JP2012042528A - Electronic book device, electronic book display method and electronic book display program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve paging of an electronic book.SOLUTION: An electronic book device includes: a storage unit for storing book data; screen area division means for dividing a screen area in which the book data is displayed into a prescribed number of partial areas; phrase extraction means for reading out the book data corresponding to one page from the storage unit to the screen area and extracting a minimum unit of phrases that has a meaning from the partial areas, for each partial area; phrase weight calculation means for calculating the weight of phrases on the basis of frequency of appearance of each of the extracted phrases in the partial areas; importance calculation means for calculating importance of the partial areas on the basis of the weight of the phrases extracted in the partial areas; display area determination means for determining a partial area with the highest importance as a display area in which one page is to be displayed; and display means for displaying the book data in the display area.

Description

  The present invention relates to page turning of an electronic book device.

  Browsing novels, magazines, comics, etc. with electronic books is rapidly spreading. This is presumably because the electronic book can be browsed by a mobile phone or a portable information terminal in addition to the electronic book device which is a conventional dedicated terminal.

  Incidentally, one of the features of the electronic book device is that electronic paper is used for the display unit. Electronic paper does not require power consumption during display due to its memory characteristics, and consumes a little power only when rewriting the display, and is a reflective type that does not require a backlight, etc. for a long time. The main feature is that the battery can be driven. Another feature is that the display uses reflected light and has a wide viewing angle and high visibility close to that of paper. Early electronic book apparatuses are mainly used for browsing novels centered on characters in monochrome display, but recently, the color of electronic paper has been advanced and its application to magazines has been expanded.

  However, electronic paper has a slow screen rewriting (hereinafter, simply referred to as “rewriting”), and the electronic book device may not be able to perform continuous page-feeding (like flipping) like printed materials using paper. is there. Magazines are often composed of a collection of miscellaneous articles among e-books, and in many cases, the page contents are roughly grasped while flipping in order to search for articles of interest. Electronic book devices are subject to disadvantages. As an example, a paper magazine can send a page at a speed of 0.5 seconds / page, whereas an electronic book device requires 5 seconds / page, which takes about 10 times as much time (see FIG. 13).

  As a method of performing page flipping at high speed, it is known that only a part of each page is rewritten and displayed. Since not all pages are displayed, the page feed speed can be increased.

  It is also known that reduced electronic book data is prepared separately from the original data and the reduced data is displayed when flipping.

  It is also known that an identifier for high-speed playback is set in the electronic book data, and only data with the identifier is sequentially displayed when high-speed playback (turning over) is instructed.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 06-86222 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 04-120670 JP 2004-334854 A

  As described above, since it takes time to rewrite the display of the electronic paper in the electronic book apparatus, there is a problem that flipping of pages cannot be performed at a speed that is generally performed with printed paper.

  The method of rewriting only a part of the page, which is the prior art, has a fixed place for rewriting within the screen, such as the right and left edges of the screen, and is inconvenient when this prior art is applied to a magazine. Arise. FIG. 14 shows an example in which the prior art is applied to comics and magazines when only the right part corresponding to about 1/4 of one page is rewritten and displayed. The example of the comic shown in FIG. Then you can page through while grasping the general contents. That is, in the case of comics, the entire page is an image, and information for grasping the contents can be obtained even if only a part of one page is displayed. However, in the case of the magazine shown in FIG. 14 (b), the magazine may be composed of headlines, sentences, charts, photos, advertisements, margins, etc., and the portion where a part is displayed may hit the margins, advertisements, etc. There is a problem that the information necessary for grasping is not displayed. In such a case, there is a possibility that the target page cannot be found in the magazine.

  Further, the method for displaying the reduced data has a problem that the reduced data needs to be stored in advance separately from the original data, and the memory area is compressed.

  Further, the method of setting identifiers for high-speed playback in electronic book data has a problem that they cannot be applied to existing electronic book data.

  The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an electronic book device capable of high-speed page feed equivalent to flipping that can be performed with printed paper.

