WO2005024657A2

WO2005024657A2 - Computer system and method for processing a plurality of digital images

Info

Publication number: WO2005024657A2
Application number: PCT/EP2004/009509
Authority: WO
Inventors: Andreas Günther; Heinz Brasch
Original assignee: Henkel Kommanditgesellschaft Auf Aktien
Priority date: 2003-09-05
Filing date: 2004-08-26
Publication date: 2005-03-17
Also published as: WO2005024657A3; EP1661043A2; DE10341084A1

Abstract

According to the invention, a browser program comprising an integrated interpreter language is contained in a client computer. The reproduction of an image that is transmitted from a server computer to the client computer and that is reproduced for the user by means of the browser program takes place using the interpreter language.

Description

Computer system and method for processing a variety of digital images

[1] describes a method for hair color consultation in which a selection of a desired hair color of a person is recorded and displayed on a screen by means of a video camera, a computer and a screen, the images of the person being recorded continuously and in real time by means of the video camera be transferred to the computer. For each individual image, digital image processing is carried out in real time, a hair area of the person being identified, the color in the hair area changed according to predetermined specifications, and the images with the changed hair area being displayed in real time on a screen or a touchscreen.

In this method, only the image processing in a single computer for image processing is described, which means that distributed image processing and use of digital images, for example via the Internet, is not possible with a large number of computers involved.

Furthermore, in [2] a server-controlled information portal for the hairdressing area is described, in which user-specific information and services are provided via the Internet, different information and services being provided depending on the identity of the user and the specific stored user information associated therewith. In [2] it is particularly described that the user-specific information and services include online calculations, contract templates,

Product information and online ordering options are available.

A disadvantage of the server-controlled information portal described in [2] can be seen in particular in the fact that, in order to provide the user-specific information, it is necessary to add plug-in computer programs to an internet-based browser program, e.g. install a Java Virtual Machine ™ or an ActiveX computer program on each client computer.

This leads to considerable restrictions in use, since depending on the respective security policy, it is possible, for example, in a company-internal intranet, that the use of such additional computer programs is not permitted. The installation of a Java virtual machine computer program, for example, is also very complex and uncomfortable, which means that the user acceptance of such a system is very low.

Furthermore, a browser program is described in [3], namely Internet Explorer ™ from Microsoft ™.

Furthermore, it is described in [3] that the browser program Internet Explorer version 5.5 and higher, i.e. contains a version of the Internet Explorer browser program from version 5.5 and newer, a computer program or a computer procedure which is referred to as vector markup language (VML) and which enables the display of vector-oriented graphics.

The invention is based on the problem of processing digital images, wherein the transfer of digital images from a server computer to a client computer is made possible in such a way that it is not subject to the usage restrictions described in [2]. In other words, this means that a computer system is to be created which does not require an additional computer program to be installed in addition to the browser program, for example a Java virtual machine computer program or an ActiveX computer program.

The problem is solved by the computer system and by the method for computer-aided processing of a multiplicity of digital images with the features according to the independent patent claims.

A computer system for processing a large number of digital images has at least one client computer which contains a browser program. In other words, this means that a browser program is installed in the client computer. The browser program is set up in such a way that an interpreter language is integrated in it, that is to say, in other words, that a code coded in the interpreter language can be processed by means of the browser program. Furthermore, the computer system has at least one image database in which a multiplicity of digital images are stored. A server computer likewise provided in the computer system is coupled to the at least one client computer and the at least one image database. The server computer has at least one browser server program as well at least one image processing program, which is set up to change the color information of pixels of a digital image of the image database. The computer system is set up such that an image displayed by the server computer on the client computer by means of the browser program is displayed using the interpreter language.

In a method for computer-aided processing of a large number of digital images, an image request message is transmitted from a client computer to a server computer using a browser program in which an interpreter language is integrated. The image request message is used to request at least one digital image for transmission to the client computer. The server computer has a server program for processing requests from the browser (browser server program). The image request message is received and decoded by the server computer using the browser server program and the digital image requested according to the image request message is obtained from an image database to which the server computer is coupled and in which the at least one digital image is saved, read out by means of the browser server program. Furthermore, the read-out digital image is provided with additional control information by the browser server program and transmitted together with this to the client computer. The control information is encoded in the description language which is used by the browser program and the browser server program and / or in the interpreter language which is integrated in the browser program. After receiving the requested digital image and additionally the control information added, after the control information has been decoded, the digital image is displayed to a user of the client computer using the control information using the browser program.

The invention ensures that an additional installation of plug-in computer programs, such as a Java Virtual Machine ™ computer program or ActiveX computer program, is no longer required. According to the invention, a browser program which is installed on any customary client computer and contains an interpreter language set out above can be used for the immediate display of digital images with the additional option of taking control information encoded in the interpreter language into account when displaying the digital image or images and to recycle. This means that digital image processing is also possible in an environment with client computers, which are subject to a restrictive security policy, since, as described above, no additional computer programs have to be installed on the client computers. The use of the computer system according to the invention is also made possible immediately after the browser program has been installed, as a result of which the user acceptance is considerably increased.

