JP2002171520A - Portrait photographing device with function of reading physiognomy - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a portrait photographing device that can generate data originated from portrait data and utilized for various applications. SOLUTION: This device provides the portrait photographing device with a function of reading physiognomy that is provided with a digital camera, a user interface for users to control photographing processes or the like by the digital camera, a work memory that temporarily stores portrait data photographed by the digital camera in response to an input from the interface, a physiognomic information processing means that analyzes the portrait data stored in the work memory by means of a prescribed physiognomic algorithm to generate character reading data consisting of a prescribed information structure and writes the data to the work memory in cross-reference with the portrait data, a user memory interface that accesses a mobile memory mounted removably to the device, and a data output means that writes the portrait data and the physiognomic data stored in the work memory to the mobile memory through the user memory interface.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a face photographing apparatus for creating face photograph data of a user photographed by a digital camera.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A seal print apparatus is well known as a face photographing apparatus. This device is installed in a playground or on a street corner, etc., and a money insertion slot, a digital camera, a user interface including a display, an operation panel, a printer, and the like are appropriately arranged in an integrated body containing a computer. Then, image data is generated by synthesizing the face photograph taken by the digital camera and an appropriate decorative design, and the image data is printed out on a peelable adhesive seal sheet.

Further, recent sticker printing apparatuses have a communication interface for connecting to a network such as the Internet, and have a function of uploading created image data to a predetermined server computer on the network. The image data stored in the server computer is used as appropriate, such as downloading it to a sticker printing device at another location and printing it out on the spot.

[0004]

The image data created by the sticker printing apparatus described above cannot be used except by the sticker printing apparatus even if it is printed by an apparatus at another place. The image data created until the user pays a fee has no use other than display output and printout. Certainly, it is not possible to store the image data created by the face photographing device in a portable memory such as a floppy disk or to download the image data uploaded to the server computer to a personal computer. Will be easy.

[0005] However, with the widespread use of personal computers in ordinary households and the reduction in the price of digital cameras, how much need to take a facial photograph until a fee is paid? Unless you add some added value to the data itself, face photographer users will continue to decline.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a face photographing apparatus capable of creating image data from a photographed video and creating data usable for various purposes based on the image data.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a face photographing apparatus according to a first aspect of the present invention includes a digital camera for photographing a face of a user and a photographing process by the digital camera. A work interface for controlling a user and a work memory for temporarily storing face photograph data and the like taken by the digital camera in response to an input from the interface; The human face judgment data written in the work memory in association with the face photo data by generating the human face data having a predetermined information structure by analyzing the face photo data stored in Processing means; a user memory interface for accessing a removable memory which is detachably mounted; And a facial determined function of a face photography apparatus and a data output means for writing to the portable memory by the user memory interface and the face photograph data stored in the memory and the physiognomy data.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the basic configuration, the human face determination information processing means, a communication interface for performing data communication with another information processing device, and the face stored in the work memory are provided. A face photographing apparatus with a human phase determination function, comprising: a data transfer unit for transmitting photo data and the human phase data to an appropriate information processing device through the communication interface.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS === Appearance of Facial Photographing Apparatus and Optical System === FIG. 1 is an external view of a facial photographing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The apparatus main body 2 is in the shape of a vertically long box having a height of about 2 meters. The position (front of the device) facing the user standing in front of the face photographing device 1 is depressed, and in the depressed portion 3, user interfaces such as an operation panel 5 and a display 4 for receiving operation input from the user are integrated. Have been. Here, this depressed portion 3 is called a reception window.

The operation panel 5 has a built-in speaker 6 for outputting voices of switches and operation guides which can be operated while the user is photographing. In addition, various types of portable memory (floppy disk, smart media <registered trademark>, compact flash <registered trademark>
, Etc.) are also provided. A coin slot 8 for accepting a usage fee is provided below the main body box 2.

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of an optical system of the face photographing apparatus 1. The display 4 in front of the reception window 3 is a transparent window without an actual display device. There is a half mirror 12 installed diagonally behind the window, and a CRT display 11 is installed below the half mirror 12. Therefore, the display image on the CRT display 11 is reflected by the half mirror 12 toward the window 4.

Behind the half mirror 12, a CCD camera 13 is provided. The CCD camera 13 has a photographing optical axis 15 transmitted through the half mirror 12 and photographs the face of the user facing the window 4 from the front. In this embodiment, a video camera 13 is installed upward, and a photographing optical axis 15 is bent at a right angle by a mirror 14 disposed immediately before the lens. With the above optical system, the user can
The user can take a photograph of his / her own face while looking at the display image in front of the apparatus 1 without changing his or her posture.

=== System Configuration of Face Photographing Apparatus ==
= A computer system including a computer and various peripheral devices is built in the main body box 2, and the computer system controls and controls various functions of the face photographing device. FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of the entire face photographing apparatus including the computer system.

