JP2010224659A - Information processing device, information processing method, program and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To form a template for a comment or the like. <P>SOLUTION: The device includes: an analysis means which analyzes the layout of a document and obtains layout information obtained by analyzing the layout; an acquisition means which acquires a comment sentence of a comment area related to the document based on the layout information; a comment template preparation means which forms a comment template based on the comment sentence acquired by the acquisition means and image information related to an image of an image area corresponding to the comment area; and a document template preparation means which forms a document template based on the comment template formed by the preparation means and the layout information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, a program, and a storage medium.

  Conventionally, there is an electronic album as a document in which elements such as image data and comments are arranged. In creating an electronic album, a method is known in which image data is arranged using a document template in which layout information such as the position and size of a display area such as image data and comments is defined in advance (see, for example, Patent Document 1). .

  Layout analysis is performed to automatically create a document template. The layout analysis technique specifies the position and size of the display area for image data and comments. Information thus obtained can be used as a document template.

JP 09-190546 A

  However, a good album is not only beautiful in layout, but also has excellent message characteristics and story characteristics of the album image data and comments. In the method using the conventional layout analysis technique, only layout information is templated. For this reason, there has been a problem that information on contents such as storylines cannot be reused.

  The present invention has been made in view of such problems, and it is an object of the present invention to make contents such as comments into a template.

  Therefore, the present invention analyzes the layout of a document, obtains layout information that is a result of analyzing the layout, and obtainment means for obtaining a comment text in a comment area related to the document based on the layout information Comment template creating means for creating a comment template based on the comment sentence obtained by the obtaining means and image information related to the image in the image area corresponding to the comment area, and created by the creating means. Document template creating means for creating a document template based on the comment template and the layout information.

  According to the present invention, the content of comments and the like can also be made into a template.

It is a figure which shows an example of the hardware constitutions of information processing apparatus (computer). It is a block diagram of image data. FIG. 3 is a diagram (part 1) illustrating an example of a document template. FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a functional configuration of an information processing apparatus (part 1); It is a figure which shows an example of the electronic album used as the object of layout analysis. It is a figure which shows the concept of the layout information obtained as a result of the layout analysis of the electronic album shown in FIG. It is a conceptual diagram of a document template. It is a flowchart which shows a document template creation process. It is the flowchart which showed the detail of the process of S906. It is a figure which shows an example of an expression dictionary. It is a figure which shows an example of metadata. It is the figure which showed the image data utilized for an album in this embodiment. It is a figure describing metadata of image data. It is a figure which shows an example of an electronic album. FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a functional configuration of the information processing apparatus (part 2); It is a figure which shows an example of matching with a specific expression and a metadata item. FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a functional configuration of the information processing apparatus (part 3); FIG. 10 is a second diagram illustrating an example of a document template. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the production process of the image relevant information immediately after step S906.

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

<Embodiment 1>
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configuration of an information processing apparatus (computer).
In FIG. 1, a central processing unit (CPU) 101 controls the entire information processing apparatus 100. The Read Only Memory (ROM) 102 stores programs and parameters that do not need to be changed. A Random Access Memory (RAM) 103 temporarily stores programs and data supplied from an external device or the like. The external storage device 104 is a hard disk, a memory card, or the like that is fixedly installed in the information processing apparatus 100. The input device interface 105 is an interface with an input device 109 such as a pointing device or a keyboard that receives data from a user and inputs data. The output device interface 106 is an interface with the monitor 110 for displaying data held by the information processing apparatus 100 and supplied data. The network interface 107 is an interface for connecting to a network line 111 such as the Internet. The system bus 108 connects the units 101 to 107 so that they can communicate with each other.
By executing the program by the CPU 101, the functions of the information processing apparatus to be described later, or processes related to the steps of the flowchart are realized.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of image data.
The image data 200 includes metadata 201 and image main body data 207.
The metadata 201 includes a date 202, a subject 203, a place name 204, an event 205, weather 206, and the like. The metadata may be described in an Exif format, an XML format, or the like. The date 202 may be given by a photographing device such as a camera. The subject 203, the place name 204, the event 205, and the weather 206 may be manually assigned in advance. Alternatively, the subject 203 and the weather 206 may be given by an image recognition technique or the like. Further, the date, subject, place name, event, and weather are referred to as metadata items, and specific values of 2008/08/10, building, Florence, stroll, and clear are referred to as metadata values.
The image main body data 207 is the main body of the image data 200 and corresponds to data encoded by an encoding method such as JPEG. Alternatively, the image main body data 207 may be moving image data encoded by an encoding method such as MPEG. Note that the metadata 201 may be stored separately in association with the image body data 207 without being embedded in the image data 200.