The invention can clearly be seen in the fact that a mechanism which is present in a conventional browser program but has not been used to date is used for the first time for processing digital images using control information coded in the interpreter language.

Preferred developments of the invention result from the dependent claims.

The embodiments of the invention described below relate both to the computer system and to the method for processing a large number of digital images.

The browser program is preferably set up as a World Wide Web browser program (WWW browser program) and the browser server program is preferably set up as a World Wide Web browser server program (WWW browser server program).

In this embodiment of the invention, the usability of the computer system according to the invention is further simplified by the fact that a widely used and standardized browser program or browser server program is used.

According to another embodiment of the invention, the at least one client computer and the server computer are coupled to one another by means of an internet-based telecommunication network. In other words, the client computer and the server computer communicate with each other using the TCP / IP communication protocol stack (Transport Control Protocol / Internet Protocol communication protocol stack).

This embodiment of the invention also simplifies the use of the computer system according to the invention, and makes it robust since the mechanisms used are very well developed and widely used as standard mechanisms.

It should be noted in this connection that in principle any number of client computers and server computers can be provided, which are preferably coupled to one another for the exchange of digital messages by means of the Internet. The functionalities described above and below, in particular in the server computer, can also be implemented in a manner distributed over a number of server computers, so that the term “server computer” in the context of the description should be understood to provide the server functionality. regardless of the number of actually existing server computers.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the image processing program installed in the server computer is set up to carry out at least one of the following operations:

Changing the brightness of pixels of a digital image,

Changing the contrasts of pixels of a digital image,

• Mixing image information of two images into a digital mixed image with mixed pixel information, and / or

• Transformation of pixels of a digital image associated with color information from a first color space representation into a second color space representation.

An advantage of this embodiment of the invention can be seen in particular in the fact that the entire computationally expensive digital image processing is shifted to the side of the computationally powerful server computer and the client computer can be designed to be very underperforming, so that client computers with very low-performance processors are used can in the context of high quality digital image processing.

No computing-intensive operations and algorithms for digital image processing are carried out by the client computers.

The computer system according to the invention can thus contain client computers which are set up as embedded systems and are integrated, for example, in a mobile radio terminal, for example in a mobile radio telephone. Even with such a poorly performing terminal, it is possible according to the invention to use high-quality digital images in a very simple manner a small and not resource-intensive browser program to display digital images without additional installation effort.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the first color space representation and / or the second color space representation are / is one of the following color space representations:

• RGB color space representation,

• sRGB color space representation,

• CMYK color space display,

• HLS color space display.

The interpreter language can be the interpreter language Javascript, the interpreter language VB-Script or the interpreter language Jscript integrated in the Internet Explorer computer program version 5.5 and newer.

The above-mentioned interpreter languages offer a sufficiently powerful instruction set for realizing the functions required in the context of the representation of digital images.

The images stored in the image database can in particular contain the following areas, namely the face area of a person, the hair area of a person, i.e. the area within the digital image that shows a person's hair and a background area.

According to the embodiment of the invention described above, each digital image which is stored in the image database can have a set of three partial images, which can be stored as separate digital images or as a coherent digital image. The first partial image of the digital image contains the face area, the hair area and the background area, i.e. shown, in a second partial image of the digital image only information about the hair area, hereinafter also referred to as a hair mask, is contained, and in a third partial image only information about the background area is contained, hereinafter also referred to as a background mask.

The provision of these three types of digital partial images enables a very simple and therefore inexpensive digital image processing in terms of the computing time required. The digital images can in principle be encoded in any image coding format, for example in JPEG image format, in GIF image format, in TIFF image format, in PNG image format, in BMP image format or in TGA image format.

According to another embodiment of the invention, it is provided that a plurality of digital images of the same person are recorded and stored in the image database, the digital images representing perspective representations of the person from different viewing angles. The perspectives of the plurality of images are preferably selected such that a quasi-three-dimensional representation of the person can be implemented using all digital images of the same person from different perspectives.

If there is sufficient computing power available, it is preferably provided to calculate a three-dimensional model of the head and hair area of the person from the available image information and to transmit this simulation model as a digital image to the client computer.

A very simple possibility for the quasi-three-dimensional representation of a person on a client computer can be seen in the fact that the majority of the digital images of the respective person are transmitted to the client computer and are displayed there to the user as a sequential image sequence by means of the browser program.

According to another embodiment of the invention, the browser program and the browser server program are set up to process data which are in accordance with a description language, for example the hypertext markup language (HTML), the vector markup language (VML) and / or the wireless markup language (WML ), are encoded.

