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Encoding an image as a repeated sequence of variable-length integers would obviously be a poor choice.

Except.. that's pretty much how raw images are represented. Substituting "integers" for "bytes" if you want channel resolution, or leaving integers if you have 32bit pixel depth.

https://github.com/nothings/stb/blob/master/stb_image.h#L120

https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL_Surface

You overlooking the critical term: variable-length.

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