JP2005064852A - Digital camera and method of determining order of reproducing images - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To automatically reproduce images from a user's favorite one when image data in a memory is to be reproduced in a digital camera. <P>SOLUTION: A method of determining the order of reproducing images for successively reproducing and displaying a plurality of image data stored in a memory includes the steps of counting the data indicating the reproduction results when reproduced and displayed on a display screen, storing the count for each data image in the memory (file columns 12 and 13), referring to the count when reproducing and displaying the image data, and reproducing and displaying the image data successively from the one with the largest count. The image data with the larger count are regarded as the image data which has been preferred by the user and reproduced a number of times or for a long time. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a digital camera and an image reproduction order determination method, and more particularly, to a digital camera and an image reproduction order determination method that can make an image reproduction order the order of a user's favorite image.

  Digital still cameras and digital cameras equipped with mobile phones have been able to store a large number of images on a single memory card due to an increase in memory capacity. For this reason, there is a problem in organizing the captured images stored in the memory card.

  Therefore, in the conventional technique described in Patent Document 1 below, list data of photographed images in a memory card is created, and this list data is displayed on the screen, so that the user can organize each photographed image. .

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-51280

  In a digital camera with only a small display screen, when searching for a target image while playing back the shot image between shots, the images must be played back in order of file number, for example, to print There is a problem that it takes time to know the number of the file number of the image to be processed.

  Therefore, it is convenient if a list of photographed image list data can be confirmed on the display screen as in the above-described prior art. However, many of the display screens installed in digital cameras are small, and in addition to the image file name, list data in which various data such as shooting date, shooting time, shooting location, and priority are written is displayed on the display screen. It is difficult to display, and there is a problem that it cannot be seen unless the screen is greatly scrolled. Furthermore, in a digital camera in which portability is important, there is a problem that usability is reduced when an operation for searching for a target image becomes troublesome.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a digital camera and an image reproduction order determination method that can immediately reproduce an image that a user likes without troublesome operations.

  The image reproduction order determination method of the present invention is the image reproduction order determination method for sequentially reproducing and displaying a plurality of image data stored in the memory on the display screen, and the reproduction results when the image data is reproduced and displayed on the display screen. The count number for each image data is stored in the memory, and when the image data is reproduced and displayed, the count number is referred to and the image data having the largest count number is reproduced in order. It is characterized by displaying.

  With this configuration, an image having a higher track record that the user likes and reproduces has a higher display priority, and an image that the user likes can be automatically determined without troublesome operations.

  The image reproduction order determination method of the present invention is characterized in that a cumulative value is used as the count number for determining the order of reproduction display. With this configuration, it is possible to reflect the long-term reproduction performance in the determination of the reproduction order, and it is possible to further reflect the user preference in the priority order.

  In the image reproduction order determination method of the present invention, the reproduction performance is a reproduction time or the number of reproductions. With this configuration, it is easy to measure the playback performance.

  The digital camera according to the present invention includes an imaging unit that captures an image of a subject, a memory that stores image data of the subject that is captured by the imaging unit, and the image data stored in the memory. In a digital camera comprising display means for reproducing and displaying the image data at the time, when the image data in the memory is reproduced and displayed on the display means, the reproduction result data is counted and the count number is counted for each image data. And a playback order determining unit that stores the image data in the memory and reproduces and displays the image data in the memory on the display unit, and refers to the count number and reproduces and displays the image data in descending order of the count number. .

  With this configuration, an image having a higher track record that the user likes and reproduces has a higher display priority, and an image that the user likes can be automatically determined without troublesome operations.

  The digital camera of the present invention is characterized in that a cumulative value is used as the count number for determining the order of the reproduction display. With this configuration, it is possible to reflect the long-term reproduction performance in the determination of the reproduction order, and it is possible to further reflect the user preference in the priority order.

  The reproduction performance of the digital camera of the present invention is a reproduction time or the number of reproductions. With this configuration, it is easy to measure the playback performance.

  According to the present invention, since the priority order of the user's favorite image is automatically determined without troublesome operation, the usability of the digital camera or the like is improved.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a digital still camera according to an embodiment of the present invention. This digital still camera includes a lens 1, a solid-state image sensor 2 (CCD in this example) 2 that is provided on the back of the lens 1 and converts an optical image of a subject into an electrical signal, and an analog of a subject output from the solid-state image sensor 2. An analog-to-digital converter 3 that converts an image signal into a digital image signal, and subject image signal processing such as known gamma conversion processing, synchronization processing, and RGB / YC conversion processing to generate image data of a subject Furthermore, a signal processing unit 4 for compressing the image data into image data such as JPEG is provided.

