JP2009282675A - Image data transfer apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image data transfer apparatus which can transfer, in a short communication time, an image for undergoing image recognition at a reception side. <P>SOLUTION: A monitoring side terminal N1 is provided with: a split pattern designation unit 103 for designating a split pattern of an image; a transfer order designation unit 105 for designating the transfer order of a split image; a condition request unit 110 for transmitting a request signal including a split pattern and the transfer order to a monitored side terminal N2; a decoding unit 106 for sequentially displaying split images transmitted from the monitored side terminal N2 at corresponding positions of the split patterns; a development unit 107; an image memory 108; and a display unit 109. The monitored side terminal N2 is provided with: an image splitting unit 203 for splitting an image into a plurality of image blocks based on a split pattern; and a transfer unit 207 for sequentially transferring the image block according to the transfer order to the monitored side terminal N1. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image data transfer apparatus, and more particularly to an image data transfer apparatus suitable for image data transfer using a digital MCA (Multi-Channel Access) wireless system.

Patent Document 1 discloses a digital MCA (Multi-Channel-Access) wireless system that realizes effective use and convenience of radio waves by sharing a plurality of wireless channels with many users. Such a digital MCA wireless system is an effective means for disaster prevention because it allows simultaneous and broadcast communications that are difficult with mobile phones. Further, in the digital MCA wireless system, the radio wave is further effectively used by providing a time limit (for example, about 5 seconds) for the communication time.
JP 2008-53795 A

  The digital MCA wireless system has a time limit for communication time, so if you try to transfer image data with a large amount of data, the time limit will be reached before the transfer is completed, and the receiver will recognize the contents of the image data. There was a technical problem that could not be done.

  In addition, when a coding method with high coding efficiency is introduced in order to reduce the amount of data, not only the coding and decoding processing loads on the transmission side and the reception side increase, but also generally high coding efficiency. Since the encoding method is an irreversible conversion, the image quality is inevitably deteriorated.

  Furthermore, even if the data amount of the image data is reduced, the communication quality is likely to deteriorate due to the influence of external factors such as rain attenuation as compared with the wired communication, so the image data is not always transferred reliably. Absent.

  An object of the present invention is to solve the above-described problems of the prior art and to provide an image data transfer apparatus capable of transferring an image including information that can withstand image recognition on the receiving side in a short communication time.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an image data transfer apparatus that transfers data of an image captured by a monitored terminal (transmission side) to a monitoring terminal (reception side) and displays the data. It is characterized in that such measures are taken.

  (1) The monitoring side terminal monitors a request signal including means for designating a division pattern for dividing an image into a plurality of image blocks, means for designating a transfer order of each image block, and the division pattern and the transfer order. Means for transmitting to the side terminal, means for receiving the image block transferred from the monitored terminal, and means for sequentially displaying each received image block at the corresponding position of the division pattern.

  (2) The monitored terminal includes an imaging unit that captures the subject in response to the request signal, a unit that divides the image of the subject into a plurality of image blocks based on the division pattern, and the transfer order of each image block. And sequentially transferring to the monitoring terminal.

  According to the present invention, the image is divided into a plurality of image blocks, and transfer is performed in order from the image block designated in advance, and the display proceeds in units of image blocks. Therefore, transfer is performed in order from the image block of the main part in the image. By doing so, an image that can withstand image recognition on the receiving side can be transferred in a short communication time.

  DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, the best embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration of a main part of an image data transfer system according to the present invention, in which a monitoring terminal N1 and a monitored terminal N2 relay a control station (not shown) or Wireless connection without relaying.

  In the monitoring terminal N1, the shooting position specifying unit 101 specifies the shooting position of the Web camera 208 connected to the monitored terminal N2 described later. The image size designation unit 102 designates the size of an image taken by the web camera 208. The division pattern designating unit 103 designates a division pattern for dividing an image taken by the Web camera 208 into a plurality of image blocks. In this embodiment, as shown in an example in FIG. 2, a plurality of division patterns such as 4-division, 9-division, and 16-division are prepared in advance, and a division pattern is designated by selecting one of them. . The requested image quality designation unit 104 designates the requested image quality for the image. The transfer order specifying unit 105 specifies the transfer order of image blocks. The condition request unit 110 requests each of the specified conditions from the monitored terminal N2.

