JP2787945B2 - Information processing apparatus and method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method, and more particularly to an information processing apparatus and method for storing and managing information in a hierarchical structure.

[Related Art] In recent years, the development of a large-capacity storage medium such as a magneto-optical disk device has made it possible to store a large amount of information in a lump.

Usually, when a plurality of pieces of information are stored in such a large-capacity medium, they are managed in a so-called tree structure.

Therefore, when the operator tries to extract the target information from the media, he looks at the information relating to the file management at the uppermost position, and then follows one branch that is sequentially branched, and then proceeds to the final branch. To search for the purpose information.

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] Such an operation has no problem in the case of a person who knows where the information to be extracted is located, but the person who does not have such information or the structure pertaining to the information management itself is known. For those who do not, finding that information can be impossible or very difficult.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problem, and even when document information is managed in a hierarchical structure, it is possible to efficiently search for target document information by eliminating restrictions due to the hierarchical structure. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information processing apparatus and a method that make it possible.

[Means for Solving the Problems] A first invention for solving the problems has the following configuration.

That is, an information processing apparatus that manages document information in a plurality of layers, and stores index information associated with the document information and characterizing the document information irrespective of the stored hierarchical position, in a common storage area for each document information. A search unit that searches the index information stored in the storage unit based on the search information input by the predetermined input unit, and displays a candidate group of the corresponding index information; and the search unit. After the corresponding candidate group is displayed, when further search information is input, the control unit that repeats energizing the search unit with the displayed candidate group as a search range is displayed by the search unit. Display means for displaying the corresponding document information when a desired candidate is selected from the candidate group.

Embodiment An embodiment according to the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

<Explanation of Outline of Configuration (FIG. 1)> FIG. 1 shows an outline of the configuration of an electronic filling system according to the present embodiment.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a CPU that controls the entire system. 2
Is a memory, which is composed of a program area 2a storing a program related to control processing of the CPU 1 and a work area 2b in various processes. The program area 2a stores programs related to various processes (for example, search processing, etc.) and programs related to flowcharts shown in FIGS. 7 and 8 described later. 3 is a floppy disk, 4 is a hard disk, and the floppy disk 3 is mainly used for personal use, and the hard disk device is used when processing common data. Reference numeral 5 denotes an FD / HD controller which controls the floppy disk 3 and the hard disk 4 to exchange data. Reference numeral 6 denotes a printer for forming an image, and reference numeral 7 denotes a scanner for reading a document image. And 8 is the S / P interface,
Output of print data to the printer 6 and the scanner 7
The input of the image from is performed through this. 9 is a SCSI interface which is a general-purpose interface,
A magneto-optical disk device 11 (including its controller 10) is connected to this interface. The magneto-optical disk device 11 stores various types of information to be searched in the embodiment. Reference numeral 12 denotes a keyboard for inputting various characters and instruction information, to which a pointing device (mouse) 13 is connected. The key information and the movement information from the pointing device 13 are output together as serial data. Reference numeral 14 denotes a serial interface for inputting the serial data and converting it into corresponding parallel data. Reference numeral 15 denotes a bit move unit (BMU) for performing bit control such as image data transfer or rotation, 16 a character font storage unit storing a pattern corresponding to a character / symbol code, and 17 developing a display image as image data. VRAM and 18 are a CRT for visualizing and displaying the image data expanded in the VRAM 17, and 19 is a companding unit for compressing an image image or expanding the compressed data.

These components are electrically connected via a bus (including an address bus, a data bus, and a control bus) 100.

<Description of Information Management (FIGS. 2 to 5)> Normally, information management in a large-capacity storage medium such as the magneto-optical disk device 11 in the embodiment is performed by using a tree structure (accurate Has an inverted tree structure).

At the top is a common "container" of information hanging below it, which in the preferred embodiment is called a cabinet.

For example, an example of a cabinet is a cabinet cut out of a newspaper, a cabinet related to personnel affairs, and the like.

Here, taking "newspaper clipping" as an example,
Below that are binders 21 and 22 for each year as shown, and below that are binders 23 to 25 for politics, economy and international news. Then, for example, final information (document) is hung below the binder 24 of economic news.

Here, the binder has a two-stage structure, but may have one stage or three or more stages, and there is no need to classify the binder by this method. Prior to the following description, the document (cutout of newspaper) is an image read by the scanner 7, and is conceptually a magneto-optical disc device.
The management structure in 11 is as shown in FIG. Also,
In this management structure, the index card registration area 30 stores information unique to each document located at the end of each cabinet (one in the drawing).

Now, the operation of extracting the target information (document) in such a management structure usually indicates which binder of which cabinet (which binder below) is to be searched.