  The digital camera further includes a CPU 5 that performs overall control of the digital camera, a main memory 6, an image recording device 8 that stores the image data such as the above-described JPEG in the external memory 7 and reads out the stored image data in the external memory 7, A liquid crystal display unit 9 that is mounted on the back of a digital camera or the like and displays image data generated at the time of photographing a subject and image data stored in the external memory 7 is provided. The analog-digital converter 3, the signal processing unit 4, the CPU 5, the main memory 6, the image recording device 8, and the liquid crystal display unit 9 are connected to each other by a bus 10.

  The CPU 5 has a time measuring function. As will be described in detail later, when the captured image data stored in the external memory 7 is reproduced and displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 9, the reproduction time for each image data is displayed. It is supposed to keep time. The external memory 7 stores captured image data with a file number attached thereto, and automatically generates and stores a reproduction order file described later.

  FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of the playback order file. The image data stored in the external memory 7 is given a file name of “file number.JPG” for each image data, and the file number (DSCF0001, DSCF0002 in the illustrated example) is assigned to the reproduction order file. ,..., A writing column 11 and a reproduction time writing column 12 and a reproduction accumulation time writing column 13 at the time of the previous reproduction provided for each file number.

  When a subject is imaged with a digital camera and is not yet reproduced and displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 9, the data in the reproduction time writing column 12 corresponding to each file number is all “0 seconds”. When the user sets the digital camera in the playback mode and plays back each image data in the order of file numbers, for example, the playback time is counted for each file number, and the playback time is written as shown in FIG. It is written in the column 12. In the illustrated example, the image data of the file number DSCF0001 is reproduced and displayed for 4 seconds, and the image data of the DSCF0004 number is reproduced and displayed for 13 seconds. This time is a measure of whether or not the user likes the image.

  The reproduction order file according to the present embodiment is also provided with a reproduction accumulation time writing column 13. For example, the reproduction accumulation time of the image data of the file number DSCF0001 is 49 seconds so far, and the reproduction time of this time is 4 seconds. In the case of seconds, the data “53 seconds” obtained by adding both is written in the column 13. This reproduction / accumulation time is also an indication of whether or not the user likes the image.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure when the digital camera is set in the reproduction mode and the captured image data in the external memory 7 is reproduced and displayed. This digital camera is provided with three modes as playback modes, and the user designates one of the modes in advance.

  When the digital camera is set to the reproduction mode, the CPU 5 first determines whether the reproduction mode designated by the user is the normal mode, the reproduction time mode, or the reproduction accumulation time mode (step S1).

In the case of the normal mode, the process proceeds to step S2, where the reproduction order #n of the image data is determined in the order of the file numbers, and the data of the determined reproduction order is temporarily stored in the main memory 6. In the case of the example of FIG. 2, the data of the reproduction order #n determined in the normal mode is
# 1: DSCF0001,
# 2: DSCF0002,
# 3: DSCF0003,
# 4: DSCF0004,
# 5: DSCF0005,
# 6: DSCF0006
Is determined.

In the reproduction time mode, the process proceeds to step S3, where the reproduction order #n is determined in the order of the reproduction time at the previous reproduction, and the data of the decided reproduction order is temporarily stored in the main memory 6. In the example of FIG. 2, the data of the reproduction order #n determined in this reproduction time mode is
# 1: DSCF0004,
# 2: DSCF0005,
# 3: DSCF0002,
# 4: DSCF0003,
# 5: DSCF0001,
# 6: DSCF0006
Is determined. When there are a plurality of image data having the same reproduction time, these image data are in the order of file numbers.

In the reproduction accumulation time mode, the process proceeds to step S4, where the reproduction order #n is determined in the order of the reproduction accumulation time, and data of the decided reproduction order is temporarily stored in the main memory 6. In the example of FIG. 2, the data of the reproduction order #n determined in the reproduction accumulation time mode is
# 1: DSCF0003,
# 2: DSCF0004,
# 3: DSCF0001,
# 4: DSCF0005,
# 5: DSCF0002,
# 6: DSCF0006
Is determined. When there are a plurality of image data having the same reproduction and accumulation time, these image data are arranged in the order of file numbers.

  After the playback order #n is determined in any playback mode, the variable n = 1 is set in the next step S5, and in the next step S6, it corresponds to the playback order #n (in this case, # 1). The number of the file number is obtained by searching reproduction order data temporarily stored in the main memory 6. Then, the image data of the obtained file number is read from the external memory 7 and reproduced and displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 9, and at the same time, the reproduction time is counted by the time measuring function of the CPU 5.

