JPH11161674A - Device and method for displaying image file and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a device and method for image file display which can handle image files uniformly independently of the layer of a file system without specially generating management data and which enables a user to display at target image file through easy operation. SOLUTION: This device consists of an image input device 1, a storage device 2 which stores image data and programs, an image processor 3 as a systems main body, a command input device 4, an image display 5, and an image output device 6. The image processor 3 is equipped with a retrieval object decision means 3a which extracts a file name by retrieving a corresponding specific character string included in a part of the file name of an image file other than its extension as to all image files in the file system, a list display means 3b which lists and displays file names extracted by the retrieval object decision means 3a, and an index image generating means 3c which enlarges or reduces the image files having listed file names to a specific size and displays index images to be shown to the user.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to editing and printing and storing image data input by a digital camera, a scanner or the like by photographing, video capturing or the like, or displaying the data on a homepage and displaying it on the Internet or the like. The present invention relates to an image file display device and an image file display method for searching and displaying an image file as a material for performing various editing and processing on image data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when a target image file is taken out in an image editing system or the like, folders in a recording device in which the image file is recorded are hierarchically displayed on a screen, and a user can select a target image file. Generally, a method of designating a certain hierarchy (folder) of a file, displaying a file name in the hierarchy, and designating a desired file is adopted.

[0003] Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-63486 discloses a method in which data for image file management is separately created and search is performed efficiently in order to facilitate management of a large number of image data. .

[0004]

In order to retrieve a desired image file by a conventional method, a user must select a desired image file in any hierarchy (folder) of the file system.
Need to know in advance, and if you forget which layer you are in, you have to switch between layers in order to retrieve the desired image, and you have to go through many operation procedures was there.

[0005] In particular, recently, digital cameras and scanners,
As a result of inputting image data by various means, such as the Internet or a CD-ROM, the image data is scattered in the storage device, and the user himself often cannot know in which hierarchy the image data is stored. In this case, many operations and time are required to retrieve a target image file.

[0006] Further, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-63486, in the method of creating data for image file management, an image file is always created, changed, deleted, or changed in a file system. The data for management must be updated, and an operation procedure for that is required. In addition, knowledge for management is required, which is difficult for general users to use.

[0007] Further, in a conventionally used image editing system, the operability is improved by a GUI in terms of functions such as image arrangement and processing, whereas the selection of an image file is described above. Since the file design method according to the prior art is employed, the operability is not consistent, and it is difficult to use for ordinary users who are not familiar with the file system.

[0008] In view of the above, according to the present invention, an image file can be handled in a unified manner regardless of the file system hierarchy without separately creating management data. It is an object to provide an image file display device and an image file display method capable of displaying a file.

[0009]

Means for achieving the above object are to provide the following image file display device, image file display method and recording medium.

[0010] 1. What is claimed is: 1. An image file display device for searching for and displaying an image file stored in a storage device, wherein a predetermined character string included in a part other than an extension of a file name of the image file is searched for a corresponding file name. Search list determining means for extracting a file name extracted by the search target determining means, a list display means for displaying a list of the file names extracted by the search target determining means, and expanding or reducing an image file having the list-displayed file name to a predetermined size. An image display device comprising: an index image creating means for displaying.

[0011] 2. What is claimed is: 1. An image file display method for searching for and displaying an image file stored in a file system, wherein a predetermined character string included in a part other than an extension of a file name of the image file is searched for a corresponding file name. Extracting and displaying a list, and displaying an image file having a selected file name by enlarging or reducing the image file to a predetermined size.

[0012] 3. A storage medium storing a program for searching for and displaying an image file stored in a file system, and searching for a predetermined character string included in a part other than the file name extension of the image file. A recording medium storing a program for extracting a corresponding file name, displaying a list, and enlarging or reducing an image file having the selected file name to a predetermined size.

[0013] 4. 2. A recording medium on which an image file displayed by the image display device according to 1 above is recorded.

