JP2005223854A - Image display device and digital camera with image display device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image display device for forming thumbnail display simply and a digital camera equipped with the image display device. <P>SOLUTION: A personal computer 2 include an image resemblance determination program 65a for determining whether two or more image files taken from a digital camera are similar respectively or not and an image display program 65b for displaying thumbnail images of only one image as a representative image determined as resembled by the image resemblance determination program 65a, on a screen of a monitor 66. The image resemblance determination program 65a and the image display program 65b are implemented by a CPU 60 of the personal computer 2. In addition, the image resemblance determination program 65a and the image display program 65b may be integrated in the digital camera. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image display device that displays a list of a plurality of images taken by a digital camera on a screen and a digital camera including the image display device.

  Image data captured by the digital camera is recorded in a recording medium such as an internal memory provided in the digital camera or a removable memory card. When browsing the image data recorded on this recording medium, an external display device such as a personal computer (PC) is used in addition to the LCD display device provided in the digital camera itself. For example, by connecting a digital camera to a PC using a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cable, image data is transferred to the PC and displayed on a monitor screen by an application program installed in the PC.

  Recent digital cameras include a continuous shooting function that performs continuous still image shooting at once, and an auto bracketing (AEB) shooting function that allows multiple still images to be shot at a time while gradually changing the exposure. (For example, refer to Patent Document 1). In recent years, since the capacity of recording media has been increasing, a large number of image data captured by continuous shooting or auto bracketing shooting can be recorded on the recording medium as it is. .

JP 2003-348438 A

  However, a large number of image data obtained by such continuous shooting or auto bracketing shooting, and image data obtained by normal one-by-one shooting are collectively displayed on the monitor screen as thumbnails. When the images are displayed as a list, a large number of similar thumbnail images are continuously displayed, resulting in a complicated display.

  An object of the present invention is to provide an image display apparatus capable of simply displaying a list of a large number of images taken with a digital camera, and a digital camera including the image display apparatus.

  An image display device of the present invention is an image display device capable of displaying a list of a plurality of images taken with a digital camera on a screen, and image similarity determination means for determining whether or not the images are similar to each other. In addition, image display means for displaying only one image as a representative image from a plurality of images determined to be similar by the image similarity determination means is provided.

  The image similarity determination unit preferably determines whether or not the images are similar based on tag information attached to the image.

  Moreover, it is preferable that the image display means distinguishes and displays one image that is not similar to any of the images and the representative image of a plurality of similar images.

  In addition, it is preferable to provide representative image selection means for selecting an image having the best image quality from similar images and using it as the representative image.

  A digital camera according to the present invention includes any one of the above image display devices.

  The image display device of the present invention is an image similarity determination unit that determines whether or not each image is similar in an image display device capable of displaying a list of a plurality of images captured by a digital camera on a screen. Since there is provided image display means for displaying only one image as a representative image from a plurality of images determined to be similar by the image similarity determination means, it is possible to simply display a list of a large number of captured images. .

  In FIG. 1, a digital camera 3 is connected via a USB cable 4 to a personal computer (PC) 2 to which the present invention is applied. The PC 2 can capture the image file 50 (see FIG. 3) from the digital camera 3 and display the main image 50 or the thumbnail image 51 included in the image file 50 on the monitor.

  In FIG. 2 showing the electrical configuration of the digital camera 3, a lens motor 11 is connected to the imaging lens 10. An iris motor 13 is connected to the diaphragm 12. These motors 11 and 13 are stepping motors, which are controlled in operation by drive pulses transmitted from motor drivers 15 and 16 connected to the CPU 14 and perform photographing preparation processing when the release button 17 is half-pressed.

  The lens motor 11 moves the zoom lens of the imaging lens 10 to the wide side or the tele side in conjunction with the operation of the zoom operation button provided in the operation unit 18. Further, the focus lens of the imaging lens 10 is moved in accordance with the subject distance and zoom lens zooming, and the focus adjustment is performed so that the shooting conditions are optimized. The iris motor 13 operates the diaphragm 12 to adjust exposure.

  Behind the imaging lens 10 is a CCD 19 for imaging subject light transmitted through the imaging lens 10. A timing generator (TG) 20 controlled by the CPU 14 is connected to the CCD 19, and the shutter speed of the electronic shutter is determined by a timing signal (clock pulse) input from the TG 20.

