JP2000222027A - Device and method for presenting information and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide information presenting method and device capable of surely transmitting significant information to an operator. SOLUTION: Whether or not an operator watches display device 5 is estimated by detecting the sight line of the operator, and whether or not the operator watches it is sequentially notified to a presentation controlling part 3. An application or a control system adds importance to information to be presented to a presenting part and transfers it to the part 3. The part 3 decides a presenting method from sight line decision information and the importance of presentation information and outputs it to the presenting part (display and speaker).

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information presenting apparatus and method, such as a control system terminal, which requires an operator to confirm information presented, and a storage medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a system in which it is very important to safely operate a plant, such as a control terminal of a plant control system, an operator constantly monitors information displayed on the control terminal every moment. There is a need to quickly find and address signs of serious problems.

[0003] Therefore, the operator must be constantly nervous so as not to overlook important information, and by supporting this, the burden on the operator can be greatly reduced.

[0004] In a system requiring security,
The subject of the method of confirming information is visual, and voice is used as an auxiliary role. Therefore, it is important to support the operator so as not to miss the information presented on the display device.

[0005] As a conventional method, when presenting important information, there is a method of calling the operator's attention with a display or a sound (voice, warning sound) or the like. It is bothersome and unpleasant to be aroused.

[0006]

As described above, conventionally, there has been no means for calling attention to the operator by appropriate means when necessary according to the state of the operator. To this end, the operator must always be attentive, or must be alerted to all means in an inconvenient manner. Therefore, it is important for the purpose of the present invention to be able to call attention only when the operator's attention is elsewhere and the information cannot be obtained, whereby the operator misses the information. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information presentation method and an information presentation apparatus that can prevent the occurrence of an error, and can support an operator without imposing an unnecessary load.

[0007]

A gaze detecting means for detecting an operator's gaze in order to select a presentation means and determine a presentation method according to the degree of attention of the operator with respect to the information presentation device and the importance of information to be presented. A gaze determination unit that determines whether the gaze is looking at the display device, an information providing unit that adds the importance to information output to the presentation unit and outputs the information to the presentation control unit, and a determination result of the gaze determination unit And a presentation control unit that determines an information output method from the importance and controls output to the presentation unit.

In the information presenting device according to the present invention, when the attention of the operator is not sufficiently displayed on the display device by using the attention degree of the operator, the voice prompting to confirm only the information of high importance can be performed. As a result, the operation of the operator can be reduced without bothering the operator.
In addition, the possibility that important information is overlooked by the operator is reduced, so that the efficiency and safety of a system monitoring operation requiring safety can be improved.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows an overall configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. The operator mainly visually confirms information presented on the display unit 5 which is a display device such as a display, and confirms sound information and auxiliary voice instructions from a voice output unit 6 such as a speaker.

According to the present invention, the degree of attention of the operator is detected, and the state determination unit 10 determines whether or not the display device for presenting information has sufficient attention of the operator. The presentation control unit 3 appropriately determines a presentation method to the operator according to the importance of information from the user, and controls the information presentation so that the operator does not miss important information. provide.

Hereinafter, in a first embodiment, an example will be described in which a line of sight is measured as an operator's degree of attention. The configuration diagram is as shown in FIG. 2, and the state determination unit 10 includes the gaze detection unit 1 and the gaze determination unit 2.

The line-of-sight detection unit 1 detects the line-of-sight direction of the operator, and notifies the value to the line-of-sight determination unit 2. The gaze determination unit 2 determines whether or not the operator is looking at the display device from the gaze direction detected by the gaze detection unit 1 and presents the result to the presentation control unit 3.
Notify. The information providing unit 4 corresponds to an application or a control system, and notifies the presentation control unit 3 of information such as a processing result and a system status, a message necessary for a dialogue with an operator, and the like. At this time, the presentation control unit 3 is notified by adding the information importance indicating the importance of the information.