  According to one aspect of the invention, an electronic book device of the present invention includes a storage unit that stores book data, a screen area dividing unit that divides a screen area for displaying book data into a predetermined number of partial areas, One page of book data from the storage unit is read into the screen area, and a word / phrase extracting means for extracting the word / phrase of the smallest unit from the partial area for each partial area, and the appearance frequency of each extracted word / phrase in the partial area A phrase weight calculating means for calculating the weight of the phrase based on the weight, an importance calculating means for calculating the importance of the partial area based on the weight of the phrase extracted in the partial area, and a partial area with the highest importance, There is provided an electronic book device including display area determining means for determining a display area for displaying one page and display means for displaying book data in the display area.

  According to another aspect of the invention, an electronic book display method according to the present invention includes a screen area dividing procedure in which a computer divides a screen area for displaying book data into a predetermined number of partial areas, and book data. One page of book data is read from the storage unit to be stored in the screen area, a word / phrase extraction procedure for extracting the word / phrase in the smallest unit from the partial area for each partial area, and the extracted partial words in the partial area Phrase weight calculation procedure to calculate the word weight based on the appearance frequency, importance calculation procedure to calculate the importance of the partial area based on the word weight extracted in the partial area, and the part with the highest importance There is provided an electronic book display method for executing a display area determination procedure for determining an area as a display area for displaying one page.

  According to another aspect of the invention, an electronic book display program according to the present invention includes a screen area dividing procedure for dividing a screen area for displaying book data into a predetermined number of partial areas on a computer, and a book. A phrase extraction procedure for reading out one page of book data from the storage unit for storing data into the screen area, and extracting a phrase having the smallest unit from the partial area for each partial area, and a partial area of each extracted phrase Phrase weight calculation procedure for calculating the phrase weight based on the appearance frequency, importance calculation procedure for calculating the importance of the partial area based on the phrase weight extracted in the partial area, and the highest importance An electronic book display program that executes a display area determination procedure for determining a partial area as a display area for displaying one page and a display procedure for displaying book data in the display area is provided. It is.

  Since the screen area is divided so that only the partial areas having high importance are displayed, it is possible to perform page feed at high speed while displaying only the meaningful parts.

It is a hardware structural example and an external appearance example. It is a structural example of a functional structure and a memory | storage part. It is an example of data of a phrase extraction data storage area. It is an example of data of a vector data storage area. It is an example of division of an image memory area. It is an example of data of a display width table. It is an example of data of a display area table. It is an example of data of a weight adjustment value table. It is an example of the importance level calculation processing flow of a partial area. It is an example of a display processing flow of page feed. It is an example of multi-page display in page feed It is an example of a display of the extraction word / phrase in page turning. It is an example of page feed by a conventional printed matter and an electronic book device. It is an example of page feed display of comics and magazines.

  Embodiments of an electronic book apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. Note that the electronic book device in the embodiment uses image data as a form of book data.

  FIG. 1 shows a hardware configuration example and an appearance example of an electronic book apparatus 10 of the present invention. The hardware shown in FIG. 1A includes a CPU 20 that controls the entire electronic book device 10, a storage device 30 that stores electronic book display programs, electronic book data, etc., program execution and work areas, and book data temporarily. A memory 40 stored therein, an input device 50 including a button for receiving an instruction of data to be viewed on the electronic book and an instruction of a page feed speed, and an output device 60 including an electronic paper for displaying the electronic book data. . A part of the memory 40 is also used as an image memory displayed on electronic paper. Further, control information as a command from the CPU 20 to each device and data transfer based on the command are performed via the bus 70.

  FIG. 1B shows an example of the external appearance of the electronic book apparatus 10, an electronic paper 61 that displays book data, and page feed speed instruction buttons 51, 52 for the user to specify left and right page feed speeds. A page feed start / stop button 53 for instructing start and stop of page feed is shown. For example, the page feed speed instruction buttons 51 and 52 can be pressed once within a predetermined time to instruct low speed page feed, twice for medium speed page feed, and three times for high speed page feed. The page feed start / stop button 53 can be instructed to start page feed by first pressing and to stop by pressing again.

  Next, a functional configuration example of the electronic book display program 100 of the electronic book device 10 and a configuration example of the storage device 30 will be described with reference to FIG.