  The imaging signal output from the CCD 19 is input to a correlated double sampling circuit (CDS) 21 and output as R, G, and B image data that accurately corresponds to the accumulated charge amount of each cell of the CCD 21. Image data output from the CDS 21 is amplified by an amplifier (AMP) 22 and converted into digital image data by an A / D converter (A / D) 23.

  The image signal processing circuit 24 performs various types of image processing such as gradation conversion, white balance correction, and γ correction processing on the image data. Image data that has been subjected to various types of image processing by the image signal processing circuit 24 is temporarily stored in the SDRAM 25. The image data stored in the SDRAM 25 is converted into a composite signal by the LCD driver 26 and displayed on the LCD 27.

  The YC processing circuit 28 reads the image data that has been subjected to various types of image processing by the image signal processing circuit 24 from the SDRAM 25, and converts it into a luminance signal Y and color difference signals Cr and Cb. The compression / decompression processing circuit 29 performs image compression on the converted image data in a predetermined compression format (for example, JPEG format).

  The image data compressed by the compression / decompression processing circuit 29 is recorded in the memory card 31 via the media controller 30 in the form of an image file 50. The image file 50 recorded on the memory card 31 is transmitted to an external device such as the PC 2 via the communication I / F 32 and the USB connector 33. The USB cable 4 is connected to the USB connector 33.

  The CPU 14 is connected to each unit via the bus 34 and controls the overall operation of the digital camera 3 in an integrated manner. In addition to the release button 17 and the operation unit 18 described above, an EEPROM 35 is connected to the CPU 14. In the EEPROM 35, various control programs and setting information are recorded. The CPU 14 reads these pieces of information from the EEPROM 35 to the SDRAM 25 which is a working memory, and executes various processes.

  Also, the bus 34 detects whether the exposure amount, that is, the shutter speed of the electronic shutter and the aperture value of the aperture 12 are appropriate for shooting, and detects whether the white balance is appropriate for shooting. A detection circuit 36, an AF detection circuit 37 that detects whether or not the focus adjustment of the imaging lens 10 is appropriate for photographing, and a strobe control circuit 39 that controls the operation of the strobe device 38 are also connected.

  The release button 17 is a two-stage push switch. When the release button 17 is lightly pressed (half-pressed) after framing by the LCD 27, various photographing preparation processes such as automatic exposure adjustment (AE) and automatic focus adjustment (AF) are performed. In this state, when the release button 17 is pressed once more (fully pressed), the image signal for one screen that has undergone the imaging preparation process is converted into image data, and then the image signal processing circuit 24 and the compression / decompression processing circuit. The image processing and the compression processing by 29 are performed, and the image file 50 is recorded on the memory card 31. At this time, tag information such as shooting date / time and shutter speed is added to the image file 50.

  In addition to the “single frame shooting” in which the digital camera 3 captures one frame with a single operation of the release button 17, the CPU 14 controls the above-described units so that a plurality of frames can be captured with a single operation of the release button 17. It is possible to perform “continuous shooting” that is continuously performed and “auto bracketing shooting” that continuously shoots a plurality of frames while changing the exposure stepwise by one operation of the release button 17. In the case of continuous shooting or auto bracketing shooting, a plurality of image files 50 are recorded on the memory card 31 at a time.

  The operation unit 18 is provided with setting buttons for setting shooting modes such as single frame shooting, continuous shooting, and auto bracketing shooting.

  In FIG. 3, an image file 50 is an example obtained by continuous shooting, and includes a main image 51, a thumbnail image 52, tag information 53 related to this image data, and the like. The tag information 53 includes a shooting date and time, a title, a shooting mode, a shutter speed, an aperture value, an exposure correction value, and the like.

  In addition, every time an image file 50 is recorded on the memory card 31, the digital camera 3 assigns a unique file name to the image file 50 (a serial number that is consecutive in the order of shooting, for example, DSCF0001.JPG). The file name extension “.JPG” represents image data compressed in the JPEG format.

  As shown in FIG. 4, the overall operation of the PC 2 is comprehensively controlled by the CPU 60. The CPU 60 is connected to the RAM 62, the ROM 63, and the input / output I / F 64 via the bus 61. In the RAM 62, the image file 50 captured from the digital camera 3 is recorded. The ROM 63 stores programs necessary for starting up the PC 2 and software 65 including an image similarity determination program 65 a and an image display program 65 b, and these programs are executed by the CPU 60. A monitor 66, a keyboard 67, a mouse 68, a USB connector 69, and the like are connected to the input / output I / F 64.