The presentation control unit 3 determines a method of presenting information from the information providing unit 4 based on the information importance in accordance with the determination result from the gaze determination unit 2, and displays a display unit 5 and a voice output unit 6.
To present information to the operator. The display unit 5 is a display device such as a display, and the audio output unit 6 is an audio output device such as a speaker. The input unit 7 is an input device such as a keyboard and a mouse.

The operation of the line-of-sight detection unit 1 will be described with reference to FIG. Various methods of gaze detection have been proposed. Here, a method based on image processing as used in JP-A-9-81309 (input device) will be described. First, a face image of the operator is photographed by a TV camera, converted into a digital image by an A / D converter, a face area is detected from the image, an eye area is detected, and a gaze direction is measured.

The face area is detected by registering the operator's face image and performing pattern matching, and the face direction is measured by registering face images in a plurality of directions. The detection of the eye region is performed by extracting a black circular region equidistant from the center axis of the face region extracted in the above processing. In the measurement of the gaze direction, the direction of the eyeball is measured from the image of the eye region, and the gaze direction is measured along with the direction of the face measured in the face region detection processing.

The operation of the gaze determining section 2 will be described. Display 5
It is assumed that the position is fixed and the position of the operator is registered in advance. The line-of-sight determination unit 2 determines whether the line of sight of the operator is looking at the display unit 5.
If not, the presentation control unit 3 is notified of 0. Notification is 1
The determination processing is performed at regular time intervals such as every second or continuously, and a notification is sent as soon as it is completed. The determination as to whether or not the line of sight is looking at the display unit 5 is made based on whether or not the line of sight intersects with the display device of the display unit 5. Further, since the position of the operator is slightly shifted each time the operator gets into the seat, the position of the
It is advisable to make corrections by checking the line of sight at the corner.

The information providing unit 4 will be described. Information provider 4
Corresponds to an execution part of an application on a control system or a computer such as a plant. For example, in the case of a control system, status values such as an operation status notified from various controllers and a flow rate notified from a sensor are notified to the presentation control unit 3 and displayed on the display unit 5 and the like.

Also, when requesting an instruction from the operator according to the driving situation, a message requesting the instruction is notified to the presentation control unit 3, and the operator is notified from the display unit 5 or the like. The operator's instruction is input from the input unit 7, is notified to the information providing unit 4, and is reflected in the operation of the control system as the operator's instruction. As will be described later, the input from the input unit 7 is also notified to the presentation control unit 3 and used for presentation control. When information is notified from the information providing unit 4 to the presentation control unit 3, information importance indicating the importance of the information is added.

The information importance will be described. The information importance is represented by a numerical value such as 1 to 5 and notified to the presentation control unit 3. How the presentation control unit 3 operates according to the value of the information importance is defined in the presentation control unit 3, and the information providing unit 4 adds the information importance to the information notified to the presentation control unit 3 in accordance with the definition. Is added. For example, the presentation control unit 3
In the following, a description will be given of a case where it is defined that when the information importance degree is 3, when the operator is not watching, a warning is issued by voice to prompt the user to confirm the display. If the information providing unit 4 is a safety-oriented system such as a control system, for example, information that the operator should always check and determine for safety, such as detecting a state value that seems to be abnormal in a certain pump, is provided. When presenting, the value of the information importance level 3 is added and the presentation control unit 3 is notified of the addition.

The method of notifying the information and importance from the information providing unit 4 to the presentation control unit 3 is notified by an event such as a message or the following function. For example, the following functions are prepared as functions for notifying information consisting of text. put_text (Infotext, Infole
vel) Infotext is a variable that stores information, and information such as “The flow rate of the pump A has exceeded 150.” is stored. Infolevel is a variable that stores information importance, for example, a value of 3. Is stored.

