Patent ID: 8010555

Claim:
An image management system, comprising: a central data base which stores image files on a central storage device and a searchable catalog comprising a listing of available image files and a current location of each image file, the available image files comprising local image files having a current location on the central storage device and remote image files having a current location on a remote storage device associated with an image acquisition device that created the image file; a central server associated with the central data base and communicatively coupled with the remote storage device via a network, the central server comprising: a file transfer handling module which controls transfer of copies of data files over the network from the remote storage device to the central storage device, wherein the file transfer module is configured to add the image files created by the at least one acquisition device to a queue of images to be transferred from the remote storage location to a central storage location, to schedule a transfer time at which each image added to the queue is to be transferred, and to copy the images from the remote storage location to the central storage location at a scheduled transfer time; and a catalog update module which adds listings of each new remote image file stored at the remote storage device to the searchable catalog along with a current location comprising the remote location, and which updates the listing associated with each remote image file to a local image file having a current location on the central storage device when the transfer of a copy of the respective image file from the remote storage device to the central storage device is complete; and a user request and image routing module which receives user requests associated with remote image files identified in the catalog, relays a user request for a remote image file to the remote storage device, and relays requested image data from the remote storage device to the user via the central server concurrently with copying the remote image file from the remote storage location to the central storage location if the user request is received during the copying of the remote image file to the central storage location.