JP2000184318A - Image management device and printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide the image management device or the like by which images can be managed with excellent user-friendliness in response to importance of the images. SOLUTION: In the case of manual setting, a key matrix 20 is used to enter importance information. In the case of automatic setting, the importance of images is decided on the basis of the number of printing times and the number of displaying times in the past and the number of digits of a figure used for key information is set to a smaller digit as the importance increases, and a 1st CPU 25 generates new key information not in duplicate with key information that has already been in use and adds this new key information to a used key information table. In the case of printing, a printer 18 prints out an image read from a recording medium 8 and also key information corresponding to the image. The user uses the key matrix 20 to enter the key information attended with the printed images so as to retrieve image data recorded in the recording medium 8.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an image management device and a printer device, and more particularly to an image management device and a printer device for managing images according to importance.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Image information captured by an electronic camera or the like can be displayed and observed on a monitor or the like, or printed by a printer and observed as an image on paper.

[0003] As the amount of stored image information increases, the management work becomes complicated. For example, even if an image is visually checked to find the desired image information, there are many similar patterns. Searching takes time.

To cope with such a problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
Japanese Patent No. 11161 discloses a technique in which an image is printed on a print, and further, search information such as a barcode is printed, thereby making it possible to easily search for image information.

[0005]

However, in the technical means described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-111161, a bar code is read when an attempt is made to search for image data based on a printed image. Requires a bar code reader, which increases costs.

Further, when carrying a print on which an image is printed and a recording medium for recording the image data to carry out image management in another information device, the information device is provided with a bar code reader. It is quite possible that not. When using such information equipment,
Since it is not possible to use a special barcode, it is necessary to search for image data while checking information visually.

On the other hand, as another means, it is conceivable to sequentially attach a serial number or the like to the image data and perform a search or the like based on the serial number.
Since the number of digits that must be input increases as the number of image files increases, the input is time-consuming.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has as its object to provide an image management apparatus capable of performing convenient image management according to the importance of an image.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a printer device that can print an image with ease of use according to the importance of the image.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, an image management apparatus according to a first aspect of the present invention includes an importance setting means for setting the importance of an image, and an image management apparatus for managing the image in order to manage the image. Key information storage means for storing the obtained key information;
Key information generation means for newly generating key information of an image based on the importance set by the importance setting means and the key information stored in the key information storage means, wherein the key information storage means Stores the key information newly generated by the key information generating means.

Further, an image management apparatus according to a second aspect of the present invention
In the image management apparatus according to the first aspect, the key information generating means includes a plurality of digits of the key information, and the higher the importance set by the importance setting means, the more the key information becomes. Is generated so that the number of digits of the code constituting the code is reduced.

Further, according to a third aspect of the present invention, in the image management apparatus according to the first or second aspect, an input means for inputting the key information, and key information input by the input means are provided. Search means for searching for a corresponding image from a recording medium on which image information is recorded based on the information.

The image management device according to a fourth aspect of the present invention is the image management device according to the third aspect of the present invention, wherein the reproduction unit reproduces the image retrieved by the retrieval unit, and the reproduction unit reproduces the image. And a reproduction number storage unit for storing the number of times for each image, wherein the importance setting unit sets the importance of an image having a higher number of reproductions higher.

A printer device according to a fifth aspect of the present invention includes the image management device according to the first or second aspect of the invention, and printing means for printing key information together with the image when printing the image. is there.

The printer according to a sixth aspect of the present invention is the printer according to the fifth aspect of the present invention, further comprising a print count storage unit for storing the number of times an image has been printed by the printing unit for each image. The importance setting means sets the importance of the image printed more frequently.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 to 7 show an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 1 is a block diagram mainly showing an electric configuration of an electronic album.

In this embodiment, the image management apparatus and the printer of the present invention are applied to an electronic album having a print mechanism as an example.

