Patent ID: 8711378

Claim:
An apparatus connectable to at least a first image sending device and a second image sending device, and to a plurality of image requesting devices which are separate devices connected by a network, comprising: an image data receiving unit configured to receive at least first image data from the first image sending device and second image data from the second image sending device, the first image data and the second image data each having an image format, the image format of the first image data being different from the image format of the second image data; a storing unit configured to store the at least first image data and second image data respectively received from the first image sending device and the second image sending device for access by any of the plurality of image requesting devices; a request receiving unit configured to receive, from one of the plurality of image requesting devices, a request for selecting image data among the at least first and second image data which have different image formats and are stored in the storing unit, and a format indication for the selected image data; an image data format converter configured to convert the image format of the selected image data to an image format indicated by the format indication received by the request receiving unit; and a sending unit configured to send the converted image data in the format indicated by the format indication to the one of the plurality of requesting devices.