JP4905194B2 - Image processing system and digital watermark embedding method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a method of embedding electronic watermark information definitive to the image processing system.

In recent years, with the spread of the Internet, multimedia data such as image data and audio data can be easily obtained and used. On the other hand, as a result of the spread, data that should not be disclosed to the public and data that should be protected may be illegally leaked, which is a problem.
Therefore, a technique for embedding digital watermark information in the above-described image data, audio data, etc., to prevent unauthorized data leakage and to trace the source of the leakage has been developed and used.

The digital watermark is a technique for embedding information such as a system ID and data registration time in the original data as invisible digital watermark information, and extracting the digital watermark information as necessary (Patent Document 1, Patent Document 2).
By applying this digital watermark technology, it is possible to embed and detect information such as who downloaded on which system and when in the data. As a result, if the data leaks illegally, the source of the leak is tracked. Is possible.

JP 2006-121460 A JP 2003-174550 A

  However, for example, when a producer of an electronic catalog or Web content downloads and uses an image by a regular route, if the image size is changed after downloading, the digital watermark information embedded in the image is lost. May end up. For this reason, there is a problem that when an image used by changing the size is further used secondarily and leaked illegally, the source of the leak cannot be specified accurately, and the effect of the digital watermark is impaired.

The present invention has been made in view of the problems mentioned above, that the aim is to provide a properly capable of embedding digital watermark information, the image processing system and an electronic watermark embedding Way Method to an image of a desired size It is.

In order to achieve the above object, a first invention is an image processing comprising an image management server having an image database storing image data, and a client computer accessible to the image management server via a network. In the system, the image management server includes a size designation unit that designates a display size of the image data before the image data is downloaded to the client computer, and a display size designated by the size designation unit. Image size changing means for enlarging or reducing the image data, and at least server identification information, download time information, and identification of the client computer requesting the download for the image data enlarged or reduced by the image size changing means electricity, including information An electronic watermark embedding means for embedding the watermark information, an image processing system, characterized in that it comprises a.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided the image management server of an image processing system comprising: an image management server having an image database storing image data; and a client computer accessible to the image management server via a network. A digital watermark embedding method performed in step (b), in which a size designation step for designating a display size of the image data before downloading the image data to the client computer, and a display size designated by the size designation means the image size changing step of enlarging or reducing the image data, the image resizing least server identification information to the enlarged or reduced image data in step, download time information, identification of the client computer requesting the download An electronic watermark embedding step of embedding the electronic watermark information containing information, a digital watermark embedding method, characterized in that it comprises a.

The present invention makes it possible to provide an image processing system and an electronic watermark embedding how methods that can properly embed the digital watermark information into the image of a desired size.

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

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an overall outline of an image processing system 1 according to the present embodiment.
As shown in FIG. 1, the image processing system 1 includes a server 2 having an image database 29 and a plurality of client computers 3, 3,.

  The server 2 stores and manages the registered image data in the image database 29. The server 2 distributes the image data stored in the image database 29 via the network 4 in response to a request from the client computer 3. At that time, the server 2 performs processing for embedding digital watermark information in the image data (details will be described later).

  The client computer 3 can communicate with the server 2 and upload or download images. Various processes such as catalog production and web content production using the images downloaded from the server 2 can be performed. It is a computer that can perform.

  The network 4 is an intranet of a company or the like that manages images, but may be configured by the Internet using a general public line.

FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram of a computer that implements the server 2.
The server 2 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 21, a ROM (Read Only Memory) 22, a RAM 23 (Random Access Memory), a storage unit 24, an input unit 25, a display unit 26, a communication control unit 27, and the like via a bus 28. Connected.

The CPU 21 calls a program stored in the storage unit 24, the ROM 22, a recording medium or the like to a work memory area on the RAM 23 and executes it, and drives and controls each device connected via the bus 28, which is described later by the server 2. To realize the processing (see FIG. 6).
The ROM 22 is a non-volatile memory and permanently holds a computer boot program, a program such as a BIOS, data, and the like.
The RAM 23 is a volatile memory, and temporarily stores a program, data, and the like loaded from the storage unit 24, the ROM 22, a recording medium, and the like, and includes a work area used by the CPU 21 to perform various processes.

The storage unit 24 is an HDD (Hard Disk Drive), and stores a program executed by the CPU 21, data necessary for program execution, an OS (Operating System), and the like. As for the program, a control program corresponding to the OS and an application program corresponding to processing to be described later are stored.
Each of these program codes is read by the CPU 21 as necessary, transferred to the RAM 23, and executed as various means.

