JP2000184168A - Picture processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To give a date to a picture where the date is unclear because of a relation to a photographic object or the like or a picture to which the date has not been recorded originally. SOLUTION: This picture processor which gives date information to picture information read in from a film is provided with a film scanner 20 which optically reads an image formed on the film, a date extraction circuit 13 which extracts date picture information related to the date from picture information obtained by this film scanner 20, a character recognition circuit 14 which generates date information from extracted date picture information, and a CPU 16 which estimates the date based on date information of preceding and succeeding picture information with respect to picture information where date picture information cannot be extracted by the date extraction circuit 13 or date information cannot be generated by the character recognition circuit 14.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus for reading an image from a photograph or a film and adding date information to the read image information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In silver halide film photography, photographing conditions such as the photographing date and the like are generally overlapped with a subject image for photographing. When the print image photographed and printed in this way is digitized and recorded by an image scanner, it is possible to recognize the photographing date (date), convert it into data, and record it on a recording medium together with image information. (JP-A-8-139908).

[0003]

However, this type of method has the following problems. That is, in general, the date is optically recorded so as to overlap with a part of a captured image of a certain light source. If the color of the subject in that part is similar to that of the light source, the date may not be readable. Further, the date may not be recorded optically depending on the setting of the camera. In this case, it is naturally impossible to read the date.

The present invention has been made in consideration of the above circumstances, and has as its object to provide an image in which the date is unclear due to the relationship with the photographing subject and the like, and furthermore, the date is not originally recorded. An object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus capable of giving a date to an image.

[0005]

(Structure) In order to solve the above problem, the present invention employs the following structure.

That is, according to the present invention, in an image processing apparatus for adding date information to image information read from a photograph, a film, or the like, an image in which a date is optically recorded together with a subject is obtained by photoelectrically converting the image. Date extracting means for extracting date image information relating to a date from the extracted image information, date generating means for generating date information from the extracted date image information, and date information for some of a plurality of pieces of image information. If the date image information cannot be extracted by the extraction means, or if the date information cannot be generated by the date generation means, the date image information is generated based on the date information of the image for which the date information was generated among the plurality of pieces of image information. And a date estimating means for estimating the date of the image information for which no is obtained.

Here, preferred embodiments of the present invention include the following. (1) Use a film scanner as a means to read images. (2) As date estimation means, for image information from which date image information cannot be extracted or generated, estimate the date of the image information based on the preceding and following image information and the date information of the image for which the date information could be generated. .

(3) Recording means for recording date information by the date generating means or the date estimating means on a recording medium together with corresponding image information. (4) image management means for managing a plurality of pieces of image information in a directory based on the respective date information, and the image management means performs the estimation on the image information for which the date information has been estimated by the date estimation means; Management based on date information.

(Operation) According to the present invention, it is possible to read the date from a photographed image with the date imprinted thereon, and to generate date information in the case of an image in which the date cannot be recognized or an image without the date. Since the date is estimated based on the date information of the obtained image (for example, the date is estimated from the dates of the preceding and following images), an accurate date can be added even to an image whose date is unclear or has no date. Therefore, it is easy to manage image information by date, which is useful for creating an electronic album.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The details of the present invention will be described below with reference to the illustrated embodiments.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of an image processing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

The image processing apparatus 10 is externally connected to a film scanner 20. Image data such as negatives and prints read by the film scanner 20 is input to the RAM 12 via the interface circuit 11. It has become.

A date extracting circuit 13 is connected to the RAM 12, and the date extracting circuit 13 extracts a character image portion such as a date from an image read by the scanner 20. For example, based on a predetermined density, a part with a lower (or higher) density is extracted as a character image part such as a date. When date information is extracted, a character image portion may be extracted from the entire image area for one frame. However, with a normal camera, as shown in FIG. 2, any one of the four corners of the image area for one frame is used. In many cases, date information is recorded in the portion. Therefore, it is preferable to extract date information only from the date extraction area shown in FIG.

