JPH09305670A - System for controlling image attribute - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily set and control an attribute required for controlling an image by properly defining the attribute in headquarters when the image generated in the headquarters is distributed to multiple stores over a whole country and displayed. SOLUTION: In the image attribute setting screen of a headquarter system, an image attribute and an attribute by section corresponding to the characteristics of respective sections are set as against image data and image data where the attributes are set is distributed to the respective stores of the respective sections with a distribution system. In the meantime, in the distribution image sight table screen of the headquarter system, which kind of image is distributed in a certain section at present is sight-displayed. In a effective period schedule graph screen, the image held by a certain section is displayed by a bar graph at every month, etc., so that control concerning how the image is actually displayed in the store is easily executed and also control is executed so as to permit image capacitance held by the store not to exceed prescribed quantity.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information service system that distributes and displays images created at the headquarters to a large number of stores nationwide, and particularly, new product information at convenience stores, supermarkets, and other stores. The present invention relates to an image attribute management method suitable for displaying an image of a campaign product guide or the like and utilizing it for sales promotion activities.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of information service system, when various types of information are distributed to various types of terminals, as described in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-256426. Definition of necessary image attributes and its management method, that is, information attributes and information distribution for realizing transmission of information according to a request destination terminal and various terminals when distributing various information such as voice and still image The method is described.

[0003]

However, the above-mentioned conventional technique is effective in the case where the distribution of still images is the only object of the present invention and the image display is made to be useful for sales promotion activities. However, there is a problem that it cannot be applied.

Here, in order to understand what kind of image attributes are necessary for image display as in the present invention, consider a case where an image of new product information is displayed in a store as an example.

When a new product is sold at a supermarket or the like having stores spread all over the country, the product is first sold in a specific area, and the sales situation in that area is confirmed, and then sales are started nationwide. In many cases, this method is used. From this, as the image attributes, first, the store to which the image is distributed,
The effective period of the image display is required.

[0006] Next, depending on the characteristics of the product, which time of the day it is effective to display and what kind of display method is more effective will change. As the image attribute, display information about the display method, display time, etc. is required.

Furthermore, in conjunction with image display, it is effective to present information such as character display by telop and voice commercials in order to improve the effect of sales promotion activities. Therefore, the effect of image display as an image attribute. Additional information is required to improve

As an example, assume that an image of a new product (image of a commercial of chocolate of a new product) is actually displayed in a store, and the attribute of this displayed image is created. It is necessary to create image attributes corresponding to various image displays such as.

That is, (1) In store a, an image is displayed for 30 seconds every 10 minutes in the morning from December 1st to December 10th. I want to display the telop "!" (2)
In store b, from December 11th to December 20th, we want to display images from 0 to 1 minute every hour, and also to display a telop saying "Sell now!" Along with the image display. (3 ) In store c, you want to display images throughout the day (however, if there are other images that you want to display, you want to display them in rotation with those images). It is possible to adopt a display method. These image display schedules and the like are usually managed at the headquarters where the sales promotion department and the like are located. Such management is easy if the number of stores is small, but very large when the number of stores increases. It gets complicated.

Further, when focusing on each store, since the image capacity that each store can hold is limited, the image capacity of the displayed image is also managed by the headquarters which is the data distributor. There is a need.

Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and in an information service system for distributing and displaying images created at the headquarters to a large number of stores spread all over the country, the headquarters is provided. It is an object of the present invention to provide an image attribute management method that can easily set and manage the attributes by appropriately defining the attributes required to manage the images.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an image attribute management system which enables easy management of what schedule an image is actually displayed in a store.

A further object of the present invention is to provide an image attribute management system capable of easily managing a store so that the storage capacity of image data does not exceed a predetermined amount.

[0014]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides an information service system for distributing and displaying images created at the headquarters to a plurality of districts,
There is provided an image attribute management system characterized by setting attributes required for displaying and / or managing the image to the image.

Further, the image attribute management system of the present invention is characterized in that the attribute comprises two types of attributes classified according to the characteristics of the image and the area where the image is distributed.

Further, the image attribute management system of the present invention is characterized in that an attribute is set for the image according to the characteristics of the area where the image is distributed, and the image is managed for each area. .

Further, the image attribute management system of the present invention is characterized in that it is possible to confirm the distribution status of the image by area based on the attribute set according to the characteristics of the area where the image is distributed. And

Furthermore, the image attribute management system of the present invention enables confirmation of the display schedule for each area of the image based on the attribute set according to the characteristics of the area to which the image is distributed. Characterize.

Now, the principle or operation of defining and managing image attributes in the present invention will be described.

