JP2008236692A - Imaging apparatus and picked-up image data processing method therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To avoid a state where picked-up image data are discarded, even if a fault occurs on a communication channel or the like and a transmission rate is reduced, in an imaging apparatus which repeats image pickup while transmitting picked-up image data to an external device. <P>SOLUTION: In a case where a communication memory 26 constituted of a volatile memory has a free capacity, picked-up image data for transmission are stored in the communication memory 26 and transmitted and in a case where free capacity of the communication memory 26 is lacked, the picked-up image data for transmission are temporarily stored on a recording medium (nonvolatile memory) 35. When free capacity is made in the communication memory 26, the picked-up image data on the recording medium 35 are copied into the communication memory 26, and the picked-up image data on the communication memory 26 are transmitted to an external device 3. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an imaging device that has a communication function and transmits captured image data to an external device and a captured image data processing method thereof.

  Recent photographing apparatuses are provided with a communication function for connecting to an external device such as a network drive device having a large-capacity hard disk or a personal computer via a communication cable, a wireless LAN, etc., and transferring captured image data to the external device. It has become like this.

  The imaging apparatus described in Patent Document 1 transmits a captured image data to an image recording unit built in the imaging apparatus and saves it in a recording medium, and transmits the image data as it is to an external device via a network. Real-time transfer mode, and when the recording medium runs out of free space, it automatically switches from the file transfer mode to the real-time transfer mode, preventing the situation where the free space of the recording medium runs out and photography is impossible.

  The imaging device described in Patent Document 2 enables confirmation of a transmitted image by leaving necessary image data in a recording medium on the camera side even after transmitting captured image data to an external device. .

  In the photographing apparatuses described in Patent Documents 3 and 4, when the remaining amount of the recording medium decreases, the image data is transmitted to the external device, and the free space of the recording medium is increased.

JP 2004-336105 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-336574 JP 2001-128113 A JP 2006-174060 A

  When capturing an image with a shooting device, all of the above-described conventional techniques mainly record the captured image data on a recording medium attached to the shooting device, and when the remaining amount of the recording medium decreases, etc. The configuration is such that image data in the recording medium is transmitted to an external device by using a communication function to ensure free space in the recording medium.

  That is, when the photographing apparatus requires an external apparatus, the recording medium is full. At this time, a failure may occur in the connection destination network or the communication speed may be slow. In such a case, there is a problem that the free space of the recording medium for recording the image data captured at an important moment cannot be secured, and the image data must be discarded.

  An object of the present invention is to provide an imaging apparatus capable of reliably recording image data captured at an important moment on a recording medium and a captured image data processing method thereof.

  An imaging device and a captured image data processing method thereof according to the present invention include an image recording unit that writes captured image data in a nonvolatile memory, and a communication unit that transmits the captured image data to an external device. When imaging is performed, the captured image data obtained by the imaging is written in a communication memory composed of a volatile memory, and the captured image data on the communication memory is transmitted to the external device by the communication means. At the same time, it is necessary to erase the captured image data after transmission from the communication memory, and to write the newly captured image data to the communication memory while connecting to the external device and performing the imaging. And when the free space of the communication memory is insufficient, the captured image data is transferred to the image recording means and recorded in the nonvolatile memory, Characterized in that to record in the nonvolatile memory to transfer the captured image data obtained by the imaging to the image recording means when performing imaging without connecting to Kigaibu device.

  When the captured image data is written in the nonvolatile memory due to the lack of free space, the imaging device and the captured image data processing method thereof according to the present invention can be used on the nonvolatile memory when the communication memory is empty. The captured image data is copied to the communication memory, and the captured image data on the communication memory is transmitted to the external device by the communication means.

  When the captured image data on the non-volatile memory is transmitted to the external device, the captured image data on the non-volatile memory and the communication memory may be used. It is characterized by erasing.

  The imaging device and the captured image data processing method thereof according to the present invention include: when captured image data that has not been transmitted to the external device is on the communication memory and a power-off command is input; The captured image data is transferred to the image recording means and recorded in the nonvolatile memory, and then a power-off process is performed.

  The communication memory of the imaging apparatus and the captured image data processing method of the present invention is set on a volatile memory used as a main memory.

  According to the present invention, the main memory used when repeating imaging while transmitting captured image data to an external device is a communication memory composed of a volatile memory, and the secondary memory, that is, the communication memory is insufficient. Since the memory used sometimes is a non-volatile memory, it is possible to prevent a situation in which captured image data must be discarded even when the communication speed decreases.