A character recognizing circuit 14 is connected to the date extracting circuit 13. The character recognizing circuit 14 recognizes characters from the character image information extracted by the date extracting circuit 13, and converts date information from the recognized character information. Is to be generated.

A median filter 15 is connected to the date extracting circuit 13 so that the character image information extracted by the date extracting circuit 13 is replaced with complementary information. The median filter is a widely known technique, but the processing in the present embodiment will be briefly described as follows.

For example, in the date extracting circuit 13, the numeral "9"
Is extracted, the information of the extracted portion is sent to the median filter 15, and the median filter 15 performs a process of replacing the extracted number "9" portion with complementary information. As an example, for eight pixels surrounding a pixel to be complemented, the median value of each density of these eight pixels (corresponding to the density of the fourth or fifth pixel when the surrounding eight pixels are arranged in density order) is obtained. , A complementing process is performed using the median value. As a result, the date image portion is fused with the surrounding image, and an image from which the date has been removed is obtained.

The image information processed by the median filter 15 is sent to the CPU 16 where the image information from the median filter 15 and the image information from the RAM 12 are synthesized. Specifically, the median filter 15
2 and the image information outside the dotted line in FIG. 2 are added.

An MO disk drive 18 is connected to the CPU 16 via a drive interface circuit 17 so that image information and date information generated by a character recognition circuit are recorded on the MO disk.

FIGS. 3 and 4 show image information and date information in M
In the case of recording on an O disk, this indicates that images are grouped and recorded according to a date, that is, a shooting date.

As shown in FIG. 3, a plurality of images are formed on one film, and these are arranged in the order of photographing. Each image is given a shooting date.
Has no date, and the date of image 5 cannot be determined. The photographing date recognized by the character recognition circuit 14 is October 3, 1998 for Image 1, and 1998 for Image 3
It is November 20, 1998 for Image 4, and November 15, 1998 for Image 6, indicating that no date information was obtained for Images 2 and 5. Is shown.
In this case, it can be determined that the shooting date of the image 2 from the images 1 and 3 is October 1998. Similarly, the shooting date of the image 5 from the images 4 and 6 can be determined to be November 1998. Therefore,
Images 1 to 3 are a first group, and images 4 to 6 are a second group.

FIG. 4 shows a directory structure when a plurality of pieces of image information are grouped and recorded on an MO disk. That is, 19981 for the root directory
0 (October 1998)
3 are recorded, and images 4 to 6 are recorded in a directory named 199811 (November 1998).

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.
This will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, the film is continuously scanned by the film scanner 20 to sequentially read images recorded on the silver halide film (S1). The read image data of all frames is transferred to the RAM 1 via the interface circuit 11.
2 (S2). Next, from the image data transferred to the RAM 12, the image data of the date extraction area for one frame is transferred to the date extraction circuit 13 (S3). The date extracting circuit 13 extracts a date image, that is, a character image, from the transferred image data of one frame (S4). In this case, the character image is extracted from the four corner areas shown in FIG. Then, it is determined whether or not the extraction is OK (S5).

If it is determined in step S5 that the extraction is OK, the character recognition circuit 14 performs a process of converting the date image into a character code (S6). Then, it is determined whether or not the conversion is OK (S7). Further, the conversion is OK in step S7.
Is determined, the shooting date is determined from the character code (S8). Then, it is determined whether or not the determination is OK (S9).

If the determination is OK in step S9, the recording group is determined from the determined shooting date (S10). Further, the extracted date image portion is processed by the median filter 15 (S11), and the image data processed by the median filter 15 is transferred to the CPU 16 (S12). Then, the entire image data of one frame is transferred from the RAM 12 to the CPU 16 (S13). The CPU 16 combines the image data transferred from the median filter 15 and the image data transferred from the RAM 12 to create one frame of image data without a date image (S14). Then, it is determined whether or not there is a group directory (S15).

