JPH0535801A - Image storing and retrieving device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To retrieve by character or line even for an image information. CONSTITUTION:A CPU 34 operates an optical disk device 20 or a scanner device 18. The CPU 34 reads the image information out of the optical disk device 20, the scanner device 18 scans the image of the set documents or the like two-dimensionally and photoelectrically converts the image, takes out the image information, and stores them in a page memory 40 in order. The image information stored in the page memory 40 is stored in a display memory 42 and displayed on a CRT display device 24 as image. By consecutively performing the character recognition of the image displayed on the CRT display device 24 in a character recognition part 39, a word (character) instructed for retrieval through a keyboard 23 can be searched for character by the CPU 34.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to the registration of images,
The present invention relates to an image storage / retrieval device such as an image filing device for performing retrieval.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, an image such as a large amount of documents is read by a scanner (two-dimensional scanning device), the read image is stored in an optical disk, and any stored image is searched and read out. Output it to an output device, eg C
2. Description of the Related Art An image filing device which outputs an RT display device or a recording device in a visible state has been put into practical use.

In such an apparatus, a title is added to the image information registered on the optical disk, for example, in document units. The search for such image information is performed for each document or page by title or keyword. However, a search for each character or each line cannot be executed because it is image information.

[0004]

As described above, in the conventional image filing apparatus, there is a problem that a character-by-character or line-by-line search cannot be executed because it is image information. Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an image storage / retrieval device capable of performing a character-by-character or line-by-line search even for image information.

[0005]

An image storage / retrieval device of the present invention includes an image reading unit for reading image information, a display unit for displaying the image information read by the image reading unit, and a display unit for displaying the image information. A character recognizing means for recognizing the characters of the existing image, an input means for inputting the character to be searched, and a searching means for searching the character of the image recognized by the character recognizing means for the character input by the input means. is doing.

[0006]

According to the present invention, by displaying the image information read by the image reading means, recognizing the characters of the displayed image, and inputting the character for searching the recognized character from the image, It allows you to search character by character or line by line.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an example of the structure of an image storage / retrieval apparatus of the present invention, for example, an electronic filing apparatus.
That is, the electronic filing device includes the control module 1
0, memory module 12, image processing module 14,
Communication control module 16, scanner device 18, optical disk 19 and optical disk device 20, keyboard 23, C
RT display device 24, printer device 25, magnetic disk 26 and magnetic disk device 27, mouse 29,
System bus 30, image bus 32, and character recognition unit 3
It is composed of 9.

The control module 10 includes a CPU 34 that performs various controls for image storage, retrieval, edit processing, and the like.
And the optical disk device 20, the magnetic disk device 27 and C
The interface circuit 36 connects the PU 34. A keyboard 23 and a mouse 29 are connected to the CPU 34.

The memory module 12 includes a main memory 38 for storing various control programs for image storage, retrieval, editing, etc., management information, etc., a character recognition section 39 for recognizing image characters, and several pages of A4 size originals. A page memory 40 as an image memory having a storage capacity corresponding to an image,
It is composed of a display memory 42 as a display interface, a display controller 44, and the like. A buffer memory area 40a is provided in a part of the page memory 40. The page memory 40 is, for example, the optical disc 19
The memory is a memory for temporarily storing the image stored in the optical disc 19 and the image read from the optical disc 19.

The display memory 42 is for temporarily storing an image displayed by the CRT display device 24. In the display memory 42, an image actually displayed in the display window of the CRT display device 24, for example, an image from the page memory 40 or an image from the buffer memory 40a is enlarged, reduced, rotated, inserted or inserted. An image subjected to black-and-white reversal or the like is stored. The display control unit 44 controls the display processing of the CRT display device 24 and the like.

The image processing module 14 includes an enlarging / reducing circuit 46 for enlarging and reducing an image, a vertical / horizontal converting circuit 48 for rotating an image, and an encoding process for compressing an image (reducing redundancy). A compression / decompression circuit (CODEC) 50 for performing a decoding process for applying and decompressing (recovering reduced redundancy), a scanner interface 52 for the scanner device 18, a printer interface 54 for the printer device 25, and scaling. The internal bus 56 connects the circuit 46 and the vertical / horizontal conversion circuit 48, the compression / expansion circuit 50, the scanner interface 52, and the printer interface 54. The compression / decompression circuit 50 uses the MH (Modified Huffman) method, the MR (Modified Read) method, or the like to perform band compression,
Alternatively, band expansion is performed.

