Viewing Digital Slides

Abstract

Virtual slide image data and corresponding information are stored in a data storage area on a virtual slide image server. A client viewer requests image data at a particular resolution. The image server obtains corresponding image data from the data storage area at a resolution nearest to the requested resolution. The image data is then sent to the client viewer. The client viewer receives the image data and scales the image data to the requested resolution prior to displaying the image data.

1 . A system for viewing a digital image of an area of a microscope slide (“digital slide image”), comprising:
 a data storage area comprising a plurality of stored digital slide images, wherein a stored digital slide image includes a plurality of complete images of the area of the microscope slide, each of said plurality of complete images having a different resolution;   a connection module configured to receive a request that identifies a requested digital slide image and a desired resolution for the requested digital slide image and determine that the desired resolution for the requested digital slide image is not the resolution of one of said plurality of complete images at a different resolution in the requested digital slide image;   a virtual slide module configured to obtain image data from the stored digital slide image, scale the image data to the desired resolution, and send the scaled digital slide image data in response to the request.   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1  wherein the request identifies a sub-region of the stored digital slide image. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1  wherein each of said plurality of complete images are organized as a sequence of blocks. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 3  wherein the blocks are compressed individually. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1  wherein the virtual slide module is configured to store the scaled digital slide image data in association with the requested digital slide image. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 5  wherein the scaled digital slide image data is stored in a server cache. 
     
     
         7 . A virtual slide image file structure, comprising:
 a baseline image having a resolution substantially equal to the resolution at which the virtual slide image was captured;   a thumbnail image, wherein the thumbnail image is an image of the complete baseline image and has a lower resolution than the baseline image; and   an intermediate level image, wherein the intermediate level image is an image of the complete baseline image and has a lower resolution than the baseline image and higher resolution than the thumbnail image.   
     
     
         8 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 7 , wherein the baseline image further comprises a plurality of data blocks. 
     
     
         9 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 8 , wherein each data block is compressed. 
     
     
         10 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 8 , wherein each data block comprises a checksum to validate image integrity. 
     
     
         11 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 8 , wherein each data block comprises a post compression image fidelity measurement. 
     
     
         12 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 7 , wherein the thumbnail image has a width of up to 512 pixels and a height of up to 512 pixels. 
     
     
         13 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 7 , further comprising a plurality of intermediate level images. 
     
     
         14 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 13 , wherein each intermediate level image further comprises a plurality of data blocks. 
     
     
         15 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 14 , wherein each data block is compressed. 
     
     
         16 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 14 , wherein each data block comprises a checksum to validate image integrity. 
     
     
         17 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 14 , wherein each data block comprises a post compression image fidelity measurement. 
     
     
         18 . The virtual slide image file structure of  claim 14 , wherein the virtual slide image file is stored using the tagged image file format standard.