Advanced memory management architecture for large data volumes

1. A computer readable non-transitory medium embodying instructions executable by a processor to perform a method for managing a memory system for large data volumes, the method comprising:

providing a central memory management system comprising a memory management interface between a plurality of applications and a physical memory of a programmed computer; and

maintaining a global priority list of data buffers allocated by the plurality of applications, wherein the global priority list is sorted according to an order in which data buffers are accessed by the plurality of applications, wherein data contained in the data buffers comprises a multi-dimensional array of data,

wherein the plurality of applications request the central memory management system to provide access to a reformatted copy of all or a portion of the data in the multi-dimensional array, according to a region of interest of specified dimensions within the multi-dimensional array.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the multi-dimensional array is a two-dimensional image.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the multi-dimensional array is a three-dimensional volume.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data in the region of interest is copied to a reformatted data buffer, which is managed by the central memory management system, and contains a subset of the multi-dimensional array.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

storing reformatted data of the data buffers into a cache which is managed by the central memory management system using a separate priority list, wherein the separate priority list is sorted according to an order in which the reformatted data of the data buffers are accessed by the plurality of applications; and

accessing the reformatted data of the data buffers in the cache.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein storing decompressed data of the data buffers into a cache further comprises:

determining whether data to be accessed is determined to not be available in the data buffers;

accessing original data corresponding to the data to be accessed;

performing a reformatting step; and

storing reformatted data into the cache.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

specifying a low physical memory limit;

monitoring an amount of usable physical memory; and

performing at least one of discarding least-recently used buffers in the cache and paging-out least-recently used memory buffers upon determining that the usable physical memory falls below the low physical memory limit, wherein the buffers in the cache are preferentially conserved over paging-out memory buffers.