JP2001022675A - Method and device for transferring image - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method and a device for transferring image with which the image of a resolution corresponding to the speed of transfer between devices is transferred among images hierarchically structured with plural resolutions. SOLUTION: In this image transfer method, when transferring images hierarchically structured with plural resolutions and stored in a device (hard disk) 110 of a terminal 100 through a network 115 to a device (hard disk) 111 of a terminal 101, an application 102 detects the traffic of the network 115, selects the resolution of an image to be transferred corresponding to the detected traffic and transfers the image data of the selected resolution through the network 115.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image transfer method and apparatus for transferring image data hierarchically structured at a plurality of resolutions via a network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, image data transfer (transmission / reception) via a network can be easily performed by anyone because of digitization of images and rapid spread of computer networks represented by the Internet. It is becoming. In particular, with the advent of network providers, opportunities for handling digital images on the Web are expected to increase in the future.

[0003] Netscape communicator (Netsca
For applications that can easily handle digital information, such as pe Communicator, for example, when handling high-resolution image information, the performance of the device (network transfer speed, traffic, memory, CPU processing speed) that handles the image is reduced to the level of performance. However, it takes a lot of time to acquire the image. This can be easily imagined because if the resolution is twice as high as that of an image of the same size in a high-resolution image, the information is quadrupled in a simple consideration.

Here, focusing on the relationship between the amount of image data and the transfer time involved in transferring an image, a case of transferring (transmitting and receiving) high-resolution and large-capacity image data will be considered. For example, when transferring an image via a global network (such as the Internet), the degree of traffic congestion is an important parameter of the image transfer in order to transfer the image in a short time. When serial connection in a local network is considered, the transfer speed unique to each device is an important parameter for image transfer.
Therefore, in these systems, if the data amount of image transfer can be reduced according to the traffic amount and transfer speed,
The operator can execute the transfer process with less time burden. It goes without saying that the data amount (resolution) of the image does not have to be perfect.

[0005]

However, in order to reduce the transfer time of image data, if the image data amount is simply reduced to half (not the concept of compression) and transmitted / received, the structure of the image is lost. The image is transferred, and the image cannot be correctly displayed at the transfer destination.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an image transfer method and an image transfer method for transferring an image having a resolution corresponding to a transfer speed between apparatuses among images hierarchically structured with a plurality of resolutions. It is intended to provide a device.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an image transfer method for transferring image data hierarchically structured with a plurality of resolutions via a network. A detecting step of detecting a speed, a specifying step of specifying the resolution of the hierarchically structured image data in accordance with the transfer rate detected in the detecting step, and the image data of the resolution specified in the specifying step is transmitted to the network. And a transfer step of transferring data via

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image transfer apparatus for transferring image data hierarchically structured with a plurality of resolutions via a network, the method comprising detecting a transfer speed at which image data is transferred. Means, selecting means for selecting the resolution of the hierarchically structured image data according to the transfer speed detected by the detecting means, and transferring the image data of the resolution selected in the selecting step via the network. Transfer means.

[0009]

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

First, before describing this embodiment in detail,
The difference between the FlashPix image file format and the conventional image file format will be briefly described.

In the conventional image file format,
The image file is divided into a header section and an image data section.
In general, the header section stores information necessary for reading data from the image file and incidental information explaining the contents of the image. Typical examples include information such as an image format identifier indicating the image format name, file size, image width / height / depth, compression / non-compression, color palette information, resolution, and offset to the image data storage position. Is stored. The image data section is a section that stores image data sequentially. A typical format for such image files is Micros
Oft's BMP format and Compuserve's GIF format are widely used.

On the other hand, in the format of the FlashPix image file, the image attribute information and the image data stored in the header are further hierarchized and stored in the image file. This hierarchically structured image file is shown in FIGS.

Each property and data in the file include
Access through storage and streams, equivalent to MS-DOS directories and files. 1 and 2, the shaded portion is the storage and the unshaded portion is the stream. Image data and image attribute information are stored in the stream portion. The image data is hierarchized at different resolutions, and the image of each resolution is called a Subimage and is indicated by Resolution0, 1,..., N. For each resolution image, the information needed to read that image is
ge Header and the image data are stored in Subimage data.

[0014] Property set
Attribute information is defined by classifying attribute information according to its purpose of use and content. Summary info. Property set, Image in
fo.Property set, Image contents Property set, Exte
There is an ntion list Property set.

[Description of each property set] Summary in
The fo. Property set is not specific to FlashPix,
A required property set in crosoft's structured storage, which stores the title, title, author, thumbnail image, etc. of the file.

The image contents property set is an attribute that describes a method of storing image data (FIG. 5). This attribute includes the number of layers of image data, the width and height of the image with the maximum resolution, the width, height, and color configuration of each resolution image, or the quantization table and Huffman table when JPEG compression is used. Write the definition.