The client computer is preferably set up in such a way that the digital image can be displayed in a predetermined screen surface area of a screen surface and that a charge status display is shown in the predetermined screen surface area before the image is displayed when the image is loaded from the server computer into the client computer. the progress of the charging process being shown to the user with the charging status display. In other words, this means that in the predetermined screen surface area provided for the later display of the digital image a "loading bar" known per se is shown, which represents the course of the downloading of the respective digital image from the server computer into the client computer.

In this way, the user of the browser program according to the invention gets a very good idea of how long he has to wait until the requested digital image is displayed, this information advantageously being presented to the user in the predetermined screen surface area, in which he later also requested the digital one Image, which further increases user comfort.

According to another embodiment of the invention, the client computer, preferably the browser program, is set up in such a way that the scaling of the digital image displayed in the screen surface area of the browser program can be changed.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the method according to the invention provides that an image change request message is transmitted from the client computer to the server computer. With the image change request message, a change in the image information of the digital image transmitted to the client computer is requested. After receiving the image change request message, the server computer changes the digital image in accordance with the image change request message and the changed digital image using an image processing program installed in the server computer, which is set up to change the color information of pixels of a digital image is then transferred from the server computer to the client computer. The received modified digital image is displayed to a user by the client computer using the browser program.

The computer system according to the invention and the method according to the invention are particularly suitable for use for displaying, selecting and changing hairstyles and hair colors in digital images of one or more people, both in the private sphere and in the professional field, for example at a hairdresser, as part of a professional hair color consultation , a professional type consultation, in the field of cosmetics, etc. An embodiment is shown in the figures and is explained in more detail below.

Show it

Figure 1 is a block diagram showing a communication network with a server computer, a plurality of databases and a plurality of client computers;

FIG. 2 partial images of a digital image, the face region, the hair region and the background region of a person being shown in a first partial image, information about the hair region of the person being contained in a second partial image and information about the background region being contained in a third partial image;

FIG. 3 shows a message flow diagram in which the exchange of electronic messages and the processing of the individual electronic messages for the quasi-three-dimensional representation of a sequence of digital images are shown;

FIG. 4 shows a message flow diagram in which the exchange of electronic messages between the server computer and the client computer is shown to display exactly one two-dimensional digital image; and

FIG. 5 shows a message flow diagram in which a cache mechanism according to the invention for shortening the loading time of digital images is described.

1 shows in a block diagram 100 a server computer 101, which has a processor 102, a memory 103 and a first input / output interface 104 and a second input / output interface 105. The individual components of the server computer 101 are coupled to one another for the exchange of electrical signals by means of a computer bus 106.

The memory 103 can be a hard disk memory, a RAM memory (a volatile or a non-volatile RAM memory, for example a DRAM memory or a flash memory) and / or a ROM memory (for example a PROM) EPROM or an EEPROM). The memory 103 can furthermore have a plurality of memory components. A hard disk memory, a RAM memory and a ROM memory are preferably provided as memory components of the memory 103.

The server computer 101 is coupled to a first database 107 and a second database 108 by means of the second input / output interface 105.

A large number of digital images are stored in the memory 103 in a memory directory, in other words the digital images are stored in a memory directory structure set up as an image database.

In this connection it should be noted that an image database according to the invention is to be understood as a directory structure in a local memory 103 of the server computer 101 in which the digital images are stored or an additional database (not shown) with which the server computer 101 is coupled.

The server computer 101 is coupled to a public communication network 109, preferably via a firewall computer (not shown) and / or via an internet proxy computer (not shown in FIG. 1), by means of the first input / output interface 104. which is based on the TCP / IP communication protocol stack for the transmission of digital data.

A large number of client computers 110 are coupled to the communication network 109, also referred to below as the Internet, and thus to the server computer 101, each client computer 110 having an input / output interface 111, a processor 112 and a memory 113, which are coupled to one another by means of a computer bus 114.

Each client computer 110 is coupled to an image display unit, for example a screen, on which the digital images are shown, as will be explained in more detail below.

A browser program, according to this exemplary embodiment the browser program Internet Explorer version 5.5, which is executed by the respective processor 112, is stored in the memory 113. A Microsoft Internet Information Server version 5.0 is stored in the memory 103 of the server computer 101 as a World Wide Web browser server program.

Furthermore, an Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) is stored in the memory of the server computer 101, which is used within the scope of the exemplary embodiment to provide different

Image processing functions is used.

Furthermore, the computer program ASP. Net is stored in the memory 103 of the server computer 101 in order to generate a data stream coded in the description language used in accordance with this

Embodiment of the invention for generating a hypertext markup language data stream (HTML data stream) when it is executed by the processor 102 of the server computer 101.

