A method for transferring volumetric image data from a server to at least one client comprising: transforming said volumetric images into a hierarchical representation comprising a plurality of coefficients, said hierarchical representation comprising a plurality of levels of essentially non-redundant data, wherein a level of said hierarchical representation comprises transform data sufficient to reconstruct said images at a resolution corresponding to said level; partitioning said coefficients into a plurality of voxels, each voxel comprising “n” coefficients in a horizontal direction, “m” coefficients in a vertical direction, and “P” coefficients in a depth direction; requesting, from a client to a server, transform data in the form of voxels from one or more levels of said hierarchical representation necessary to reconstruct at least a portion of said source volume; transferring, from a client to a server, a request for coefficients of at least a portion of said volumetric image; transferring, from said server to said client, at least one voxel in response to said request; and reconstructing, at said client, volumetric views of said volume images from said transferred at least one voxel.