  Next, a document handled in the present embodiment will be described. In the present embodiment, an electronic album is mainly handled as a document. The electronic album is data composed of image data, comments, and the like as shown in FIG. 5, and is stored and managed in a format such as HTML. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that metadata is associated with image data in the electronic album. The document may be a catalog or a pamphlet. The data format may also be an image file or the like corresponding to multi-frames such as PDF or TIFF. Therefore, the document of this embodiment is not limited to these.

  Next, a document template handled in this embodiment will be described. A conventional document template is one in which the positions and sizes of image areas and comment areas are defined. However, the document template of this embodiment holds the contents of the album. Therefore, the document template of this embodiment also has the following two pieces of information. The first is the relationship between the components of the album. The relationship between components is a relationship such as “image data described by a comment” between image data and a comment. Hereinafter, this is referred to as component-related information. The second is a comment template. A comment template is a text template. Comment text can be created by applying image data metadata to this template. In the present embodiment, a character string including zero or more metadata item names enclosed in% is used as a comment template. For example, when there is a metadata item called place name, “% place name%” is considered as an example of a comment template. When image data is arranged in the document template of the present embodiment, the metadata of the arranged image can be applied to the comment template in the associated comment area to obtain a comment sentence. More specifically, the comment text is obtained by replacing the metadata item in the comment template with the value of the metadata item of the image data. For example, when the metadata of the image data in FIG. 2 is applied to “% place name%”, a comment sentence “in Florence” can be created. Note that the comment template expression method and the comment text conversion method in the present embodiment are not limited to these.

The document template may be held in any format including the above information. For example, a document template is described in XML as shown in FIG.
The content of the layout tag 301 describes the position and size of each area and information about the comment template. Each component of the album is expressed by a component tag 302 in the layout tag 301. The position and size of each area are described as attributes of the component tag. id is a unique number assigned to identify each element. “type” indicates the type of element, its value “image” indicates an image area, and “comment” indicates a comment area. The shape indicates the shape of the area, and the value “rectangle” indicates that the area is a square area. x and y indicate the position of the region. width and height indicate the size of the region, and indicate the width and height of the region, respectively. A comment template 303 is described in the content of the component tag 302.

  As the contents of the relation tag 304, component element related information is described. Individual component-related information is expressed as a connection tag 305. The attribute id is a unique number assigned to identify each component related information. The attribute from_id is one element that becomes a relation source. More specifically, the id of the comment area is entered. The content of the connection tag 305 is an element associated with the element indicated by from_id. Each element is listed as a component tag with the id used in the layout tag 301 as an attribute. For example, in the connection tag 305, it can be seen that the comment area with id 2 is associated with the image area with id 1.

FIG. 4 is a first diagram illustrating an example of a functional configuration of the information processing apparatus.
The album acquisition unit 401 acquires an electronic album to be a template processing target.
In the present embodiment, the electronic album is stored in the external storage device 104 and is managed in a hierarchical structure by an operating system (OS). In this case, the album acquisition unit 401 acquires an electronic album from the designated file path using the function of the OS. In addition, the electronic album may be held in the ROM 102 or the RAM 103.
Alternatively, when there is an electronic album on a network such as the Internet, it is conceivable that the electronic album is designated by a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). In this case, the album acquisition unit 401 acquires an electronic album from the URL specified by the user or the like through the network interface 107.
The file path and URL are specified by the user through the input device 109. Alternatively, the external program stores the file path and URL value on the RAM 103 and designates the storage location address.