As shown in FIG. 1, this electronic album is
For example, a music input terminal 1 serving as music input means for inputting music output from a microphone or other music playback device, and music for converting an analog electric signal input from the music input terminal 1 into digital data. A / D
Circuit 2 and a FIFO for temporarily buffering music data output from the music A / D circuit 2
A memory 3; a FIFO memory 4 for storing music data output via the bus; and a FIFO memory 4
A music D / A circuit 5 for converting digital music data output from the
A / Speaker 6 for playing back music based on the output of circuit 5
And a memory 7 connected to a second CPU 26 to be described later via a bus, and a memory for recording various data including image data and music data. A recording medium 8 such as a card; a recording medium interface (I / F) 9 serving as music input means and image input means for exchanging data with the recording medium 8; Memory 1 for storing image data to be stored
0 and a video encoding circuit 11 for performing various processes on the image data output from the FIFO memory 10.
And a TFT liquid crystal driving circuit 1 for controlling a TFT panel 13 described later based on the output of the video encoding circuit 11.
2, a TFT panel 13 serving as reproducing means for visually displaying an image based on the control of the TFT liquid crystal drive circuit 12,
A backlight unit 14 for illuminating the TFT panel 13 from the back side, and the video encoding circuit 1
1, a video output circuit 15 for generating a video output signal based on the output of the video output circuit 1, a video output terminal 16 for outputting the video output signal generated by the video output circuit 15 to an external device or the like; A FIFO memory 17 for temporarily storing image data and the like;
A printing mechanism 18 serving as a printing means for printing image data output from the FO memory 17, the FIFO memories 3, 4, 10, 17, the memory 7, and a recording medium I / F 9 connected via the bus; Music playback function, various image processing functions, image decompression function, print data generation function,
A second CPU 26 having a memory control function, a recording medium access function, etc., an LCD display circuit 21 for controlling an LCD panel 22 described later, and driven by the LCD display circuit 21 to display various information related to the electronic album. LCD panel 22, an external data I / F 19 for exchanging data between the electronic album and an external electronic device, etc., and a key as an input means for a user to input information to the electronic album. Matrix 20
A battery 23 serving as a power supply for the electronic album; a power supply circuit 24 for supplying power supplied from the battery 23 to each circuit in the electronic album; a music A / D circuit 2; A circuit 5, video encoding circuit 11,
TFT liquid crystal drive circuit 12, backlight unit 14,
In addition to controlling the LCD display circuit 21, the external data I / F 19, the key matrix 20, and the power supply circuit 24, the printing mechanism 18 is controlled by a printer control function, and each function by the second CPU 26 is comprehensively controlled. An importance setting means, which has a system control function for performing, for example, and a key information generation function described later,
First CPU 25 serving as a key information storage unit, a key information generation unit, a search unit, a reproduction count storage unit, and a print count storage unit.
, And is configured.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of adding key information.

When this operation is started, first, image data to which key information is added is selected (step S1).

Then, it is determined whether or not the importance of the image data is manually set (step S2). If not, the importance information is automatically generated as described later (step S3). ).

On the other hand, in the case of setting manually, importance information is input by the key matrix 20 (step S4).

After the importance of the image data has been set in step S3 or S4, the degree of importance is determined. That is, first, it is determined whether or not the importance of the image data is small (step S5).
If it is smaller, key information composed of, for example, seven digits is generated (step S6).

If it is determined in step S5 that the importance is not small, it is next determined whether the importance is medium (step S7). If the importance is medium, for example, a five-digit number Is generated (step S
8).

In step S5, if the importance is not intermediate, it is determined that the importance is high, and key information consisting of, for example, three digits is generated (step S5).
9).

Thus, the above steps S6, S8, S9
In any of the steps, key information consisting of three, five, and seven digits is generated for the image data. As described above, by decreasing the number of digits as the degree of importance increases, the key matrix 20 can be used to specify an image of high importance that is considered to have high display frequency or print frequency.
The number of key presses at the time of input by the user is reduced to improve the usability.

Next, the generated key information is linked to the image data (step S10). The link between the key information and the image data may be performed by writing the key information in, for example, a header of the image data, or may be created as an independent link information file. May be used.

Then, the key information is added to a list of registered key information (step S11). The key information already registered in the past is used for checking an empty number of the key information.

Next, FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the details of the processing for generating importance information in step S3.

When this process is started, first, reproduction management information (or / and print management information) is read (step S21), and based on the information, the number of image reproductions (or / and the number of prints) is determined. Is determined (step S22).

If it is determined that the number is small, the importance of the image is set to be small (step S23), and the process ends.

