JP2006186746A - Electronic album producing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic album producing apparatus which dispenses with positioning and/or layout of a photograph and a card for image reading, accurately grasps the reading range, and reads many images in a short period of time, when producing an electronic album. <P>SOLUTION: A read section 13 reads a plurality of whole images such as a photograph Pb and a card Pc or the like placed on a photograph stand 11, and thereafter detects edges of the photograph Pb and the card Pc or the like to specify the read range of the individual photograph Pb or the like, and stores the images by separating them into one each. A liquid crystal display section 14 displays source images, such as the photograph Pb stored by image reading, and while viewing the liquid crystal display section 14, the user lays out the source images at arbitrary positions through the operation of an operation section 12 and creates an album image. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an electronic album creation apparatus, and more particularly to a configuration of a new apparatus for simultaneously reading image information of photographs and handwritten cards and freely editing and creating an electronic album based on the image information of the pictures and cards.

Conventionally, there are albums in which photos taken in various scenes are pasted on paper mounts. Recently, with the spread of IT devices such as personal computers, digital cameras, and scanners, digital photos are stored on personal computers. Is stored electronically, and an electronic album is created with dedicated software or the like. According to such an electronic album, it is possible to view and enjoy images in which memories such as travel and events are expressed without deterioration in image quality.
Japanese Patent No. 3122900 JP 2004-201051 A

  However, when creating an electronic album with an IT device such as a personal computer or a scanner, it is necessary to acquire knowledge of the IT device such as a personal computer or dedicated album creation software, which is time consuming and troublesome. If you are not good at handling personal computers, you may not be interested in creating electronic albums.

Therefore, in the present application, a new device is proposed in which an image such as a photograph or a card is read by a reading unit (device), and an electronic album is easily created from these read images. The card is placed at a predetermined position and the image is read. However, in such image reading, the positioning and arrangement of the photo and the card are complicated, and there is a disadvantage that the reading range cannot be accurately grasped when the size of the photo or the card is different.
Furthermore, when there are a large number of photographs and cards for creating an electronic album, there is a demand for reading these images efficiently in a short time.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and its purpose is to create an electronic album easily and in a short time even when handling a personal computer is not good or when there is no time to acquire knowledge of a personal computer or the like. In addition, in the creation of such an electronic album, it is not necessary to position and place a photo and a card for reading an image, and it is possible to accurately grasp the reading range, and to read a large number of images. An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic album creating apparatus that can be efficiently performed in a short time.

In order to achieve the above object, an electronic album creating apparatus according to the invention of claim 1 includes a photo stand on which various cards including photographs and handwritten cards (characters, marks, illustrations, drawings, etc. handwritten) are placed; An image reading unit (for example, using a CCD) for electronically reading a photograph and a card placed on a photo stand as a material image, and edge detection (outer periphery) of the image read by the image reading unit A reading range detection circuit for specifying the reading range of each photo and card, and an album image comprising a combination of the material images and displaying the material image read by the image reading unit based on the reading range detection circuit. A display unit for displaying the image, a reading operation by the image reading unit and an operation for editing the material image displayed on the display unit as an album image And a control unit that executes reading control by the image reading unit based on the operation of the operation unit and executes editing control of the album image while viewing the image on the display unit. It is characterized by comprising.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, an optical zoom mechanism is provided in the image reading unit, and an image in a range specified by the reading range detection circuit is optically enlarged and read by the optical zoom mechanism. It is characterized by.

  According to the above configuration, when one or a plurality of photographs and cards (title cards, handwritten cards, etc.) are arbitrarily placed on the photo stand and read by the image reading unit, the outer edge of each read image is detected. This is done to identify the individual reading ranges (areas) of the photos and cards. If the specified reading range is one (one photo, etc.), the image of that range is stored in the internal memory as a material image, and if there are a plurality of reading ranges (multiple photos, etc.), one sheet Each unit is divided into a photo and a card, and these images are stored as material images in the internal storage unit. Here, when an optical zoom mechanism is provided, even if, for example, one photograph is enlarged to a maximum magnification (a magnification that matches the entire reading area of the CCD), the photograph or the like can be read again. Well, according to this, an image with a high resolution (a large number of pixels) can be obtained.

