JP2009009255A - Information processor and information processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily and quickly retrieve and browse desired data from huge data by using a simple interface. <P>SOLUTION: This information processor is provided with: a data acquisition means for acquiring data; and a control means for controlling data scroll display based on additional information added to the data acquired by the data acquisition means. The control means groups data having the same additional information based on the additional information, then arranges the grouped data in one-dimensional direction, and divides the group into one or more small groups, and controls one piece of the data in the small groups to be displayed, and the data to be scrolled by the small groups. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and an information processing method.

  Along with the increase in capacity of storage devices such as HDDs and memory cards, it has become possible to store a huge amount of data including image data. At the same time, however, it has become difficult to search for desired data from a vast amount of data and to roughly browse the entire data.

  In a device such as a PC having abundant interfaces such as a keyboard and a mouse, it is possible to perform a search by inputting a search expression or performing a GUI operation using these interfaces. Also, by managing a huge amount of data in a hierarchical structure and using abundant GUIs, it is possible to efficiently access these data.

  However, in an embedded device having a limited interface such as a remote controller, it is difficult to input a key and perform a complicated GUI operation.

  For example, in such an embedded device, in order to browse a desired image from image data, a collective image including thumbnail images is used to perform simple scroll display or page-by-page display. At this time, if the image data is in the unit of several tens or hundreds, there is no problem even with the conventional display method as described above. However, in the conventional display method, when the image data becomes enormous, such as tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, not only does it take time to search and view a desired image, but also the operation becomes complicated.

  In order to solve such a problem, the image is managed as a group, and an attempt is made to improve efficiency by combining and displaying the scroll of each group and the scroll of the individual images included in each group. There is a technology (see Patent Document 1).

JP 2006-268010 A

  As described above, if enormous images are managed in units of groups and scroll-displayed in units of groups, all of enormous data can be scroll-displayed in a short time. Therefore, when a group including desired data is known in advance, it is possible to search for desired data by moving to that group at high speed and sequentially browsing and searching the data in the group.

  However, if the group containing the desired data is unknown, the group has to move to each group that is likely to contain the desired data and sequentially search for the desired data. At this time, if the number of data in the group is enormous, the data search becomes more difficult.

  The present invention has been made in view of such problems, and an object thereof is to make it possible to easily and quickly search and browse desired data from a vast amount of data using a simple interface.

  Therefore, the information processing apparatus of the present invention includes a data acquisition unit that acquires data, a control unit that controls scroll display of the data based on additional information added to the data acquired by the data acquisition unit, The control means groups the data having the same additional information based on the additional information, and then sequentially arranges the grouped data in a one-dimensional direction, and the one group. Alternatively, the scroll display of the data is controlled so as to be divided into a plurality of small groups and arranged so that one piece of data in the small group is displayed and skipped in units of small groups.

  The present invention is also an information processing method in an information processing apparatus, wherein a data acquisition step for acquiring data, and scroll display of the data based on additional information added to the data acquired in the data acquisition step And, in the control step, after grouping data having the same additional information based on the additional information, the grouped data are sequentially arranged in a one-dimensional direction. , Dividing the group into one or a plurality of small groups and arranging the data so as to display one data in the small group and to control the scroll display of the data so as to be skipped in units of the small group. Features.

  The present invention may be a program and a storage medium.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to easily and quickly search and browse desired data from a vast amount of data using a simple interface.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

<Embodiment 1>
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system configuration. As shown in FIG. 1, a display 101 capable of displaying various data is connected to a data display device 100 which is an example of an information processing device (computer). Various operation instructions from the user are made via an operation input device 102 (hereinafter referred to as a remote controller) represented by a remote controller.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configuration of the data display device 100. As shown in FIG. 2, the data display device 100 includes a CPU 201, a RAM 202, a ROM 203, a display I / F 204, a storage I / F 205, a storage 206, and a remote control I / F 207 as hardware configurations.

  The display I / F 204 converts screen information generated inside the data display device 100 into a signal that can be processed by the display 101. The storage I / F 205 converts between a data format that can be used inside the data display device 100 and a data format that is stored in the storage. The remote control I / F 207 receives a signal from the remote control 102 and converts it into information that can be processed by the data display device 100.