  The image similarity determination program 65a refers to the tag information 53 from a plurality of image files 50 taken from the digital camera 3 and recorded in the RAM 62, and determines whether the two image files are similar. That is, the similar image search program 65a compares the tag information 53 such as the shooting date / time, title, shooting mode, shutter speed, aperture value, exposure correction value, and the like for each image file 50 to perform similarity determination. For example, attention is focused on whether the shooting date and time are close, the titles are similar, the shooting modes are the same, and the shooting conditions are close.

  When the image similarity determination program 65a determines that the plurality of image files 50 are similar, the image display program 65b displays only the thumbnail image 52 of one image file 50 as a representative image, as shown in FIG. The thumbnail images 52 of the other image files 50 are displayed so as to be superimposed on the back without being displayed. On the other hand, the image file 50 determined not to be similar to any one displays only one thumbnail image 52 as shown in FIG. As described above, the image display program 65b distinguishes the display of the thumbnail image 52 depending on whether or not there is a similar image file 50.

  Next, the operation of the PC 2 configured as described above will be described with reference to FIGS. By performing single frame shooting, continuous shooting, auto bracketing shooting, and the like with the digital camera 3, various image files 50a to 50p having tag information and thumbnail images as shown in FIG. To be recorded. After the photographing is finished, the USB connector 33 of the digital camera 3 and the USB connector 69 of the PC 2 are connected by the USB cable 4, and the image files 50 a to 50 p recorded on the memory card 31 are taken into the RAM 62 of the PC 2.

  When the software 65 is activated, an image display window appears on the screen of the monitor 66. At this time, the CPU 60 executes the image similarity determination program 65a and the image display program 65b, and the processing along the flow shown in FIG. 7 is performed on the image files 50a to 50p. First, the thumbnail image 52a of the first image file 50a is displayed in the image display window by the image display program 65b as shown in FIG. Another second image file 50b is selected, and the tag information is compared with the image file 50a on which the thumbnail image is displayed to make a similarity determination. When the image file 50a and the image file 50b are similar, the thumbnail image 52b of the image file 50b is not displayed, but is superimposed behind the thumbnail image 52a and displayed as shown in FIG. 5A (superimposed display). It becomes. On the other hand, when the image file 50b is not similar to the image file 50a, the thumbnail image 52b of the image file 50b is newly displayed in the image display window as shown in FIG.

  Subsequently, another third image file 50c is selected, and an image file 50a in which thumbnail images have already been displayed (if the image file 50a and the image file 50b are not similar, the image file 50b is also included). And tag information are compared, and similarity determination is performed. If they are similar, the thumbnail image 52c of the image file 50c is not displayed, but is superimposed on the thumbnail image of the similar image file. On the other hand, if they are not similar, a new thumbnail image 52c is displayed. In this way, the process is performed for all the image files in order.

  In this way, thumbnail images 52a, 52f, 52j and thumbnail images 52m to 52p are displayed in the image display window 70 as shown in FIG. The image files 50a to 50e are similar images obtained by continuous shooting, and the thumbnail image 52a of the image file 50a is superimposed and displayed as a representative image. The image files 50f to 50i are similar images obtained by another continuous shooting, and the thumbnail image 52f of the image file 50f is superimposed and displayed as a representative image. The image files 50f to 50i are similar images obtained by auto bracketing shooting, and the thumbnail image 52j of the image file 50j is displayed as a representative image in a superimposed manner. The image files 50m to 50p are image files obtained by single-frame shooting, and are not similar to each other, and thumbnail images 52m to 50p of the respective image files are displayed.

  Note that thumbnail images of similar image files obtained by continuous shooting and auto bracketing shooting are displayed in a superimposed manner, but this is not restrictive, and similar images with similar shooting dates and titles are similar. It may be determined that the image is an image, and a thumbnail image may be superimposed and displayed.

  FIG. 9 shows another embodiment of the present invention. The ROM 63 of the PC 2 stores software 71 including a representative image selection program 65c for selecting a representative image file in addition to the image similarity determination program 65a and the image display program 65b. The representative image selection program 65c is executed by the CPU 60, and evaluates main image data from a set of similar image files (for example, image files 50f to 50i) obtained by the similarity determination process, and focuses, exposes, and shades. One of the best is selected as a representative image file. For example, by selecting the image data having the highest high-frequency component, the most focused image file can be selected as the representative image file.