(1) When all the attributes required for image display and the attributes required for management are extracted, the image attributes are the store to which the image is delivered, the effective period of the image display (the start date when the image is displayed, and End date), display information about how (and at what time) the image is displayed, additional information (telop, etc.) for adding the image to each store to improve the effect of image display, image capacity, and Other information (management information such as image type classification code required by the user) is required.

Here, as the display information of the image, for example, (i) one for dividing a day into five time zones and designating which time zone and for which seconds are to be displayed (eg: lunch time zone) For 60 seconds each, but in this case, if there are multiple images specified in this way in one time zone, they are rotated and displayed), every (ii) Those that start from a fixed number of minutes and seconds (Example: When specified to be displayed for 60 seconds from 5 minutes every hour, 60 seconds from 0:05, 1:05, 2:05, etc. (24 times a day)) Display)), and (iii) detailed display such as display for hours, minutes, seconds, minutes, etc. can be adopted.

(2) Next, focusing on the stores to which the image shown in (1) is distributed, when the number of stores is small, it is possible to manage the image attributes for each store, but the number of stores As the number of stores increases, it becomes more difficult to manage the attributes of each store. For this reason, in the present invention, stores are managed collectively to some extent, but at that time, since many new products and campaign products have regional characteristics, stores are grouped into predetermined district units. I will manage it.

(3) In addition, the plurality of image attributes shown in (1) are compared with the image in a one-to-one correspondence from the respective characteristics.
2 which is an attribute (A) (hereinafter referred to as "image image attribute") that can be associated with each and an attribute (B) (hereinafter referred to as "attribute by area") that can be associated with each district.
I will classify them into types.

(4) It should be noted that the plurality of image attributes shown in (1) are classified into the two types of image attributes shown in (3) (A: image image attribute, B: regional attribute). And, for example, the store to which the image is distributed (→ B), the effective period of the image display (→ B), the display information (→ A) about how (and at what time) the image is displayed, and each store to be distributed. Additional information (telops, etc.) (→ B), image capacity (→ A), and other information (management information such as image type classification code required by the user) for improving the effect of image display by adding to (→ A).

According to the image attribute management system of the present invention, by appropriately defining the attributes necessary for managing images in the head office as described above, when setting the image attributes in the head office, The image attribute may be created according to the characteristics of the image, and (2) the target area for displaying the image may be determined to create the attribute for each area according to the characteristics of the area. The setting of can be made easy to understand.

Further, according to the image attribute management system of the present invention, since the images are managed for each district, (1) what images are currently held at the store (district unit), (2)
It is possible to easily manage how much image capacity each store (district unit) holds and (3) which images are displayed in what order when focusing on a certain day. it can.

[0027]

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

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of the entire system and the flow of data in the embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 1, the headquarters system includes the image attribute management method of the present invention, and the distribution system stores the data transmitted from the headquarters system in each district (A district, B district, C district,
...) to stores (store a, store b, store c, store d, ...).

Referring to FIG. 1, in the best mode of the image attribute management system of the present invention, predetermined image data (for example, "image image of Hawaii") is displayed on the image attribute setting screen in the head office system. , Image image attribute and each district (A district, B district, C district,…)
And the attribute for each district corresponding to is set, and the image data in which these attributes are set is delivered to each store in each district via the delivery system.

At this time, for example, A to each store in each district
If it is a district, the "image image of Hawaii", "image image attribute of Hawaii" and "attribute by district of A district" are delivered to all stores (store a, store b, ...), and B If it is a district, "Hawaii image image" and "Hawaii image image attribute" for all stores (store c, ...)
And "the attribute of each district of district B" are distributed.

Further, on the distribution image list screen for each district in the headquarters system, as shown in FIG. 5, for example, a list of what images are currently distributed to a certain region is displayed, and the effective period schedule graph screen is displayed. In FIG. 6, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, an image held by a certain area is displayed as a bar graph every month, and further, on the daily schedule graph screen, for example, as shown in FIG. On the day, what kind of image is registered and how it is displayed is displayed. As a result, it is possible to easily manage the status of retained images, the retained image capacity, the display schedule, etc. at each store (district unit).

[0032]

Next, in order to more specifically describe the above-described embodiment of the present invention, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

First, a method of setting an image attribute in the embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing a screen layout (image attribute setting screen) for setting an image attribute in one embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 2, in this image attribute setting screen, the screen is divided into halves, one of the image attributes "image image attribute" is displayed in the upper half, and the other image attributes are displayed in the lower half. The "attribute by district" which is one of the above is displayed.

First, the image image attribute section 1 includes an image file ID section 2, an image image display section 3, an image name section 4, a display setting section 5, a licensed product setting section 12 and a classification name setting section 13.