  The photo and card material images read as described above are displayed on the display unit. The display unit includes a material screen (screen area) for displaying the photo and card material images. An album screen (screen area) for displaying album images is set, and an album image is created by pasting material images selected from this material screen in an arbitrary layout in the album screen for each page. And saved. The stored album image can be browsed by recognizing the title card or the like.

According to the electronic album creating apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to create an electronic album easily and in a short time even when the handling of a personal computer is not good or when there is no time to acquire knowledge of a personal computer or the like. In creating such an electronic album, it is not necessary to position and place the photo and card for reading the image, and it is possible to accurately grasp the reading range, and to read a large number of images efficiently in a short time. There is an advantage that can be.
In addition, when an optical zoom mechanism is provided in the reading unit, it is possible to appropriately read a photograph or the like with high resolution.

  FIGS. 1 to 3 show the configuration of an electronic album creating apparatus according to the embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, this apparatus is used to place a title card Pa, a photo Pb, and a handwritten card Pc. A photo stand (main body horizontal portion) 11 which is a flat table and has a translucent plate or a transparent plate (plastic plate or glass plate) disposed on the upper surface, provided on the front side (lower side of the figure) of the photo stand 11 An operation unit 12, a reading unit (image reading unit) 13 for reading an image such as a photograph Pb, a liquid crystal display unit 14 including a liquid crystal display, and an illumination unit 15 are provided. The reading unit 13 includes an objective lens 13a and a CCD 13b (which may be either an area sensor type or a line sensor type) that is a solid-state imaging device, and can read an image within the reading range K in FIG. . Although the reading unit 13 of the embodiment reads the photograph Pb and the like from an oblique direction, the reading unit 13 can be arranged right above the photo stand 11 to read the photograph Pb and the like from directly above.

As shown in FIG. 1A, the operation unit 12 includes an up / down / left / right movement key 12a, an input key 12b, an end key 12c, a peeling key (or cancel key) 12d, and a pasting key (or confirmation key) 12e. These keys 12a to 12e are used for editing operations. Then, as shown in FIG. 2, a control unit (microcomputer or the like) is provided inside the photo stand 11 in order to execute operation control for editing based on the operation of the operation unit 12 and display control on the liquid crystal display unit 14. 18 and a barcode detection unit 19 for detecting the barcode B _an (n: 1, 2, 3...) Attached to the title card Pa read by the reading unit 13.

That is, in the embodiment, used to be used as management information attached and the album image titles in the album image, a title card Pa with barcoded B _an, in the provided and bottom like column (blank column) according to the upper This bar code _Ban is used as individual information (identification information) of each card including information indicating that it is a title card, and an arbitrary title is written or printed by handwriting or a printer in the upper description column It is supposed to do. Therefore, when the bar code _Ban is detected by the bar code detector 19, it is recognized that the card is the title card Pa, and the title image Ia described on the card Pa is automatically read, The title card individual information is stored in association with a series of album images, and is used as management information for identifying and extracting individual album images. In the embodiment, a title folder is created, and material images and the like are stored in this folder.

  In addition, as shown in FIG. 2, the apparatus detects an outer edge (edge) of a photograph Pb or the like from a difference in contrast of the read image and specifies one image range, and edge detection / image range determination An image processing unit 20 for forming an album image having a circuit 20a and arbitrarily pasting title images Ia and material images Ib and Ic in units of pages, and material images Ib and Ic of a photo Pb and a handwritten card Pc The hard disk 21 is arranged as an internal storage medium for storing album images in units of pages.

  Furthermore, in the embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1B, a backlight 22 that illuminates the translucent plate or transparent plate on the upper surface thereof from the lower side is provided inside the photo stand 11 (horizontal portion). That is, the edge detection / image range determination circuit 20a detects a peripheral edge such as a photograph Pb from the difference in image contrast, and the backlight 22 irradiates light toward the upper surface of the photo stand 11. Thus, the difference in contrast between the peripheral edge of the photo Pb and the cards Pa and Pc and the photo table surface is made to stand out. Note that the backlight 22 is not essential, and the surface of the photo stand 11 has a single color or the like that is contrasted with white or gray color, which is often arranged in the periphery of the photo Pb and the cards Pa and Pc. By doing so, a difference in contrast with the periphery of the photograph Pb or the like can be obtained.

