Patent ID: 7006696

Claim:
A method for transferring source data from a server to a client, said method comprising the steps of: generating, from said source data, transform data comprising spatially related coefficients such that a block of coefficients permit reconstruction of identifiable portions of said source data; generating, at a client, a request for at least a portion of said source data, said request defining a block of said coefficients and at least one quantization value; transferring, from said client to a server, said request; extracting, at said server, transform data defined by said request; quantizing, at said server, transform data in accordance with said quantization value to generate quantized transform data, where quantizing, at said server, further includes quantizing a block of coefficients by quantization bin widths, Q i , where the quantization bin width Q i are generated at the client to optimally minimize any distortion introduced by the quantization process while minimizing the data rate, and where the request for at least a portion of said source data further defines the quantization bin widths Q i ; compressing said quantized transform data to generate compressed data; transferring, from said server to said client, said compressed data; decompressing, at said client, said compressed data to generate quantized data; de-quantizing said quantized data to generate transform data; and reconstructing said source data at said client from said transform data.