The image file ID section 2 is a head office system,
Key items (image file ID, “HAWA” in FIG. 2) in each of the distribution system and the store system.
II ″) is displayed. The image file ID itself is directly attached to the image image (JPEG or BMP file, etc.).

The image image display section 3 displays the image file I.
This is a portion for displaying an actual image image corresponding to D.

The image name portion 4 is a portion for giving an image name (“Travel to Hawaii” in FIG. 2) as a name that the user can easily understand when managing the image.

The display setting section 5 is a section for creating display information about how (and at what time) an image is displayed, and includes a time zone setting button 6 and an hourly setting button 7.
And an optional setting button 8.

FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically showing a sheet for making detailed settings displayed by pressing each button of the display setting section 5.

Referring to FIGS. 2 and 3A, when the time zone setting button 6 of the display setting section 5 is pressed, a time zone display sheet 9 for making detailed settings is displayed. In the time zone display sheet 9, the time zone in which the image is desired to be displayed (see FIG.
In (a), designation of “A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, and “E” five time zones) and display time in one display (“20 seconds in FIG. 3A”) )) And enter.

Further, referring to FIGS. 2 and 3B, when the hourly setting button 7 of the display setting unit 5 is pressed, the hourly display sheet 10 for making detailed settings is displayed. On the hourly display sheet 10, the number of minutes of the hourly image (see FIG.
In (b), "5 minutes per hour") and the number of minutes and seconds ("30 seconds" in FIG. 3B) to be displayed are input.

Further, referring to FIGS. 2 and 3C, when the arbitrary setting button 8 of the display setting section 5 is pressed, an arbitrary display sheet 11 for making detailed settings is displayed. On the optional display sheet 11, the image is displayed at which time of the day (“11:00:00” and “11: 1” in FIG.
5 minutes 00 seconds "," 11:30 minutes 00 seconds "), and how many minutes and seconds (" 30 seconds "in Fig. 3 (c)) are displayed.

Referring again to FIG. 2, the license product setting unit 12
Adds information about licensed products (selected from the three items of "liquor", "cigarette", and "non-target" in FIG. 2) so that it can correspond to stores with licenses such as liquor and cigarettes. In this way, by adding the information about the licensed product, it becomes possible to perform control such that the corresponding image cannot be displayed in the store without the license.

The classification name setting unit 13 is a part for defining the characteristics of the image in the form of a classification code and adding it as information (“new product” in FIG. 2) that allows the user to easily manage the image later. .

Next, the area attribute section 20 includes a list display section 21, an area addition button 23, an information correction button 24, an area deletion button 25 and an end button 28.

The list display portion 21 is a portion for displaying the district defined as the image distribution target and its setting information. In FIG. 2, the list display portion 21 indicates the effective period (“19 Tokyo”) corresponding to the target area (“01 Tokyo”, etc.).
95/12/12 ~ 1995/12/15 ", etc.) and telops (" New Year's Hawaii vacation under application "etc.)
Is displayed.

When actually inputting information to the list display section 21, three buttons, that is, an area addition button 23, an information correction button 24 and an area deletion button 25 are used.

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a sheet for making detailed settings displayed by pressing the area addition button 23, the information correction button 24, and the area deletion button 25.

Referring to FIGS. 2 and 4, when the area addition button 23 is pressed, the area selection sheet 26 is displayed. On the area selection sheet 26, the areas where images can be distributed are displayed, and the area to which the image is to be distributed is selected from these areas. When the selection of the area is completed, the information input sheet 27 for inputting the valid period and the telop information is displayed subsequently. When input to the information input sheet 27 is completed,
The newly input information is displayed on the list display unit 21.

When the information correction button 24 is pressed,
The district selection sheet 26 is displayed. Information correction button 24
Is a button for providing a function for correcting the information once set. When the area to be corrected is selected, the information input sheet 27 for inputting the effective period and the telop information is subsequently displayed. When the input to the information input sheet 27 is completed, these corrections are reflected in the list display section 21.

Further, when the area deletion button 25 is pressed, the area selection sheet 26 is displayed. The area deletion button 25 is a button for providing a function for deleting the once set area. When the area to be deleted is selected, the deletion of the area is reflected in the list display section 21.

When the end button 28 is pressed, the attribute setting for the image ends.

Next, a method for confirming what kind of image is distributed for each area in the embodiment of the present invention will be described.

FIG. 5 is a diagram schematically showing a screen layout (distributed image list screen for each district) for confirming the distribution status of images for each district in one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 5, in the distribution image list 30 by district, a list of what images are currently distributed to a certain district (“01 Tokyo” in FIG. 5) is displayed. The area to be displayed can be selected in the target area pull-down 31. In addition, in the distribution image list 30 by district, all the images held for each district including the reservation data (for the previous date) are displayed.

