A method for processing and communicating breast tissue image data includes obtaining image data of a patients breast tissue, processing the image data to form a first subset thereof, transmitting the first subset of the image data to a user computer, receiving a user request from the user computer based on the one or more lower resolution images, processing the image data to form a second subset thereof, and transmitting the second subset of the image data to the user computer. The second subset of the obtained image data is responsive to the user request. The first and second subsets of obtained image data are sufficient to generate one or more respective lower and higher resolution images of respective portions of the patients breast tissue.
