  Across all disciplines that work with image data - from astrophysics to
medical research and historic preservation - there is a growing need for
efficient ways to browse and inspect large sets of high-resolution images. We
present the development of a visualization software for solar physics data
based on the JPEG 2000 image compression standard. Our implementation consists
of the JHelioviewer client application that enables users to browse
petabyte-scale image archives and the JHelioviewer server, which integrates a
JPIP server, metadata catalog and an event server. JPEG 2000 offers many useful
new features and has the potential to revolutionize the way high-resolution
image data are disseminated and analyzed. This is especially relevant for solar
physics, a research field in which upcoming space missions will provide more
than a terabyte of image data per day. Providing efficient access to such large
data volumes at both high spatial and high time resolution is of paramount
importance to support scientific discovery.