The following information relating to a digital image is stored in the first database 110, which is set up as a MySQL database:

An image reference with which the physical storage location of the referenced digital image in the memory 103 of the server computer 103, i.e. in the image database;

• a hair color specification, with which the hair color of the person represented in the respective digital image is specified with a hair color from a set of predefined possible hair colors;

A counter specification with which the number of pictures of the respective person, i.e. an indication of whether exactly one digital image for the respective person is stored in the image database or several digital images taken from different perspectives;

An indication of whether the referenced digital image is active or not, i.e. whether it may be displayed by a browser program or not;

• hair color coloring product information, which in particular contains: • a coloring product identification information with which the respective coloring product can be clearly identified; A coloration product series identification information with which the coloration product series to which the respective coloration product is assigned can be clearly identified; • a name for the unique name of the referenced coloring product; • Activation specification, which specifies whether the respectively referenced coloring product is activated, ie may or may not be used.

In the second database 111, color information associated with the products offered in each case, in accordance with this exemplary embodiment with products from the Henkel KGaA company, is stored, in particular color information about how color coding information is to be changed when coloring a particular hair type, in order to to achieve a target hair color that is as real as possible.

In this connection, a distinction is made according to this exemplary embodiment of the invention into the following different hair color types: extra light blonde, light blonde, medium blonde, dark blonde, light brown, medium brown, dark brown, and black.

The color information is used to transform the hair color from an initial hair color before coloring to the hair color as the result of the coloration, the following image coding information in particular being used in the course of the transformation: color value (hue), color saturation, hair color transparency, flatness of hair, Contrast, hair highlights.

In the memory 103, ie on the hard disk of the server computer 101, the digital, prefabricated digital images, as will be explained in more detail below, are stored in a file directory as an image database and are sized 810 x 270 pixels, coded as JPEG File. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the digital image is structured as shown in FIG.

The digital image 200 has three partial images 201, 202, 203 (each with 270 x 270 pixels) realized as partial image fields, but coded as a single digital image, with the overall image of a person with shoulder area 204 in a first partial image 201 , Face area 205, hair area 206 and background area 207 is shown.

The second partial image 202 has a hair mask 208 which has been created manually beforehand in accordance with the exemplary embodiment of the invention and which specifies the region in which the person's hair is located.

A third partial image 203 of the digital image 200 has a background mask 209 with which the background area of the digital image is specified.

The second partial image 202 and the third partial image 203 are used for later simple calculation of color transformations and for blending a person represented by a predefinable changeable background.

As will be explained in more detail below, an alternative embodiment of the invention further provides for a digital image of a person to be taken by a user of a client computer 110 and for the hair region and / or the background region to be defined manually and these manually created partial images in FIG save the image database.

3 shows a message flow diagram 300 of the message exchange for displaying digital images for quasi-three-dimensional representation and manipulation of images between the client computer 110 and the server computer 101 and some of their components, in particular that in the server computer 101 installed ISAPI and the memory 103.

If the user 301 of the client computer 110 enters a request 302 on the start page of the image processing system provided by the web browser server program of the server computer 101, the client computer 110 sends a first HTTP request message 303 ( HTTP request) to the server computer 101, with which the transmission of the start page of the Image processing system is requested from the server computer 101 to the client computer 110.

The start page of the image processing system is transmitted in HTML format to the client computer 110 in a first HTTP response message 304 (HTTP response) and is displayed there to the user 301 by the browser program of the client computer 110 (block 305).

On the start page, the user 301 is given a choice as to whether the user 301 wants a quasi-dimensional representation of digital images of a person or the image processing of a two-dimensional representation of a person.

In the following it is initially assumed that the user 301 of the client computer 110 wishes a quasi-three-dimensional representation of digital images of a person.

Corresponding selection information 306 is entered by the user into the client computer 110 and is sent by the user in a second HTTP request message 307 to the server computer 101, whereupon the first partial images 201 with 270 available in the image database are sent from the server computer 101 x 270 pixels of the digital images 200 with 810 x 270 pixels existing format are scaled down to a predetermined small format size with 76 x 76 pixels.

This is done in that the server computer 101 transmits a corresponding command 309 to the ISAPI 308, in which the desired digital images are specified which are to be scaled down.

The ISAPI accesses the image database in the memory 103 and reads from there the digital images 311 specified in the command 308 by means of a read command 310.

The ISAPI 308 then scales the read-in digital images 311 down to the target format with 76 x 76 pixels using a method of digital image processing known per se and forms scaled-down small format images 312 which are made available to the server computer 101. The scaled-down small format images 312 are transmitted from the server computer 101 in a second HTTP response message 313 to the client computer 110 and are displayed there to the user 301 by means of the browser program (block 314). In the client computer 110, one of the small format images 312 shown can be selected by the user 301.

If the user now selects one of the small format images 312 shown, which he would like to view in a quasi-three-dimensional representation, corresponding selection information 315 is transferred to the client computer 110 and from there to the ISAPI of the server computer 101 in a third HTTP request message 316 transmitted.