  Although not shown, each processing program, device driver, and the like according to the present embodiment including an operating system (hereinafter referred to as OS) are stored in the ROM 203, temporarily stored in the RAM 202 as appropriate, and executed by the CPU 201. Here, the OS may be stored in the storage 206. In this case, the OS is appropriately read into the RAM 202 when the power is turned on, and is started by the CPU 201.

  The storage 206 stores a large amount of data to be searched and browsed by the data display device 100 and may be installed in the data display device 100 or connected to the data display device 100 via various interfaces such as a network. May be. At that time, a plurality of storages 206 may be connected to the data display device 100.

  In addition, unless otherwise indicated below, what was demonstrated in other figures attaches | subjects the same code | symbol, and abbreviate | omits the description.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a functional configuration of the data display device 100. As illustrated in FIG. 3, the data display device 100 includes an operation acquisition unit 301, a display output unit 302, a display switching unit 303, a display cache 304, a scroll screen generation unit 305, a scroll control unit 306, metadata as functional configurations. An extraction unit 307 is included. The data display device 100 further includes a recording unit 308, a data acquisition unit 309, a decoder 310, and an operation analysis unit 311 as functional configurations. Each of these functional blocks is realized by a combination of hardware and software.

  In the recording unit 308, a large amount of data such as images, videos, audios, documents, and the like to be searched and browsed by the data display device 100 is recorded. In the present embodiment, the handled data is stored digital image data and thumbnail image data related thereto (hereinafter referred to as a thumbnail), but is not limited thereto.

  It is assumed that one or more metadata similar to information added to related digital image data (hereinafter referred to as metadata (additional information)) is added to the thumbnail handled in the present embodiment. There are various types of metadata added to digital image data such as file names, date / time information, image numbers, image sizes, image resolutions, photographers, and shooting locations. In the present embodiment, the metadata is not particularly limited and used as long as it is information added to the data.

  The data acquisition unit 309 sequentially reads thumbnails from the recording unit 308. The metadata extraction unit 307 extracts metadata added to the read thumbnail. The extracted metadata is held in the RAM 202 of the data display device 100 and used in the scroll control unit 306.

  In the present embodiment, the scroll control unit 306 first performs a process of grouping thumbnails including the same metadata and sequentially arranging them in a one-dimensional direction based on the extracted metadata. Next, the scroll control unit 306 outputs a control command to the scroll screen generation unit 305 so as to perform scroll display in units of thumbnail groups. At this time, the scroll control unit 306 further divides and arranges the thumbnail group into one or a plurality of small groups, and outputs a control command for scrolling and displaying one thumbnail in the small group.

  In the present embodiment, one thumbnail that is always scroll-displayed in the small group is set as the first thumbnail of the small group. Further, in the present embodiment, the small group for dividing the thumbnail group into one or a plurality of groups is generated by dividing the thumbnail group into a fixed number (fixed number) of intervals (data) from the top thumbnail. Group. The divided small groups are arranged in the divided order.

  However, the control process performed by the scroll control unit 306 is not limited to this. For example, the thumbnail that is always scroll-displayed in each small group may be the tail (tail) thumbnail or a representative thumbnail detected by an image detection technique. Further, the division of the thumbnail group may be performed at the exact middle point of each thumbnail group, or each thumbnail group may be further divided into smaller groups using different metadata.

  As described above, the scroll control unit 306 can increase the scroll speed by grouping thumbnails with the same metadata and performing scroll display while skipping them in units of thumbnail groups. As a result, even if the accumulated data becomes enormous, it is possible to overlook the entire data in a short time. Further, since the divided small groups are arranged, the user can recognize the approximate position in the thumbnail group by checking the thumbnails displayed in the small group. Therefore, the user can easily move to the vicinity of the desired data.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the scroll control process performed in the scroll control unit 306. In this embodiment, the user can arbitrarily change the fixed number interval for determining the thumbnail to be added to the scroll display by operating the remote controller 102 or the like. By setting the fixed number interval to 1, the user can perform scroll display for each thumbnail unit. Conversely, if the fixed number interval is set sufficiently large, the thumbnails to be added to the scroll display will be scrolled in units of groups.