The layout analysis unit 402 performs layout analysis on the electronic album acquired by the album acquisition unit 401 and obtains the position and size of the display area for image data and comments. In addition, the layout analysis unit 402 identifies a comment describing the image data and associates the image data with the comment. For example, the layout analysis unit 402 may identify the association by comparing the metadata assigned to the image area with a comment. Alternatively, the layout analysis unit 402 may specify the association based on the proximity of the region.
As a more specific example, layout information obtained by the layout analysis unit 402 will be described with reference to FIGS.
FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of an electronic album to be subjected to layout analysis. Reference numerals 501 to 504 denote image data, and 505 denotes a comment.
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a concept of layout information obtained as a result of the layout analysis of the electronic album shown in FIG. Reference numerals 601 to 604 denote image areas corresponding to the image data 501 to 504. Reference numeral 605 denotes a comment area corresponding to the comment 505. A broken line indicated by reference numeral 606 represents the relationship between the comment area 605 and the image areas 601 to 604. Accordingly, it can be understood that the comment 505 is a comment related to the image data 501 to 504. Such a result is generated by the layout analysis unit 402.

The comment sentence acquisition unit 403 analyzes the area on the electronic album corresponding to the comment area and acquires the comment sentence. More specifically, if the electronic album is an image file, the comment sentence acquisition unit 403 acquires a comment sentence by applying an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to the target area of the image file. The layout analysis unit 402 applies OCR in advance, holds the comment area and the comment text in association with each other, and the comment text acquisition unit 403 acquires the stored comment text. Good. If the electronic album is a document file, the comment sentence acquisition unit 403 may acquire a character string from the target area of the document file and use it as a comment sentence.
The comment template creation unit 404 compares the comment text acquired by the comment text acquisition unit 403 with the metadata of the image data acquired by the image information acquisition unit 407 described later. Then, the comment template creation unit 404 finds a text expression associated with the metadata of the image data, and creates a comment template using the metadata item of the image data. More specific processing will be described with reference to FIG.

  The template integration unit 405 holds the comment template obtained by the comment template creation unit 404 in association with the corresponding comment area of the layout information obtained by the layout analysis unit 402. FIG. 7 shows the result after the comment template corresponding to all the comment areas of the electronic album shown in FIG. 5 is created. It can be seen that the comment template created from the comment 505 is held in 705 in association with the comment area 605 of the layout information. Note that the process of associating a comment template with a comment area may be performed sequentially for each comment area, or may be performed collectively after comment templates for all comment areas are created.

The related image area acquisition unit 406 obtains an image area associated with the comment area from the layout information obtained by the layout analysis unit 402. Since the image area is not necessarily one, a plurality of image areas may be obtained.
The image information acquisition unit 407 acquires metadata of image data located in the image area obtained from the related image area acquisition unit 406 from the electronic album obtained by the album acquisition unit 401. In the present embodiment, description will be made using metadata as an example of image information related to image data located in an image area. If metadata is acquired from a plurality of image areas, the image information acquisition unit 407 leaves a metadata item having a metadata value common to all the image data.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing document template creation processing. The document template creation process is started when the user performs a predetermined operation from the input device 109. Alternatively, the document template creation process is activated by an external program. At startup, an electronic album to be processed is designated.
In step S901, the album acquisition unit 401 acquires an electronic album to be processed.
In step S902, the layout analysis unit 402 analyzes the layout of the electronic album acquired in step S901, and obtains layout information.

