JP2000341629A - Electronic image pickup device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic image pickup device on which a plurality of recording media can be mounted for selectively copying only picture information which can be processed in an electronic image pickup device in the case of copying picture information from a recording medium to another recording medium. SOLUTION: This electronic image pickup device is constituted so that picture information can be recorded in a prescribed recording medium in a prescribed recording format, and that the picture information can be read from the recording medium. This device is provided with a mounting means 22 for mounting the plurality of recording media and a decision means 80 for deciding whether or not the picture information recorded in at least one of the recording media is appropriate for the treatment of the electronic image pickup device.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic image pickup apparatus capable of picking up a desired image and copying image information between different recording media.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There is known an electronic camera in which a plurality of recording media can be detachably mounted (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 5-49000).
This electronic camera selects a recording medium that can be used as a buffer memory based on the attributes (type, writing speed, remaining storage capacity, etc.) of the recording medium. Then, the captured image is temporarily stored in the buffer memory and then copied to another recording medium. Thereby, the photographing interval can be shortened.

However, when the recording medium is used by only one electronic camera as described above, the image information recorded on the recording medium is the same as the electronic information except that the image information is damaged. It can be played on a camera.

Here, a case is considered in which an image photographed by a certain electronic camera is recorded on a recording medium, and the image recorded on the recording medium is to be reproduced by another electronic camera. In this case, the other electronic camera may not be able to reproduce the image recorded on the recording medium. This is basically because the image recorded on the recording medium is not recorded in a format compatible with the other electronic camera. For example, normal image data is in bitmap format or JP
Although it is in the EG format, if it is recorded in a format unique to the manufacturer, it cannot be reproduced by an electronic camera of another manufacturer. Another possible reason is that the image cannot be reproduced because the image information recorded on the recording medium has been damaged.

[0005] Basically, any electronic camera can be used if the recording medium is of a predetermined format (for example, SmartMedia (registered trademark), Compact Flash (registered trademark), etc.). Therefore, since electronic cameras have been widely used, it is considered that demands for processing and reproducing images captured by one electronic camera with another electronic camera will increase. However, there are cases where an image recorded on a recording medium by another electronic camera cannot be processed or reproduced as described above.

That is, with a conventional electronic camera, it is not possible to determine whether image information to be copied is suitable for copying, and therefore, there is a possibility that image data that cannot be handled by the electronic camera will be copied. There is. Further, when an electronic camera is used for copying image information between recording media, it is not possible to make a determination when information that is not suitable for copying is included in the recording medium of the copy source.

Therefore, in the conventional electronic camera, unnecessary image information that is not suitable for the electronic camera (that is, image information that cannot be processed or reproduced by the electronic camera) is copied. In the present specification, the unnecessary image information includes, for example, a case where even if the image information can be reproduced by the electronic camera, the image information is damaged and the image cannot be reproduced.

[0008]

As described above, the conventional electronic camera has a problem that unnecessary image information not suitable for the electronic camera is copied.

An object of the present invention is to mount a plurality of recording media, and when copying image information from one recording medium to another recording medium, select only image information that can be processed by the electronic imaging apparatus. To provide a copyable electronic imaging device.

[0010]

According to the present invention, the following means have been taken in order to solve the above-mentioned problems.

An electronic imaging apparatus according to the present invention is an electronic imaging apparatus configured to record image information on a predetermined recording medium in a predetermined recording format or read image information from the recording medium. A mounting unit capable of mounting a plurality of the recording media, and determining whether image information recorded on at least one of the recording media is suitable for handling of the electronic imaging apparatus. And determining means for performing the determination (claim 1). Since it is possible to automatically determine and copy only image information in a recording format that can perform processing including reproduction processing, no special operation is required, and unnecessary copying of image information can be avoided.

A preferred embodiment of the electronic imaging apparatus according to the present invention is as follows.

(1) A notifying means for notifying the judgment result of the judging means is further provided. By notifying the user that the information is inappropriate for copying, image information that is not copied can be recognized.

(2) The judging means judges the suitability based on image file information or format information. It is possible to determine whether the image data is stored in a recording format that can be reproduced by the camera.

(3) When copying of the image information determined to be suitable for handling of the electronic imaging device by the determination means is performed, it is possible to confirm that the copying of the image information has been completed. A copy result confirmation means is further provided (claim 4). You can check the copy result.

(4) The plurality of recording media are recorded in one or more recording formats (claim 5). Since it is possible to select and copy a recording medium suitable for a device that performs image reproduction, reproduction can be performed with a wider device.

