Patent ID: 7421136

Claim:
A method for handling image data, the method comprising: decomposing the image data into a plurality of data sets using lossless wavelet decomposition; tessellating a plurality of the decomposed data sets of the plurality of data sets into a plurality of sub-band blocks; compressing each tessellated block of the plurality of sub-band blocks using lossless compression; compiling a data stream comprising the compressed plurality of sub-band blocks arranged sequentially in a desired order based upon the decomposition and tessellation, wherein the data stream comprises a plurality of data storage blocks, each data storage block including a plurality of spatially-equivalent sub-band blocks of the plurality of sub-band blocks and a respective address tag that uniquely identifies the plurality of spatially-equivalent sub-band blocks of each respective data storage block, wherein each respective address tag is stored within its data storage block to enable individual identification and retrieval of specific data storage blocks from the plurality of data storage blocks via the address tags of the specific data storage blocks; storing the data stream on a server; receiving a request for at least a portion of the data stream corresponding to an area of interest of an image to be displayed to a client, wherein the steps of decomposing, tessellating, compressing, compiling, and storing are performed prior to receiving any request from the client for data of the data stream; tracking the area of interest for later viewing by the client without storing a separate copy of the portion of the data stream corresponding to the area of interest; providing a reference option to the client and receiving from the client an input indicative of a desire to reference mark the area of interest; and reference marking the area of interest in response to the client input to facilitate later retrieval and/or analysis of the marked area of interest.