Patent ID: 8924506

Claim:
A method of retrieving large-scale images over network communications channels for display on a limited communication bandwidth computer device, said method comprising: issuing, from a limited communication bandwidth computer device to a remote computer, a request for an update data parcel wherein the update data parcel is selected based on an operator controlled image viewpoint on the computer device relative to a predetermined image and the update data parcel contains data that is used to generate a display on the limited communication bandwidth computer device; processing, on the remote computer, source image data to obtain a series K 1-N of derivative images of progressively lower image resolution and wherein series image K 0 being subdivided into a regular array wherein each resulting image parcel of the array has a predetermined pixel resolution wherein image data has a color or bit per pixel depth representing a data parcel size of a predetermined number of bytes, resolution of the series K 1-N of derivative images being related to that of the source image data or predecessor image in the series by a factor of two, and said array subdivision being related by a factor of two such that each image parcel being of a fixed byte size; receiving said update data parcel from the data parcel stored in the remote computer over a communications channel; and displaying on the limited communication bandwidth computer device using the update data parcel that is a part of said predetermined image, an image wherein said update data parcel uniquely forms a discrete portion of said predetermined image.