(5) A display means for displaying the image information to be copied is further provided. Since the image to be copied can be confirmed, erroneous image information need not be copied.

[0018]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, a schematic configuration of an electronic image pickup apparatus (hereinafter, referred to as an "electronic camera") according to the present invention will be described.

The image of the subject that has passed through the lens unit 11 is
The image is converted into an electric signal by the image sensor 12. The electric signal converted by the image pickup device 12 is converted into an analog image signal by the image pickup circuit 13 and then converted into a digital image signal by the A / D converter 14. Then, this digital image signal is subjected to predetermined processing, for example, into the card slot 22.
The memory is recorded on the removable memory 20a and the removable memory 20b (for example, compact flash, smart media, etc.), which are external memories mounted on the memory devices a and 22b, respectively, via the interfaces (I / F) 21a and 21b. Further, the electronic camera has a high-speed built-in memory 30 (for example, a random access memory (RAM)).
Etc.), and is used as a working memory in image compression / expansion or as a high-speed buffer as a temporary image storage unit.

The electronic camera is equipped with an LCD 50 (liquid crystal display) for normal image display.
The CD 50 confirms images recorded in the removable memories 20a and 20b and displays an image to be photographed. An image to be displayed is temporarily stored in an image display memory (VRAM).
51, is converted into a video signal by a video conversion circuit 52, sent to an LCD 50 for image display, and
An image is displayed on the CD 50. The video signal from the video conversion circuit 52 is also output to a video output terminal 53 so that an image can be output to a video display device (not shown) connected to the video output terminal 53.

The external interface (I / F) 60
It sends and receives data to and from an external device (not shown).
The external input / output terminal 61 is connected to an external device.

The power supply section 65 is a power supply for the electronic camera.
It is controlled by the system controller 80. Further, an external power supply terminal 66 connects to an external power supply,
Charge the battery.

The system controller 80 controls the entire electronic camera and includes an image processing circuit 81 and a compression / expansion circuit 82. The image processing circuit 81 performs image processing such as red-eye processing on the captured image. The compression / expansion circuit 82 is for compressing the digital image signal and expanding (expanding) the compressed image signal.

The system controller 80 receives an input from a release 91 of the operation unit 90 to perform imaging, and selects an imaging mode based on an input from an imaging mode selection switch 95. The selected shooting mode is displayed on the mode display LCD 84. Also, Syscon 80
Controls that the strobe light 83 is turned on to take an image when the light quantity at the time of imaging the subject is insufficient. The operation unit 90 further includes a copy switch 92, a selection switch 93, and a confirmation switch 94, which will be described later in detail necessary for the configuration of the present invention.

The operation of the electronic camera of the present invention configured as described above will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the copying operation according to the present invention.

First, the copy switch 9 is displayed by a menu display.
2. A copy mode is selected by step 2 (step A1). When the copy mode is selected, the user is prompted to select the copy source recording medium and the copy destination recording medium. The selection switch 93 is used to select the copy source recording medium and the copy destination recording medium according to the screen display ( Step A2). In this case, when the number of recording media is two, it is only necessary to select the recording medium to be copied. When there are three or more recording media, a plurality of copy destinations may be used.

Next, as the copy mode, a selection switch 93 is used to select all the copies of the recording medium or a sequential copy of copying while selecting an image (step A3).

When all copies are selected (step A
4) First, the suitability of a file, which will be described in detail later, is determined (step A5). If the file is not suitable for copying (step A6), copy prohibition information is added (step A7). Then, the suitability of copying is determined for all the files (step A8). If it is determined in step A6 that the copy is valid, the process proceeds to step A8, where it is determined whether the check has been completed for all the files (step A6).
8). In step A6, the determination as to whether the copying is appropriate includes determining whether the file is damaged.

When the sequential copying is selected (step A4), the image is displayed as a thumbnail, for example, and the image can be selected (step A9). Selection switch 93
When the image is selected, the suitability of the file for the selected image is determined (step A10), and as in the case of full copy, if the copy is valid, a confirmation message as to whether or not the image selection has been completed is displayed. (Step A11, Step A
13) If it is determined that the image is not suitable for copying, copy prohibition information is added (step A11, step A1).
2).

Next, for example, as shown in FIG. 3, a list of files that are not suitable for copying is displayed to alert the operator (step A14). Then, when the operator confirms the copy with the enter switch 94, the capacity of the copy destination recording medium is checked to check whether all the images to be copied are copyable (step A1).
5). Here, if the capacity of the copy destination recording medium is smaller than the capacity of the image to be copied, a warning is issued, and the capacity of the image to be copied by reselecting the image to be copied (including partial deletion). To reduce the number of copies or stop copying.