For example, when extracting the document 27, the operator designates the cabinet 20, and thereafter designates the binder 22 and the binder 24, and finally designates the document
Extract (or search) 27.

In this way, if you know where the document you are trying to find is, it is relatively easy to find it. However, a person who does not know the management position itself cannot perform the above operation.

Therefore, in the embodiment, when an operator who cannot step on the above-described operation inputs an instruction to that effect, the index card 30 which collectively manages the individual documents at the lowest position of each document is displayed. . Then, by selecting one of them, the purpose information is to be extracted.

Specifically, when extracting the target document, first, the initial screen shown in FIG. 4 is displayed on the display screen 40 of the CRT 18, and the operator instructs whether to perform the normal operation or to extract the index document with the index card. In the case shown in the figure, the graphic cursor 41 linked to the pointing device 13 is moved to the icon 42, and a button provided on the pointing device 13 is clicked, and an operation for extracting a target document by specifying a normal cabinet and a binder is performed. To start. When the icon 43 is clicked, that is, when the CPU 1 detects that the graphic cursor 41 at the time when the pointing device 13 is clicked is within the area of the icon 43, the process proceeds to the following process.

First, as shown in FIG. 5, an image notifying that the search is based on the index card is displayed on the display screen 40, and an index key input window 51 is displayed.

The operator operates the keyboard 12 to input index information (in the illustrated example, “87.10.10”) for searching for a target document in the index key input window 51. Less than,
By specifying the execution command 52a in the command group 52 with the graphic cursor 41, the corresponding document is searched regardless of the type of the cabinet or the type of the binder.

As a result, the number of documents is reduced from the huge number to the group including the target document.

Before and after the description, the index card 53 displayed on the display screen 40 displays a plurality of pieces of index information related to the corresponding document, in other words, data symbolizing the document.

Therefore, when the number of the index cards 53 at the time when the narrowing is completed is about several to several tens, it is possible to find the index card related to the target document by looking at the contents of those index cards. is there.

If sufficient narrowing has not been performed, the second index information is input to the previously searched index card group, and further narrowing processing is performed to extract a target document.

<Description of Registration Processing (FIGS. 6 and 7)> To achieve the above-described processing, it is necessary to create a corresponding index card when a document is registered in the magneto-optical disk device 11.

Hereinafter, the processing content related to document registration in the embodiment will be described.

First, read the clippings of the newspaper from Skyana 7.
The image is displayed on the display screen 40. Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 6 (a), the read image (document) 60 is added to a window 62 for inputting various data such as a stored document name. The data input in the window 62 is information to be used in normal search processing, and the management of the data is also placed under the corresponding binder. In the case shown in the figure, the document name of the input image is "newspaper information", and it is described in an economic article of the newspaper A on October 10, 1987 that the company B has developed (sold) an electronic file. I'm sorry.

When the input of the document name or the like is completed, one of the command groups 61 to that effect is designated by a graphic cursor or the like. Then, a screen for creating the index card 63 is displayed as shown in FIG. 6 (b).

By operating the keyboard 12 in the index card 63, index information such as "87.10.10", "Company B", "electronic file", and "release" is input as shown in the figure. Then, when one of the commands indicating the end of this operation is instructed, the CPU 1 compresses the input image by the companding unit 19 and registers it in the magneto-optical disk device 11 together with the document name information. Similarly, the contents of the created index card are registered in the index card registration area 30. Here, as will be described again, the index card registration area 30 is managed separately from the cabinet and the binder, and can directly access this area.

The processing procedure related to the registration processing in the above-described embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

First, in step S1, a binder to be registered in the subsequent processing is specified. At this time, if the specified binder does not exist, the cabinet and the binder are created. In any case, after the registration destination is instructed, the process proceeds to the next step S2, and the mode of the scanner 7 is set.
As the mode setting, for example, whether the input image is a halftone image such as a photograph or a character line drawing image, and further,
It means a series of settings such as adjustment of reading density and reading area. Then, in the next step S3 and step S4, the original image is read by the scanner 7, and the read image is developed in the work area 1b, and is thinned out by the BMU 15, and the thinned image is developed in the VRAM 17 and displayed. Let it. Thereafter, if it is determined in step S5 that a reread instruction has been issued by the operator (it is assumed that the read image is not normal, etc.), the process returns to step S2.

When the displayed image is confirmed, the process proceeds to step S6, and the name or the like depending on the registration destination (binder) of the displayed image is input from the keyboard 14. Then, in the next step S7, an index card corresponding to the image to be registered is created. Thereafter, the image and the document name read in step S8 are stored under the corresponding binder, and the contents of the created index card are registered in the index card registration area in association with the registered image address.