  The data packet receiving unit 111 receives the data packet of each image block transferred from the monitored terminal N2. The decoding unit 106 decodes the encoded data packet. The image expansion unit 107 expands the decoded data packet on the image memory 108. The display unit 109 visually displays the image data developed on the image memory 108.

  In the monitored terminal N2, the condition response unit 206 receives and responds to various specified conditions transmitted from the monitoring terminal N1. The shooting position setting unit 201 sets the shooting position of the Web camera 208 to the designated shooting position. The image acquisition unit 202 acquires an image having the designated image size from the web camera 208. The image dividing unit 203 divides the acquired image into a plurality of image blocks based on the designated division pattern.

  The encoding unit 204 encodes and compresses each image block in an encoding mode corresponding to the designated required image quality. The packetizing unit 205 packetizes each encoded image block to generate a plurality of data packets. The transfer unit 207 sequentially transfers the data packet of each image block to the monitoring terminal N1 according to the specified transfer order.

  Next, the operation of the present embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the monitoring terminal N1, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the monitored terminal N2.

  In FIG. 3, in the monitoring terminal N1, an image acquisition condition is designated by the operator in step S10. In the present embodiment, the shooting position of the Web camera 208 is specified by the shooting position specifying unit 101, the image size is specified by the image size specifying unit 102, the image division pattern is specified by the division pattern specifying unit 103, The requested image quality is designated by the requested image quality designation unit 104, and the transfer order of image blocks is designated by the transfer order designation unit 105.

  In the present embodiment, it is assumed that 16 divisions shown in FIG. 2C are designated as the division pattern, and transfer from the sixth, seventh, tenth, and eleventh image blocks in the center of the image is designated as the transfer order. To do. Therefore, in the present embodiment, among the 16 divided images, the sixth image block is transferred first, then the seventh image block is transferred, then the tenth image block is transferred, and then the eleventh image block is transferred. Thereafter, each image block is transferred in ascending order based on the block number. In step S11, an image acquisition request including the shooting position and image size is transmitted from the condition request unit 110 to the monitored terminal N2.

  In FIG. 4, when the image acquisition request is received in step S31, the monitored terminal N2 proceeds to step S32, and the shooting position designated by the monitoring terminal N1 is set to the Web camera 208 by the shooting position setting unit 201. Is set as the shooting condition. In step S33, image data is acquired by the image acquisition unit 202 from the Web camera 208 with the specified image size. When the image is acquired, the process proceeds to step S34, and an image acquisition response is returned from the condition response unit 206 to the monitoring terminal N1.

  Returning to FIG. 3, when the image acquisition response is acquired in step S12, the monitoring terminal N1 proceeds to step S13, and an image processing request including the requested image quality and division pattern is transmitted to the monitored terminal N2.

  Proceeding to FIG. 4, when the image processing request is received in step S35, the monitored terminal N2 proceeds to step S36. In step S36, the image acquired from the web camera 208 is divided into a plurality of image blocks (in this embodiment, 16 divisions) using the designated division pattern. In step S37, each image block is encoded and compressed so that the specified required image quality is maintained. In step S38, an image processing response is returned to the monitoring terminal N1.

  Returning to FIG. 3, when the monitoring terminal N1 receives the image processing response in step S14, the process proceeds to step S15. In step S15, an image block request including the number (block number) of the divided block for which transfer is requested is transmitted to the monitored terminal N2. In the present embodiment, since the sixth block, the seventh block,... Are designated as the block transfer order, an image block request including the block number “6” is first transmitted.

  Proceeding to FIG. 4, in the monitored terminal N2, when the image block request is received in step S39, the process proceeds to step S40. In step S40, the requested sixth image block is packetized to generate a plurality of data packets. In step S41, an image block response including the number M of data packets is returned to the monitoring side device N1.

  Returning to FIG. 3, when the monitoring block N1 receives the image block response in step S16, the process proceeds to step S17. In step S17, a data packet request is transmitted to the monitored terminal N2.

  Proceeding to FIG. 4, when the data packet request is received in step S42, the monitored terminal N2 advances to step S43, and sequentially transfers the data packets of the image blocks specified by the image block request received in step S39. Is done. In step S44, it is determined whether or not the data packet transfer is completed. Until the transfer is completed, the process returns to step S42 and the transfer of the remaining data packets is repeated.