The operation of the presentation control unit 3 will be described. The presentation control unit 3 determines a presentation unit and a presentation method of information from the information providing unit 4 based on the determination result of the gaze determination unit 2 and the information importance of the information providing unit 4, and controls the display unit 5 and the audio output unit 6. I do. Here, the presentation means includes a display unit 5 and a voice output unit 6.
And the presentation method means how to control the presentation means and how to present information. FIG. 4 shows the configuration of the presentation control unit 3. The presentation control determination unit 32 receives the determination result of the line-of-sight determination unit 2 and the information importance of the information providing unit 4 as inputs, and sets the presentation control rule storage unit 3
In accordance with the presentation rules recorded in 1, the presentation means and presentation method of the information from the information providing unit 4 are determined, and the output control unit 33 is determined.
Controls the display unit 5 or the audio output unit 6 according to the determination result of the presentation control determination unit 32 to present information.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the presentation control rules stored in the presentation control rule storage section 31. As shown in the figure, the conditional expression is described by an If conditional statement. The operation of the presentation control unit 3 can be changed by rewriting the description according to the system to be realized.

In FIG. 5, the importance indicates the information importance from the information providing unit 4, the gaze determination indicates the determination result from the gaze determination unit 2, and the normal display indicates the information from the information providing unit 4 as it is. 5 indicates that the information from the information providing unit 4 is to be output to the display unit 5, and the voice output indicates that the information from the information providing unit 4 is to be output as a voice or a warning sound. This means that the expression is changed by changing the color, font, etc., or the display method such as blinking is changed, so that the display is conspicuous. The presentation rule of FIG. 5 represents the following operation. -When the importance is 1 Regardless of whether the operator is watching or not, the display is displayed on the display unit 5 as usual. When the importance level is 2, display is performed on the display unit 5 as usual, and when the operator is not watching, the content of the output to the display unit 5 is synthesized by voice and notified to the operator by voice. When the importance level is 3, the output to the display unit 5 is highlighted, and when the operator is not watching, the output content to the display unit 5 is synthesized by voice and notified to the operator by voice. When the importance level is 4, regardless of whether the operator is watching or not, the output to the display unit 5 is highlighted, and the output content to the display unit 5 is voice-synthesized and notified to the operator by voice. I do.

The presentation control judging section 32 reads the presentation control rules from the presentation control rule storage section 31 and judges an appropriate presentation control rule from the judgment result of the gaze judging section 2 and the information importance from the information providing section 4. Then, the command of the selected presentation control rule is notified to the output control unit 33. The operation of the presentation control determination unit 32 will be described with reference to FIG. 6, taking the case where the presentation rule is that of FIG. 5 as an example. When the information is notified from the information providing unit 4 to the presentation control unit 3, the leading presentation control rule in the presentation control rule storage unit 31 is selected (step 501), and the result of the gaze determination unit 2 and the information from the information providing unit 4 are transmitted. If the information importance satisfies the conditional expression of the presentation control rule, the process proceeds to step 504; otherwise, the process proceeds to step 503 (step 502).

The next presentation control rule is selected from the presentation control rule storage unit 31 (step 503), and the process proceeds to step 502. In step 502, the command unit of the presentation control rule satisfying the conditional expression is notified to the output control unit 33. (Step 50
4).

The output control unit 33 displays the display unit 5 in accordance with the statement of the presentation control rule selected by the presentation control determination unit 32.
And information presentation to the audio output unit 6. For example, an operation when a message notifying that the operation mode has been shifted is displayed will be described with reference to FIG. 7 taking a control system as an example. The control system corresponding to the information providing unit 4 notifies the user that the operation mode has been switched to the B mode with the information importance level of 3 and when the operator does not look at the display unit 5, the display corresponding to the display unit 5 is displayed. The message is displayed in bold characters with a different color from the others, and the content of the message is synthesized and output from the speaker corresponding to the audio output unit 6.