According to this exemplary embodiment of the invention, for the quasi-three-dimensional representation of the images of a person in the image database for each person 36 digital images, recorded from different perspectives in the image database, are stored in the memory 103.

The 36 digital images were taken along the body axis from 10 ° different perspectives in such a way that a quasi-three-dimensional representation of the person is made possible from the 36 digital images.

According to this exemplary embodiment of the invention, the previously stored 36 digital images 318 for the selected person are read from the hard disk by means of the ISAPI 308 using a second read command 317 and transmitted to the client computer 110 in a third HTTP response message 319 via the server 101 and stored there in its memory 113.

The second HTTP response message 304 contains the entire HTML structure of the HTML page to be displayed on the screen of the client computer 110, in particular an indication of the predefined screen surface area in which the digital images 318 are presented to the user for their quasi-three-dimensional representation 301 are to be displayed.

According to this exemplary embodiment of the invention, all the Jscript control command sequences are contained in the second HTTP response message 304 and are transmitted therein to the client computer 110, with the exception of those for which it is described below that they are in another HTTP Message from the browser server program of the server computer 101 to the client computer 110 are transmitted.

In other words, the screen surface area within the HTML page is already known, in which the digital images 318 are to be displayed after the download from the server computer 101.

During the downloading of the 36 digital images 318, the user 301 of the client computer 110 is displayed on the screen in the screen surface area provided for the display of the 36 digital images 318 by means of a dynamic object, which represents a “loading bar”, which clearly shows a charging status indicator provides the user with a quantitative indication of how far the loading process of the 36 digital images 318 has progressed from the server computer 101 to the client computer 110.

The representation of the loading bar is realized according to the interpreter language Jscript, the Jscript command sequence being transmitted in the second HTTP response message 304 as additional control information from the server computer 101 to the client computer 110.

If all 36 digital images 318 for the quasi-three-dimensional representation of the person are stored in the client computer 110, a quasi-rotation representation of the loaded digital images 318 is automatically started in the image area provided for this purpose on the screen surface area of the HTML page using the browser program (block 320).

This is done according to the invention in that all 36 digital images are displayed in a suitable sequence (perspective of the captured image from 0 ° successively increasing by 10 ° from 0 ° to 360 °) in the image area provided for this purpose to the user 301 in a predeterminable time interval, as a result of which the impression of a person rotating around their own body axis is created.

The speed of the quasi-rotation, in other words, the time interval between the display of two temporally successive digital images, which were each taken in a perspective that differs by 10 °, can be determined by the user 301 by means of one in the HTML page the User 301 for selection element shown for selection, for example designed as a slider, can be changed.

According to the invention, this function is also implemented using a command sequence formulated in Jscript.

In this context, it should be pointed out that both the calculation and display of the loading bar and the chronologically successive display of the large number of digital images of a person for quasi-rotation are carried out exclusively on the client side.

In other words, after the 36 digital images 318 have been loaded, a communication connection between the client computer 110 and the server computer 101 is no longer required for the quasi-rotation display.

Furthermore, according to the exemplary embodiment of the invention, the user 301 is given the opportunity to change the hair color, i.e. to change the color of the pixels located in the hair color area in accordance with a predetermined color table which is stored in the second database 108.

If the user 301 selects this option, the client computer 110 sends a fourth HTTP request message 322 after the instruction 321 from the user 320, in which the server computer 101 requests the transmission of a color table and a selection of different selectable background images becomes.

The color chart contains a quantity of target colors provided for the respective starting hair color in accordance with the coloring products offered. The indication of the hair color of the selected person is stored in the first database 110, as described above.

The respective color table is stored in the second database 108 for a respective basic hair color.

The server computer 101 reads the color table and a set of different predefined background images, which are also stored there, from the second database 108 and sends them in a fourth HTTP response message 323 to the client computer 130, which uses the browser program to transmit the Color table and the different background images to the user in the HTML page (block 324).

After selection of a background image and / or a target color into which the user would like to change the person's hair color, the selection information 325 is entered into the client computer 110 and transmitted from there to the server computer 101 in a color change request message 326 , which is forwarded from the server computer 101 to the ISAPI 308.

The ISAPI 308 calculates the resulting hair color to be displayed using the color information stored in the second database 108 and the color information stored in the first database 107 about the basic hair color of the person by means of a method of digital image processing known per se and correspondingly The corresponding color values are assigned to pixels of the hair area, which is given by the hair mask 208 in the respective second partial image 202.

The color values of the pixels in the hair area 206, as defined by the hair mask 208, are thus transformed. Furthermore, if a specific background image has been selected, the background area 207, as defined by the background mask 209, is replaced by the selected stored background image.