FIG. 6 is a diagram schematically showing a screen layout (valid period schedule graph screen) for confirming the distribution status of images for each district in one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 6A, in the effective period schedule graph 40, images held by a certain area (“01 Tokyo” in FIG. 6) are displayed as a bar graph every month.

The area / year / month displayed in the graph is selected by pressing the setting button 41.
The target year / month setting sheet 42 (FIG. 6B) is used. Further, the previous month button 43 and the next month button 44 can be used to perform horizontal scrolling on a monthly basis. Further, since there are three types of image display methods, the bar graphs are displayed in different colors.

Finally, a method of confirming how an image is displayed in one day at a store (district unit) in the embodiment of the present invention will be described.

FIG. 7 is a diagram schematically showing a screen layout (daily schedule graph screen) for confirming the display status of images in a store (district unit) in one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 7, in the daily schedule graph 50, what kind of image is registered in a certain area (“01 Tokyo” in FIG. 7) on a certain day (“1995/12/10” in FIG. 7). It is displayed and how it is displayed.

The area / date to be displayed in the graph is selected by pressing the setting button 51.
The target date setting sheet 52 (FIG. 7B) is used.

Since there are three types of image display methods, each bar graph is displayed in a different color, and the time zone button 53 and the spot hourly button 54 are displayed.
By switching ON / OFF of the spot arbitrary button 55, it is possible to control whether or not to display each bar graph.

[0062]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since a wide variety of image attributes are classified into image image attributes and district-specific attributes according to their characteristics, what kind of information was set from the data distribution source (headquarters) side, and the data From the side of the distribution destination (store), it is possible to set various image attributes while clarifying the two points of what information is distributed.

Further, according to the present invention, since the attribute for each area is provided as one of the attributes for classifying the images, it is possible to support the selection and sale of a new product or set the telop information having a regional characteristic. It is possible to display images that can be effectively used for sales promotion activities.

Further, according to the present invention, since the attribute for each area is provided as one of the attributes for classifying the images, the setting information of each attribute can be confirmed by using the area as a key, and the store (area unit) can be confirmed. ) Can be easily managed (status of retained images, retained image capacity, display schedule, etc.).

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an entire system and a flow of data according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing a screen layout (image attribute setting screen) for setting an image attribute in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically illustrating a sheet for performing detailed settings displayed by pressing each button of the display setting unit illustrated in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a sheet for performing detailed settings displayed by pressing each button of area addition, information correction, and area deletion shown in FIG.

FIG. 5 is a diagram schematically showing a screen layout (distributed image list screen for each district) for confirming the distribution status of images for each district in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram schematically showing a screen layout (valid period schedule graph screen) for confirming the distribution status of images for each district in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram schematically showing a screen layout (daily schedule graph screen) for confirming a display state of an image in a store in an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 image image attribute section 2 image file ID section 3 image image display section 4 image name section 5 display setting section 6 time zone setting button 7 hourly setting button 8 arbitrary setting button 9 time zone display sheet 10 hourly display sheet 11 arbitrary display sheet 12 License setting section 13 Classification name setting section 20 Attribute section by district 21 List display section 23 Add district button 24 Edit information button 25 Delete district button 26 District selection sheet 27 Information input sheet 28 Finish button 30 Distribution image list by district 31 Target area pulldown 40 Effective period schedule graph 41 Setting button 42 Target area / Target year / month setting sheet 43 Previous month button 44 Next month button 50 Daily schedule graph 51 Setting button 52 Target area / Target date / month setting sheet 53 Time zone button 54 Spot hourly button 55 Spot arbitrary button

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An information service system for distributing an image created at a headquarters to a plurality of districts and displaying the image, wherein an attribute required for displaying and / or managing the image is set for the image. Image attribute management method characterized by. 2. The image attribute management system according to claim 1, wherein the attribute comprises two types of attributes classified according to the characteristics of the image and the area where the image is distributed. 3. The image attribute management according to claim 1, wherein an attribute is set for the image according to a characteristic of a district to which the image is distributed, and the image is managed for each district. method. 4. The image attribute according to claim 3, wherein the distribution status of the image for each area can be confirmed based on the attribute set according to the characteristics of the area where the image is distributed. Management method. 5. The image attribute management method according to claim 4, wherein the distribution status includes an image capacity of the image. 6. The image attribute according to claim 3, wherein the display schedule for each area of the image can be confirmed based on the attribute set according to the characteristics of the area to which the image is distributed. Management method.