FIG. 8 is an example of presentation when the information to be presented is a chart or the like. The graph in the figure shows the flow rate of a certain pump of the control system in time series. When the operator's line of sight returns to the display unit 5, an arrow is displayed at the information to be confirmed, that is, at the place of the flow rate so that the place to be confirmed is clearly understood. Since this arrow is an unnecessary display after the operator has confirmed it, it is deleted when it is confirmed that the operator has confirmed the information. When performing speech synthesis, reading out the numerical values is not enough for the operator to recognize,
A text such as “the pump flow rate has become 150” is generated from the title and the numerical value of the graph, and voice is synthesized and output from the voice output unit 6.

The output control unit 33 recognizes that the operator has confirmed the information as described above, and ends the highlighting. As a method of recognizing that the operator has confirmed, in the above, it is determined from the fact that the line of sight has returned to the display unit 5 and stayed for a certain period of time. A method of recognizing an input or an operator's repetition by voice can be applied.

As described above, the means and method of presenting information can be selected according to the state of the operator to prevent the operator from overlooking important information and to provide support without imposing an extra burden on the operator. can do.

In the above embodiment, the display unit 5 is one example, but the same applies when there are a plurality of display units 5. In that case, the API of the notification from the information presenting unit 4 is, for example, put_text (dispnum, Infotex).
t, Infolevel), and a variable for specifying which display device to display is added.

The line-of-sight determination unit 2 determines which display device the operator is looking at or has not seen any display device, and notifies the presentation control unit 3 of the determination result.
For example, if the display value is 0, no display device is viewed, and the integer value of 1 or more is the corresponding display device number. At the time of audio output, a distinction between display devices is added so that which display device should be noted. For example, in the above example, only "the flow rate of the pump has reached 150" is output, but a voice is output as "the flow rate of the pump of the monitor A has reached 150".

When the display unit 5 corresponds to each window of the multi-window system, the display device can be handled similarly by replacing the display device with a window in the above-described example.

In the above, an example in which a line of sight is used as the state determination unit 10 has been described. A display device operated by the operator is specified based on the input state from the input unit 7, and a display in which new information is to be presented. A method of determining whether the device is the same as the device can be handled in the same manner.

As a second embodiment, an example in which an importance determining unit 8 and an operator determining unit 9 are added to the configuration of the first embodiment will be described. FIG. 9 shows a configuration diagram of the second embodiment. In the second embodiment, the importance determining unit 8 re-determines the information importance added by the information providing unit 4 and notifies the presentation control unit 3. By separately providing the importance determination section 8, the level supported by each operator can be changed.

For example, when used by a skilled operator,
In some cases, it may not be bothersome to provide support only in safety-critical cases such as warnings of abnormalities, and otherwise leave it to the operator and do nothing extra.

On the other hand, in the case of an unskilled operator, there may be a case where a setting is made to provide support for all information and call attention to the information so as not to overlook the information. For example, a profile as shown in FIG. 10 is defined for a skilled person, and information having an information importance of 2 or less does not particularly support.
The importance determining unit 8 converts the information importance from the information providing unit 4 according to the correspondence defined in the profile, and notifies the presentation control unit 3.

The operator required by the importance determination section 8 is specified by the operator determination section 9. There are various methods for realizing the operator determining unit 9, but generally, user information can be obtained from login information to the system. Also,
The operator can also be recognized using the result of the matching process with the face image performed in the process of the face area detection process of the gaze determination unit 1. In the case of a system in which the operator changes at any time, the latter is used.

Further, an example in which the information importance output by the information providing unit 4 is changed to a value indicating the distinction of the content of information will be described. The information providing unit 4 outputs a value indicating the content of the information as the information importance as shown in FIG.
The profile is converted into the information importance to be notified to the presentation control unit 3 according to the profile. This allows more detailed settings for each operator according to the type of information content.

In the example of FIG. 12, when the operator is not watching the information on the occurrence of the switching of the operation mode, the information is read out by voice, and the information on the occurrence of the abnormal value is highlighted when the operator is not watching the information. The system operates in such a way that the voice is read out aloud after that. By changing the profile in FIG. 12, the level of support for each operator can be changed, and support can be provided according to the skill level of the operator.