The 36 changed images 327 formed in this way by the ISAPI 308 are transmitted in a changed image message 328 from the server computer 101 to the client computer 110 and are displayed there by the browser program in the predetermined screen surface area as changed images 327 in place of the original 36 digital images (block 329).

According to this exemplary embodiment, this happens for all 36 images 318 of the selected person.

The user 301 can store the displayed images locally in the memory 113 of the client computer 110 by means of dynamic selection objects displayed on the HTML page, can forward the images in an electronic message to other computers or the images locally in a user profile or store in the server computer 101. This ends quasi-three-dimensional image processing.

If the user 301 selects the option on the start page of being able to display and change only a two-dimensional JPEG-compressed digital image, the corresponding selection information 401 is received by the user 301 in the client after receipt of the start page described above - Computer 110 entered and transmitted by the browser program in a 2D selection message 402 shown in FIG. 4 in a second message flow diagram 400 to the server computer 101.

In response to receipt of the 2D request message 402, the server computer 101 transmits a 2D selection start page in an HTTP message 403 to the client computer 110 and displays it there to the user 301 (block 404).

In the 2D selection start page, the user 301 of the client computer 110 is shown a selection from three different image sources for selection:

A predetermined digital image of a model, which is stored in the image database of the server computer 101;

A user-definable digital image that can be newly stored in the image database of the server computer 101; or

A digital image stored in a user profile.

When a predefined digital image of a model is selected, the above-described procedure for displaying a large number of digital images of a person is carried out, with the difference that instead of the 36 predefined and stored digital images in the image database, only one digital image is read from the image database and sent to the Client computer 110 is transmitted. For the remaining options and processes, reference is made to the description above.

The same applies to the selection of a digital image from the user profile, in which case the server computer 101 or the client computer 110 reads out the desired digital image from the user profile of the user 301 of the client computer 110 and makes it available to the user 301 , as described above. For reasons of simpler explanation, only the storage of a user-definable digital image is described in more detail below.

If the user 301 selects this image source, a file storage path search screen surface is created by means of a command sequence contained in the HTML page and transmitted from the server computer 101 in the HTTP message 403 to the client computer 110 in Jscript represented, by means of the known manner (analogous to a usual file selection screen surface such as for example in Winword for searching a directory and for storing a file in the directory) by clicking on any file structure within one or more memories using a computer mouse, with which the client computer 130 is coupled, is searchable.

If the image file which contains the digital image to be selected is selected by the user 301 (block 405), the browser program immediately checks whether the selected image can be displayed by the browser program, in other words whether it is in an acceptable image format.

If this is the case, the browser program also uses an additional Jscript procedure (i.e., Jscript command sequence), which is also transmitted in the HTTP message 403 to the client computer 110, to check how large the digital image, i.e. how many pixels it contains.

If the digital image to be displayed is too high or too wide, a corresponding scaling to the required image size of 270 x 270 pixels is carried out on the client side, the scaling being carried out by simply omitting too many pixels present in the original image.

In this context, it should be noted that complex digital image processing is not carried out on the client side.

If the digital image to be displayed is scaled to the processable target size of 270 x 270 pixels on the client side, this digital image with the correct target size is transmitted in a new image HTTP message 406 to the server computer 101 and stored there in the image database. In this context, it should be noted that manual adjustment of the digital image in height and width and in position relative to the image area within the HTML page in which the image to be displayed is finally displayed is also optionally provided.

It should be pointed out that this manual scaling is also carried out exclusively by simply omitting or adding pixels with interpolated pixel information between the already existing pixels, so that no computationally complex algorithms for digital image processing are implemented in the client computer 110.

Furthermore, the user is able to change the brightness and / or the contrast of the image points for the digital image newly stored in the image database. This is done in that by means of a slider represented on the screen surface by means of the browser program of the user 301 corresponding change information 407, which determines the degree of change based on the existing degree of brightness or degree of contrast, is entered into the client computer 110 and from there in an HTTP - Change information message 408 is transmitted to the server computer 101.

This information is forwarded from the server computer 101 to the ISAPI 308, from which a corresponding image processing, i.e.

Contrast change and brightness change in the newly stored image, i.e. is calculated.

The image 409, which has changed in contrast and brightness, is transmitted from the ISAPI 308 by means of the server computer 101 to the client computer 110 in an HTTP change response message 410 and by means of the browser program in the predetermined screen surface area in the HTML page User 301 represented (block 411).

Furthermore, according to this exemplary embodiment, the user 301 is able to carry out the user-defined in the given

Screen surface area of the HTML page represented digital image to define a hair area manually in a very simple manner by the user using the following method. In this context, the vector markup language (VML), which is integrated in the browser program Internet Explorer version 5.5, is used to determine pixel coordinates, which are specified in the digital image by the user by means of a computer mouse, by clicking on a predetermined first mouse button (preferably left mouse button Mouse button), are interpreted as polygon edge pixels of the hair area, and entered into the client computer 101 (block 412). These selected pixels 412 or their pixel coordinates are stored by the client computer 110 in a VML pixel array.