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

  FIG. 1 is an external view of a photographing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention when connected to a personal computer. The photographing apparatus 1 of the present embodiment is used in a state where it is connected to a personal computer 3 that is an external apparatus using, for example, a universal serial bus (USB) cable 2. Of course, it is possible to use it alone without being connected to an external device. Further, it may be connected wirelessly instead of the wired cable 2.

  FIG. 2 is a functional block configuration diagram of the photographing apparatus 1. The photographing apparatus 1 includes a solid-state imaging device 11 such as a CCD that converts an optical image from a subject into an electrical signal, and a CDSAMP unit 12 that performs correlated double sampling processing, gain control processing, and the like on an output signal of the solid-state imaging device 11. The A / D conversion unit 13 that converts an analog captured image signal output from the CDSAMP unit 12 into a digital signal, the timing generator 14 that generates a drive timing signal for the solid-state image sensor 11, and the overall photographing apparatus 1 are integrated. And an arithmetic processing unit (CPU) 15 to be controlled.

  The CPU 15 includes a key input unit (including a release button and a power on / off button) 17 that receives an instruction input from a user, and zoom position control and focus position control of a photographic lens (not shown) disposed in front of the solid-state image sensor 11. A motor driver 18 of various motors that perform aperture position control is connected, and the CPU 15 takes in the zoom position, focus position, and aperture position detected by the detection unit 19 and performs various controls. The CPU 15 also controls the CDSAMP unit 12.

  The photographing apparatus 1 further includes an image input controller 21 that captures a digital image signal output from the A / D converter 13, an AF (automatic focus) detection circuit 22, an image signal processing circuit 23, and an AE (automatic exposure). ) And AWB (auto white balance) detection unit 24, compression processing circuit 25, SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) 26 used as a main memory, video encoder 27, VRAM (Video Random Access Memory) 28, A display panel 29 such as a liquid crystal display, a media controller 30, an SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) 31 for storing date data and the like, a communication unit 32 for performing communication processing with the external device 3, and these and the CPU 15 The bus 33 to be interconnected and a backup device such as a capacitor for holding the stored contents of the SRAM 31 It includes a flop power source 34, and an external recording medium 35 is detachably connected to the media controller 30. Further, a power supply unit (not shown) is provided, and power is supplied from the power supply unit to each of the above constituent circuits.

  When such an imaging device 1 is used alone without being connected to the external device 3 or the like, the main image is captured with respect to the captured image data fetched from the solid-state imaging device 11 into the main memory 26 as in the case of an ordinary imaging device. Image processing, signal compression processing, and the like are performed on the memory 26, and the captured image data after the image processing and compression processing is transferred to a media controller 30 as an image recording unit. The media controller 30 stores the captured image data in a recording medium 35. Write to.

  When the image capturing apparatus 1 is connected to an external apparatus such as the personal computer 3 shown in FIG. 1 to capture an image, after the user presses the release button of the image capturing apparatus 1, an image capturing instruction from the external apparatus 3 is received. Each time it is input to 1, shooting is performed, and the captured image data is transmitted to the external device 3.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure executed when a photographing instruction is issued from the external device 3, and is executed by the CPU 15 using each component circuit under its control. In the photographing apparatus 1, when a communication mode is set, that is, when a mode for transmitting captured image data to the external apparatus 3 is set, a communication memory area is set on the main memory 26.

  Then, it waits for a shooting instruction (step S1). If there is no shooting instruction, the process proceeds to step S2, and it is determined whether or not a power-off instruction from the user is key-input. When there is no power-off instruction, the process returns to step S1, and when there is a power-off instruction, the process of FIG.

  If the result of determination in step S1 is that a shooting instruction has been input, processing proceeds to step S3 and shooting is executed. Even when there is no shooting instruction, the solid-state imaging device 11 always outputs subject image data as a through image, and the AF detection circuit 22 calculates the focus position of the subject based on this through image data, and AE The / AWB detection circuit 24 determines the automatic exposure amount and the auto white balance amount based on the through image data, and the photographing and image processing in step S3 are executed based on these information.

  The captured image data output from the solid-state imaging device 11 by performing the imaging in step S3 is taken into the main memory 26 via the CDSAMP unit 12, the A / D conversion unit 13, and the image input controller 21. The main memory 26 mounted on the photographing apparatus 1 is composed of a volatile memory because high speed processing is required.

  The main memory 26 has an image area for temporarily storing captured image data. The captured image data is captured in the image area, and the image signal processing unit 23 performs various image processes on the image area. The compression processing unit 25 compresses the captured image data into JPEG image data or the like.

  When the captured image data is displayed on the display panel 29, the image data obtained by thinning the image data on the main memory 26 is moved to the VRAM 28, and the video encoder 27 displays the image data on the VRAM 28 on the display panel 29.