  The electronic book display program 100 includes a page feed speed detection unit 110, a page feed start / stop detection unit 120, a page feed control unit 130, a screen region division unit 140, a partial region importance calculation unit 150, a display region determination unit 160, and a display unit 170. Have An outline of these functions will be described.

  The page feed speed detection unit 110 has a function of detecting that the page feed speed instruction buttons 51 and 52 are operated by the user. By this detection, the number of partial areas to be displayed is selected. For example, in the case of high-speed page feed, one partial area is selected, and page feed can be speeded up by displaying only that area.

  The page feed start / stop detection unit 120 has a function of detecting that the page feed start / stop button 53 has been operated by the user. Based on this detection, the start and stop of page feed are controlled.

  The page feed control unit 130 manages the page of the book data, for example, notifies the display unit 170 (to be described later) when the user inputs the start of page feed, or performs page count at the time of page feed. Or notify the page.

  The screen area dividing unit 140 divides an image memory area to be displayed for one screen of electronic paper based on a predetermined setting value, and generates a plurality of partial areas.

  The partial area importance calculation unit 150 extracts words and phrases from the book data read into the partial areas, calculates the weights of the words, and obtains the importance of the partial areas.

  The display area determination unit 160 determines a display area for page-feeding based on the page-feeding speed designated by the user and the severity of the partial area. The display area is composed of one or more partial areas.

  The display unit 170 displays the book data in the display area determined by the display area determination unit 160 until an instruction to stop page feed is detected from the page next to the current page.

  Next, the configuration of the storage device 30 will be described. The storage device 30 includes a book data storage area 31, an extracted phrase data storage area 32, a vector data storage area 33, a division information storage area 34, a display width table storage area 35, a display area table storage area 36, and a weight adjustment value table storage area. 37. An outline of these data and tables will be described.

  The book data storage area 31 is an area for storing book data. As described above, the text, figure, and photo data constituting the contents of the book are all in the form of image data (for example, JPEG). Although the image data format is used in this embodiment, the present invention is not particularly limited to image data.

  The extracted phrase data storage area 32 is an area for storing phrases extracted from partial areas in each page of the book data. FIG. 3 shows an example of data. In FIG. 3, one page is divided into three partial areas A, B, and C, and the phrases are shown in the order extracted in each partial area. For example, the data on the first line in FIG. 3 is a phrase extracted from the A partial area of the first page, and T1 to T4,. Since the book data is image data, word extraction is performed by converting image data into text data using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software that performs character recognition, and morphemes that are widely used for sentence analysis from this text data. It is extracted as a phrase (ie, morpheme) having the meaning of the smallest unit by analysis.

  The vector data storage area 33 is an area for storing weights calculated for the words extracted in the partial area. FIG. 4 is an example showing the weight values for the words extracted in the partial area. As a weight calculation method, TF / IDF (Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency) is used.

  TF · IDF is expressed by the following equation.

Here, the left side is a weight value to be obtained, the first term on the right side is TF, and the second term is IDF. Specifically, TF _{i, j} represents the number of times that the word i has appeared in the partial region j, and the larger the value, the more important the word. IDF _i represents the reciprocal of the number of pages in which the word i appears in all pages of the book data, and the larger the value, the more important the word. That is, the larger the TF / IDF value, the more important the phrase. The importance level mentioned here is the degree to which the user can obtain information suitable for grasping the contents of the page.

  The vector data storage area 33 also stores the importance of each partial area obtained by adding the weight value of each phrase. FIG. 4 shows the importance obtained by adding the weights of the four words / phrases, but the weights are actually added to all the extracted words / phrases. In the example of the first page in FIG. 4, since the importance of the partial area A is 1.91, B is 1.03, and C is 1.14, the partial area A is the most important area. The important area is the C partial area.

  The division information storage area 34 is an area for storing information for dividing the area of the image memory. FIG. 5 shows an example in which the image memory area is divided into three in the vertical direction of the screen. The divided areas are partial areas, and partial areas A to C are shown in FIG. The division information storage area 34 stores, for example, vertical division or horizontal division information and partial area width information.

