Patent ID: 7024046

Claim:
A system for lossless progressive streaming of images over a communication network, comprising: an image storage device for storing a digital image; a client computer coupled to the communication network, wherein said client computer generates and transmits across said communication network a request list containing the coordinates of data blocks required for rendering a region of interest (ROI) within said digital image, wherein said request list is ordered in accordance with a selected progressive mode; a server computer coupled to said communication network and said image storage device, said server computer adapted to perform the steps of: preprocessing said digital image through a low pass filter and a lossless wavelet transform to yield low pass scaling function data, high pass wavelet coefficient data and halfbit data; receiving said request list from said client computer; progressively transmitting to said client computer subband coefficient data blocks corresponding to said region of interest in the order they were requested, said subband coefficient data blocks defined by said coordinates and determined in accordance with said wavelet coefficients and said half-bit matrix; wherein said lossless wavelet transform comprises the steps of: first applying an X-direction wavelet transform to the output of said low pass filter to yield a temporal matrix therefrom; second applying a low Y-direction wavelet transform to a low portion of said temporal matrix to yield LL and LH subband coefficients; and third applying a high Y-direction wavelet transform to a high portion of said temporal matrix to yield HL and HH subband coefficients including a half-bit matrix containing half-bits, each half-bit corresponding to an HH subband coefficient.