  After the photographing and image processing in step S3 are executed, it is determined in the next step S4 whether or not there is a free space in the communication memory area. If the communication memory area is full and there is no free space, the process proceeds to step S5, and the subject image data after image processing is transferred to the media controller 30 in FIG. And return to step S1.

  If there is a free space in the communication memory area, the subject image data imaged and processed in step S3 is moved to the communication memory area and stored (step S6), and the process returns to step S1.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure executed by the CPU 15 using the subordinate communication unit 32 in the communication mode. First, it is determined whether or not the communication mode is set (step S11). When the communication mode is set, the process proceeds to the next step S12 to determine whether or not image data is present in the communication memory area set on the main memory 26. To do.

  If there is no image data in the communication memory area, the process returns to step S11. If there is image data, the process proceeds to step S13, and the image data on the communication memory area is transmitted to the external device 3.

  In the next step S14, the transmitted image data is deleted from the image data on the communication memory area, and the process returns to step S11. The erasing of the image data may be automatically performed when the transmission of the image data is completed, or may be performed when the external device 3 returns a confirmation signal indicating that the reception of the image data is completed to the photographing apparatus 1.

  3 and 4, the subject image data captured by the photographing apparatus 1 is successively stored in the communication memory area set on the main memory 26, and the subject image data on the communication memory area is stored. Are successively transmitted to the external device 3, and the transmitted image data are deleted from the communication memory area. Since the communication memory area is set on the volatile memory 26, reading / writing (erasing) is performed at high speed.

  If a communication channel malfunctions during transmission of image data to the external device 3 and the communication speed decreases, the image data remaining in the communication memory area increases, and the newly captured subject image data is used for communication. It cannot be moved to the memory area. In this case, the process proceeds to step S5 based on the determination result of step S4 in FIG. 3, and the newly captured subject image data is stored in the recording medium 35 shown in FIG.

  Since the recording medium 35 is usually composed of a nonvolatile memory, its reading speed and writing speed are, for example, about 5 to 6 times slower than the speed of the volatile memory. However, since the capacity is large, there is almost no situation where the free capacity is insufficient.

  However, while the external device 3 is sequentially receiving the subject image data picked up in order, the communication memory area becomes full, so it is problematic that it drops out in some places. Therefore, it becomes necessary to transmit the subject image data stored in the recording medium 35 to the external device 3.

  FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for transmitting subject image data stored in the recording medium 35 to the external device 3. First, in step S21, it is determined whether or not there is an empty communication memory area. If there is no vacancy, the processing in FIG. 5 is terminated, and the process waits for the vacancy to be generated in the communication memory area.

  As a result of the determination in step S21, if there is a free space in the communication memory area, the process proceeds to step S22 to determine whether there is image data that needs to be transmitted to the nonvolatile memory (recording medium 35). . If there is no image data, the processing in FIG. 5 is terminated.

  If there is image data that needs to be transmitted to the non-volatile memory (recording medium 35), the process proceeds to the next step S23, and this image data is copied (transferred) to the communication memory area. Is transmitted to the external device 3 (step S24). When the image data on the recording medium 35 is transmitted directly to the external device 3, the data reading speed of the nonvolatile memory is slow. Therefore, it is faster to copy the image data on the volatile memory after copying to the volatile memory. It can be processed.

  After the image data on the volatile memory is transmitted to the external device 3 in step S24, the transmitted image data on the nonvolatile memory and the volatile memory (communication memory) is deleted (step S25), and the next step Proceed to S26. In step S26, it is determined whether or not a power-off command has been input. If no power-off command has been input, the process returns to step S21 to transmit the image data remaining in the nonvolatile memory (recording medium 35). Subsequently, when the power-off command is input, the processing in FIG. 5 is terminated.

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure when a power-off command is input when image data remains in the communication memory area. If the power is turned off immediately when image data remains on the volatile memory, the image data on the volatile memory is lost. The process of FIG. 6 is a process for avoiding this problem.

  First, it is determined whether or not a power-off command has been input (step S31). If a power-off command has been input, the process proceeds to step S32 to determine whether or not the memory area for communication is in use, that is, image data. It is determined whether it remains.

  If no image data remains in the communication memory area, a power-off process is executed (step S34), and the process of FIG. 6 ends. If the image data remains in the communication memory area, the image data in the communication memory area is transferred to and stored in the non-volatile memory (recording medium 35) (step S33), and then the process proceeds to step S34. Execute the power-off process with.