The Image info. Property set stores various information that can be used when an image is used, for example, information on how the image is captured and how it can be used.・ Information on how to import or generate digital data (File Source) ・ Information on copyright (Intellectual property) ・ Information on the contents of images (persons, places, etc. in images) (Content description) ・ Camera used for shooting Information (Camera infroma
・ Information on camera settings (exposure, shutter speed, focal length, use of flash, etc.) at shooting (Per Picture settings) ・ Information on digital camera specific resolution and mosaic filter (Digital camera characterization) ・ Film manufacturer name , Product name, type (negative / positive, color / black and white), etc. (Film description) ・ Information on type and size when the original is a book or print (Original document scan description) ・ For scanned images, the scanner used The extension list property set is an area used when adding information that is not included in the above basic specifications of FlashPix.

FlashPix image view object r shown in FIG.
oot is an image file that stores together viewing parameters and image data used when displaying an image. The viewing parameters are the rotation of the image,
This is a set of processing coefficients stored in order to apply enlargement / reduction, movement, color conversion, and filtering processing when displaying an image.

Source (Result) FlashPix image object
Is the entity of FlashPix image data, and
Pix image object is required, Result FlashPix image obje
ct is optional. Source FlashPix image object
Stores the original image data, Result FlashPix
The image object stores the image resulting from image processing using the viewing parameters.

The Source (Result) desc. Property set is
The property set for identifying the image data stores an image ID, a property set for which change is prohibited, a last update date and time, and the like.

The Transform Property set includes rotation, enlargement /
Affine conversion coefficients for reduction and movement, color conversion matrices, contrast adjustment values, and filtering coefficients are stored.

[Explanation of Format Containing Multiple Resolution Images Divided into Tiles] Next, the handling of image data will be described.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of an image file composed of a plurality of images having different resolutions. In the figure, the image of the maximum resolution is composed of columns × rows of C × R, the next largest image is C / 2 × R / 2, and thereafter, the columns and rows are sequentially reduced by 1/2 for both columns and rows. Reduced to 6 for both columns and rows
Repeat until four pixels or less or equal.

As a result of the hierarchization, header information and image data are required as the attribute information of the image such as “the number of layers in one image file” and the image of each layer. Information on the number of layers in one image file, the width and height of the image with the maximum resolution, or the width, height, color configuration, compression method, etc. of the image with each resolution is described above.
This is described in the Image contents Property set (FIG. 5).

The image of each resolution layer is divided into 64 × 64 tiles as shown in FIG. When divided into 64 × 64 tiles sequentially from the upper left of the image,
Depending on the image, blanks may occur in some of the right and bottom tiles. In this case, 64 × 64 pixels are constructed by repeatedly inserting the rightmost image or the lowermost image.

In FlashPix, an image in each tile is stored by any of JPEG compression, single color, and non-compression. JPEG compression is ISO / IEC JTC
This is an image compression method internationally standardized by 1 / SC29, and the description of the method itself is omitted. The image data divided in this way is stored in the Subimage data stream, and the total number of tiles, the size of each tile, the starting position of data, and the compression method are all Subimage Header (FIG. 6).
Is stored in

The single color is a method of expressing the color of a tile in one color without recording the value of each pixel only when the above-mentioned one tile is composed of the same color. . This method is particularly useful for images generated by computer graphics.

The above is a brief description of FlashPix.

In this embodiment, as described above,
By taking advantage of the characteristics of FlashPix, which can have multiple resolutions for multi-valued images, various burdens imposed when transferring images are reduced.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the concept of the connection between the terminals and the software at the time of image transfer in the embodiment. In the figure, reference numerals 100 and 101 denote image transfer terminals, for example, a personal computer (PC) or a workstation (W) capable of handling the FlashPix format.
S). Note that the terminal 100 may be a digital camera that can handle the FlashPix format.

In the present embodiment, a system for transferring an image in FlashPix format stored in the terminal 100 to the terminal 101 will be described as an example.

First, each block in the terminals 100 and 101 will be briefly described. Reference numerals 102 and 103 denote application software operating on the respective terminals. In this embodiment, the two applications 102 and 103
May be software that can handle FlashPix, or only the image transfer source application 102 may be able to handle FlashPix. The blocks with thick frames shown at 104 and 105
Basic software (Operating System) for operating each terminal shown in FIG. 106 and 107 are device drivers for controlling devices to be described later. The device driver is software for controlling image data while communicating data attributes (date, image size, etc.) such as free space in a hard disk (HD) with the HD.

Reference numerals 108 and 109 denote software for managing data transmission / reception via a device such as a network card to be described later. 110 and 111 are devices for storing images, for example, a hard disk (HD)
And so on. Reference numerals 112 and 113 are used to transmit and receive image data and protocol control signals in the devices 110 and 111 via a network. For example,
A network card or the like corresponds to this device. 11
Reference numeral 5 denotes a network to which two terminals 100 and 101 are connected to transmit and receive data. This network 115 is configured by cables such as RS-232C and Ethernet (registered trademark).