When the end of a series of registration processing is instructed in the next step S9, the process returns to step S1. When an instruction to register information is subsequently input, the step
Proceed to S10 and input an instruction as to whether or not to switch information. This means that the information is switched. For example, when the information to be registered spans a plurality of pages, the information is switched to make the information corresponding to the number of straddles into one unit of information. That is, this is performed because it is not necessary to attach a document name or the like and an index card to the second and subsequent pages. Of course, if the information to be registered is only one page, the process returns to step S2 to perform the above-described process.

If the information is not switched, step S1 is performed.
Proceed to 1 to set the mode of the scanner 7. afterwards,
The image is read (step S12) and displayed (step S13). If the image displayed in step S14 is unclear, an instruction to that effect is input, and the process returns from step S14 to step S11. Also,
If that is the case, the process returns to step S8, and the read image is registered in the magneto-optical disk 11 as a continuation image of the image registered immediately before.

<Explanation of Information Extraction Processing (FIG. 8)> Next, the processing procedure of the CPU 1 when extracting a target document will be described with reference to FIG.

First, in step S20, the initial screen shown in FIG. 4 is displayed, and the operator is caused to select either the cabinet icon 42 or the index card icon 43. As a result, when it is detected that the cabinet icon 21 is selected, the process proceeds to step S22, in which a normal process of following one branch of selecting a cabinet and a binder is performed.

On the other hand, when the index card icon 43 is selected,
The processing after step S23 is performed.

First, in step S23, an index key input window 51 is displayed (see FIG. 5), and index key input is performed in the next step S24. Then, the process proceeds to step S26 to determine whether or not there is a candidate. If search results and no suggestions are found,
That is, if it is determined that there is no index card corresponding to the input index key, error processing is performed in step S27.

If it is determined that there is a candidate, in the next step S28, an instruction as to whether or not to further narrow down from those index cards is input. Then, when a search instruction is input, the process after step S24 is performed in order to execute the search process again while the search has been narrowed down. In this way, when the index cards including the target document are narrowed down to some extent, the contents of those index cards are examined, and when the target document is selected, the step S2 is performed.
At 9, the corresponding document (image) is read, expanded and displayed.

As described above, in an information processing apparatus that manages information in a tree structure, it is possible to directly search and extract information located at the end, so that it is not necessary to know the storage location of target information. , It is possible to easily find the information.

The principle and configuration in the embodiment can be changed within the scope of the claims of the present application. Therefore, the present invention is not limited to this embodiment.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, even when document information is managed in a hierarchical structure, the limitation due to the hierarchical structure is eliminated, and the target document information can be efficiently processed. It is possible to find out well.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electronic filling system in an embodiment, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a concept of data management, FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram showing a data storage state in a storage medium, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of an initial screen relating to information extraction processing in the embodiment. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of an index key input screen for searching for target information using an index card in the embodiment. a) and (b) are views showing a display screen for information registration in the embodiment, FIG. 7 is a flowchart for information registration in the embodiment, and FIG. 8 is a flowchart for information extraction in the embodiment. In the figure, 1 ... CPU, 2 ... Memory, 2a ... Program area, 2b ... Work area, 3 ... Floppy disk, 4 ... Hard disk, 5 ... FD / HD controller, 6 ... Printer, 7: Scanner, 8: S / P interface, 9: SCSI interface, 10: Controller, 11: Magneto-optical disk, 12: Keyboard, 13
… Pointing device, 14… Serial interface, 15… Bit move unit (BMU), 16…
Character font storage unit, 17 VRAM, 18 CRT, 19
Companding unit, 30 ... Index card registration area, 100 ... Bus.

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] An information processing apparatus that manages document information in a plurality of layers, wherein index information that is associated with the document information and characterizes the document information is shared for each piece of document information, regardless of the stored hierarchical position. Storage means for storing the index information stored in the storage means based on the search information input by the predetermined input means, and a search means for displaying a candidate group of the corresponding index information, A control unit that repeats energizing the search unit with the displayed candidate group as a search range when further search information is input after displaying the corresponding candidate group by the search unit; and the search unit. Display means for displaying corresponding document information when a desired candidate is selected from the group of candidates displayed by the information processing apparatus. 2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said document information includes image information. 3. An information processing method for managing document information in a plurality of hierarchies, wherein index information associated with the document information and characterizing the document information is shared for each document information regardless of the stored hierarchical position. A search step of searching the index information stored in the storage step based on the search information input by the predetermined input means, and displaying a corresponding group of index information candidates; A control step of repeating the energization of the search step with the displayed candidate group as a search range when further search information is input after displaying the corresponding candidate group by the search step; and Displaying a corresponding document information when a desired candidate is selected from the group of candidates displayed by the method. 4. The information processing method according to claim 3, wherein said document information includes image information.