If all the pixels which are to define the hair area are selected by the user 301 and the associated pixel coordinates are stored in the pixel array, a polygon is formed by means of the VML by connecting the individual pixels by straight lines, which determines the hair area.

In this context, it should be noted that basically any number of pixels can be selected by the user 301 by simply clicking on a pixel in the respective digital image.

A selected pixel can also be removed by clicking on an already selected pixel with a predefined second mouse button (preferably the right mouse button). In this case, the pixel coordinates assigned to this pixel are deleted from the pixel array.

The selection can be made until the user either indicates that he has completed the definition of the hair area or by the user clicking on a previously selected pixel with the first mouse button. The selection of an image point which has already been selected, preferably first, is interpreted by the browser program as a termination command and the polygon formation described above is carried out automatically.

The hair mask has thus been formed manually and the hair mask is transmitted as a pixel coordinate set, which is stored in the pixel array, in a pixel coordinate HTTP message 413 to the server computer 101, which transfers this information to the ISAPI 308, which in turn generates and stores a hair mask image associated with the digital image using the hair mask (block 414). It is optionally provided that the user 301 can define the background of the digital image in the same way. In this case, the background pixel coordinate set formed is transmitted from the client computer 110 to the server computer 101. In this case, the ISAPI 308 forms a background mask image associated with the digital image using the background mask (defined by the background pixel coordinate quantity) and stores this in the image database (not shown).

Furthermore, according to this exemplary embodiment of the invention, the user selects additional information that characterizes hair for the image to be stored, for example the hair color (light blonde, medium blonde, dark blonde, light brown, medium brown, dark brown or black), the hair length (short, medium or long ) and / or the nature of the hair, ie for example whether it is thick or fine hair.

After the selection has been made, the additional information is also transmitted from the client computer 110 to the server computer 101 and stored there in an image data record associated with the respective image in the first database 107 (not shown).

The stored newly added digital images can now be processed in the same way as the predetermined digital images previously stored in the image database.

Furthermore, according to this exemplary embodiment of the invention it is provided that a plurality of selectable, predefined hairstyle objects, which represent images of different hairstyles, are stored for selection in an additional database, the number of selectable hairstyle objects being transmitted to the client computer 110 and are shown there to the user 301 in an HTML page.

If the user 301 selects one of the predefined hairstyle objects, he can superimpose this as an additional image object in the predefined screen surface area on the displayed digital image, which makes it possible to overlay a new hairstyle of the depicted person in the previously selected image to be newly stored and thus represent the user 301. Furthermore, it is provided for the hairstyle objects that they are freely scalable and positionable in size, these functions also being implemented by means of Jscript and to the client computer 110 in the second HTTP response message 304 or in another HTTP message has been transferred.

The hairstyle objects can also be changed in color according to the respective color chart.

The method described above for superimposing the hairstyle objects or for changing the size, position and color of the hairstyle objects with respect to the digital image shown in the HTML page of the client computer 110 is correspondingly for those previously stored in the image database predefined digital images with predefined persons or also provided for the digital images from the user profile.

According to this exemplary embodiment of the invention, it is also provided that the digital 2D images are stored, sent by email or printed.

5 shows in a third message flow diagram 500 a cache mechanism, as is provided according to an embodiment of the invention.

According to this embodiment of the invention, it is provided that the client computer 110 is coupled to an Internet proxy computer 501 and, via this, to the server computer 101.

If the user 301 enters a request 502 for a digital image into the client computer 110, the client computer 110 checks whether the digital image requested by the user 301 is stored in the memory 113 of the client computer 110.

If this is the case, the requested image 503 is immediately displayed to the user 301.

If this is not the case, the client computer 110 sends a request message 504 stating the requested image to the Internet proxy computer 501, which in turn checks whether the requested digital image is stored in its memory.

If this is the case, without sending a message to the server computer 101, a response message 505 with the requested digital image is immediately transmitted to the client computer 130, stored by the latter in its memory 113, and then the requested one digital image presented to user 301 (block 506).

If the Internet proxy computer 501 has also not stored the requested image, the Internet proxy computer 501 forwards the request message to the server computer 101 (block 507), which in turn checks whether it is in its memory 103 or the requested digital image is stored in a cache 508 coupled to the ISAPI 308.

If this is the case, the requested digital image is transmitted from the server computer 101 to the Internet proxy computer 501 (block 509), stored there, and transmitted from the Internet proxy computer 501 to the client computer 110 ( Block 510), also stored there in its memory 113 and then displayed to the user 301 (Block 511).

If the requested image is also not available in the server computer 101 or in the cache memory 508 of the ISAPI 308, the ISAPI 308 recalculates the requested digital image, for example with changed hair color information, using the information in the above described databases 107, 108 stored data.

