Patent ID: 7290011

Claim:
A system for publishing studies over a communication network, comprising: a study storage device for storing a plurality of studies, each study comprising one or more images; a publication server coupled to said communications network, said publication server operative to enter an automatic publishing mode wherein one or more studies from among said plurality of studies are automatically sent to a client computer coupled to said communications network as they become available on said study storage device without any intervention by a user; said client computer comprising: means for receiving said one or more studies and storing them in a local cache; means for permitting the user to interrupt said automatic publishing mode at any time for a selected study that has not yet been received in its entirety from said publication server, and immediately entering an interactive mode whereby a dynamic interactive viewing session is initiated between the user and said publication server; means for streaming image data from said publication server to said client computer during said interactive viewing session using progressive image streaming techniques in response to requests for one or more regions of interest (ROI), said ROIs corresponding to specific portions of an image as determined by the user's current viewing parameters and preferences, wherein said progressive image streaming techniques utilize compression to transmit said ROI image data in encoded layers of increasing accuracy and quality whereby the most visually important image data is streamed first; wherein a search for requested ROI image data is first performed on said local cache, and only if not found, said requested ROI image data is streamed by said publication server to said client computer; and wherein transmission of ROI image data from said publication server during said interactive mode for said selected study is given higher priority over transmission of study data of non-selected studies which continues at lower priority.