  The scroll screen generation unit 305 generates a scroll screen as needed by associating the control command from the scroll control unit 306 with the thumbnail acquired by the data acquisition unit 309. The generated scroll screen is output from the display output unit 302 via the display cache 304 and the display switching unit 303 and displayed on the display 101. Here, the display cache 304 is used to quickly output the generated scroll screen by the display output unit 302.

  The operation acquisition unit 301 receives an instruction from the user to the data display device 100, and issues an instruction for scrolling thumbnails and browsing data via the operation analysis unit 311. On the scroll screen of thumbnails displayed on the display 101, a focus frame is displayed by the display output unit 302 so that it can be seen which thumbnail is selected.

  The user can browse digital image data linked to the focused thumbnail by instructing data browsing on the thumbnail on which the focus frame is displayed. The digital image data is acquired by the data acquisition unit 309 and output by the display output unit 302 via the decoder 310 and the display switching unit 303.

  Next, an example of an operation input device for operating the data display device 100 is shown in FIG. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of the remote controller 102. In the present embodiment, the operation input device is the remote controller 102 as described above. The remote controller 102 includes a right button 402 and a left button 405 for instructing a scroll direction and scroll display, and an upper button 401 and a lower button 404 for instructing thumbnail grouping. The remote controller 102 also includes an OK button 403 for confirming selection of a thumbnail that is in focus by operating the up button 401, the down button 404, the right button 402, and the left button 405. The OK button 403 is also used for browsing digital image data linked to the selected thumbnail.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an example of the data search and browsing process.
As illustrated in FIG. 6, when the data search and browsing process is started, the operation analysis unit 311 performs the thumbnail grouping based on whether the upper button 401 or the lower button 404 is pressed. It is determined whether or not (S10). If the operation analysis unit 311 determines that the upper button 401 or the lower button 404 has been pressed (Yes in S10), the operation analysis unit 311 proceeds to S11, and determines that the upper button 401 or the lower button 404 has not been pressed (S10). No), the process proceeds to S12.

  In S11, the scroll control unit 306 executes a grouping process. Details of the grouping process are shown in FIG. FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an example of the grouping process according to the first embodiment.

  In step S20, for example, the operation analysis unit 311 notifies the scroll control unit 306 that the upper button 401 or the lower button 404 has been pressed by the user. In step S21, as described above, the scroll control unit 306 first performs a process of grouping thumbnails including the same metadata and sequentially arranging them in a one-dimensional direction based on the metadata. Next, the scroll control unit 306 outputs a control command to the scroll screen generation unit 305 so as to perform scroll display in units of thumbnail groups. At that time, the scroll control unit 306 further divides the thumbnail group into one or a plurality of small groups and arranges them, and also outputs a control command for scroll-displaying one thumbnail within the small group to the scroll screen generation unit 305. To do.

  In the present embodiment, the initial state of the scroll display is scroll display in thumbnail units, and scroll display in group units is possible only after performing grouping processing.

  Returning to the description of FIG. 6 again, the scroll screen generating unit 305 executes scroll display processing (S12). Details of the scroll display process are shown in FIG. FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing an example of the scroll display process.

  In step S30, for example, the operation analysis unit 311 notifies the scroll control unit 306 that the right button 402 or the left button 405 has been pressed by the user. In step S <b> 31, the scroll control unit 306 determines the scroll direction according to the pressed button received from the operation analysis unit 311. Then, the scroll control unit 306 outputs a control command to the scroll screen generation unit 305 so as to perform scroll display in the determined scroll direction.

  In step S <b> 32, the scroll screen generation unit 305 generates a scroll screen as needed by associating the control command from the scroll control unit 306 with the thumbnail acquired by the data acquisition unit 309. The generated scroll screen is output from the display output unit 302 via the display cache 304 and the display switching unit 303 and displayed on the display 101.

  Through the processing so far, the user can search for an arbitrary thumbnail by scrolling. The user presses the OK button 403 when confirming the selection of the selected (focused) thumbnail using the remote controller 102 (S13).

  The operation analysis unit 311 notifies the scroll control unit 306 that the OK button 403 has been pressed by the user. When the scroll control unit 306 receives the notification, the scroll control unit 306 determines whether the thumbnails are grouped. If the scroll control unit 306 determines that the group is not grouped (Yes in S14), the process proceeds to S15. If the scroll control unit 306 determines that the group is grouped (No in S14), the process proceeds to S17.

