US Patent 7681122 File conversion system and method

A flexible and scalable file format conversion system is capable of supporting a number of contemporaneous conversion requests. For each file, a conversion request entry and one or more related conversion task entries are maintained in FIFO queues under the control of a distribution manager program. Conversion operations are handled by application programs under the control of associated graphical processor programs. Conversion tasks are assigned to graphical processors by the distribution manager based on the conversion capabilities of the associated application program. The uploaded files received from clients for conversion are stored in a shared folder pending access by the assigned graphical processor. The graphical processors have a uniform interface with the queues and the memory. The results of the processing are stored in the shared folder where they are subsequently accessed by the web server and transmitted back to the client.