In step S903, for example, the layout analysis unit 402 determines whether there is a comment area in the layout information obtained in step S902 that has not been processed as a comment template. If there is an unprocessed comment area, the layout analysis unit 402 proceeds to step S904, and if not, the process ends.
In step S904, for example, the comment sentence acquisition unit 403 selects one unprocessed comment area from the layout information.
In step S905, the comment sentence acquisition unit 403 obtains a comment sentence corresponding to the comment area selected in step S904 as a character string.
In step S906, the comment template creation unit 404 and the like perform processing for creating a comment template. Details of this processing will be described with reference to FIG.
In step S907, the template integration unit 405 holds the comment template obtained in S906 in association with the comment area in the layout information obtained in S902.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing details of the processing in S906.
In step S <b> 1001, the image information acquisition unit 407 lists the image areas related to the comment area acquired by the related image area acquisition unit 406.
In step S1002, the image information acquisition unit 407 determines whether there is an unprocessed image area in the list. For example, in step S1003 described below, the image information acquisition unit 407 may determine that there is no unprocessed image area when the list is empty by deleting the processed image area from the list. . Alternatively, the image information acquisition unit 407 may provide a flag for each element of the list, and determine whether or not there is an element for which the processed flag is OFF. If there is unprocessed image data, the image information acquisition unit 407 proceeds to step S1003, and otherwise proceeds to step S1007.

In step S1003, the image information acquisition unit 407 selects an unprocessed image area from the list and acquires metadata of image data corresponding to the image area of the electronic album.
In step S1004, the image information acquisition unit 407 determines whether the image area selected in step S1003 is the first in the list. The image information acquisition unit 407 proceeds to step S1005 if it is the first in the list, and proceeds to step S1006 if it is different.
In step S1005, the image information acquisition unit 407 holds the metadata of the image data acquired in step S1003 as it is.
In step S1006, the image information acquisition unit 407, for each metadata item of the held metadata, the metadata value of the metadata item of the image data acquired in step S1003 and the held metadata value. To see if they match. Then, the image information acquisition unit 407 retains only the matching metadata. However, when there is no metadata item as metadata of the acquired image data, the image information acquisition unit 407 does not hold the metadata. The processing from step S1001 to step S1006 corresponds to an example of processing in the image information creation unit.
In step S1007, the comment template creation unit 404 creates a comment template using the metadata that is finally held. More specifically, the comment template creation unit 404 creates a comment template by replacing with a metadata item when a text expression matching the metadata value is present in the comment sentence.

Alternatively, the comment template creation unit 404 may prepare an expression dictionary as shown in FIG. 10 in advance and perform the following processing. That is, the comment template creation unit 404 lists the expressions in the expression dictionary whose values match the metadata items of the metadata held. The comment template creation unit 404 finds a character string in the comment sentence that matches the listed expression. Next, the comment template creation unit 404 creates a comment template by replacing the character string with a metadata item.
For example, in the case where the metadata that is finally held is FIG. 11, when the processing of S1007 is performed on the comment sentence “we walk because the weather is good” using the dictionary shown in FIG. So you can get "% event%".
Further, the comment template creation unit 404 may perform the above processing after performing a morphological analysis on the comment sentence in advance to obtain a stem. In this case, the comment template creation unit 404 uses an expression in the expression dictionary that has undergone stem processing.
Furthermore, the comment template creation unit 404 may perform matching in consideration of differences in notation such as typing errors, typographical errors, omissions, and old fonts when matching character strings.
Note that the comment template creation unit 404 may leave only a part of the character string of the comment sentence that does not correspond to the metadata item, or may not leave it all. When not leaving all, the comment template consists only of metadata items.
Incidentally, when there is no metadata held, the comment template creation unit 404 sets the comment template to an empty character string. Alternatively, the comment template creation unit 404 may use the comment text as it is as a comment template.
The document template as shown in FIG. 7 is obtained by the method described above. FIG. 7 is a conceptual diagram of a document template. Actually, it is data described in XML or the like.