If it is determined in step S22 that the number is not small, it is further determined whether the number of printings (or / and the number of printings) is very large (step S24). If it cannot be said, the importance is set to medium (step S25). On the other hand, if it is determined that the importance is very large, the importance is set to high (step S26), and the process ends.

The process shown in FIG. 3 is an example in which the importance is determined according to the number of times the image has been reproduced and the number of times the image has been printed. The data to be considered is, of course, not limited to these.

FIG. 4 shows steps S6, S8,
9 is a flowchart illustrating details of key information generation processing performed in S9.

When this process is started, first, past key information is confirmed (step S31).

Then, key information is generated by appropriately assigning key information of the number of digits corresponding to the importance from the unused key information in the past key information (step S32). finish.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation when printing an image based on the key information as described above.

When this process is started, key information is read to specify an image to be printed (step S41). The reading of the key information is performed by the user using the key matrix 20 to input the key information added to the print and printed as described later.

In response to the read key information, image data linked to the key information is read (step S42). For example, when the key information is recorded in the header of the image data as described above, the header of the image data recorded on the recording medium 8 is searched to find the image data with the matching key information. Good.

Print data is generated based on the image data thus read (step S4).
3) The key information is added to the print data as character data for printing (step S44), and it is printed (step S45).

Thereafter, the number of prints indicating how many times the image has been printed is incremented (step S4).
6) After writing the updated number of times of printing in the print management information (step S47), the process ends.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing some examples of images printed in this manner.

First, FIG. 6A shows an example in which three images having different degrees of importance are printed on one print sheet.

On the printing paper 31, an image 32 of medium importance and a five-digit number 32a indicating key information of the image 32 are printed on the upper left side.
3, a three-digit number 33a indicating the key information of the image 33 is printed on the middle right side, and an image 34 of low importance and a seven-digit number 33a indicating the key information of the image 34 are printed on the lower left side. ing.

FIG. 6B shows an example in which one image is printed on one print sheet.

An image 36 having a high degree of importance and a three-digit number 36a indicating key information of the image 36 are printed on the print paper 35.

FIG. 6C shows a thumbnail image,
That is, this is an example in which a plurality of images arranged in 3 × 5 are printed on one print sheet.

The print paper 37 has a plurality of images 3
8 and a three-digit number 38a indicating key information of each image 38 are printed.

As described above, when reading the key information in step S41, the user needs to input the key information added to the image to be printed using the key matrix 20, thereby requiring a complicated operation. Instead, the image can be read from the recording medium 8.

Next, FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation when reproducing an image based on the key information as described above.

When this process is started, key information is read to specify an image to be reproduced (step S51). The reading of the key information is performed by the user using the key matrix 20 to input the key information added to the print and printed as described above.

In response to the read key information, image data linked to the key information is read (step S52), and display reproduction data is generated based on the read image data (step S53). For example, key information is added to the reproduction data as character data for reproduction (step S54). If it is not necessary to add key information at the time of reproduction, this step S5
Step 4 need not be performed.

Then, the image is displayed on the TFT panel 13.
It is reproduced and displayed by such as (step S55).

Thereafter, the number of reproductions indicating how many times the image has been reproduced is incremented (step S56), and the updated number of reproductions is written in the reproduction management information (step S57), and the processing is terminated.

Further, in the above-described configuration, when the importance of the image increases due to an increase in the number of times of printing or the number of times of reproduction, the importance of the image is set together with the low importance set in the past. A higher importance will be set. That is, it is acceptable that a plurality of importance levels are set for the same image.

Thus, even if key information of low importance is printed on an image printed in the past, the link relationship between the key information and the image does not disappear.
An image search or the like can be performed using the key information. Of course, when newly set key information with higher importance is used, it is needless to say that an image search or the like can be performed with a smaller number of key inputs.

In the above description, numbers are input as key information. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and alphabets and symbols can be used.

In the above description, the number of digits is set to 3,
Although 5 or 7 digits are used, it is a matter of course that the present invention is not limited to these, and the importance is not limited to three levels.

In this embodiment, the image management apparatus and the printer of the present invention are applied to an electronic album. However, the present invention is not limited to the application to an electronic album.