  As shown in FIG. 3A, the liquid crystal display unit 14 is provided with a small menu screen (screen area) 14A, material screen (screen area) 14B, and album screen (screen area) 14C. That is, on the menu screen 14A, as shown in the enlarged view of FIG. 3B, for example, “image reading” for image reading, “album editing” for album image editing, and edited album “Save to DVD (only DVD is shown here)” for saving an image to a recording medium (recording medium) such as a DVD, “Reading an image material stored on a DVD (recording medium)” Menus such as “Read DVD”, “Save from DVD” for reading an album image stored on a DVD (recording medium) and saving it to the hard disk 21, “View album” for browsing an electronic album are displayed. Each of these menus can be selected.

  Further, when “read image” and “album edit” in the menu are selected, as shown in FIG. 3A, the image Ib of the read photo Pb or the handwritten card Pc is displayed on the right side of the liquid crystal display unit 14. A material screen (screen area) 14B for displaying the image Ic is displayed, and an album screen (screen area) 14C for displaying an album image to be edited is displayed on the left side. The album screen 14C displays an area of one page of the electronic album, and an album image is stored for each page in the layout set on the screen 14C.

  Further, in the embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1C, a DVD drive unit (read / write unit) 23a and other recording media (memory) media are provided on the front side of the photo stand (main body horizontal unit) 11. A drive unit 23b is arranged.

The embodiment has the above-described configuration, and its operation will be described with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 6, “Read Image” [FIG. 3B] is selected from the menu (step 101), and the title card Pa [FIG. 1A] is placed on the photo stand 11 (step 102). When the input key 12b is pressed (step 103), the reading unit 13 reads an image (step 104). In reading of the title card Pa, the image Ia shown in FIG. 5 (A) read together with the bar code _{B an,.} By detecting this bar code _Ban by the bar code detection unit 19, the title card individual information is specified, and a title folder is created in the hard disk 21 based on the title card individual information. The title image Ia removal of the bar code B _an, this title card Pa is stored in the title folder.

  Next, in step 106, the two photos Pb and the handwritten card Pc are placed on the photo stand 11 in the arrangement shown in FIG. 4A [read including the title card Pa as shown in FIG. 1A. If the input key 12b is pressed (step 107), the backlight 22 is turned on, and the entire photo stand 11 [reading range K in FIG. 1B] is read (step 108). In step 109, the edge detection / image range determination circuit 20a specifies the reading range of each photo Pb or the like. That is, according to the CCD 13b, the entire image including the image Ib of the two photos Pb and the image Ic of the handwritten card Pc is read as shown in FIG. On the other hand, a range where the contrast decreases (the outer periphery of the image) is detected. For example, in the vertical line Lv, the contrast between the photographic image Ib and the handwritten image Ic decreases as shown in FIG. 4B, and in the horizontal line Lh, the contrast between the two photographic images Ib decreases as shown in FIG. 4C. In other words, by detecting such a difference in contrast, a reading range (a range surrounded by edges) of one photo Pb and cards Pa and Pc is specified.

  Thereafter, the backlight 22 is turned off (step 110), and in step 111, the images are cut into individual images Ib and Ic, and these images are stored individually (step 111). That is, the image Ib of the two photos Pb shown in FIGS. 5B and 5C and the image Ic of the handwritten card Pc shown in FIG. 5D are separated, and the images Ib and Ic are stored in the hard disk 21. Next, the reading of the other photo Pb and the handwritten card Ic is repeated (step 112).

  The material images Ib and Ic read in this way are displayed on the material screen 14B as shown in FIG. 3A, and can be edited to the album screen 14C in this state ( Step 113). That is, the title image (for example, Hokkaido travel) Ia saved by reading the title card Pa is automatically displayed at a predetermined position in the album screen 14C. Here, the image Ib of the photo Pb or the handwritten card is displayed from the material screen 14B. When an image of Pc (for example, the two are close) Ic is selected with the up / down / left / right movement key 12a and the paste key 12e is pressed, these images are sequentially displayed in the album screen 14C. At this time, if the peel key 12d is used, the pasted image can be peeled (removed) from the album screen 14C. Thereafter, when the end key 12c of the operation unit 12 is pressed, the album image to which the material image (Ib, Ic) is pasted is stored in the title folder of the hard disk 21, and then the initial screen is returned (step 114).