Next, creation of an electronic album using the created document template (FIG. 7) will be described.
When creating an electronic album, a document template is displayed. For example, a document template is displayed as shown in FIG. However, the line indicating the relationship between the regions may not always be displayed. For example, only the relation of the area may be displayed only when the cursor is on the area. The comment template is displayed with the metadata item name enclosed in%, but a specific value may be shown as an example. For example, the expression “% date%” may be an expression in which a specific value is appropriately applied, such as% 2000/9/10%. In addition, in order to show that it is a metadata item, it is enclosed in%, but you may show it by making a font italic.
FIG. 12 is a diagram showing image data used for an album in the present embodiment. FIG. 13 is a diagram describing metadata of image data. When the user arranges the image data 1303 in the image area 712 using the input device 109 or the like, a comment sentence is created from the comment template in the comment area 713 associated with the image area 712. More specifically, the metadata value of the subject 1303 is applied to the portion of the subject%, and a comment sentence “Iroha Bridge” is generated.

Further, instead of using the metadata value directly, the corresponding expression may be applied using an expression dictionary associating the metadata and the text expression as shown in FIG. More specifically, the information processing apparatus searches for expressions whose metadata items and metadata values match the items and values of the expression dictionary, respectively. The information processing apparatus applies the corresponding expression to the comment template. Note that when there are a plurality of corresponding expressions, the information processing apparatus may include an interface through which the user can select an expression.
When generating a comment sentence, it is possible that it becomes an unnatural sentence only by replacing it. Therefore, the information processing apparatus may include comment editing means for correcting the comment text. Alternatively, the information processing apparatus may automatically correct the information so that it becomes a natural sentence. For example, it is assumed that a comment template “% weather% was met” is obtained from a comment sentence “sunny”. At this time, if metadata with a cloudy weather metadata value is applied, the text becomes unnatural as “cloudy”. Therefore, the information processing apparatus may prepare a dictionary in which an unnatural expression is associated with a natural expression and solve the problem by matching. By doing so, the information processing apparatus can make a natural sentence “cloudy” when, for example, cloudy and cloudy are associated. Alternatively, the information processing apparatus may obtain part-of-speech information of a comment sentence from the original sentence and change the ending based on the information.

Comment templates other than those included in the document template may be used. More specifically, the information processing apparatus prepares a separate comment template in advance, and selects and uses a document template that has at least one common comment template and metadata item. For example, the information processing apparatus prepares “% subject%”, “in front of% subject%”, “in% place name%”, etc. in advance as comment templates. If the comment template of the document template is “% subject%”, the information processing apparatus selects “% subject%” and “in front of% subject%” including common metadata items. The information processing apparatus selects one of the corresponding comment templates. The information processing apparatus creates a comment sentence by the above method using the selected comment template. This is particularly useful for comment templates that leave only metadata items.
When the image data is changed to another image data, the associated comment area is also changed. At this time, the information processing apparatus may notify the user of the change by highlighting the changed comment area. Alternatively, the information processing apparatus may make the comment sentence editable immediately after the comment sentence is generated. For example, the information processing apparatus may automatically move the cursor to the comment portion and shift to the edit mode. As a result, the user can efficiently find and correct an unnatural sentence or the like.

When a comment sentence is generated from a comment template, the number of lines on the comment sentence display may change. In addition, the aspect ratio between the arranged image and the image area may be different. In such a case, the balance of the arrangement may be lost. At this time, the information processing apparatus may adjust the arrangement of the regions by performing processing such as center alignment, top alignment, and uniform spacing.
When all the image data 1301 to 1310 are arranged in the album in this way, an electronic album as shown in FIG. 14 is obtained.
As described above, it can be seen that when an album is created using the document template created in the present embodiment, the trouble of describing the contents is reduced.

<Embodiment 2>
In the above-described embodiment, it is assumed that metadata is added to image data arranged in an existing electronic album. However, an electronic album or the like obtained as an image file from a paper medium by using a scanner does not have metadata on the arranged image data. Also, image formats such as JPEG that do not support multiframe often do not have metadata associated with image data. Therefore, in this embodiment, a document template creation apparatus that does not use metadata of image data in an album will be described.