  In S <b> 15, the data acquisition unit 309 reads digital image data linked to the selected thumbnail from the recording unit 308. The read digital image data is output (displayed) to the display 101 by the display output unit 302 via the decoder 310 and the display switching unit 303.

  On the other hand, in S17, the scroll control unit 306 cancels the grouping, returns to scrolling in units of thumbnails, and returns the process to S12.

  As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to easily and quickly search and browse desired data from a vast amount of data using a simple interface.

<Embodiment 2>
In the present embodiment, the difference from the first embodiment is S11 in FIG. 6, a grouping process.
An example of the grouping process in this embodiment is shown in FIG. FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an example of the grouping process in the second embodiment.

  In the present embodiment, a plurality of metadata is added to the thumbnail, and the scroll control unit 306 performs scroll control equivalent to that of the first embodiment for each metadata. Further, selection of which metadata to perform scroll control is performed by the user pressing the upper button 401 or the lower button 404 (that is, the user's selection operation).

  In step S40, for example, the operation analysis unit 311 notifies the scroll control unit 306 that the upper button 401 or the lower button 404 has been pressed by the user. In step S41, when the scroll control unit 306 receives the notification, the scroll control unit 306 specifies the metadata according to the metadata selection operation by the user.

  Subsequently, in step S42, the scroll control unit 306 first performs a process of grouping thumbnails including the same metadata and sequentially arranging them in a one-dimensional direction based on the identified metadata. Next, the scroll control unit 306 outputs a control command to the scroll screen generation unit 305 so as to perform scroll display in units of thumbnail groups. At that time, the scroll control unit 306 further divides the thumbnail group into one or a plurality of small groups and arranges them, and also outputs a control command for scroll-displaying one thumbnail within the small group to the scroll screen generation unit 305. To do. An example of thumbnail regrouping performed at this time is shown in FIG. FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of regrouping.

  In the example shown in FIG. 10, thumbnails grouped by location-related metadata are regrouped and grouped by date-related metadata.

  According to the present embodiment, the user can appropriately change the order of scroll display. That is, the data search method can be changed as appropriate.

<Embodiment 3>
In the present embodiment, the difference from the first embodiment and the second embodiment is S11 in FIG. 6, grouping processing.

  In the present embodiment, metadata having a hierarchical structure is added to the thumbnail, and the scroll control unit 306 performs scroll control equivalent to that of the first embodiment on the metadata of each hierarchy. In addition, selection of which level of metadata to perform scroll control is performed by the user pressing the upper button 401 or the lower button 404 (that is, the user's selection operation).

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example in which thumbnails are grouped by metadata of each layer.
According to the present embodiment, the number of thumbnails to be skipped increases as the grouped scroll display is performed with the metadata of the upper hierarchy. Therefore, the scrolling speed can be changed greatly.

<Other embodiments>
The object of the present invention is achieved by the following. That is, a recording medium (or storage medium) that records a program code of software that realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments is supplied to a system or apparatus. Then, the central processing means (CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus reads and executes the program code stored in the recording medium. In this case, the program code itself read from the recording medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the recording medium on which the program code is recorded constitutes the present invention.

  In addition, by executing the program code read by the central processing means of the system or apparatus, an operating system (OS) or the like operating on the system or apparatus performs actual processing based on the instruction of the program code. Do some or all. The case where the function of the above-described embodiment is realized by the processing is also included.

  Further, it is assumed that the program code read from the recording medium is written in a memory provided in a function expansion card inserted into the system or apparatus or a function expansion unit connected thereto. After that, based on the instruction of the program code, the CPU of the function expansion card or function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the function of the above-described embodiment is realized by the processing. It is.

  When the present invention is applied to the recording medium, the recording medium stores program codes corresponding to the flowcharts described above.

  As described above, in the above-described embodiment, when scrolling in units of groups, the group is further divided into one or a plurality of small groups, and scroll control is performed so that one data in the small group is always displayed. . As a result, it is possible to reduce information loss caused by group-based scrolling (high-speed scrolling). Further, since the further divided small groups are arranged, the user can recognize the approximate position in the group by checking the data displayed in the small group. In the above-described embodiment, data including the same metadata (for example, thumbnails) is grouped and scrolled. However, when the data includes a plurality of metadata or when the metadata is hierarchical. Regroup with different metadata and hierarchy. As a result, the order and unit of scrolling can be changed.