Further, the processing in the embodiment of the present invention can be realized by a computer-executable program, and the program can be realized as a computer-readable storage medium.

As the storage medium in the present invention, a magnetic disk, a floppy (registered trademark) disk,
Hard disk, optical disk (CD-ROM, CD-
R, DVD, etc.), a magneto-optical disk (MO, etc.), a semiconductor memory, or any other storage medium that can store programs and that can be read by a computer.

An OS (operation system) running on the computer, database management software, MW (middleware) such as a network, etc., according to the instructions of the program installed in the computer from the storage medium realize this embodiment. May be executed.

Further, the storage medium in the present invention is not limited to a medium independent of a computer, but also includes a storage medium in which a program transmitted via a LAN or the Internet is downloaded and stored or temporarily stored.

Further, the number of storage media is not limited to one, and the case where the processing in the present embodiment is executed from a plurality of media is also included in the storage media of the present invention. Good.

The computer according to the present invention is:
The computer executes each process in the present embodiment based on a program stored in a storage medium, and may have any configuration such as an apparatus such as a personal computer or a system in which a plurality of apparatuses are connected to a network. Is also good.

The computer in the present invention is not limited to a personal computer, but also includes an arithmetic processing unit, a microcomputer, and the like included in an information processing device, and generically refers to devices and devices capable of realizing the functions of the present invention by a program. are doing.

[0047]

According to the present invention, the means and method for presenting information to the operator can be optimally selected according to the state of the operator, that is, whether or not the user is looking at the information presenting device, and the importance of the information to be presented. It is possible to provide an information presenting device that supports only when necessary so as to reduce the possibility that an operator overlooks important information and not to bother the operator. In particular, it is possible to improve the efficiency and safety of monitoring work of a system requiring safety.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an overall configuration diagram of a first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an example of a visual line detection unit 1;

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a presentation control unit.

FIG. 5 is an example of a presentation control rule in a presentation control rule storage unit.

FIG. 6 is an operation diagram of a presentation control determination unit 32.

FIG. 7 is a presentation example in the case where information is text.

FIG. 8 is a presentation example when the information is a chart.

FIG. 9 is an overall configuration diagram of a second embodiment.

FIG. 10 is an example of a profile of an expert.

FIG. 11 is an example of a value for distinguishing the content of information output by the information providing unit 4;

FIG. 12 is an example of a profile for setting information importance according to the type of information content.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Gaze detection part 2 ... Gaze determination part 3 ... Presentation control part 4 ... Information provision part 5 ... Display part 6 ... Voice output part

Continued on front page F-term (reference)

Claims (5)

[Claims] An information providing means for adding importance to information to be presented to an operator, wherein the information providing means adds importance to information to be presented to the operator. An information presentation device, comprising: a presentation control unit that determines a presentation method of information to be presented based on a given importance and a determination result of the state determination unit. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the state determination unit includes a line-of-sight detection unit that detects a line of sight of the operator, and a line-of-sight determination unit that determines whether the operator is looking at the display device based on a detection result of the line-of-sight detection unit. The information presentation device according to claim 1, wherein: 3. A state determining means for detecting an operator's state to determine the degree of attention of the operator, an information providing means for adding importance to information to be presented to the operator, and specifying a current operator And an importance determining means for changing the importance by the information providing means for each of the operators specified by the operator determining means; and an importance changed by the importance determining means. An information presenting apparatus comprising: a presentation control unit that determines a method of presenting information to be presented based on a determination result of the state determining unit. 4. An operator's state is detected to determine the degree of attention of the operator, information to be presented to the operator is added with importance, and the added importance and the determination result of the degree of attention are added. An information presenting method characterized by determining a method of presenting information to be presented based on the information. 5. A storage medium in which a program for confirming information to be presented is stored in a computer-readable manner, wherein the state of the operator is detected to determine the degree of attention of the operator, and presented to the operator. A storage medium storing a program for adding importance to information to be provided and determining a presentation method of information to be provided based on the added importance and the determination result of the degree of attention.