According to such an embodiment, the number of digits of the key information to be input is changed according to the importance of the image,
Since the number of digits is made smaller for an image with higher importance, input of key information for an image with higher use frequency becomes easier and the usability is improved.

Since it is possible to select whether to input the importance automatically or manually, desired settings can be made even if the user does not like the automatic setting.

Further, when the importance is automatically set,
Since the number of times of printing and the number of times of display in the past are referred to, it is possible to set an appropriate importance according to the actual use frequency without performing a troublesome operation.

When the image is printed or displayed, the key information is also printed or displayed together with the image, so that the information can be confirmed. When necessary, it is possible to search for image data while looking at the print.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and it is needless to say that various modifications and applications can be made without departing from the gist of the invention.

[0065]

As described above, according to the image management apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention, key information corresponding to an image is generated in consideration of the importance of the image, and the image is managed based on the key information. , It is possible to perform convenient image management according to the importance of the image.

According to the image management apparatus of the second aspect of the present invention, the same effect as that of the first aspect of the invention can be obtained, and the number of digits of the code constituting the key information becomes higher for an image having a higher importance. Since the number of images is reduced, an image which is considered to be more important and more frequently used becomes easier to input a code and the like, thereby improving usability.

Further, according to the image management apparatus of the present invention, the same effects as those of the first or second aspect of the present invention can be obtained, and the key information can be obtained when searching for an image from a recording medium. , The search is facilitated.

According to the image management apparatus of the present invention according to the fourth aspect, the same effect as that of the third aspect can be obtained, and the usability can be further improved in accordance with the reproduction frequency.

According to the printer apparatus of the present invention, the same effects as those of the first or second aspect of the present invention can be obtained, and the key information is printed together with the image. Image management can be performed by referring to the key information attached to the image,
More effective use of the printed image can be achieved.

According to the printer apparatus of the present invention, the same effect as that of the invention of the fifth aspect can be obtained, and the usability can be further improved according to the printing frequency.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram mainly showing an electrical configuration of an electronic album according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation of adding key information in the electronic album of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a process of generating importance information in the electronic album of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary flowchart showing a process of generating key information in the electronic album of the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation when printing an image based on key information in the electronic album of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a view showing some examples of images to be printed in the electronic album of the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing an operation when an image is reproduced based on key information in the electronic album of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 8 ... Recording medium 13 ... TFT panel (reproduction means) 18 ... Printing mechanism (printing means) 20 ... Key matrix (input means) 25 ... 1st CPU (importance setting means, key information storage means, key information generation means, search means) , Playback count storage means,
(Print number storage means) 26 ... second CPU

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) G06F 15/62 PF term (Reference) 5B050 BA10 FA03 FA10 GA08 5B075 ND06 NK02 PP12 PP13 PP22 PQ02 PQ03 PQ38 PQ46 PR04 PR08 UU40 5C052 AA12 AA17 AB04 AC08 CC01 DD02 EE03 5C073 AA06 AB11 BB07

Claims (6)

[Claims] An importance setting means for setting importance of an image, a key information storage means for storing key information corresponding to the image for managing the image, and an importance setting means for setting the importance of the image. Key information generating means for newly generating key information of an image based on the key information stored in the key information storing means, and the key information storing means, An image management device further storing newly generated key information. 2. The key information generating means, wherein the key information is constituted by a code of a plurality of digits, and the higher the importance of the image set by the importance setting means, the larger the digit of the code constituting the key information. The image management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image management apparatus generates the number so as to reduce the number. 3. An input means for inputting the key information, and a search means for searching for a corresponding image from a recording medium on which the image information is recorded, based on the key information input by the input means. The image management device according to claim 1, further comprising: 4. A reproduction means for reproducing an image retrieved by the retrieval means, and a reproduction number storage means for storing the number of times the image has been reproduced by the reproduction means for each image. 4. The image management apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the importance setting unit sets the importance of an image that has been reproduced more frequently. 5. A printer device, comprising: the image management device according to claim 1; and a printing unit that prints key information together with the image when printing the image. . 6. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a print count storage unit configured to store, for each image, the number of times an image has been printed by the printing unit. 6. The printer according to claim 5, wherein the importance is set high.