Abstract: To solve the problem of limited energy and computing ability in wireless multimedia sensor networks and to eliminate the computation for the relationship between compression energy consumption and image quality in the process of image compression, combining the compression process of JPEG-XR and the structural characteristics of network, a method of image compression was proposed based on multi-node cooperation. Firstly, the camera nodes were connected to ordinary neighbor nodes and then to cluster-heads to construct a network structure, making the process of image compression and transmission distributed in cooperative clusters. Then a cooperative method was used to implement the multi-node cooperation in compression process. The simulation results show that, in low bit rate condition, the PSNR of this method can increase about 3dB compared with JPEG method. And in terms of network life, the network load can be balanced better and the network lifetime can be extended greatly with the new method.