[0014]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The object of the present invention is to search, display and retrieve an image file by a simple operation.
When creating an image file, a certain character string is added to the file name. When searching, files matching this character string are searched for all levels of the file system, the results are displayed in a list format, and the file selected from this list Alternatively, by displaying the contents of all files in an index image format, it is possible to search for a target image file without being aware of the file system hierarchy.

[0015] To this end, for all image files in the file system, a predetermined character string included in a part other than the extension of the file name of the image file is searched to extract a corresponding file name. Means, a list display means for displaying a list of the file names extracted by the search target determining means, and an index image for user presentation by enlarging or reducing the image file having the list-displayed file name to a predetermined size. And an index image creating means for displaying the index image.

[0016]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing a configuration example of an image editing system which is an embodiment of the image file display device of the present invention. The image editing system shown in FIG. 1 includes an image input device 1 such as a video camera or a digital camera connected via a scanner, a video capture, a storage device 2 for storing image data and programs, a search target determination unit 3a and a list. An image processing apparatus 3 which is a main body of a system including a display unit 3b and an index image creation unit 3c;
A command input device 4 such as a keyboard, an image display device 5 such as a monitor, and an image output device 6 such as a printer or a communication line.
It is composed of Note that the image display device 5, a video camera, a digital camera, or the like connected via a video capture is also used as the image output device 6, and the communication line is sometimes used as the image input device 1.

These components are mainly realized by a personal computer main body and its peripheral devices, and an application program installed and operated on the personal computer. Therefore, the present invention includes a case where an application program for implementing the image file display method of the present invention is provided via a recording medium such as a CD-ROM or a communication line.

Next, the procedure of an image file search in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

[0020] Image input device 1 such as a digital camera and a scanner
Is temporarily stored in the storage device 2. The storage device 2 may use a recording medium such as a photo CD or a CD-R other than a hard disk. The input of the image data is performed using an application program having the contents described in the present application or a tool unique to the input device (step 1).
1).

When inputting using an application program, the image file is stored in a file hierarchy (folder) specified by the application program, a work file hierarchy, or a file hierarchy specified by the user. A predetermined character string (for example, yagi) is automatically added to the head and stored in the storage device 2.

When inputting using an input device-specific tool, the image file is stored in a file hierarchy specified by the input tool or a working file hierarchy at that time, and is determined by a file name unique to the input device or by a user. The file name is saved.

In this case, the user must change the input image file to a file name obtained by adding a predetermined character string (for example, yagi) to the file name of the image to be used in the image editing system (step 12). ). Of course, if the user decides the file name at the stage of inputting the image, the image may be saved with a file name according to this rule.

When the file name is changed, it is performed as follows.

For example, when a character string yagi is added to the beginning of a file name, as shown in FIG. 3, when an image input by a digital camera is stored in a certain hierarchy A of a file system, an input tool of the digital camera is used. If the specified file name is, for example, Dsc0001. jpg to Dsc00
10. jp, the file names are respectively yagi0001. jpg to yagi0010. jpg
Or yagiDsc0001. jpg to yagiD
sc0010. jpg.

Similarly, when an image input by another input tool is stored in a different layer B from the image file input by the digital camera, the file names of the image files are respectively Scn0001. jpg to Scn
0004. jpg, these are yagi000
1. jpg to yagi0004. jpg or yagi
Scn0001. jpg to yagiScn0004. j
pg. (FIG. 3). Note that the. j
pg is an extension indicating that the image file is stored in the data format of the JPEG format. In general, image editing systems handle image files in a plurality of file formats. bmp and.
Image files having an extension indicating another format such as tif can also be searched for by adding yagi at the beginning of the file name.

As a result of changing the file name in this way, image files starting with yagi exist on the file system in, for example, two layers as shown in FIG. Here, the file name yagi0001. jpg to yagi
0004. jpg has the same file name, but it does not matter at all if it is in a different hierarchy.

In this way, the image editing system is started with the image file stored in the storage device 2 (step 13).

When the image editing system is started, an operation screen as shown in FIG. 5 is displayed. When a button (icon) 21 having a file extracting function is selected on this screen, a file extracting screen as shown in FIG. 6 is displayed. Then, when the search button 22 is selected, the file names of all the files stored in the storage device 2 (file system) are checked by the search target determination means 3a, and the files that match the rules, in this example, yagi
Display means 3 for files with file names beginning with
The image is displayed on the image display device 5 as a list according to b (step 14).

FIG. 7 shows a display example of the file list. If there is no file name beginning with yagi other than the two file hierarchies A and B, the file name yagi0001. jp
g to yagi0010. jpg, yagi0001. j
pg to yagi0004. jpg is displayed together with the file creation date. At this time, the hierarchy of the file is not displayed, and the user is presented with only the file name and the creation date and time as a flat structure. Screen 23
A desired image can be selected from the file name list displayed in. When an arbitrary file name is selected on the image file list screen 23 in order to know the contents of the image file, the index image creating means 3c causes the index image 24 obtained by reducing the selected image file to a certain size. Is created and displayed in the same screen (left side of the image file list screen 23 in the figure),
After checking the contents by looking at this index image 24,
Image copy button 25 when desired image is displayed
By pressing, a desired image can be selected. The index image creation means 3c
The index image 24 can be created by a general image reduction / enlargement processing procedure because the outline of the image can be understood even if the image is somewhat coarse.

In this example, yagi0001. jpg
~ Yagi0004. Because jpg exists in two file hierarchies, it is also duplicated on the image file list screen 23, but by displaying it on the index image 24,
It becomes possible to select a target image.

As described above, when the copy button 25 is pressed after confirming the contents of the image with the index image 24, the image file is copied to the work area, and the image editing work can be performed.

FIG. 8 shows an example of an image file list screen retrieved according to the above procedure and taken out to the work area. here,
All index images selected by the copy button 25 on the file list display screen are displayed. The user can select a target image on the image file list screen without being conscious of the file name, thereby improving the operability of the system.

In the above embodiment, the character string yagi is added to the beginning of the file name, but the end of the file name (before the extension)
And the number and type of character strings can be set arbitrarily.

[0035]

As apparent from the above description, in the image file display apparatus and the image file display method of the present invention, the user simply adds a file name in accordance with the rules, and the file is located at any level. It is possible to retrieve the target image file without having to remember the information or search each layer in the file system.

Further, since an image file can be searched by simply pressing one operation button, the operability of the image editing process can be made consistent and a more user-friendly system can be realized.

Further, the recording medium of the present invention has an effect that the above-described image file display device can be provided by being installed in a personal computer.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an embodiment of an image file display device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an image file display method according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of changing a file name of an image file.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for describing an example of a storage state of an image file on an image file.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of an operation screen of the image display device.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of an operation screen of the image display device.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a screen example of an image file search result of the image display device.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a display example of a list of image files on the image display device.

[Description of Signs] 1 Image input device 2 Storage device 3 Image processing device 3a Search target determination means 3b List display means 3c Index image creation means 4 Command input device 5 Image display device 6 Image output device

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An image file display device for searching for and displaying an image file stored in a storage device, and searching for a predetermined character string included in a part other than an extension of a file name of the image file. Search target determining means for extracting a corresponding file name, a list display means for displaying a list of the file names extracted by the search target determining means, and an image file having the file name displayed in the list in a predetermined size. An image display device comprising: an index image creating means for displaying an enlarged or reduced image. 2. An image file display method for searching for and displaying an image file stored in a file system, wherein a predetermined character string included in a part other than an extension of a file name of the image file is searched for. An image file having the selected file name is displayed by enlarging or reducing the image file having the selected file name to a predetermined size. 3. A recording medium on which a program for searching for and displaying an image file stored in a file system is recorded, wherein a predetermined name included in a part other than an extension of a file name of the image file is provided. A recording medium in which a program for retrieving a character string, extracting a corresponding file name, displaying a list, and enlarging or reducing an image file having the selected file name to a predetermined size is displayed. 4. A recording medium on which an image file displayed by the image display device according to claim 1 is recorded.