FIG. 15 is a second diagram illustrating an example of a functional configuration of the information processing apparatus.
1501 to 1503 and 1505 correspond to 401 to 403 and 405 in the first embodiment.
The comment template creation unit 1504 identifies an expression associated with the image data in the comment text acquired by the comment text acquisition unit 1503, and creates a comment template.
The document template creation process in the information processing apparatus of the present embodiment is the same except that step S906 in FIG. 8 of the first embodiment is different. Hereinafter, S906 will be described.
In step S906, the comment template creation unit 1504 finds a metadata item of the image data corresponding to the text expression, and creates a comment template. More specifically, the comment template creation unit 1504 uses a technique for extracting a specific expression such as a date, place name, person name, and weather. Then, the comment template creation unit 1504 determines a metadata item corresponding to each unique expression, and replaces the extracted unique expression portion with the metadata item. For example, it is assumed that the comment template creation unit 1504 associates the unique expression and the metadata item as shown in FIG. In this case, the comment sentence “Takuya and Kyoto for walks 2008/10/10” becomes a comment template “% weather%, so walk to% subject% and% place name %% date%”.

<Embodiment 3>
A plurality of image data are arranged in the album, but the image data may be related to each other. More specifically, there may be a case where a plurality of image data are described by one comment sentence. In this case, it is considered that the plurality of pieces of image data have a relation such as being photographed in a common event. By holding a relationship existing between image areas as a document template, it is possible to support selection of image data when creating an album.
In the present embodiment, an information processing apparatus that finds and holds a relationship existing between image areas will be described.

FIG. 17 is a third diagram illustrating an exemplary functional configuration of the information processing apparatus.
Reference numerals 1701 to 1704, 1706, and 1707 are the same as 401 to 404, 406, and 407 in the first embodiment.
The image area relation creating unit 1708 creates information (related information) that associates a plurality of image areas with each other (related information creation). More specifically, when a plurality of image areas are obtained from the related image area acquisition unit 1706, the image area relation creation unit 1708 acquires metadata common to the plurality of image areas from the image information acquisition unit 1707. , Keep metadata items as associations. Hereinafter, this related information is referred to as image area related information.
Similar to 405, the template integration unit 1705 holds the comment template obtained by the comment template creation unit 1704 in association with the corresponding comment area of the layout information obtained by the layout analysis unit 1702. In addition to this, the template integration unit 1705 holds the image area related information obtained by the image area relation creating unit 1708 as a document template.

  For example, when a document template is described in XML, the stored information is described as a connection tag 1801 of the document template (FIG. 18). The associated image area is expressed by a component tag and described as the content of the connection tag. Metadata common to the image area is listed as a value of the attribute “restrict” of the connection tag. In the example of FIG. 18, it is shown that the metadata of the image data arranged in the image areas with ids 1, 2, 3, and 4 has the common place name and event.

The document template creation process in the information processing apparatus according to the present embodiment is the same except that the process for creating the image area related information immediately after step S906 in the flowchart according to the first embodiment is different from S907.
The image region related information creation processing immediately after step S906 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 19 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a process for creating image region related information immediately after step S906.
In step S1901, the related image area acquisition unit 1706 acquires a list of image areas associated with the comment area selected in step S904. In the case where the process of FIG. 9 of the first embodiment is performed, the related image area acquisition unit 1706 may use the list acquired in step S1001.
In step S1902, for example, the related image area acquisition unit 1706 determines whether there are a plurality of image areas in the list. For example, the related image area acquisition unit 1706 proceeds to S1903 if it exists, and ends the process if it does not exist.

In step S1903, the image information acquisition unit 1707 acquires metadata common to the image areas. Note that when the processing of FIG. 9 of the first embodiment is performed, the image information acquisition unit 1707 may use the metadata created in S1002 to S1006.
In step S1904, the image area relation creating unit 1708 creates image area related information. First, the image area relation creating unit 1708 obtains a metadata item name from the metadata obtained in S1903. The image area relation creating unit 1708 associates the metadata item name with the image area list obtained in S1901, and holds it as image area related information.
In step S907, the template integration unit 1505 not only creates a document template by associating the comment template and the layout information, which is a conventional process, but also includes the image region related information obtained by the process immediately after S906. And If there is no image area related information, the template integration unit 1505 performs only conventional processing. A specific description of the document template is as shown in FIG.