Now, consider a case where an image in the FlashPix format is stored in the HD 110 in the terminal 100, and multi-value data of this image is transferred to the terminal 101.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the image transfer processing according to this embodiment. First, in step S101, a user application 1 that can handle FlashPix
02 selects an image specified by the user, and in step S102, specifies a transfer destination terminal to which the selected image is transferred. Here, the selection of the image is performed by application 1
02 or another dedicated application located above the driver 108.

However, when an application different from the application 102 is used, the application 1
It is necessary to select and save an image after checking the consistency (file format, attribute) and the like with No. 02 (not shown). In the method of designating the transfer destination terminal, for example, when the connection is made via Ethernet, an IP address of the transfer destination is set by a data transfer application, and the end of the transfer destination is specified (not shown).

Next, in step S103, network traffic with the transfer destination terminal 101 is checked.
As a method of checking traffic, ICMP in IP which is a network protocol controlled in the OS 104
(Internet Control Message Protocol) Echo Message
Thus, the transmission time of the packet with the transfer destination terminal 101 to the device 113 and the OS 105 of the terminal 101 via the network 115 is acquired. For example, a packet transfer time of 64 bytes transmitted and returned by the Ping command may be used. In the present embodiment, the traffic amount of the network is grasped using the packet transfer time.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a process for checking the traffic with the transfer destination. First, step S20
In 1, initialization of a transfer time to be obtained is performed, and in a succeeding step S 202, a process of obtaining network traffic with the transfer destination terminal 101 is executed. For example,
In the case of the Ping command, by executing this command, the transfer time of a 64-byte packet is returned as a default. Next, in step S203, data in an area in which the transfer time returned by this command is described is acquired. Here, it is assumed that the recognized transfer time is acquired a plurality of times (m> 0) and the average time is calculated. Then, in step S204, the average transfer time calculated in step S203 is added.

Next, in step S205, it is confirmed whether the above-described processing has been repeatedly performed N times. If the processing has not been performed N times, the process returns to step S202 to further calculate the transfer time. N indicates the number of times the Ping command is executed. If N executions have been completed, step S2
Proceeding to step 06, an average of N transfer times is obtained.

FIG. 10 shows an image of the above processing. As shown in the figure, in this embodiment, the average transfer time for one ping command is obtained, and the N times of the transfer time are obtained, thereby grasping the traffic volume with the transfer destination.

By the above processing, the pseudo transfer time between the transfer source 100 and the transfer destination 101 can be grasped. Here, the reason why the pseudo transfer time is used is that the transfer time is not always guaranteed in the time zone in which the data is actually transferred.

Next, returning to FIG. 8, in step S104, the data amount of the image to be transferred is obtained based on the transfer time calculated in step S206. Here, in obtaining the data amount of the image, as shown in FIG. 11, the relationship between the transfer time and the data amount of the image to be transferred is prepared as a table in advance. The transfer time shown in FIG. 11 is the average transfer time (millisecond) obtained by the above processing (S206).
The data amount described on the right is a data amount according to the average transfer time. This numerical value is set in consideration of the degree of traffic congestion and the accompanying psychological transfer time of the operator.

Although the number of tables shown in FIG. 11 is one, a plurality of tables can be provided if necessary. In this case, the operator needs to set a table to be used in advance.

Next, at step S105, the data amount obtained at step S104 is compared with the data amount at each resolution of the specified image, and the resolution of the image to be transferred is obtained.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing a process for obtaining the resolution with respect to the data amount. First, step S3
01, as shown in FIG.
02: FlashPix format image storage already selected in HD 110 via OS 104: FlashP
Image contents which are streams in ix image object
Information about the size (width, height) and data amount of the image with the maximum resolution in the property set is obtained, and the data amount of the image is obtained. Next, in step S302, the application 102 determines from this information whether an image of all resolutions can be transferred. More specifically, it is determined whether the data amount of the FlashPix format at the target resolution determined in step S301 is equal to or larger than the selected data amount. If satisfied, the process proceeds to step S303 to determine the resolution to be transferred. . If not satisfied, step S
Proceeding to 304, it is determined whether the resolution is the minimum. here,
If the target resolution is the lowest resolution, step S305
Then, the minimum resolution is determined as the resolution to be transferred. If the resolution is not the lowest resolution, the process proceeds to step S306, the resolution is reduced by one, and the process returns to step S301.
The processing for obtaining the resolution for the above data amount is repeated.

In the present embodiment, the amount of data to be transferred is obtained from the maximum resolution. However, the amount of data to be transferred may be obtained from the lowest resolution.