  The display width table storage area 35 stores information on the display width of the display screen with respect to the page feed speed. FIG. 6 shows an example of data in the display width table storage area 35, and shows the display width of the screen for three types of page feed speeds of “high speed”, “medium speed”, and “low speed”. For example, when the page feed is high speed, the display width is 1/3 of the screen, and when the page speed is medium, the display width is 2/3 of the screen. The display of the 2/3 screen in the case of the medium speed is the display area of A + B or B + C partial areas shown in FIG. 5 (the partial areas are adjacent to each other). Furthermore, when the page to be displayed is, for example, the second page in FIG. 4, the sum of the importance levels of the A + B area (1.80) and the sum of the importance levels of the B + C area (1.40) are obtained, and the total value is obtained. An area (A + B) having a large value is defined as a display area. When the speed is low, the entire screen (3/3 of the screen) is displayed.

  The display area table storage area 36 is an area for storing, as display area information, a partial area determined based on the display width and importance based on the page feed speed. FIG. 7 shows an example of the data. Here, in the first page, the A partial area is the display area, the second page is the C partial area, and the third page is the B partial area. In this case, since the display area is indicated by one of the partial areas A to C, “high speed” is designated by the user as the page feed speed.

  The weight adjustment value table storage area 37 stores weight adjustment values for the character size of words. When the image data is replaced with text data by character recognition by OCR, the size of the text can be estimated. Therefore, since the character size of the extracted word is known, a weight adjustment value for the character size is determined in advance as shown in FIG. 8, and the weight value is multiplied by the weight adjustment value when obtaining the vector data shown in FIG. Value. By adjusting the weight of the phrase, it is possible to determine the display area based on the intention of the magazine creator, for example. In general, articles in magazines are described with a large character size for important document parts such as headlines, and conversely a small character size for parts with low importance such as annotations. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 8, the word weight is increased by 1.2 times for large characters such as headings, 1.0 times for medium size such as body articles, and 0.8 times for small sizes such as annotations. Yes.

  Next, a processing flow of the electronic book display program 100 will be described. In this embodiment, at the stage of displaying the first page of the book data designated to be browsed by the user, when processing for obtaining the importance of the partial area of each page, and when the page is instructed by the user, A description will be given separately for a process of obtaining a display area based on the importance of a partial area and displaying page feed. In the processing flow shown below, the weight is not adjusted according to the character size in order to simplify the processing.

  FIG. 9 shows a processing flow for calculating the importance of the partial area. First, a word / phrase extraction routine is entered, the first page of book data is read into the image memory area, character recognition is performed by the OCR software, and the text data is converted (S10, step 10 will be referred to as S10 hereinafter).

  A partial area is generated by dividing the image memory area with reference to the division information storage area 34, and a phrase is extracted by morphological analysis for the text data of each partial area. The extracted phrase is stored in the extracted phrase data storage area 32. Here, it is assumed that the image memory area is divided into three in the vertical direction as shown in FIG. 5 with reference to the division information storage area 34 (S11).

  The processes of S10 and S11 are performed for all pages of book data. This state is the data example of FIG. 3 described above. When the phrase extraction is completed, the importance calculation routine is entered.

  In the importance calculation routine, for the phrases extracted for each partial area of each page, the appearance frequency in the partial area and the number of pages appearing on all pages of the book data are obtained, and the weight of the phrase is calculated by TF / IDF. Ask. The obtained weight is stored in the vector data storage area 33 (S12).

  The weights for the calculated words are summed for each partial area, and the obtained total value is stored in the vector data storage area 33 as the importance of the partial area (S13).

  The processes of S12 and S13 are performed for all the pages of the book data, and this process ends. This state (the state in which importance is calculated) is the data example of FIG. 4 described above.

  Next, a processing flow for displaying page feed will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 10, information on the page feed speed detected by the page feed speed detection unit 110 is received, and the display area of each page is obtained with reference to the display width table storage area 35. For example, when the page feed is “high speed”, the partial area having the highest importance is set as the display area. In the case of medium speed, the total importance value of the A + B partial areas is compared with the total importance value of the B + C partial areas, and the two partial areas with the larger total values are used as display areas. In the case of low speed, the three partial areas A to C are set as display areas. These pieces of information are stored in the display area table storage area 36 (S20, S21).