In the above description, the metadata used for the image area related information has been described as all metadata common to the image data, but only a part thereof may be used.
For example, only metadata used in the comment template may be used. In this case, in step S1903, the image information acquisition unit 1707 extracts the used metadata item from the comment template obtained in S906. Alternatively, the comment template creation unit 1504 may hold the metadata item when a metadata item matching the text representation of the comment sentence is found in S906. In step S1903, the image information acquisition unit 1707 may use the held metadata.
If metadata is not added to the image data, the metadata used for the comment template may be used for the image region related information as described above. In this case, the comment template is created by the configuration shown in the second embodiment.

Next, image data selection support when creating an electronic album using the document template obtained according to the present embodiment will be described.
The document template to be used is the one shown in FIG. However, it is assumed that the place name of the metadata item and the event are associated with 701 to 704, and the place name of the metadata item, the event and the time zone are associated with 707 to 710. Hereinafter, this metadata item will be referred to as a related metadata item.
The image data to be arranged is the image data shown in FIG. It is assumed that the user has already arranged the image data 1308 in the image area 701 as a premise.
First, a method for preventing inappropriate arrangement of image data not intended by the user will be described.
In this method, the information processing apparatus checks whether or not the values of the related metadata items match between the image data to be arranged and the arranged image data when the image data is arranged. If they do not match, the information processing apparatus informs the user and decides whether to arrange them.
For example, consider a case where the user places image data 1303 in the image area 702. As for the metadata of the image data 1308 already arranged, the place name is Kyoto and the event is a walk. On the other hand, in the metadata of the image data 1303, the place name is Uji and the event is a walk. For this reason, the metadata values of the place names do not match. In this case, the information processing apparatus may notify the user that the information does not match, and if it is still arranged, a method such as arranging may be considered. Accordingly, it is possible to prevent erroneous arrangement of image data having a different appearance even if the image data looks similar.

Next, a method for presenting image data suitable for arrangement to the user will be described.
In this method, the information processing apparatus presents unplaced image data having a metadata value of image data in which related metadata items are already placed.
For example, when the user selects the image area 702, the information processing apparatus presents to the user image data whose place name and event of the related metadata item are the same as the image data 1308. That is, image data 1301, 1302, and 1309 whose place name is Kyoto and the event is a walk are presented to the user. As a presentation method, the information processing apparatus may display image data that can be arranged on another screen. Alternatively, the information processing apparatus may switch the image data in the area by a wheel operation or the like on the area. Alternatively, the information processing apparatus may automatically arrange image data that can be arranged in 702 to 704 when the image data 1308 is arranged. Thereby, when there is a lot of image data, selection of appropriate image data can be supported.
The information processing apparatus may display the image areas related to each other so that it can be seen that they are grouped on the creation screen. For example, the information processing apparatus may surround a plurality of image areas with lines or have the same background color. In this way, the user can know that the image areas are associated with each other, and it is easy to understand why inappropriate image data cannot be arranged and where the presented image data can be arranged.

<Embodiment 4>
In the first, second, and third embodiments, it is assumed that a comment template is created for all comments. However, the comments for performing the template processing need not be all but may be only a part. Therefore, in this embodiment, a case where only a part of the comment template is created will be described.

The document template creation process of this embodiment is the same except that the target comment area specifying process immediately after the process of step S902 in FIG. 8 of the first embodiment and the target comment area determination process immediately after the process of S904 are entered. .
In the target comment area designating process, for example, the layout analysis unit 402 displays an electronic album and allows the user to select a comment area to be a template. More specifically, for example, when the user selects a comment on the electronic album, the layout analysis unit 402 specifies the selected comment area using the layout information, and determines whether the target is a target or non-target. decide. For example, for example, when the user selects a comment area with a cursor, the layout analysis unit 402 changes the target or non-target to a toggle type. At this time, for example, the layout analysis unit 402 may show the color of the non-target area in gray for easy understanding. After the selection, when the user presses a determination button or the like, for example, the layout analysis unit 402 holds the selection result (setting) and proceeds to the processing of S903.
In the target comment area determination process, for example, the comment sentence acquisition unit 403 determines whether the comment area selected in S904 is a target for creating a comment template based on the selection result. For example, the comment acquisition unit 403 proceeds to S905 if it is the target, and proceeds to S903 if it is not.