Next, returning to FIG. 8, in step S106, the terminal 100
06, the device driver 108 transfers the image having the resolution specified in step S101 from the HD 110 to the transfer destination terminal 101 via the device 112 and the network 115.
To the HD 111 in the server. Here, the format of the image to be transferred may be the FlashPix format or may be converted to another format.

As described above, in the present embodiment, the amount of data to be transferred is determined from the amount of traffic on the network, and the resolution of the FlashPix format to be transferred is determined based on the amount of data.

Therefore, according to the present embodiment, the transfer capacity of the digital image can be changed according to the data transfer capacity of the communication path, and the time required for transfer and the traffic volume can be reduced. Further, not only the time loss of the operator who handles the image can be reduced, but also the delay of other information transfer can be reduced, which greatly contributes to the image transfer process.

The present invention can be applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), but can be applied to a single device (for example, a copier, a facsimile). Device).

Further, an object of the present invention is to supply a storage medium storing a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or an apparatus, and a computer (CPU or MP) of the system or apparatus.
It goes without saying that U) can also be achieved by reading and executing the program code stored in the storage medium.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium implements the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy (registered trademark) disk,
Hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-
A ROM, a CD-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, and the like can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. ) May perform some or all of the actual processing, and the processing may realize the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instructions of the program code, It goes without saying that the CPU included in the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing.

[0056]

As described above, according to the present invention,
By transferring an image having a resolution corresponding to the transfer speed between the devices among the images structured hierarchically at a plurality of resolutions,
Efficient image transfer can be performed, and convenience for the operator can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a hierarchically structured image file in a FlashPix format.

FIG. 2 is an image file that stores viewing parameters and image data used when displaying an image in FlashPix format.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of an image file composed of a plurality of images having different resolutions.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of block division in a FlashPix format.

[Figure 5] Image contents Pro in FlashPix format
perty set: a diagram showing attributes describing a method of storing image data.

[Figure 6] Subimage Header in FlashPix format
FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating (a total number of tiles, a size of each tile, a data start position, and a compression method are stored).

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating the concept of software and connection between terminals at the time of image transfer in the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an image transfer process according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating a process of checking traffic with a transfer destination.

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram showing a process for obtaining a transfer time.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between a transfer time and an amount of data to be transferred;

FIG. 12 is a flowchart illustrating a process of obtaining a resolution for a data amount.

[Explanation of symbols]

 100 terminal 101 terminal 102 user application B 103 user application A 104 operating system B 105 operating system A 106 driver B1 107 driver B2 108 driver A1 109 driver A2 110 device B1 111 device A2 112 device B2 113 device A2 115 network

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 5B089 GB01 JA07 JA21 JA32 JA33 JB03 KA07 KA08 KC23 KH11 5C064 AC18 AD02 AD07 AD08 AD14 BC10 BC20 BC25 BD02 BD08 5C078 BA64 CA02 CA39 CA41 EA01 5K030 HB02 KA04 KA19 LA07 LC09

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. An image transfer method for transferring image data hierarchically structured at a plurality of resolutions via a network, comprising: a detecting step for detecting a transfer speed for transferring image data; and a transfer speed detected in the detecting step. An image characterized by comprising: a specifying step of specifying the resolution of the hierarchically structured image data, and a transferring step of transferring the image data having the resolution specified in the specifying step via the network. Transfer method. 2. The image transfer method according to claim 1, wherein the detecting step detects a traffic amount with a transfer destination device connected to a network as the transfer speed. 3. The image transfer method according to claim 2, wherein the detecting step has a plurality of relationships between the traffic amount and the data amount to be transferred. 4. The image transfer method according to claim 2, wherein the detecting step obtains an average transfer rate by obtaining a packet transfer time a plurality of times as the traffic amount. 5. An image transfer apparatus for transferring image data hierarchically structured at a plurality of resolutions via a network, comprising: detecting means for detecting a transfer speed at which image data is transferred; and a transfer speed detected by the detecting means. And a transfer unit for transferring the image data having the resolution selected in the selecting step via the network in accordance with the image processing method. Transfer device. 6. The image transfer device according to claim 5, wherein the detection unit detects a traffic amount with a transfer destination device connected to a network as the transfer speed. 7. The image transfer apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the detection unit has a plurality of relationships between the traffic amount and the data amount to be transferred. 8. The image transfer apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the detection unit obtains an average transfer rate by obtaining a packet transfer time as the traffic amount a plurality of times. 9. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program code of an image transfer method for transferring image data hierarchically structured at a plurality of resolutions via a network, wherein a transfer speed for transferring the image data is detected. And a code for a specifying step for specifying the resolution of the hierarchically structured image data in accordance with the detected transfer speed, and a transferring step for transferring the image data having the specified resolution via the network. And a storage medium comprising: