JPS62200883A - Graphic display device for electronic conference system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To scale down a system constitution and to simplify data processing by dividing a display screen, displaying only a speaker by a moving picture, and displaying prescribed screen numbers on respective screens. CONSTITUTION:In a graphic display device 350 displaying a moving picture data PSD to which a device address signal SAD showing a self terminal or an opponent's one, and a speaker switching signal PID indicating a speaker are added, an identifier detecting part 360 detects the signals SAD and PID, and a frame identifier FID from received data, and identifies whether it is moving data or not, whether it is from the opponent's terminal of the self terminal, and from which input part it comes from, among plural moving picture input parts 310. Next, decoded moving data is stored in a frame memory part 380. At this time, a display control part 385 makes the memory part 380 store the decoded moving picture data inputted by said detected signals SAD and PID as a moving picture in the prescribed split area of one screen of a graphic display part 390, and makes a frame memory part store screen information data to display screen information in the split area according to the signals SAD and PID.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a graphic display device in an electronic conference system for holding a conference between remote points, and in particular to a graphic display device for dividing video data of conference attendees in accordance with the number of attendees. The present invention relates to a graphic display device for displaying graphics.

[Technical Background of the Invention] Electronic conference systems have been known as systems for performing conference communications between conference unit systems installed in remote locations.

An example of a conference unit system that can be used in such an electronic conference system is the one shown in FIG. 6. As shown in the figure, this conference unit system includes a microphone 1, a speaker 2, a television camera 3 that captures the conference room, a television camera 4 that copies a manuscript, a television monitor 5, a facsimile machine 6, and a printer hardware. A copying device 12, an audio unit 7 that encodes and decodes audio signals from the microphone 1 and the speaker 2, an image unit 8 that encodes and decodes image signals, a control unit 9 that controls the image unit, and a control unit 9. It is comprised of an operation unit 10 for inputting instructions, and a transmission unit 11 for transmitting and receiving audio signals and image signals.

[Problems with the Background Art] By the way, in such an electronic conference system, speakers are displayed on the TV monitors 5, but the number of TV monitors 5 increases, making the system expensive, and especially when handling video data. Since the amount of data is large, the system configuration becomes large and the system price becomes expensive.

It is also possible to divide the display screen of the TV monitor 5 into multiple screens and use only one TV monitor 5, but in this case as well, the amount of data will increase if the video is displayed on each divided screen. There was a problem that the data processing section became complicated and the system price became expensive.

[Object of the Invention] The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned conventional difficulties, and it is an object of the present invention to display video data of each conference attendee in a divided manner on one screen, and to also display screen information in the divided display area. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a graphic display device in an electronic conference system that is suitable for downsizing the system configuration, simplifying the data processing section, and is advantageous in terms of operation.

[Summary of the Invention] That is, the present invention provides an electronic conference system that displays encoded video data to which a device address signal indicating whether the terminal is the own terminal or a remote terminal and a speaker switching signal indicating the speaker is added. The graphic display device includes: an identifier detection unit that detects a device address signal and a speaker switching signal from the video data; a video decoding unit that decodes the video data;
a frame memory section that stores restored video data; a graphic display section that displays the video data stored in the frame memory section; and the device address signal detected by the identifier detection section and a speaker. The video data decoded into the switching signal and the switching signal are stored as a video in a predetermined divided area of one screen of the graphic display section in the contingency table memory section, and the device address signal and the decoded video data are stored in the divided area of the graphic display section. and a display control section that stores screen information data in the frame memory section in order to display screen information according to the speaker switching signal.

[Embodiments of the Invention] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram showing a conference unit system according to an embodiment of the electronic conference system of the present invention.

The control device 900 is connected to drawing, still image, moving image, and audio input devices, and to the control device 900 is connected to soft copy, hard copy, and audio output devices. These signals from the input device d and the signals to the output device are subjected to processing such as selection and multiplexing according to several control information signals, and are then transmitted.

Input devices include a plurality of drawing input devices 100 for inputting handwritten characters and figures, a still image input device 200 for inputting documents before or during the meeting, and images of conference attendees and the background of the conference hall. Video input device 300 for inputting. A voice input device 400 for inputting voice is connected.

In addition, the output devices include a plurality of flat display devices 150 and graphic display devices (1) 160 for displaying input information of the own terminal and transmitted drawing type and still image type, and graphic display device (1) 1.
A hard copy device 260 for making a copy of 60, a graphic display device (2) 350 for displaying video input information transmitted from the own terminal and transmitted, and an audio output device 450 for outputting transmitted audio input information are connected. I'm Sane.

Further, the storage device 600 continuously records and outputs this input/output information. The transmission device 700 is connected to two other remote conference unit systems.

The above input/output information is transmitted through signals from devices such as an operation input device 850, a state detection device 800 that detects whether conference attendees are sitting or leaving their seats, and a speaker identification device 510 that determines the speaker based on the voices of the conversation participants. The tip is controlled.

Each device forming the main part of the present invention will be explained in detail below.

FIG. 2 is a configuration block diagram showing an example of the video input device 300.

This moving image input device 300 images a speaker using a plurality of television cameras, selects a predetermined television camera among the cameras, and sends the image information shown to the control device 900.

This video input device 300 includes a plurality of video input units 310a.
, 310b, 310c, 3'lOd, and the control device 9
A video selector section 320 selects one video input section from the plurality of video input sections according to a speaker switching signal (PID) from 00,
A video encoding unit 330 compresses and encodes the video data (PSD), and assigns a frame identifier (FI
D) and an identifier adding section 340 that adds a speaker switching signal @ (PID).

The operation of this moving image input device 300 will be explained below.

Moving images of conference attendees, the background of the conference hall, etc. are converted into electrical signals by a plurality of moving image input sections 310a, 310b, 310C1310d, and sent to the moving image selector section 320.

Considering that the transmission capacity of the line is 54 kbps and data such as audio must also be transmitted over this line, it is impossible to input multiple moving pictures at the same time. Therefore, the video selector unit 320 uses a speaker switching signal (PI
D), move the corresponding video input section to 1 to capture the speaker.
The video input signal (PIN) is selected and sent to the video encoding section 300.

Note that the video input section of a person who leaves the meeting during the meeting can be disconnected by using the speaker switching signal (PID).

The video encoding unit 330 compresses and encodes the video input signal (PIN) to 32 kbps by performing sampling processing using a frame drop method, predictive encoding processing using an interframe encoding method, direct exchange encoding processing using a cosine transform encoding method, etc. and sends it to the identifier adding unit 340 as moving image data (PSD).

The identifier adding unit 340 includes a frame identifier (FID) indicating that the data is video data, and a speaker switching signal (P
ID) is added to the video data (PSD) and sent to the control device 900 as transmission data (SXD).

Next, the video encoding section 330 will be explained.

An example of the video encoding section 330 is shown in FIG.

This video encoding section 330 includes an input processing unit 331,
Transmission memory unit 332 and cosine transformation unit 3
33 and an encoded nut 334.

The operation of this video encoding section 330 will be explained below.

First, the video input signal (
PIN) is sent to the input processing unit 331, and after color burst and synchronization signals are removed from the video input signal,
A/D conversion is performed using 8 bits. The number of pixels in each frame is 256 due to a digital filter (not shown).
From X256 to 128X12B, frame frequency is also 30
Reduced from 1 frame/sec to 10 frames/sec.

The data of each incoming and processed frame is then sent to the transmit memory unit 332 and stored in a current frame memory (not shown). The data of the previous rewritten frame is stored in a reference frame memory (not shown), and the current frame and reference frame are compared in units of 8×8 pixel blocks to determine the block to be rewritten.

If a certain block has changed significantly, the reference memory is rewritten and the block information is input to the cosine transformation unit 333. Blocks that do not change much are not processed or rewritten.

Roughly cosine transform unit 333 removes correlation between pixels by two-dimensional cosine transform, and sends the obtained transform coefficients to encoding unit 334.

Since many of these transform coefficients take zero, they are compressed by run-length encoding instead of sending a long string of O bits.

Encoding unit 334 then selects the actual code in the Huffman coding table according to the prediction of the local energy of the image for the transform coefficients. It also encodes information about the block.

This encoded data enters a transmission buffer (not shown), and is sent from there as video data (PSD) to the identifier adding section 340 at a predetermined transmission rate.

Furthermore, the encoding unit 334 performs transmission rate control to prevent overflow and underflow of transmission data.

In this way, the video encoding unit 330 uses a combination of three types of compression: spectral, spatial, and temporal.

That is, on the spectrum, subsampling is performed to filter color components for the redundancy of color components, and on the spatial spectrum, subsampling is performed in both horizontal and vertical directions for redundancy in brightness or amplitude, and correlation between pixels is removed. For 2
Dimensional cosine transform encoding is performed, and in terms of time, frame skipping, interpolation, and conditional rewriting are performed for redundancy in values between frames.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of a graphic display device (2>350).

This graphical display device (2>350 is a device that displays the input information of the own terminal and the transmitted video system, and the control device 900
An identifier detection unit 36 for detecting the device address (SAD), frame identifier (FID), and speaker switching signal (PID) from the received data (RXD) output from the
0, video decoding units 370a and 370b that decode video data (PRD), and decoded video signal (PO
Frame memory unit 38 for temporarily storing and synthesizing UT)
0, a display control section 385 that controls the display of a plurality of moving images and static moving images in multiple divisions, and controls the display of predetermined screen numbers on the divided screens, and a graphic display section 390 that displays the moving images.

The operation of this graphic display device (2) 350 will be explained below.

Reception data (RXD) sent from the control device 900 is composed of control information and image information, and the control information includes a frame identifier (FID), a device address (SAD), a speaker switching signal (PID), and the like. Here, the image information is only video data.

First, the identifier detection unit 360 detects this frame identifier (FI
D) detects that it is video data, then detects the device address (SAD) and determines whether it is the own terminal or the other party's terminal. Furthermore, it is determined from which video input unit the video data is coming from based on the speaker switching signal (PID).

Next, the frame identifier (FID) and the identifier detection section 360
device address (SAD) and talker switching signal (PI
The moving image data (PRD) from which D) has been removed is sent to the moving image decoding section 370a or 370b, and the moving image data compressed and encoded to 32 kbps is decoded.

These moving image decoding units 370a and 370b have the device address (
SAD>, two systems with the same configuration are provided in order to correctly decode without delay even if the local terminal and the other terminal or the other terminal and the other terminal input input at the same time.

This decoded video signal (POUT) is temporarily stored in a predetermined area of the frame memory section 380, and a display screen is synthesized.

Note that the device address (S
AD) and speaker switching signal (PID) are transmitted by the display control unit 3.
85, and display control for displaying a plurality of moving images and static moving images of the own terminal and two other terminals on the same screen on the frame memory unit 380, and the display control for displaying the moving images of the own terminal and the two terminals in a static state on the same screen, and this divided display The device address (
In order to simultaneously display the screen numbers corresponding to the talker switching signal (PT['l') and the talker switching signal (PT['l'), l1 person water control is performed.

In other words, the display control unit 385 issues a command to divide and display a plurality of video data inputted by the device address (SAD) and the speaker switching signal (PID) at predetermined positions on the graphic display unit 390, and to display only the speaker as a video. and generates a command to display images other than the speaker as a still image, and a command to display a screen number according to the device address (SAD) and the speaker switching signal (PID) on each divided screen of the graphic display section 390. Then, these commands are sent to the frame memory section 380 to control the display of the frame memory section 380.

The moving image signal is then read from the frame memory section 380 at predetermined cycles and displayed on the graphic display section 390.

In the graphic display section 390, the screen is divided as shown in FIG. 4, and only the speaker is displayed as a moving image. Further, a predetermined screen number is added to each divided screen and displayed.

Next, the video decoding section 370a (370b) will be explained.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the video decoding section 370a.

The video decoding unit 370a includes a decoding unit 371 that decodes video data block by block, an inverse cosine transform unit 372 that performs inverse conine transform on the restored transform coefficients, and a current frame memory and a reference frame memory. and an output processing unit 374 that outputs video frames from the current frame memory and reference frame memory.

The operation of this video decoding section 370a will be explained below.

First, the video data (P
RD) is put into a reception buffer (not shown) of the decoding unit 371. Next, the block information is decoded, and the decoding step size is determined to obtain transform coefficients using roughly the same table as the Huffman encoding table, and the position of the block to be rewritten is determined.

Next, the inverse cosine transform units 1 to 372 perform two-dimensional inverse cosine transform on the transform coefficients reproduced by the decoding unit 371, and output data in units of blocks.

Then, the receiving memory unit 373 rewrites the corresponding area in the current frame memory (not shown) in units of 8×8 pixel blocks based on the position information of the block to be rewritten.

Further, data of the previous rewritten frame is stored in a reference frame memory (not shown).

This is used for comparison with the next frame.

Roughly the output processing unit 374 is the reception memory unit 3
Using the 73 current frame memory and reference frame memory, the frame frequency can be returned from 10 frames/second to 30 frames/second, and the pixel level in the reproduced frame can change smoothly over time. Frame interpolation is performed by calculation as follows.

Finally, the video signal processed by the output processing unit 374 @(
POLIT) is sent to the frame memory section 380.

In this way, in the device of this embodiment, the display control section 385 has a function of dividing the display screen of the graphic display section 390, and a function of displaying only the speaker as a moving image and displaying the others as still images. Since the system is provided with a function of displaying a predetermined screen number by adding a predetermined screen number to the screen, the system configuration can be downsized and the data processing section can also be simplified. Additionally, there is no need for the operator to switch screens each time as in the past.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, in the present invention, the display screen is divided, only the speaker is displayed as a moving image, and a predetermined screen number is displayed on each screen, so the system configuration can be miniaturized.
Moreover, the data processing section can also be simplified. In addition, there is no longer a need to switch between screens as in the past, and a dedicated operator is also no longer required.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a block diagram of the configuration of the electronic conference system, Figure 2 is a block diagram of the video input device (2), Figure 3 is a block diagram of the video encoder, and Figure 4 is the graphic display device (2).
5 is a block diagram of the structure of a video decoding section, and FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the structure of a conventional electronic conference system. 300...Movie input device 330...
...Movie encoding section 350...Graphic display device (2) 360...Identification detection section 370a, 370b... Video decoding section 38
0......Frame memory section 385...
... Display control section 390 ... Graphic display section Agent Patent attorney Noriyuki Chika - Figure 1

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A graphic display device in an electronic conference system that displays encoded video data to which a device address signal indicating whether the terminal is the own terminal or a remote partner terminal and a speaker switching signal indicating the speaker is added. an identifier detection unit that detects a device address signal and a speaker switching signal from the video data; a video decoding unit that decodes the video data; a frame memory unit that stores the decoded video data; a graphic display unit that displays the video data stored in the frame memory unit; and a graphic display unit that displays the video data decoded into the device address signal and speaker switching signal detected by the identifier detection unit. Storing in the frame memory unit to display the video in a divided area in a predetermined divided area of one screen, and displaying screen information according to the device address signal and the speaker switching signal in the divided area of the graphic display unit. 1. A graphic display device in an electronic conference system, comprising: a display control unit that stores screen information data in the frame memory unit to display screen information.