1. A method of data compression for compressed data storage or transmission over a data link of compressed data representing an image, said image being comprised of an array of pixels, each pixel having a position in said array, comprising the steps of: acquiring a digital image that is a digital signal representation of said image, said digital image being represented by an array of pixel values defining an entire image area, each pixel value being defined by a three-dimensional vector identifying the position of the pixel in the array and an intensity level of the pixel; partitioning the digital image into ranges, each range being a subset of the image area such that the set of ranges tile said image; partitioning the digital image into domains, each domain being a subset of the image area; generating for each range which is to be encoded a transformation for each member of said set of domains, said transformation comprising positional scaling coefficients and an intensity scaling coefficient, and further comprising positional offset coefficients and intensity offset coefficients, wherein at least one of the transformations is non-contractive; using each said transformation to transform the corresponding member of said set of domains into a corresponding transformed digital image scaled in size and intensity to map onto each range which is to be encoded; optimizing each said transformation in terms of the intensity scaling and offset coefficients, wherein an optimized transformation is indicative of a corresponding optimized transformed digital image for the associated range and may be non-contractive; comparing each said optimized transformed digital image with the associated range to provide error data as a function of the difference therebetween; selecting the domain and corresponding optimized transformation that minimizes the error data for the associated range such that some iterate of the entire set of said selected optimized transformations is contractive, thereby forming an eventually contractive map; storing in an addressable memory information that represents said image by the digital representation of said set of encoded ranges, domains and corresponding optimized transformations.