Abstract: A storage, retrieval, and transmission system is configured to provide fast, efficient telecommunication access to digitized images (e.g., medical diagnostic X-ray images) to multiple requesting subscribers. Image data are downloaded, via the telephone lines, to a remote display terminal in an optimal fashion that employs a two-dimensional patterned data compression scheme. The data compression methods include a "Hex-Pac" compression in which one first generates regions comprising a plurality of two dimensional, non-overlapping, symmetrically disposed super pixels that are collectively representative of an image. Each of these regions is subsequently compared with a plurality of fictitious patterns, each of which has a dark region, a light region and a predetermined point of origin, in order to determine which of the patterns most closely correlates with the selected region.