The central control unit 21 has a CPU, RAM,
It is a computer main body provided with a ROM. Operation control unit 2
3 transfers the user input information from the switches 24 on the operation panel 6 to the central control unit 21. The hard disk device 22 stores a control program of each peripheral device in the device and an application program for realizing each function, and is a generation source of a guide screen and a guide voice for instructing a user on an operation method and the like. It also stores image data (guidance screen data), audio data (guidance audio data), and the like. The central control unit 21 processes an appropriate program in response to a user input to appropriately control each peripheral device, and performs processing and control for outputting various data as images and sounds. Accordingly, the face photographing apparatus 1 provides a face photograph data creation service through an interactive user interface. Hereinafter, the specific processing and control of the central control unit 21 and the operation of each peripheral device will be described. === Basic operation of the face photographing device === Appropriately read from the hard disk device 22 by the central control unit 21 The guide screen data is bitmap-developed in the video RAM 25. This bitmap image is converted into a video signal by the video control unit 26 and displayed on the CRT display 11. The central control unit 21 performs processing and control for appropriately switching the guidance image and the guidance voice in response to the operation input by the user.

The central control unit 21 also performs processing and control for displaying a photograph of the user's face on the CRT display 11. The A / D converter 27 is a CCD camera 13
Is converted into digital data at each predetermined sampling period, and the central control unit 21 develops the digital data into the video RAM 25 while updating the digital data at each sampling period. As a result, the face photograph of the user is displayed and output on the CRT display 11 while being switched at predetermined intervals.

For the guidance voice, the D / A converter 2
8 performs D / A conversion on appropriate audio data transferred from the central control unit 21, and the analog audio signal is acoustically output from the speaker 6.

The memory interface 23 is connected to the device 1
The data transferred from the central control unit 21 can be written to the portable memory 29 by mediating data communication between the portable memory 29 attached to the plurality of memory slots 7 prepared in An operation of reading data stored in the portable memory 29 and transferring the data to the central control unit 21 is performed.

With the above configuration, the face photographing apparatus 1 prompts the user to create face photograph data through an interactive user interface. Then, the central control unit 21 responds to the user's instruction to create the face photograph data, and the video RAM 2
The image data being developed in step 5 is compressed and converted into image data of a predetermined data format such as JPEG format to generate face photograph data, which is temporarily stored in an internal RAM or the like.

=== Human Face Data Generation Process === The face photographing apparatus 1 of the present invention analyzes the generated face photograph data with an appropriate human face judgment algorithm and converts the human face data having a predetermined information structure. The feature is that it is generated. In this embodiment, the human phase data has an information structure including character data for displaying the analysis result to the user as characters and binary data processed by various information processing devices including a face photographing device. ing. The human face determination algorithm specifies the face of the user who has photographed by image recognition technology such as contour extraction, and also uses the aspect ratio of the contour and the position, shape, and position of each part (eye, nose, mouth, ear, etc.). Contrary size,
Furthermore, a process of analyzing each analysis item such as the color of the face and hair is adopted.

In this embodiment, the analysis result of each analysis item is described in the binary data in the human phase data. In addition, a table is prepared in which scores and character strings are associated according to the analysis results (for example, the numerical range of the aspect ratio of the contour) in each analysis item. For character data, the analysis results should be introduced in this table. Generated by For example, it is a score obtained by simply summing up the numerical values of the respective analysis items, a result of judging that each analysis item is associated with each fortune (fortune, healthy luck, etc.), and character data is simple. The data is displayed on the display as a game result.

The central control unit 21 stores the human face data generated together with the face photograph data in the internal RAM, and displays the text data on the CRT display 11. Then, when the user inserts the portable memory 29 brought into the slot 7 suitable for the memory and performs an operation input to store the face photo data, the central control unit 21 outputs the face photo data and the human face data. Are stored in the portable memory 29 in association with each other. Incidentally, in response to the case where the user does not bring the portable memory 29, the face photographing apparatus 1 may be provided with a "vending machine" function of the portable memory.

=== Other Embodiments / Modifications === In the configuration of the above embodiment, the face photograph data and the human face data are stored in the portable memory. Of course, if the face photographing device is provided with a communication interface such as a modem, the device communicates with another information processing device via a communication network such as the Internet, and stores face photograph data and human face data in the storage resources of this device. Can be stored.

As the external information processing device, a server computer or the like connected to the Internet can be considered. For example, a company that operates a face photographing apparatus sets up a membership-based Web site on a certain Web server, and allocates storage resources for each user member to the Web server or a computer linked to the Web server.

The face photographing apparatus connects to a certain server computer in response to a predetermined user input. The server performs an authentication procedure based on the user ID and password entered by the user, and when the server authenticates the user, the face photograph data and the human face data are stored in a storage resource assigned to the member with the user as a member. Store. Conversely, the face photograph data and the human face data stored in the storage resource are downloaded to the face photographing device. The user accesses the Web server at a later date using a personal computer at home or a mobile phone (browser-equipped phone) that can access the Internet by itself,
What is necessary is just to extract the face photograph data and the human face data stored in the own storage resources and use them as appropriate.