The input unit 25 inputs data and includes, for example, a keyboard, a pointing device such as a mouse, and an input device such as a numeric keypad.
An operation instruction, an operation instruction, data input, and the like can be performed on the computer via the input unit 25.

  The display unit 26 includes a display device such as a CRT monitor and a liquid crystal panel, and a logic circuit (a video adapter or the like) for realizing a video function of a computer in cooperation with the display device.

  The communication control unit 27 has a communication control device, a communication port, and the like, is a communication interface that mediates communication between the computer and the network 4, and controls communication with other computers via the network 4.

  The bus 28 is a path that mediates transmission / reception of control signals, data signals, and the like between the devices.

Next, a memory area formed in the RAM 23 of the server 2 will be described with reference to FIG.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a memory area formed in the RAM 23 of the server 2.

  As shown in FIG. 3, in the RAM 23 of the server 2, an image data memory 231, an image size data memory 232, a digital watermark information memory 233, and the like are formed in the later-described processing (see FIG. 6) executed at the time of image download. Is done.

  The image data memory 231 is a memory area for storing image data to be processed. The image size data memory 232 is a memory area for storing image size data designated by the client computer 3. The digital watermark information memory 233 is a memory area for storing digital watermark information to be embedded in image data. The digital watermark information includes any one of system ID, which is identification information of the server 2, image data registration date, download time information, identification information of the client computer 3 (or user) requesting download.

Next, functions of the server 2 will be described with reference to FIG.
FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of the server 2.
As shown in FIG. 4, the server 2 includes an image data registration unit 211, an image size designation unit 212, an image size change unit 213, a digital watermark embedding unit 214, and an image download unit 215.

  The image data registration unit 211 acquires image data for which registration is instructed or image data uploaded from the client computer 3, and accumulates and stores it in the image database 29. At that time, detailed information such as the registration date of the image data, the registered system ID of the server 2, the size of the image data, the file name, and the type of the image data is also stored and managed.

  The image size designating unit 212 is a user interface for designating an image size before downloading when there is a request for downloading image data from the client computer 3. That is, the data of the image size designation screen 262 (see FIG. 5A) is transmitted to the client computer 3 that is the download request source. When the image size data input to the image size designation screen 262 is received, the image size data is stored in the image size data memory 232 of the RAM 23.

  The image size changing unit 213 enlarges or reduces the image data to a specified size.

  The digital watermark embedding unit 214 embeds the digital watermark information set in the digital watermark information memory 233 of the RAM 23 in the image whose size has been changed by the image size changing unit 213. As a digital watermark information embedding technique, for example, a pixel space utilization method, a frequency domain utilization method, or other methods may be used, and any technique may be used as long as it is suitable for data to be embedded.

  The image download unit 215 downloads the image data, the size of which has been changed by the image size changing unit 213 and the electronic watermark information embedded by the digital watermark embedding unit 214, to the client computer 3 that is the download request source.

  Next, with reference to FIG. 5 and FIG. 6, an operation of processing executed at the time of downloading in the server 2 will be described.

FIG. 5 is an example of a display screen displayed on the display unit of the client computer 3.
FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a procedure of processing performed when the server 2 downloads image data to the client computer 3.

  Here, a program for realizing each function described in this flowchart is stored in the ROM 22 or the storage unit 24 of the server 2 in the form of a readable program code, and the CPU 21 follows the program code. Perform operations sequentially.

Further, it is assumed that the image database 29 of the server 2 stores a plurality of image data and detailed information of the image data.
In addition, in order for the client computer 3 to download image data, it is assumed that the client computer 3 performs a predetermined operation on the side of the client computer 3 and is connected to the server 2 to log in.

With the client computer 3 logged in, the server 2 transmits the display data of the image selection screen 261 shown in FIG. An image selection screen 261 is displayed on the display unit of the client computer 3.
A plurality of selected images 261a and their file names 261b are displayed on the image selection screen 261, and an image can be selected by clicking on the image or file name.

  When the user of the client computer 3 selects a desired image on the image selection screen 261 and the server 2 receives the download request (step S11 in FIG. 6), the server 2 displays the image data and detailed information of the selected image. The data is read from the image database 29 and stored in the image data memory 231 of the RAM 23 (step S12). In addition, the display data of the image size designation screen 262 is transmitted to the client computer 3 together with the requested image data and detailed information (step S13).