  In step S7, it is determined whether or not the user has input a reproduction instruction for the next image data. If there is no reproduction instruction input for the next image data, the process returns to step S6 and the reproduction order #n (= # 1) is reached. Continue to display the image and display the playback time.

  If it is determined in step S7 that the next image data reproduction instruction has been input, the process proceeds to step S8, and the data in the column 12 corresponding to the file number of #n (in this example, # 1) is counted as time data. Further, the time data thus counted is added to the data in the column 13, and the process proceeds to step S9.

  In step S9, the variable n is set to n + 1, and the process proceeds to step S10 to determine whether or not the reproduction display of the image data for the total number of image data has been completed. If it is determined that the reproduction has been completed, the reproduction mode is terminated. Or when it determines with having complete | finished, it returns to the first step S1 and continues reproduction | regeneration mode. In the case of continuing, the playback order #n determined again in steps S3 and S4 becomes the playback order reflecting the previously measured playback time, and the previous playback order on the main memory 6 with the data of the new playback order. Rewrite the data.

  If it is determined in step S10 that the reproduction of the image data for all image data has not been completed, the process proceeds to step S6. As a result, the image data corresponding to the file number of # 2 after # 1 is reproduced and displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 9, and the reproduction time is simultaneously measured. Thereafter, steps S7, S8, S9, S10, and S6 are repeated in the same manner.

  As described above, in this embodiment, since the playback mode is provided with the playback time mode and the playback storage time mode in addition to the normal mode, the user simply performs an operation of playing back and displaying image data on the liquid crystal display unit. By simply doing, the user's favorite image data can be ranked, so that, for example, when selecting and printing a favorite image, the image selection becomes faster or it becomes easy to determine whether or not to delete the image data. .

  In the process of FIG. 3, the case where all the image data stored in the external memory 7 is reproduced and displayed has been described. However, it is not necessary to reproduce all, and the user inputs an instruction to end the reproduction mode at an arbitrary timing. When the playback mode ends. Even in this case, the reproduction time counted until the end of the reproduction mode is reflected in the reproduction order file.

  In the above-described embodiment, the reproduction time mode and the reproduction accumulation time mode are provided. However, either one may be used, and “reproduction count” may be used as reproduction performance data instead of “reproduction time”. In particular, when the image data is a moving image, the number of reproductions is preferably used.

  Furthermore, in the above embodiment, data indicating the playback results (in the above example, playback time data and playback storage time data) are collected in a playback order file provided in the memory. It may be stored as data tag information, and when the reproduction mode is entered, the CPU 5 may first read only the tag information of each image data to determine the reproduction order #n.

  In this embodiment, the method for determining the image reproduction order of the digital camera has been described. However, the above-described image reproduction order determination method for the viewer software that sequentially displays a plurality of image data stored in a certain folder on the personal computer. May be applied.

  The image reproduction order determination method according to the present invention is applied to image reproduction display of a digital camera, so that a user's favorite image can be automatically determined and preferentially displayed, thereby improving usability, Useful.

It is a block block diagram of the digital camera which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram of the reproduction | regeneration order file set in the external memory of the digital camera which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the process sequence of the image reproduction order determination method which CPU shown in FIG. 1 performs.

Explanation of symbols

5 CPU
7 External memory 9 Liquid crystal display

Claims (6)

In an image reproduction order determination method for sequentially reproducing and displaying a plurality of image data stored in a memory on a display screen, data indicating reproduction results when reproduced and displayed on the display screen is counted and each image data is counted. The number of counts is stored in the memory, and when the image data is reproduced and displayed, the count number is referred to reproduce and display the image data in descending order of the count number. Decision method. The image reproduction order determination method according to claim 1, wherein a cumulative value is used as the count number for determining the order of the reproduction display. 3. The image reproduction order determination method according to claim 1, wherein the reproduction performance is a reproduction time or the number of reproductions. Imaging means for imaging a subject, a memory for storing image data of the subject obtained by imaging with the imaging means, and reproducing the image data when the image data stored in the memory is read In a digital camera comprising display means for displaying, when the image data in the memory is reproduced and displayed on the display means, the reproduction result data is counted and the count number is stored in the memory for each image data and the memory And a reproduction order determining means for referring to the count number and reproducing and displaying the image data in descending order when the image data is reproduced and displayed on the display means. 5. The digital camera according to claim 4, wherein a cumulative value is used as the count number for determining the order of reproduction display. The digital camera according to claim 4, wherein the reproduction result is a reproduction time or a reproduction count.

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