Remote viewing of large image files

One or more computer-readable devices including instructions that, when executed by one or more computer processors, cause performance of operations that comprise:

• receiving, by a computing system, a first request to send image data to a computing device;
• sending, by the computing system and for receipt by the computing device in response to having received the first request, first image data from which the computing device is able to generate an initial display of the image,
• wherein the initial display of the image is a reduced-resolution version of the image that is reduced in resolution in comparison to a full resolution of the image;
• receiving, by the computing system, a second request to send image data to the computing device;
• and
• sending, by the computing system and for receipt by the computing device in response to having received the second request, second image data from which the computing device is able to generate a subsequent display of the image,
• wherein the subsequent display of the image is an intermediate-resolution version of the image that has a resolution that is higher than a resolution of the reduced-resolution version of the image and that is lower than the full resolution of the image, and
• wherein the second image data is configured so that the computing device is able to generate the subsequent display of the image by combining the second image data with the first image data.

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• receiving, by a computing system, a first request to send image data to a computing device from which the computing device is able to generate an initial display of an image;
• generating, by the computing system, first image data from a full resolution of the image and second image data from the full resolution of the image, wherein generating the first image data includes:
• (i) generating a reduced-resolution version of the image that is reduced in resolution in comparison to the full resolution of the image, wherein pixels in the reduced-resolution version of the image are stored in multi-byte data units,
• (ii) rearranging a number of bits that encode a value of each pixel in each respective multi-byte data unit evenly between each byte in the respective multi-byte data unit, and
• (iii) sending data encoded in the multi-byte data units through a compression process after the number of bits that encode the value of each pixel for each respective multi-byte data unit has been evenly rearranged;
• sending, by the computing system and for receipt by the computing device in response to having received the first request, the first image data from which the computing device is able to generate the initial display of the image,
• wherein the initial display of the image is the reduced-resolution version of the image that is reduced in resolution in comparison to a full resolution of the image;
• receiving, by the computing system, a second request to send image data to the computing device from which the computing device is able to generate a subsequent display of the image;
• and
• sending, by the computing system and for receipt by the computing device in response to having received the second request, the second image data from which the computing device is able to generate the subsequent display of the image,
• wherein the subsequent display of the image is an intermediate-resolution version of the image that has a resolution that is higher than a resolution of the reduced-resolution version of the image and that is lower than the full resolution of the image,
• wherein a portion of the second image data was previously generated by subtracting a value for a pixel in the initial display of the image from a value for a pixel in the intermediate-resolution version of the image, and
• wherein the second image data is configured so that the computing device is able to generate the subsequent display of the image by combining the second image data with the first image data.