  Subsequently, when receiving the page feed start instruction information detected by the page feed start / stop detection unit 120, the current page information is acquired from the page feed control unit 130 (S22, S23).

  If the acquired current page is n pages, the next page n = n + 1 is obtained, and the display area of page n in the display area table is displayed. That is, when the display area of page n is the partial area A, the book data in the partial area A is displayed on the electronic paper. This process is continued until the page feed start / stop detection unit 120 detects a stop operation (S24 to S26).

  When the page feed start / stop detection unit 120 detects the stop, the last page of the page feed at that time is displayed in full screen (S27).

  The processing flow shown in FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 allows the page feed of book data to be sent at a speed based on a user instruction.

  In the above embodiment, the partial area for each page of the book data is displayed. However, in the case of high-speed page feed, for example, display areas for three pages may be displayed together. FIG. 11 shows such an example, where page 1 has the highest importance partial area of page n, page 2 has the highest importance partial area of page (n + 1), and page 3 has (n + 2). The highest priority partial area of the page is displayed simultaneously. When reading obliquely while checking the contents roughly by flipping through the magazine, it is often the case that the contents are grasped by comparing the previous and next pages. It can be carried out.

  In addition, the extracted word / phrase may be displayed instead of displaying the book data of the partial area. FIG. 12 is an example in which a predetermined number is arranged and displayed in order of words with a large weight of the partial area A. By displaying in this way, it becomes possible to grasp the information of the target page effectively. Also, the page feed speed can be increased.

The above-described embodiment is not limited to this, and can be implemented in various modes without departing from the gist of the present invention.
(Appendix 1)
A storage unit for storing book data;
Screen area dividing means for dividing the screen area for displaying the book data into a predetermined number of partial areas;
A phrase extraction unit that reads out one page of book data from the storage unit to the screen area, and extracts a phrase of a minimum unit having meaning from the partial area for each partial area;
A phrase weight calculating means for calculating the weight of the phrase based on the appearance frequency of each of the extracted phrases in the partial region;
Importance calculating means for calculating the importance of the partial area based on the weight of the word extracted in the partial area;
Display area determining means for determining the partial area having the highest importance as a display area for displaying the one page;
An electronic book apparatus comprising: display means for displaying book data in the display area.
(Appendix 2)
The electronic book device further includes a page feed speed receiving means for receiving the input page feed speed;
The electronic book apparatus according to appendix 1, wherein the display area determining unit determines one or more partial areas as the display area based on the page feed speed and the importance.
(Appendix 3)
The electronic book apparatus according to appendix 2, wherein the display area determining means uses the plurality of partial areas as display areas, the plurality of partial areas being adjacent to each other.
(Appendix 4)
The phrase extraction means predicts the character size of the phrase in the phrase extraction,
The electronic book device according to any one of supplementary notes 1 to 3, wherein the importance degree calculating means calculates the importance degree based on the appearance frequency of the word and the character size.
(Appendix 5)
The electronic book apparatus according to any one of supplementary notes 1 to 4, wherein the display unit extracts a predetermined number of the phrases from the phrase having a large weight in the display area, and displays the words in order of the phrase having the large weight.
(Appendix 6)
The electronic book apparatus according to any one of supplementary notes 1 to 5, wherein the display unit simultaneously displays book data arranged in the display area of a plurality of pages.
(Appendix 7)
The electronic book device according to any one of supplementary notes 1 to 5, wherein the display area determining means determines all the partial areas as the display areas when the page feed speed is the slowest feed speed.
(Appendix 8)
The electronic book according to any one of supplementary notes 1 to 4, wherein the display means displays a predetermined number of the phrases from words or phrases having a large weight in the display area at positions where the phrases are arranged in the display area. apparatus.
(Appendix 9)
Computer
A screen area dividing procedure for dividing a screen area for displaying book data into a predetermined number of partial areas;
A phrase extraction procedure for reading out one page of the book data from the storage unit storing the book data into the screen area, and extracting a phrase of the smallest unit having meaning from the partial area for each partial area;
A phrase weight calculation procedure for calculating the weight of the phrase based on the appearance frequency of each of the extracted phrases in the partial region;
An importance calculation procedure for calculating the importance of the partial area based on the weight of the phrase extracted in the partial area;
A display area determination procedure for determining the partial area having the highest importance as a display area for displaying the one page;
A display procedure for displaying book data in the display area. An electronic book display method comprising:
(Appendix 10)
On the computer,
A screen area dividing procedure for dividing a screen area for displaying book data into a predetermined number of partial areas;
A phrase extraction procedure for reading out one page of the book data from the storage unit storing the book data into the screen area, and extracting a phrase of the smallest unit having meaning from the partial area for each partial area;
A phrase weight calculation procedure for calculating the weight of the phrase based on the appearance frequency of each of the extracted phrases in the partial region;
An importance calculation procedure for calculating the importance of the partial area based on the weight of the phrase extracted in the partial area;
A display area determination procedure for determining the partial area having the highest importance as a display area for displaying the one page;
A display procedure for displaying book data in the display area is executed.