The communication control module 16 is composed of a communication interface 58 such as a BCP (Bus Communication Processor) connected to a local area network (Local Area Network). Further, the communication control module 16 is connected to an external device such as an FCP (facsimile connection mechanism) or a personal computer through an interface, and a UCP (Universal Communication Process).
r) may be provided.

The system bus 30 is a bus for control signals of various devices, and connects the control module 10 with the memory module 12, the image processing module 14, and the communication control module 16. The image bus 32 is an image bus, and connects the memory module 12, the image processing module 14, and the communication control module 16.

The scanner device 18 is, for example, a two-dimensional scanning device and obtains an electric signal corresponding to an image on the original by scanning the original (document) two-dimensionally with a laser beam.

The optical disk device 20 includes a scanner device 18
The images read in step 1 are sequentially stored in the optical disc 19. The optical disc 19 is searched for an image corresponding to the search code designated by the keyboard 23 or the like.

The keyboard 23 is used to input a unique search code corresponding to an image stored in the optical disk 19 and various operation commands for storage, search, edit processing and the like. In addition, the mouse 29 moves a cursor (not shown) displayed on the display window of the CRT display device 24, for example, vertically and horizontally, and gives an instruction at a desired position so that the cursor is positioned. The display contents (various operation modes, title or area designation or icon for image editing, etc.) are selected or designated.

The CRT display device (cathode ray tube display device) 24 displays an image read by the scanner device 18 and an image retrieved from the optical disk 19. Icons and the like are displayed at the upper end, the lower end, and the right end on the display window of the CRT display device 24.

The printer device 25 prints out (hard copy) the image read by the scanner device 18, the image retrieved from the optical disk 19 or the image displayed on the CRT display device 24.

The magnetic disk device 27 stores various control programs on the magnetic disk 26 mounted on the magnetic disk device 27, and also stores a search code input from the keyboard 23 and an image corresponding to the search code. It stores search data (search information) including a storage address on the optical disk 19, an image size, a search frequency, and the like.

The search data is managed by a document management table, which is a title management table 26a, as shown in FIG.
Page management table 26b and record management table 2
6c. The title management table 26a stores one document number corresponding to each search code (image name) composed of a plurality of search keys. In the page management table 26b, record numbers are stored page by page of one document, and one record number is stored corresponding to each page. The record management table 26c stores, for each record number, a storage address (storage start position) of an image on the optical disc 19, a document size (image size), image attributes such as compression method and resolution, and a search frequency (access frequency). Has been done. The storage address is a logical address, and a physical track address and a physical sector address are calculated from this at the time of access.

The character recognizing unit 39 performs character recognition on the dot image data of the image, converts it into a character code, and outputs it. For example, one line unit of the image data stored in the page memory 40 is taken out and recognized for each character. As a result, the character code for search when the character search is performed is output.

Next, the operation of image storage and retrieval processing in the electronic filing apparatus having such a configuration will be described. First, regarding the image storage processing, FIG.
This will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

For example, the keyboard 23 is now selected and set in the registration mode. Next, the original is set on the scanner device 18, and the CPU 34 operates the optical disc device 20 and the scanner device 18. The scanner device 18 two-dimensionally scans and photoelectrically converts an image of a set document or the like. The line information of the photoelectrically converted image is sequentially stored in the page memory 40. The image stored in the page memory 40 is stored in the display memory 42, and the display memory 4
The stored contents of No. 2 are displayed on the CRT display device 24 by the display control unit 44.

Next, the search code (title, keyword, etc.) of the image stored in the optical disk 19 is input. This search code is composed of a plurality of search keys, and the contents of the items of this search key are set in advance.

The CPU 34 checks the validity of the input search code in accordance with a predefined format, and compares it with the search code registered on the optical disk 19 to check the double registration.
The input search code is stored in the main memory 38 according to the result of this check.

When the displayed image is satisfactory, a memory key (not shown) is entered. Then the CPU
34 is a compression / decompression circuit (CODEC) 50 for each line information of the image stored in the page memory 40,
Coding processing is performed by band compression using a well-known MR (Modified Read) method or the like. The encoded image is supplied to the optical disc device 20 and stored in the optical disc 19.

