An apparatus and method for representing and retrieving multi-dimensional data such as large satellite images. Images are stored in forms that allow them to be rapidly browsed and retrieved by remote client applications in a drill-down fashion. The data can be represented and retrieved using a view element data structure that includes node elements and transition elements between nodes. The data is decomposed (in space or spatial-frequency to construct a tree-based or graph-based data structure) into view elements. A set of view elements is selected, compressed and stored without adversely impacting image view extraction or generation speed. View elements are placed into the node elements of the data structure and the transition elements indicate the processing to generate other view elements in the data structure. In a server-side view construction, the view elements are selectively retrieved from storage, decompressed, and processed to generate the views of the data. In a client-side progressive view construction, the client caches the view elements and processes them in combination with view elements retrieved from the server to generate views of the data. The data reuse at the client reduces data transmission in drill-down or roll-up browsing. Data can be ingested, read and written in units of spatial blocks and decomposed into view elements using the spatial block units. Thus, the ingestion, decomposition, compression, and view retrieval for large images can be done using computer devices that have limited storage and processing capabilities.