  Therefore, it is possible to easily and quickly search and browse desired data from a vast amount of data using a simple interface.

  The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, but the present invention is not limited to such specific embodiments, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the gist of the present invention described in the claims.・ Change is possible.

  Moreover, you may implement combining each embodiment mentioned above arbitrarily.

It is the figure which showed an example of the system configuration. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configuration of a data display device 100. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a functional configuration of a data display device 100. FIG. It is a figure for demonstrating the scroll control process performed in the scroll control part 306. FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the remote control. It is a flowchart which shows an example of a data search and browsing process. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the grouping process in Embodiment 1. It is a flowchart which shows an example of a scroll display process. FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an example of grouping processing in the second embodiment. It is a figure which shows an example of regrouping. It is a figure which shows an example which grouped the thumbnail with the metadata of each hierarchy.

Explanation of symbols

100 Data Display Device 101 Display 102 Operation Input Device 201 CPU
202 RAM
203 ROM
204 Display I / F
205 Storage I / F
206 Storage 207 Remote control I / F
301 Operation acquisition unit 302 Display output unit 303 Display switching unit 304 Display cache 305 Scroll screen generation unit 306 Scroll control unit 307 Metadata extraction unit 308 Recording unit 309 Data acquisition unit 310 Decoder 311 Operation analysis unit 401 Up button 402 Right button 403 OK Button 404 Down button 405 Left button

Claims (12)

Data acquisition means for acquiring data;
Control means for controlling scroll display of the data based on additional information added to the data acquired by the data acquisition means;
Have
The control means groups data having the same additional information on the basis of the additional information, then arranges the grouped data in a one-dimensional direction sequentially, and sets the group to one or more small groups. An information processing apparatus that controls data scroll display so that data is divided into groups and displayed so that one piece of data in the small group is displayed and skipped in units of small groups.   When a plurality of additional information is added to the data acquired by the data acquisition means, the control means controls the scroll display of the data based on the additional information specified according to the user's selection operation. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1.   When the layered additional information is added to the data acquired by the data acquiring unit, the control unit scrolls the data based on the additional information of the layer specified according to the user's selection operation. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information processing apparatus is controlled.   4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to display one piece of head data or tail data in the small group. 5.   5. The control unit according to claim 1, wherein the control unit divides the group into a small group by dividing the group into a fixed number of pieces of data from the top data of the group, and arranges the small groups in the divided order. The information processing apparatus according to item 1. An information processing method in an information processing apparatus,
A data acquisition step for acquiring data;
A control step for controlling scroll display of the data based on additional information added to the data acquired in the data acquisition step;
Have
In the control step, data having the same additional information is grouped based on the additional information, and then the grouped data is sequentially arranged in a one-dimensional direction and the group is divided into one or more small groups. An information processing method characterized by controlling the scroll display of data so as to be divided into groups and arranged so as to display one piece of data in the small group and to skip in units of small groups.   When a plurality of additional information is added to the data acquired in the data acquisition step, the control step controls the scroll display of the data based on the additional information specified according to the user's selection operation. The information processing method according to claim 6.   In the case where additional information layered is added to the data acquired in the data acquisition step, the control step displays a scroll display of the data based on the additional information of the hierarchy specified according to the user's selection operation. The information processing method according to claim 6, wherein control is performed.   The information processing method according to any one of claims 6 to 8, wherein in the control step, the first data or the last data in the small group is displayed as one data.   10. The control step according to claim 6, wherein the group is divided into small groups by dividing the group into a fixed number of pieces of data from the top data of the group, and the small groups are arranged in the divided order. The information processing method according to item 1. On the computer,
A data acquisition step for acquiring data;
A control step for controlling scroll display of the data based on additional information added to the data acquired in the data acquisition step;
A program for executing
In the control step, data having the same additional information is grouped based on the additional information, and then the grouped data is sequentially arranged in a one-dimensional direction and the group is divided into one or more small groups. A program for controlling the scroll display of data so as to be divided into groups and to display one piece of data in the small group and to skip in units of small groups.   A computer-readable storage medium storing the program according to claim 11.

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