  When transfer of all data packets for the current image block is completed, the process proceeds to step S45, a transfer completion notification is transmitted to the monitoring terminal N1, and the process proceeds to step S46. In step S46, it is determined whether or not the transfer of all image blocks has been completed. If not completed, the process returns to step S39, and the image block is transferred by repeating the same procedure as described above for the image block specified by the image block request received from the monitoring terminal N1.

  Returning to FIG. 3, when the monitoring side terminal N1 receives the data packet in step S18, the process proceeds to step S19, where the data packet is decoded. In step S20, the decoded data packet is developed on the corresponding address of the image memory 108. In step S21, the data in the image memory 108 is output to the display unit 109 and displayed. In step S22, it is determined whether or not the operator has instructed to interrupt the display. If not, the process returns to step S17 and the above processing is repeated.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram schematically showing how the received data packets are sequentially developed on the image memory and the display proceeds with respect to the sixth image block transferred first. When the image progresses from (a) to (d) in the figure and the display of the sixth image block is completed and the transfer completion notice is received in step S24 of FIG. 3, the process proceeds to step S25. In step S25, it is determined whether or not the acquisition of data packets has been completed for all the image blocks. Here, since the sixth image block is only completed, the process returns to step S15, and then the above-mentioned for the seventh image block. The process is repeated.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram schematically showing a state in which each of the image blocks is sequentially transferred and sequentially displayed according to the transfer order as the above process proceeds, and the sixth image block is initially displayed. The seventh image block is then displayed, then the tenth image block is displayed, and then the eleventh image block is displayed.

  Here, since the operator has sufficiently recognized the image, when it is determined that no further display is necessary and an interruption command is input, this is detected in step S22 and the process proceeds to step S23. In step S23, the interruption request is transmitted to the monitored terminal N2. The monitored terminal N2 ends the data packet transfer in response to the interruption request.

  If no interruption instruction is detected, the remaining image blocks are transferred in ascending order of block numbers until the time limit. That is, as shown in FIG. 7, the first block is transferred [FIG. (A)] following the eleventh image block, and then the second image block is transferred [(b)]. The third, fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth, twelfth, thirteenth and sixteenth image blocks are sequentially transferred. When the interruption instruction is detected before all the image blocks are transferred or when the time limit is reached, the transfer is forcibly terminated at this timing.

1 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration of an image data transfer system according to the present invention. It is the figure which showed an example of the division | segmentation pattern of an image. It is the flowchart which showed operation | movement of the monitoring side terminal. It is the flowchart which showed the operation | movement of the to-be-monitored side terminal. It is the figure which showed a mode that the display of an image block progresses sequentially. It is the figure which showed a mode that the image display advanced in the transfer order of an image block (the 1). It is the figure which showed a mode that the image display progressed in the transfer order of the image block (the 2).

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 ... Shooting position designation | designated part, 102 ... Image size designation | designated part, 103 ... Dividing pattern designation | designated part, 104 ... Required image quality designation | designated part, 105 ... Transfer order designation | designated part, 106 ... Decoding part, 107 ... Image expansion part, 108 ... Image memory , 109 ... display section, 110 ... condition request section, 111 ... data packet receiving section, 201 ... shooting position setting section, 202 ... image acquisition section, 203 ... image division section, 204 ... encoding section, 205 ... packetization section, 206 ... Condition response unit, 207 ... Transfer unit, 208 ... Web camera

Claims (3)

In an image data transfer device for transferring and displaying image data taken by a monitored terminal to the monitoring terminal,
The monitoring terminal is
Means for specifying a division pattern for dividing an image into a plurality of image blocks;
Means for specifying the transfer order of each image block;
Means for transmitting a request signal including the division pattern and the transfer order to a monitored terminal;
Means for receiving an image block transferred from the monitored terminal;
Means for sequentially displaying each received image block at a corresponding position of the division pattern,
The monitored terminal is
Imaging means for photographing a subject in response to the request signal;
Means for dividing the image of the subject into a plurality of image blocks based on the division pattern;
An image data transfer apparatus comprising: means for sequentially transferring the image blocks to the monitoring terminal according to the transfer order. The monitoring terminal is
Means to specify the required image quality;
Means for notifying the requested image quality to the monitored terminal,
The monitored terminal is
2. The image data transfer apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for encoding and compressing each image block based on the required image quality. The monitored terminal is
Means for packetizing each image block to generate a plurality of data packets;
The transfer means transfers each image block in units of data packets,
The image data transfer apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the monitoring side terminal sequentially displays the received data packet of each image block at a corresponding position.

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