The newly generated digital image 512 is stored in the cache memory 508 of the ISAPI 308 after it has been generated, passed on from the server computer 101 to the Internet proxy computer 501 (block 513), also stored by the latter and then to the client Computer 110 transmits (block 514), which in turn stores the received digital image in its memory 113 and then presents it to user 301 (block 515).

In this way, in particular by storing the requested digital images in the Internet proxy computer 501, it is achieved that regardless of which user requests the respective digital image from which client computer 110, requests from different users for the same digital image already answered by the Internet proxy computer 501 and can thus be fulfilled without the server computer 101 being burdened with a large number of redundant inquiries.

According to the invention, this results in particular in the very advantageous shift of computation-intensive image processing algorithms to the side of the server computer, which considerably relieves the load on the client computer 130.

The following publications are cited in this document:

[1] WO 03/020072 A1;

[2] EP 1 324 247 A2;

[3] Available on the Internet on September 5, 2003 at the following URL:

Hypertext Markup Language: http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/

Vector Markup Language: http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/VML/Shape/introduction.asp

Claims

claims

1. Computer system for processing a large number of digital images, • with at least one client computer which has a browser program into which an interpreter language is integrated, • with at least one image database in which a large number of digital images are stored, and • with at least one server computer coupled to the client computer and the image database, which has: • a browser server program and • at least one image processing program that is set up to change the color information of pixels of a digital image of the image database, • wherein the computer system is set up in this way is that the representation of a digital image transmitted from the server computer to the client computer by means of the browser program takes place using the interpreter language.

2. Computer system according to claim 1, • in which the browser program is set up as a World Wide Web browser program, and • in which the browser server program is set up as a World Wide Web browser server program.

3. Computer system according to claim 1 or 2, in which the client computer and the server computer are coupled to one another by means of an Internet-based telecommunications network.

4. Computer system according to one of claims 1 to 3, in which the image processing program is set up to carry out at least one of the following operations: • changing the brightness of pixels of an image, • changing the contrast of pixels of an image, • mixing image information of two images, • Transformation of pixels of an image associated with color information from a first color space representation into a second color space representation.

5. Computer system according to claim 4, • in which the image processing program is set up to transform pixels of an image associated with color information from a first color space representation into a second color space representation and • in which the first color space representation and / or the second color space representation are one of the following color space representations : • RGB color space representation, • sRGB color space representation, • CMYK color space representation, • HLS color space representation.

6. Computer system according to one of claims 1 to 5, in which the interpreter language is • the language Javascript, • the language VB-Script or • the language Jscript.

7. Computer system according to one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the digital images of the image database each contain the face area of a person, a hair area of a person and a background area.

8. The computer system according to claim 7, wherein each digital image comprises: a first field, in which the face area, the hair area and the background area are contained, a second field, in which information about the hair area is contained, and a third Drawing file that contains information about the background area.

9. The computer system according to claim 7 or 8, in which a plurality of digital images of a person are stored in the image database, the plurality of digital images of a person showing them taken from different perspectives.

10. Computer system according to one of claims 7 to 9, in which the client computer is set up in such a way that a quasi-three-dimensional representation of the person is made possible using the plurality of digital images of a person.

11. Computer system according to one of claims 1 to 10, in which the browser program and the browser server program are set up for processing data which are coded in accordance with a description language.

12. Computer system according to claim 11, in which the browser program and the browser server program are set up to process data which are encoded in accordance with one of the following description languages: Hypertext Markup Language, Vector Markup Language, and / or Wireless Markup Language.

13. Computer system according to one of claims 1 to 12, in which the client computer is set up in such a way that • the digital image can be displayed in a predetermined screen surface area of a screen surface, and • that in the screen surface area before the image is displayed when the image is loaded by the server computer is shown a charge status display with which the progress of the charging process is shown.

14. Computer system according to one of claims 1 to 13, in which the client computer is set up to change the scaling of the digital image.

15. A method for computer-aided processing of a large number of digital images, in which, using a browser program in which an interpreter language is integrated, a client computer sends an image request message, with which at least one digital image is requested, to a server. Computer is transmitted, the server computer having a browser server program, • in the case of the server computer from an image database in which the requested at least one digital image is read out, • in the case of the digital image and control information read out by means of the browser server program, coded in the description language and / or in the interpreter language of the browser program , is transmitted to the client computer, and • in which the digital image is displayed by means of the browser program using the control information.

16. The method according to claim 15, • in which an image change request message, with which a change in the image information of the digital image transmitted to the client computer is requested, is transmitted from the client computer to the server computer, • in which the server computer, which has at least one image processing program that is set up to change the color information of pixels of a digital image, the digital image is changed, • in which the changed digital image is transmitted from the server computer to the client computer, and • in which the changed digital image is displayed by the client computer using the browser program.