<Embodiment 5>
In the first to third embodiments, a document template including a comment template, image area related information, and the like is created in addition to the relationship between layout information and components. However, a document template may be created based only on the relationship between layout information and components.
With such a configuration, when a certain area is changed, it is possible to provide support such as telling the user that the related area needs to be changed.

<Other embodiments>
The object of the above-described embodiment is achieved by the following. That is, a storage medium (or recording medium) in which a program code of software that realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments is recorded is supplied to the system or apparatus. Then, the central processing means (CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus reads and executes the program code stored in the storage medium. In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium recording the program code constitutes the above-described embodiment.

  In addition, by executing the program code read by the central processing means of the system or apparatus, an operating system (OS) or the like operating on the system or apparatus performs actual processing based on the instruction of the program code. Do some or all. The case where the function of the above-described embodiment is realized by the processing is also included.

  Furthermore, it is assumed that the program code read from the storage medium is written to a memory provided in a function expansion card inserted into the system or apparatus or a function expansion unit connected thereto. After that, based on the instruction of the program code, the CPU of the function expansion card or function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the function of the above-described embodiment is realized by the processing. It is.

  When the above-described embodiment is applied to the storage medium, the storage medium stores program codes corresponding to the flowcharts described above.

  As described above, according to the above-described embodiment, contents such as comments can also be made into a template. Further, according to the above-described embodiment, not only the provided document template but also an album that the user likes can be made into a template. Therefore, you can create a similar album as many times as you like with your favorite document template. Furthermore, by using the document template created according to the above-described embodiment, an effect of reducing the trouble of drawing contents or the like can be obtained.

The preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, but the present invention is not limited to such specific embodiments, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the gist of the present invention described in the claims.・ Change is possible.
Moreover, you may implement combining embodiment mentioned above arbitrarily.

101 CPU: 102 ROM: 103 RAM: 104 External storage device

Claims (7)

Analyzing means for analyzing a layout of a document and obtaining layout information which is a result of analyzing the layout;
An acquisition means for acquiring a comment text of a comment area related to the document based on the layout information;
Comment template creation means for creating a comment template based on the comment text acquired by the acquisition means and image information related to the image of the image area corresponding to the comment area;
A document template creating means for creating a document template based on the comment template created by the creating means and the layout information;
An information processing apparatus.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising image information creating means for creating image information related to an image in an image area corresponding to the comment area based on the comment text. Of the image information related to the images of the plurality of image areas corresponding to the comment area, further comprising related information creating means for creating common image information as related information,
The document template creation unit creates a document template based on the comment template created by the creation unit, the layout information, and the related information created by the related information creation unit. 2. The information processing apparatus according to 2.   The information processing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the comment template creation unit creates the comment template when the comment area is set to be a template target. An information processing device that analyzes a layout of a document and obtains layout information that is a result of analyzing the layout; and
An information processing apparatus, based on the layout information, obtaining a comment text of a comment area related to the document; and
A comment template creating step in which the information processing apparatus creates a comment template based on the comment sentence obtained in the obtaining step and image information related to an image in the image area corresponding to the comment area;
An information processing apparatus that creates a document template based on the comment template created in the creating step and the layout information; and
An information processing method including: Computer
Analyzing means for analyzing a layout of a document and obtaining layout information which is a result of analyzing the layout;
An acquisition means for acquiring a comment text of a comment area related to the document based on the layout information;
Comment template creation means for creating a comment template based on the comment text acquired by the acquisition means and image information related to the image of the image area corresponding to the comment area;
A document template creating means for creating a document template based on the comment template created by the creating means and the layout information;
Program to make it work.   A computer-readable storage medium storing the program according to claim 6.

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