If the capacity of the recording medium at the copy destination is sufficient, only the images that can be copied are continuously copied, and the operation ends when the copying of all the selected images to which the copy prohibition information is not added is completed. (Steps A16 to A18).

In the above-described copying operation, copying is continuously performed. For example, when a copy-inhibited file appears during the copying operation, the copying operation is temporarily stopped, and as shown in FIG. Alternatively, a screen for prompting the user to input whether or not to continue the processing as shown in (b) may be displayed from the during-copying display of (a), and the processing may be performed sequentially.

In the above embodiment, it is desired to add copy prohibition information to an image that is not suitable for copying. Conversely, it is preferable to add copy permission information to an image suitable for copying. Only the image to which the copy permission information has been added may be copied.

The above-mentioned determination of suitability of image information is generally performed as follows.

FIG. 5 shows a format of an image stored in a normal recording medium. The recording medium is divided into a directory area, a FAT area, and a data area as shown in FIG. The directory area stores the directory structure of the recording medium. The arrangement structure of the file stored in the data area is recorded in the FAT area. In the data area, image data and other files (for example, DPOF file: Digital Print
Order Format) is stored. (B) shows the format of the image information stored in the data area. The image information is recorded in the order of a header, a maker area, a thumbnail, and image data. Here, information unique to each maker can be recorded in the maker area, and it is determined from the information recorded in this area whether or not the image data can be handled by the electronic camera.

Whether the image data is damaged or not is determined based on whether there is any inconsistency between the file arrangement structure of the FAT area and the actual data arrangement structure recorded in the data area. .

The copy prohibition information and copy permission information are
It may be stored in the maker area in the recording medium,
The information may be temporarily stored in the built-in memory 30.

As described above, in the present invention, in the electronic camera, only the image information that can be handled by the electronic camera is automatically determined and copied. No extra data is copied.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments of the present invention, and it is needless to say that various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

[0041]

According to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained.

Since it is possible to automatically determine and copy only image information in a recording format that can perform processing including reproduction processing, no special operation is required, and unnecessary copying of image information can be avoided.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an electronic imaging device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a copying operation according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an example of a list display of files not copied.

FIG. 4 is a display example in a case where files that cannot be copied are sequentially processed during a copy operation.

FIG. 5 is a view showing an example of a format of an image stored in a normal recording medium.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 ... Lens part, 12 ... Image sensor, 13 ... Imaging circuit, 14 ... A / D converter, 20a, 20b ... Detachable memory, 21a, 21b ... Interface (I / F), 22a, 22b ... Card slot, 30 ... 50: LCD, 51: Image display memory (VRAM), 52: Video conversion circuit, 53: Video output terminal, 60: External interface (I / F), 61: External input / output terminal, 65: Power supply unit 66, external power supply terminal, 67, battery, 80, system controller, 81, image processing circuit, 82, compression / expansion circuit, 83, strobe, 84, mode display LCD, 90, operation section, 91, release, 92, copy switch 93, a selection switch, 94, a decision switch, 95, a shooting mode selection switch.

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Akio Terane 2-43-2 Hatagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo F-term in Olympus Optical Industrial Co., Ltd. (reference) 5C022 AA13 AB15 AC00 AC03 AC18 5C052 AA11 AA17 FA02 FA03 FA04 FC01 FC06 FC08 FD06 FE01 GA02 GA06 GA07 GB09 GC00 GE08 5D044 AB07 CC09 DE15 DE43 DE49 DE50 EF05 FG18 GK07 GK12 GK17 HL08 HL11

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An electronic imaging apparatus configured to record image information on a predetermined recording medium in a predetermined recording format or read image information from the recording medium, wherein a plurality of the recording media are mounted. Possible mounting means; and determining means for determining whether image information recorded on at least one of the recording media is suitable for handling of the electronic imaging device. An electronic imaging device characterized by the above-mentioned. 2. The electronic imaging apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a notifying unit that notifies a result of the determination by said determining unit. 3. The electronic imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit determines the suitability based on image file information or format information. 4. The electronic imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image information is copied when the determination unit copies the image information determined to be suitable for handling the electronic imaging apparatus. An electronic image pickup apparatus further comprising a copy result confirming means capable of confirming that the copying has been completed. 5. The electronic imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of recording media are recorded in one or more recording formats.