of frames independently in the order, wherein performing a wavelet transform comprises calculating a spatial discrete wavelet transform for each frame and organizing the spatial discrete wavelet transforms into subbands comprising contiguous groups of coefficients, wherein the coefficients represent difference frequencies; constructing a significant points list and a list of insignificant sets for each frame of the sequence of frames and identifying a most significant bit in each frame; initializing the significant points list and the list of insignificant sets for each frame; for each frame, designating a coding unit, wherein each coding unit consists of a frame of the sequence of frames; creating, by the processor, a progressive significance map for the coding unit, the progressive significance map comprising a sum part and a complementary part, wherein the sum part indicates numbers of significant sets, and wherein the complementary part identifies location patterns of the significant sets and writing the progressive significance map to the one or more compressed bitstreams; writing a global header for each of the one or more compressed bitstreams, wherein the global header comprises parameters of the sequence of frames and the parameters are common to each frame of the sequence of frames, the parameters comprising a common minimal bitplane, to encode each frame through the common minimal bitplane; writing a local header for the one or more compressed bitstreams for each coding unit of the sequence of frames, wherein the local header for each coding unit comprises indicators of sizes in bitstream segments for the coding unit, wherein the local header indicates transitions between frames in the sequence of frames, wherein the local header indicates the order, and wherein the local header comprises a maximum bitplane; and decoding, by the processor, the one or more compressed bitstreams to produce the sequence of frames in the order by referencing the local headers to indicate transitions between the frames and the order of the frames and by referencing the global header so that each frame in the decoded sequence of frames has an equivalent quality or distortion, the decoding comprising decoding from the maximum bitplane to the minimum bitplane.