  In the above-described embodiment, the communication memory area is set in the main memory. However, it is also possible to adopt a configuration in which a communication-dedicated memory composed of a volatile memory is connected to the bus 33. However, the provision of a large-capacity communication dedicated memory increases the manufacturing cost of the photographing apparatus. Therefore, as in the embodiment, a configuration in which a communication memory is set on a volatile memory that is also used for other purposes is used. It is preferable to adopt.

  In the photographing apparatus according to the present invention, the image data captured in the communication mode is transmitted to the external apparatus at a high speed without being stored in the recording medium, and the captured image data is temporarily stored when the communication speed becomes slow. Therefore, it is useful as an imaging device or the like that needs to continuously capture subject images and transmit them to an external device.

It is an external view which shows the state which connected the imaging device and external device which concern on one Embodiment of this invention via the communication cable. It is a functional block diagram of the imaging device shown in FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the recording processing procedure of the captured image data which CPU shown in FIG. 2 performs at the time of communication mode. It is a flowchart which shows the transmission process procedure to the external device which CPU shown in FIG. 2 performs at the time of communication mode. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a processing procedure in which the CPU shown in FIG. 2 transmits image data temporarily stored in a recording medium to an external device in a communication mode. It is a flowchart which shows the process sequence which CPU shown in FIG. 2 performs at the time of power-off.

Explanation of symbols

1 photographing device 2 communication cable 3 personal computer (external device)
11 Solid-state image sensor 15 CPU
26 Main memory (volatile memory)
30 Media controller (image recording means)
32 Communication unit 35 Recording media (non-volatile memory)

Claims (10)

  An imaging apparatus comprising an image recording means for writing captured image data in a nonvolatile memory and a communication means for transmitting captured image data to an external device, and a communication memory composed of a volatile memory, connected to the external device When imaging is performed, the captured image data obtained by the imaging is written in the communication memory, and the captured image data on the communication memory is transmitted to the external device by the communication unit and the captured image is transmitted. First control means for erasing image data from the communication memory, and it becomes necessary to write newly captured image data captured in the communication memory while connected to the external device and performing the imaging. Second control means for transferring the captured image data to the image recording means and recording it in the non-volatile memory when the free space of the communication memory is insufficient And third control means for transferring captured image data obtained by the imaging to the image recording means for recording in the nonvolatile memory when imaging is performed without being connected to the external device. An imaging device.   When the captured image data is written in the nonvolatile memory under the control of the second control means, the captured image data on the nonvolatile memory is stored in the communication memory when the communication memory is empty. The photographing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a fourth control unit that copies and transmits the captured image data on the communication memory to the external device through the communication unit.   Fifth control for erasing the captured image data on the nonvolatile memory and the communication memory when the captured image data on the nonvolatile memory is transmitted to the external device by the control of the fourth control means The photographing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising: means.   When captured image data that has not been transmitted to the external device is on the communication memory and a power-off command is input, the captured image data on the communication memory is transferred to the image recording means and The photographing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, further comprising sixth control means for performing power-off processing after recording in a nonvolatile memory.   5. The photographing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the communication memory is set on a volatile memory used as a main memory.   In a captured image data processing method of a photographing apparatus including an image recording unit that writes captured image data in a non-volatile memory and a communication unit that transmits the captured image data to an external device, when imaging is performed by connecting to the external device The captured image data obtained by the imaging is written in a communication memory composed of a volatile memory, and the captured image data on the communication memory is transmitted to the external device by the communication means, and the captured image after transmission is transmitted. Data is erased from the communication memory, and it is necessary to write newly captured image data to the communication memory while the image is being connected to the external device and the communication memory is empty. When the capacity is insufficient, the captured image data is transferred to the image recording means and recorded in the nonvolatile memory, and the captured image data is captured without being connected to the external device. Captured image data processing method of the imaging apparatus, characterized in that to record in the nonvolatile memory to transfer the captured image data obtained by the imaging to the image recording means when performing.   When the captured image data is written in the nonvolatile memory due to insufficient free space, the captured image data on the nonvolatile memory is copied to the communication memory when the communication memory is empty. 7. The captured image data processing method of an imaging apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the captured image data on a communication memory is transmitted to the external device by the communication means.   8. The captured image data on the nonvolatile memory and the communication memory are deleted when the captured image data on the nonvolatile memory is transmitted to the external device. A method for processing captured image data of an imaging apparatus.   When captured image data that has not been transmitted to the external device is on the communication memory and a power-off command is input, the captured image data on the communication memory is transferred to the image recording means and 9. The captured image data processing method for an imaging apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the power-off process is performed after recording in a non-volatile memory.   10. The captured image data processing method for an imaging apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the communication memory is set on a volatile memory used as a main memory.

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