When it is determined in step S5 that the extraction is not OK (when the date image cannot be extracted), when it is determined in step S7 that the conversion is not OK (when the date does not exist), the determination is not OK in step S9. Is determined (when the date cannot be read), the recording group is determined from the dates of the preceding and following frames (S16). For example, regarding image 2 in FIG. 3, October 1998 is determined to be the shooting month. Then, all image data of one frame is RA
Transfer from M12 to CPU 16 (S17), step S
Move to 15.

If it is determined in step S15 that there is a group directory, the shooting date / time data and the image data are recorded in the corresponding directory (S18). If the recording directory already exists, that is, if the directories “199810” and “199811” as shown in FIG. 4 already exist, the data (image data and date data) are stored in the corresponding directory of the MO disk.
Record

If it is determined in step S15 that there is no group directory, a new directory is created (S15).
19) The shooting date and time data and the image data are recorded in the created directory (S18).

Next, it is determined whether or not the recording of the data of all the frames is completed (S20). If the recording of the data of all the frames is completed, the process is terminated, and the recording of the data of all the frames is completed. If not, the process returns to step S3, and the same processing as described above is performed for the next frame.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the date imprinted on the film can be read by the date extraction circuit 13 and the character recognition circuit 14 based on the image information obtained by the film scanner 20. . Moreover, for an image whose date cannot be recognized or for which no date is included, the date can be estimated by estimating from the dates of the preceding and following images. Here, since the images of the film are generally arranged in the shooting order, the date can be determined by referring to the dates of the preceding and following images. Therefore,
Almost accurate dates can be added even to images whose dates are unclear or without dates. For example, management of image information on a monthly basis becomes easy, which is extremely effective for creating an electronic album.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. In the embodiment, the image information is obtained by using the film scanner. However, the object on which the image to be photoelectrically converted is formed is not limited to a film, and may be a print image. In this case, the print images may be arranged in the order in which they were shot in advance, and the scanner may be sequentially read in this order. The grouping is not limited to a monthly unit, but can be changed as appropriate according to specifications such as year, week, and day.

In addition, various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

[0033]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, date information can be read from image information obtained by photoelectrically converting an image in which the date is optically recorded together with the subject, and the date can be read. In the case of unrecognizable images or images without dates, estimating the date based on the date information of the image for which the date information was able to be generated makes it possible to obtain an almost accurate date even for images with blurred or undated images. Can be attached. Therefore, it is easy to manage image information by date, which is useful for creating an electronic album.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a date extraction area in one frame.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of grouping of a photographed film and each image.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a directory structure in a case where recording is performed by grouping each month.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Image processing apparatus 11 ... Interface circuit 12 ... RAM 13 ... Date extraction circuit 14 ... Character recognition circuit 15 ... Median filter 16 ... CPU 17 ... Drive interface circuit 18 ... MO disk drive 20 ... Film scanner

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. Date extracting means for extracting date image information relating to a date from image information obtained by photoelectrically converting an image in which a date is optically recorded together with a subject, and date information from the extracted date image information. A date generating means for generating date information; and for some image information of a plurality of pieces of image information, when date image information cannot be extracted by the date extracting means, or when date information cannot be generated by the date generating means, Date estimating means for estimating the date of image information for which the date image information cannot be obtained, based on the date information of the image for which date information was able to be generated among the image information of . 2. A film scanner for optically reading an image formed on a film, date extracting means for extracting date image information relating to a date from image information obtained by the film scanner, and the extracted date image information A date generating means for generating date information from a plurality of pieces of image information, when date image information cannot be extracted by the date extracting means, or when date information cannot be generated by the date generating means. Date estimating means for estimating a date of image information for which the date image information cannot be obtained, based on date information of an image for which date information can be generated among a plurality of pieces of image information. Image processing device. 3. An image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising recording means for recording date information by said date generation means or date estimation means together with corresponding image information on a recording medium. 4. An image management means for managing a plurality of pieces of image information in a directory based on respective date information, wherein the image management means comprises: The image processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein management is performed based on the estimated date information.