  Further, when “album edit” is selected from the menu of FIG. 3B, the album image can be re-edited after the electronic album is created. An image read from a DVD inserted into the DVD drive unit 23a can be used as a material image (in the case of using the media drive unit 23b, for example, the image information on the recording medium is read from the “image read” menu) ) If you select “Save to DVD” from the menu, you can save the completed album image to DVD. If you select “Save from DVD” from the menu, you can save the completed album image on another device. It can be stored in the hard disk 21 of the device.

Further, in the apparatus, the stored album image can be browsed on the liquid crystal display unit 14 by selecting “album browsing” in the menu of FIG. That is, after selecting an album browse, placed above the title card Pa to photographic base 11, press the input key 12b, by a bar code B _an, title card Pa is read, the corresponding album image from the hard disk 21 The album image is read out and displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 14. Then, if the page turning operation is performed by the operation unit 12 or the like, the next album image is displayed, and thus the album image registered with the title card Pa can be viewed.

  In the above embodiment, a zoom lens (optical zoom mechanism) is incorporated into the objective lens 13a of the reading unit 13, and the photograph Pb, the handwritten card Pc, and the like can be enlarged and read. That is, as shown in FIG. 7A, after each reading range is specified in the three images Ib (Pb) and Ic (Pc) read by the CCD 13b, as shown in FIG. 7B. The image Ib of one photo Pb is enlarged by the zoom lens until the image Ib matches the entire reading area of the CCD 13b (this enlargement ratio can be arbitrarily set), and the images Ib and Ic of the photo Pb and the card Pc are combined. You may make it read again sheet by sheet. According to this, there is an advantage that a high-resolution photographic image Ib and the like can be easily obtained.

In the above embodiment, the bar code _Ban is used as the individual information of the title card Pa. However, instead of this, _an optical identification code such as a two-dimensional code (identification pattern) may be attached. As another method for identifying information, an IC tag (IC chip) or the like as an electrical identification element may be used.

1 shows a configuration of an electronic album creating apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, in which FIG. (A) is a top view, FIG. (B) is a side view showing the inside, and FIG. (C) is a front view of a photo stand. It is a block diagram which shows the whole structure containing the circuit part of an Example apparatus. It is the figure (FIG. (A)) which shows the structure of the menu screen, material screen, and album screen which are set in the liquid crystal display part of an Example apparatus, and the enlarged view (figure (B)) of a menu screen. FIG. 4A is a diagram for explaining edge detection of a photograph or the like read by an image reading unit of the embodiment. FIG. (A) is a diagram when the whole is read by a CCD, and FIG. (B) is a vertical line Lv in FIG. The figure when the edge is detected, and FIG. 8C is the figure when the edge is detected by the horizontal line Lh in FIG. It is a figure which shows the image obtained by the reading operation | movement of an Example apparatus in order. It is a flowchart which shows the reading procedure of the photograph and various cards in electronic album preparation of an Example apparatus. It is explanatory drawing at the time of carrying out optical expansion and reading the photograph etc. in which the reading range was detected in the Example apparatus using the zoom mechanism.

Explanation of symbols

11 ... Photo stand, 12 ... Operation part,
13: Reading unit, 13a: Objective lens,
13b ... CCD, 14 ... liquid crystal display,
15 ... lighting unit, 18 ... control unit,
19 ... Barcode detector,
20a... Edge detection / image range determination circuit,
20 ... image processing unit, 21 ... hard disk,
22 ... Backlight, 23a ... DVD drive unit,
_Ban ... Barcode, Pa ... Title card,
Pb ... photograph, Pc ... handwritten card.

Claims (2)

A photo stand on which various cards including photographs and handwritten cards are placed;
An image reading unit for electronically reading a photograph and a card placed on the photo stand as a material image;
Edge detection is performed on the image read by the image reading unit, and a reading range detection circuit for specifying the reading range of each photo and card;
Based on this reading range detection circuit, the display unit displays the material image read by the image reading unit, and displays an album image composed of a combination of the material images,
An operation unit for performing a reading operation by the image reading unit and an operation for editing the material image displayed on the display unit as an album image;
An electronic album creating apparatus comprising: a control unit that executes reading control in the image reading unit based on an operation of the operation unit and executes editing control of an album image while viewing an image on the display unit .   2. An optical zoom mechanism is provided in the image reading unit, and an image in a range specified by the reading range detection circuit is optically enlarged and read by the optical zoom mechanism. Electronic album device.

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