As the communication interface, in addition to the communication control device such as the modem, a USB / SCSI / RS23
An interface of a predetermined standard such as 2C can also be adopted. Of course, a wireless interface such as IrDA or Bluetooth may be adopted.

In this case, a connector provided in the communication interface of the face photographing apparatus and an external information processing device (such as a notebook personal computer of the user) are directly connected by an appropriate communication cable or wireless transmission path, and the face photograph is taken. The imaging device and the information processing device perform data communication with each other. In the case of cable connection, a form in which a plurality of cables are implanted and prepared in the face photographing device in advance according to the shape of the interface connector of the external information processing device is also conceivable. Thus, for example, data communication can be performed via a data input / output terminal of a mobile phone with a browser.

=== Application Example === The face photograph data created by the face photograph photographing apparatus is expected to be mainly used for display and printing. However, human data can be used for various purposes depending on the idea. Here, a usage form of the human phase data will be described as an application example.

In the above embodiment, the information structure of the human phase data was composed of character data and binary data. The character data is treated as a game result that can be enjoyed only when the face photograph data is created, such as the above-mentioned score and fortune-telling.
On the other hand, binary data can be used as various game data simply by changing the processing algorithm of the data.

For example, even if the score is simply displayed according to the judgment of the user, if the weight is changed for each of the above analysis items, the score will be completely different. As a game mode using this score, in addition to a mode in which the score is simply compared with the scores of other users, in order to increase the chances of using the face photographing device, the player competes relative to the score rather than the absolute value of the score. The form would be ideal. As a simple example, if the score of scissors / stone / paper is associated with the remainder obtained by dividing the score by 3, it is possible to play with other users regardless of the score. Here, an application example in which a certain user plays a competitive game with another user will be presented. For the sake of simplicity, it is assumed that the content of the game is the above-mentioned rock-paper-scissors.

First, a participant for a rock-paper-scissors tournament is recruited at a certain Web site. A qualified participant is a user who has created his / her own image data and human face data using a face photographing apparatus. Participating applicants upload the face photograph data and the human face data stored in the portable memory to a predetermined Web server or the like using their own personal computers. Alternatively, the image is directly uploaded to the Web server from the face photographing device via the communication interface.

When the number of participants reaches a specified value, the Web server appropriately creates a tournament table. Then, a photo of the face of the participant is posted on a Web page serving as a “battlefield”, and a rock-paper-scissor is made based on the human face data. In this case, you may judge by the absolute score value. Then determine the final winner. Certainly, although it is a game without love, if the winner is awarded, it can be expected that the number of users of the face photographing device will increase considerably. In addition, the Web
If an advertisement is posted on the site, it will be possible to develop a new business as a business model linked to the face photographing device.

[0032]

The face photographing apparatus according to the present invention generates face photograph data of a user and also generates human face data based on the face photograph data. The human phase data is stored in a portable memory together with the face photograph data, or is transferred to another information processing device, and can be reused for various purposes.

The human phase data increases the chance of using the face photographing device by the user by devising a method of reusing the data. As a result, in addition to the increase in the profit of the device alone, it also provides an opportunity to develop a business in another business model such as an event using the software for processing the personal data exclusively or the human data.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external view of a face photographing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of an optical system in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 face photographing device 5 operation panel 7 memory slot 11 CRT display 13 CCD camera 21 central control unit 22 hard disk device 23 memory interface 25 video RAM 29 portable memory

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A digital camera for taking a photograph of a face of a user, a user interface for allowing a user to control a photographing process and the like by the digital camera,
A work memory for temporarily storing face photograph data and the like photographed by the digital camera in response to an input from the interface, and analyzing the face photograph data stored in the work memory by a predetermined human phase judgment algorithm. Means for generating human phase data having a predetermined information structure and writing the human phase data in the work memory in association with the face photograph data, and for accessing a detachably mounted portable memory. A human memory interface, and data output means for writing the face photograph data and the human face data stored in the work memory to the portable memory by the user memory interface. Face photographing device with judgment function. 2. A digital camera for taking a photograph of the face of the user, a user interface for the user to control a photographing process and the like by the digital camera,
A work memory for temporarily storing face photograph data and the like photographed by the digital camera in response to an input from the interface, and analyzing the face photograph data stored in the work memory by a predetermined human phase judgment algorithm. A human interface determination information processing unit that generates human phase data having a predetermined information structure and writes the data in the work memory in association with the face photograph data; and a communication interface for performing data communication with another information processing device. A data transfer means for transferring the face photograph data and the human face data stored in the work memory to an appropriate information processing device through the communication interface. Face photography equipment.