10 electronic book device 20 CPU
30 storage device 31 book data storage area 32 extracted phrase data storage area 33 vector data storage area 34 division information storage area 35 display width table storage area 36 display area table storage area 37 weight adjustment value table storage area 40 memory 50 input device 51 pages Feed speed instruction button (left feed)
52 Page feed speed instruction button (Right feed)
53 Page feed start / stop button 60 Output device 61 Electronic paper 70 Bus 100 Electronic book display program 110 Page feed speed detection unit 120 Page feed start / stop detection unit 130 Page feed control unit 140 Screen region division unit 150 Partial region importance calculation unit 160 Display area determination unit 170 Display unit

Claims (7)

A storage unit for storing book data;
Screen area dividing means for dividing the screen area for displaying the book data into a predetermined number of partial areas;
A phrase extraction unit that reads out one page of book data from the storage unit to the screen area, and extracts a phrase of a minimum unit having meaning from the partial area for each partial area;
A phrase weight calculating means for calculating the weight of the phrase based on the appearance frequency of each of the extracted phrases in the partial region;
Importance calculating means for calculating the importance of the partial area based on the weight of the word extracted in the partial area;
Display area determining means for determining the partial area having the highest importance as a display area for displaying the one page;
An electronic book apparatus comprising: display means for displaying book data in the display area. The electronic book device further includes a page feed speed receiving means for receiving the input page feed speed;
The electronic book apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display area determining unit determines one or more partial areas as the display area based on the page feed speed and the importance. The phrase extraction means predicts the character size of the phrase in the phrase extraction,
The electronic book apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the importance level calculating unit calculates the importance level based on the appearance frequency of the word and the character size. 4. The electronic book apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display unit extracts a predetermined number of the words from the words with high weight in the display area, and displays the words in order of the words with high weight. . The electronic book apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display unit simultaneously displays book data arranged in the display area of a plurality of pages. Computer
A screen area dividing procedure for dividing a screen area for displaying book data into a predetermined number of partial areas;
A phrase extraction procedure for reading out one page of the book data from the storage unit storing the book data into the screen area, and extracting a phrase of the smallest unit having meaning from the partial area for each partial area;
A phrase weight calculation procedure for calculating the weight of the phrase based on the appearance frequency of each of the extracted phrases in the partial region;
An importance calculation procedure for calculating the importance of the partial area based on the weight of the phrase extracted in the partial area;
A display area determination procedure for determining the partial area having the highest importance as a display area for displaying the one page;
A display procedure for displaying book data in the display area. An electronic book display method comprising: On the computer,
A screen area dividing procedure for dividing a screen area for displaying book data into a predetermined number of partial areas;
A phrase extraction procedure for reading out one page of the book data from the storage unit storing the book data into the screen area, and extracting a phrase of the smallest unit having meaning from the partial area for each partial area;
A phrase weight calculation procedure for calculating the weight of the phrase based on the appearance frequency of each of the extracted phrases in the partial region;
An importance calculation procedure for calculating the importance of the partial area based on the weight of the phrase extracted in the partial area;
A display area determination procedure for determining the partial area having the highest importance as a display area for displaying the one page;
A display procedure for displaying book data in the display area is executed.