An example of the image size designation screen 262 is shown in FIG.
In addition to the selected image 262a and its detailed information 262b, an image display size input frame 262c is displayed on the image size designation screen 262. As the input frame 262c, a numerical value input frame for inputting the number of vertical and horizontal pixels of the image is prepared.
When a desired display size of an image is input on the image size designation screen 262, a download button 262d is displayed as shown in FIG.

  When the download button 262d is clicked by a user operation, the client computer 3 transmits size data input to the input frame 262c to the server 2.

  When the server 2 receives the size data from the client computer 3 (step S14), the image data stored in the image data memory 231 of the RAM 23 is enlarged or reduced in accordance with the received size data (step S15). Furthermore, processing for embedding digital watermark information including the system ID of the server 2, registration time information of the image data, download time information, identification information of the client computer 3 that requested the download, etc., into the image data whose size has been changed Is performed (step S16).

  Thereafter, the server 2 transmits the image data in which the digital watermark information is embedded in step S16 to the client computer 3 (step S17).

  The client computer 3 receives the image data in which the digital watermark information is embedded in the size designated on the image size designation screen 262 in FIG. The received image does not need to be changed in size when used for catalog production or web content editing processing, and can be used in a state in which digital watermark information is appropriately held.

As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, before downloading image data, a desired display size is specified, and after changing the image size to that size, the digital watermark information is embedded, After that, downloading can be performed.
Therefore, the client computer 3 can download and use an image appropriately holding digital watermark information in a desired size.

In the above-described embodiment, the image data is not limited to a still image, and may be applied to a moving image.
In addition, although the example in which the size of the image is designated by the number of pixels is shown, the present invention is not limited to this and may be designated in units of millimeters.
In addition, the display screen example illustrated in FIG. 5 is merely an example, and the arrangement of images, the content of detailed information, and the like are not limited thereto.
In the above-described operation example, one image is selected, and the size of the image is designated and downloaded. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, a plurality of image data are selected at a time and each image is selected. The data size may be specified individually or collectively. In this case, the server 2 changes each image data to a specified size, embeds digital watermark information in each image whose size has been changed, and downloads it to the client computer 3.

  In the above-described embodiment, the server 2 is used in communication connection with the client computer 3. However, the server 2 may be applied when performing local processing in the server 2. That is, when image data is stored in an external storage medium such as a storage medium, processing such as specifying the size of the image, changing the size, and embedding digital watermark information in the resized image before writing to the storage medium May be performed.

  The preferred embodiments of the image processing system and the like according to the present invention have been described above with reference to the accompanying drawings, but the present invention is not limited to such examples. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes or modifications can be conceived within the scope of the technical idea disclosed in the present application, and these naturally belong to the technical scope of the present invention. Understood.

The figure which shows the whole outline | summary of the image processing system 1 which concerns on this Embodiment. Hardware configuration diagram of computer realizing server 2 The figure which shows the memory area formed in RAM23 of the server 2 Functional block diagram of server 2 Example of display screen displayed on display unit of client computer 3 A flowchart showing a procedure of processing performed when the server 2 downloads image data to the client computer 3.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Image processing system 2 ... Server 3 ... Client computer 4 ... Network 29 ... Image database 211 ... Image data registration means 212... Image size designation means 213... Image size change means 214... Digital watermark embedding means 215. Size specification screen

Claims (2)

An image processing system comprising an image management server having an image database storing image data, and a client computer accessible to the image management server via a network,
The image management server
Before the image data is downloaded to the client computer, size designation means for designating a display size of the image data;
Image size changing means for enlarging or reducing the image data to the display size specified by the size specifying means;
A digital watermark embedding unit that embeds digital watermark information including at least server identification information, download time information, and identification information of a client computer requesting download for the image data enlarged or reduced by the image size changing unit;
An image processing system comprising: An electronic watermark embedding method performed by the image management server of an image processing system comprising an image management server having an image database storing image data and a client computer accessible to the image management server via a network There,
A size designation step for designating a display size of the image data before downloading the image data to the client computer;
An image size changing step for enlarging or reducing the image data to the display size specified by the size specifying means;
A digital watermark embedding step for embedding digital watermark information including at least server identification information, download time information, and identification information of a client computer requesting download for the image data enlarged or reduced in the image size changing step;
An electronic watermark embedding method comprising:

Images