  The operation in this configuration will be described along the flow of FIG. First, in the flow shown in FIG. 7, for example, the similarity determination of the image files 50a to 50p shown in FIG. 6 is performed, and the thumbnail images 52a, 52f and 52j and the thumbnail images 52m to 52p as shown in FIG. It is displayed in the display window 70. Subsequently, the thumbnail image 52a is selected. Since the thumbnail image 52a is displayed in a superimposed manner, the representative image selection program 65c evaluates the image data of the similar image files 50a to 50e to which the thumbnail image 52a belongs, and selects the representative image file with the best image quality. For example, when the image file 50c is selected as the representative image file, the thumbnail image 52c of the image file 50c is displayed instead of the thumbnail image 52a currently displayed in the image display window 70 as the representative image.

  Since the thumbnail images 52f and 52j are also displayed in a superimposed manner, similarly, a representative image file is selected from similar image files, and a thumbnail image of the selected representative image file is already displayed as a representative image. 52f and 52j are displayed instead. On the other hand, since the thumbnail images 52m to 52p are not superimposed and displayed, the representative image selection program 65c does not operate and the thumbnail images 52m to 52p are continuously displayed as the representative images. In this way, the representative image file is selected and the thumbnail image with the highest image quality is displayed without the user determining whether the image is good or bad.

  In the above-described embodiment, the image file tag information is referred to by the image similarity determination program 65a and the image file similarity determination is performed. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the image similarity determination program 65a executes the image file similarity determination. For the similarity determination, a means for normalizing and comparing the coordinate information and color information of the image data as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-334117 may be used.

  In the above embodiment, the thumbnail image of the image file obtained by photographing with the digital camera 3 is displayed on the PC 2. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the software 65 or the software 71 is not limited to the digital camera 3. May be stored in the EEPROM 35 and the CPU 33 may execute this as described above to display a list of thumbnail images of the image file on the LCD 27. Since the present invention can simply display a list of thumbnail images, it is more effective for a small monitor mounted on a digital camera.

It is the schematic which shows a mode that the digital camera was connected to the personal computer. It is a block diagram which shows the electric constitution of a digital camera. It is explanatory drawing which shows the structure of an image file. It is a block diagram which shows the electric constitution of a personal computer. FIG. 5A is a diagram showing a state in which thumbnail images are displayed. FIG. 5A is a diagram in which a plurality of thumbnail images of similar image files are superimposed and FIG. 5B is a diagram in which thumbnail images of one image file are displayed. . It is a figure which shows the example of the several various image file recorded on the memory card. It is a flowchart explaining the processing procedure of the image similarity determination and thumbnail image display by a personal computer. It is a figure which shows a mode that the thumbnail image was displayed on the image display window. It is a block diagram which shows the electric constitution of the personal computer in another embodiment. It is a flowchart explaining the process in which a representative image file is selected.

Explanation of symbols

2 Personal Computer 3 Digital Camera 4 USB Cable 10 Imaging Lens 12 Aperture 14 CPU
19 CCD
24 Image signal processing circuit 27 LCD
31 Memory card 35 EEPROM
36 AE / AWB detection times 37 AF detection circuit 50 Image file 51 Main image 52 Thumbnail image 53 Tag information 60 CPU
63 ROM
65 Software 65a Image similarity determination program 65b Image display program 65c Representative image selection program 66 Monitor 70 Image display window 71 Software

Claims (5)

In an image display device that makes it possible to display a list of a plurality of images taken with a digital camera on a screen,
Image similarity determination means for determining whether or not each of the images is similar;
An image display device comprising: an image display unit that displays only one image as a representative image from a plurality of images determined to be similar by the image similarity determination unit.   The image display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image similarity determination unit determines whether or not the images are similar based on tag information attached to the image.   The image display device according to claim 1, wherein the image display unit distinguishes and displays one image that is not similar to any of the images and the representative image of a plurality of similar images.   4. The image display device according to claim 1, further comprising representative image selection means for selecting an image having the best image quality from similar images and using the selected image as the representative image.   A digital camera comprising the image display device according to claim 1.

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