Client side multi-component image composition

1. A method of displaying a client-side multi-component image, comprising:

storing in a server a plurality of image component channels, each image component channel being derived from images of a sample captured using illumination of a wavelength different than for the other image component channels, each of said plurality of image component channels being stored in the form of a plurality of image data records;

requesting by a client two or more of said plurality of image data records corresponding to two or more image component channels;

transmitting from the server to the client the two or more of said plurality of image data records requested in said requesting step;

compositing the client-side multi-component image from the two or more of said plurality of image data records transmitted in said transmitting step; and

displaying the composited client-side multi-component image.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein

said plurality of image data records comprises a hierarchy of image data records for each component channel, each level of the hierarchy comprising a set of image data records, each set of image data records comprising image data records having different resolutions from each other; the method further comprising:

at said requesting step the client specifying a desired resolution; and

at said transmitting step the server selecting and transmitting image data records appropriate to the desired resolution that has been requested.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein

said plurality of image data records comprises a set of tiles for each image component channel, the set of tiles together forming the image component channel, the method further comprising:

at said requesting step the client specifying a desired portion of the captured images; and

at said transmitting step the server transmitting image data records appropriate to the desired portion of the captured images.

4. A method as claimed in claim 3 , wherein

said compositing further comprises stitching more than one tile of said set of tiles together to form the composited client-side multi-component image.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein,

said plurality of image data records for each image component channel comprises image data records having different focal depths of the captured images, the method further comprising:

at said requesting step the client specifying a desired focal depth of the captured images; and

at said transmitting step the server transmitting image data records appropriate to the desired focal depth of the captured images.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein,

the image component channels of the captured images are monochromatic.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein

the compositing step comprises transforming the one or more of said plurality of image data records transmitted in said transmitting step into an RGB image.

8. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein

the storing step comprises compressing the captured images using an image data compression protocol and storing the compressed captured images as the image data records, so that each image data record includes a compressed version of the captured images.

9. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein

the compositing step comprises transforming the one or more of said plurality of image data records transmitted in said transmitting step into a compressed image format.

10. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein

the captured images are images of a tissue sample.

11. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein

the captured images are images of a cell mono-layer.

12. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein

the image component channels of the captured images comprise fluorescent imaging information.

13. A method as claimed in claim 12 , wherein

the fluorescent imaging information results from a fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) labeled sample.

14. A method as claimed in claim 12 , wherein

the fluorescent imaging information results from an immunohistochemistry labeled sample.

15. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein

the image component channels of the captured images comprise analysis data created after capturing of the captured images.

16. A method as claimed in claim 15 , wherein

the analysis data is user-generated.

17. A method as claimed in claim 15 , wherein

the analysis data is software-generated.

18. A method as claimed in claim 1 , comprising the further steps of:

performing image analysis at the client;

generating additional image information at the client dependent on the image analysis; and

uploading the additional image information as a further image data record to be stored in the server.

19. A client apparatus, the client apparatus configured to:

request from a server two or more of a plurality of image data records stored in the server, the plurality of image data records representing image component channels each image component channel being derived from images of a sample captured using illumination of a wavelength different than for the other image component channels;

receive the two or more of said plurality of image data records transmitted from the server;

composite a client-side multi-component image from the two or more of said plurality of image data records transmitted from the server; and

display the composited client-side multi-component image.

20. A system for displaying a client-side multi-component image, the system comprising:

a client apparatus and a server apparatus,

the client apparatus configured to:

request from a server two or more of a plurality of image data records stored in the server, the plurality of image data records representing image component channels each image component channels being derived from images of a sample captured using illumination of a wavelength different than for the other image component channels;

receive the two or more of said plurality of image data records transmitted from the server apparatus;

composite a client-side multi-component image from the two or more of said plurality of image data records transmitted from the server apparatus; and

display the composited client-side multi-component image;

and the server apparatus configured to:

store the plurality of image component channels in the form of a plurality of image data records;

receive a request from the client apparatus for the two or more of said plurality of image data records; and

transmit to the client apparatus the two or more of said plurality of image data records requested.