When the storage of the image on the optical disk 19 is completed, the CPU 34 makes the logical address determined from the physical track address and the physical sector address where the image is stored,
The image length represented by the block length, the image attribute, etc. are stored in the main memory 38 in association with the search code. Then, the CPU 34 supplies the search data stored in the main memory 38 to the magnetic disk device 27. As a result, the magnetic disk device 27 stores the supplied search data in the respective tables 26a to 26c in the magnetic disk 26.

Next, the search processing of the image stored in the optical disk 19 will be described. First, the search mode is set by the keyboard 23, and the search code corresponding to the image to be searched is input. The CPU 34 sequentially compares and collates the input search code with the search code stored in the title management table 26a of the magnetic disk 26, and sequentially checks whether or not the search code that matches the input search code is stored. Then pull out the applicable document number. As a result, the CPU 34 stores the extracted candidate document numbers in the main memory 38.

Then, the CPU 34 refers to the candidate document numbers in the main memory 38, creates a list (search code) of the relevant documents with the data read from the title management table 26a, and uses the CRT display device 24. To display. With this display, if the document for which the operator is to be searched cannot be found, the search code is input again. If found, the image to be searched is specified from the list (specified by the document number, etc.) and the search execution is instructed.

The CPU 34 assigns the record number corresponding to the designated image to the page management table 26b of the magnetic disk 26.
, A logical address corresponding to the read record number is read from the record management table 26c in the magnetic disk 26, and a physical track address and a physical sector address corresponding to this address are calculated,
An image including the search code from the optical disc 19 is reproduced by the optical disc device 20 using these addresses.

The CPU 34 also supplies the image (compression information) for each scanning line supplied from the optical disk device 20 to the compression / expansion circuit 50, performs band expansion processing, and sequentially supplies the page memory 40. The image stored in the page memory 40 is reduced by the enlargement / reduction circuit 46 and output to the display memory 42, and the image is stored in the display memory 42. Therefore, the display control unit 44 controls the display memory 4
The stored contents of No. 2 are displayed on the CRT display device 24.

As described above, in the ordinary search, the document to be searched is read by the search code that is input in advance. However, for example, a character-by-character or line-by-line search cannot be performed because it is image information. I was there.

A search using the character recognition unit 39 will be described as an embodiment of the present invention. That is,
For example, the document read from the optical disk device 20 by the CPU 34 is stored in the display memory 42, and a part of the document is displayed on the CRT display device 24 by the display control unit 44. A character search (search) is set for this document using the keyboard 23, and a word to be searched is designated. The character recognition unit 39 recognizes the characters of the display image, and the CPU 34 compares and collates the characters (character codes) sequentially recognized by the character recognition unit 39 with the characters (character code) of the word designated for retrieval. It is sequentially checked whether they match. In this way, when the character search is instructed, the page and the page following the page are sequentially searched. When designating the word to be searched, the guidance as shown in FIG. 4A is displayed on the CRT display device 24.
Is displayed. As a result, as shown in FIG. 4B, it is possible to search for a predetermined word that spans a plurality of pages. Alternatively, a type of character search may be provided, and the document unit or page unit may be designated first.

As described above, according to the above-mentioned embodiment, since the information is image information, even if the character search cannot be performed, the character search can be performed by recognizing the character. Such a character search helps search.

Further, in the present invention, the full spelling of the word to be searched is inputted, but a wild card (partial characters: OO ** even if the full spelling is unknown)
You may input with.

[0037]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide an image storage / retrieval device that can retrieve character by character or line by line even for image information.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing a configuration of an image filing device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a storage example of a document management table.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining a recording operation.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a character search.

[Explanation of symbols]

18 ... Scanner device, 19 ... Optical disc, 20 ... Optical disc device, 23 ... Keyboard, 24 ... CRT display device, 25 ... Printer device, 26 ... Magnetic disc, 2
6a ... Title management table, 26b ... Page management table, 26c ... Record management table, 27 ... Magnetic disk device, 34 ... CPU, 38 ... Main memory, 39 ... Character recognition unit, 40 ... Page memory, 40a ... Buffer memory, 42 ... Display memory, 44 ... Display control unit, 46 ... Enlargement / reduction circuit, 50 ... Compression / expansion circuit.

Claims (1)

Claim: What is claimed is: 1. An image reading unit for reading image information, a display unit for displaying the image information read by the image reading unit, and a character of an image displayed on the display unit. A character recognition means; an input means for inputting a character to be searched; and a search means for searching a character input by the input means for a character of an image recognized by the character recognition means. Image memory retrieval device.