JP2010232891A - Server, remote control system, transmission scheme control method, program, and recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a server, remote control system, transmission scheme control method, program and recording medium, in which remote control is performed more comfortably by controlling a transmission scheme. <P>SOLUTION: The invention relates to a server which is remotely controlled from a client device connected over a network. The server includes an image data detection means for monitoring a screen of an application executed on the basis of an operating signal transmitted from the client device, detecting an image data portion, and controlling transmission schemes for the detected image data portion and another portion. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a server, a remote operation system, a transmission method control method, a program, and a recording medium, and more particularly, a server, a remote operation system, a transmission method control method, a program, and a server that perform remote operation more comfortably by controlling the transmission method. The present invention relates to a recording medium.

  In recent years, remote operation systems that operate devices via a network such as the Internet are known. The remote operation system includes a client device and a server. The client device is a device including a UI (user interface) for a user to perform a remote operation and a display device capable of visually recognizing display information, and is a low-cost device that can perform a minimum operation and display. Is required. The server device is a remotely operated device. For example, a home PC (personal computer) as a server can be remotely operated using another PC (for example, a mobile PC) as a client device.

  A remote user interface system has been proposed in which drawing data, instructions, and the like are transmitted as commands from a server to a client device, and the commands (for example, drawing commands) are processed on the client side (see Patent Document 1). By using a complicated command, a GUI (graphic user interface) can be realized with a small amount of data transmission. For example, RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) is known as such a command. It can operate easily even on low-speed lines. Since commands are transmitted and processed, it is suitable for character-centric applications.

  However, in order to process a command transmitted from the server side, the client side also needs high arithmetic processing capability. In particular, when moving image data (which means multimedia data such as moving images, still images, audio, etc., and is also simply referred to as image data) is played back on the client device, it is a heavy processing for the client device, and the moving image is displayed frame by frame. Problems such as poor sound and sound quality, slow display of photos, etc. occur, and multimedia playback is unsuitable. In addition, since there are applications that cannot be processed by commands, available applications are limited.

  Here, an image transfer system has also been proposed in which image data to be transferred to an image display terminal and displayed is compressed and transferred to the client side (see Patent Document 2). In Patent Document 2, VNC (Virtual Network Computing) is disclosed as an application for transmitting a personal computer screen over a network in real time, displaying the screen on a remote screen display terminal, and remotely operating the personal computer. As described above, an encoder is known as a transmission method for encoding, compressing and transmitting moving image data and audio data.

JP 2008-129954 A JP 2006-246153 A

  However, the above techniques have the following problems.

  The transmission method used in the remote operation system described above includes a command transmission method in which drawing data and instructions are transmitted as commands from the server to the client device, and compression of image data to be transferred to the image display terminal for display. Two image transmission methods for transferring to the client side have been proposed. Normally, either one is set and used in advance, but it is desirable that an appropriate transmission method is selected according to the transmission contents and remote operation can be performed more comfortably. However, it is difficult for the user to select arbitrarily.

  The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and an object thereof is to perform a remote operation more comfortably by controlling a transmission method.

  The server according to the present invention is a server that is remotely operated from a client device connected via a network, and monitors a screen of an application that is executed based on an operation signal transmitted from the client device. And image data detecting means for controlling a transmission method between the detected image data portion and other portions.

  The remote operation system according to the present invention is a remote operation system in which a client device and a server remotely operated from the client device are connected via a network, and the server is transmitted from the client device. Image data detecting means for monitoring the screen of an application to be executed based on an operation signal, detecting an image data portion, and controlling a transmission method between the detected image data portion and another portion is provided.

  The transmission method control method according to the present invention is a transmission method control method for a server remotely operated from a client device connected via a network, and is an application executed on the basis of an operation signal transmitted from the client device. The method includes a step of monitoring a screen, detecting an image data portion, and controlling a transmission method between the detected image data portion and another portion.

  A transmission method control program according to the present invention is a transmission method control program for a server remotely operated from a client device connected via a network, and is an application executed on the basis of an operation signal transmitted from the client device. The present invention is characterized by monitoring a screen, detecting an image data portion, and causing a computer to execute a process for controlling a transmission method between the detected image data portion and another portion.

  The recording medium according to the present invention is a computer-readable recording medium for recording the processing of the transmission method control program according to the present invention.

  According to the present invention, remote operation can be performed more comfortably by controlling the transmission method.

1 is an overall configuration diagram of a remote operation system according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a flowchart which shows the operation processing which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the image data detection which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the image data detection which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the image data detection which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a display screen by the side of the client apparatus 1 which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the image data detection which concerns on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the image data detection which concerns on embodiment of this invention.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. The embodiments described below are preferred embodiments of the present invention, and thus various technically preferable limitations are given. However, the scope of the present invention is particularly limited in the following description. As long as there is no description of the effect, it is not restricted to these aspects.

(Constitution)
FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a remote operation system according to an embodiment of the present invention. A client device 1 and a server 2 are connected via a network 3.

  The client device 1 is a device that remotely operates the server 2 and has a function of displaying information transmitted from the server 2.

  The server 2 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 21, a storage unit 22, an image data detection unit 23, an image data compression unit 25, a command generation unit 26, and a communication unit 27.

  The CPU 21 controls the entire server 2. The control program of the server 2 and various application programs are stored in the storage unit 22 in advance. The CPU 21 controls each functional block based on the control program. In addition, various application programs are started / stopped and controlled.

  The image data compression unit 25 compresses image data captured on the server 2 side of a screen of an application to be executed based on an operation signal from the client device 1. In this embodiment, an encoder is used as a method for transmitting the image data compressed by the image data compression unit 25 from the server to the client device. Note that it is also possible to compare the latest entire image with the previous transmitted image and compress the difference to transmit.

  The command generation unit 26 generates a command for displaying an application screen to be executed based on an operation signal from the client device 1. In the present embodiment, RDP is used as a method for transmitting the command generated by the command generation unit 26 from the server to the client device.

  The image data detection unit 23 monitors a screen of an application to be executed based on an operation signal from the client device 1 and detects an image data portion such as a moving image from the screen. The detected image data portion is transmitted by an encoder, and the other is transmitted by RDP. That is, the detected image data portion is compressed by the image data compression unit 25, and the command is generated by the command generation unit 26 for the other portions and transmitted. Details regarding detection of the image data portion will be described later.

  When the server 2 is configured to include a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), the GPU may monitor the screen and detect image data such as a moving image from the screen. Here, the GPU refers to an apparatus or a function that performs image processing.

  The communication unit 27 transmits / receives data to / from the client device 1 via the network 3.

(Operation processing)
An operation process according to the present embodiment will be described. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation process according to the present embodiment.

  A remote desktop connection request is made from the client device 1, the server 2 accepts the connection request, and starts the requested AP (application program) (steps S1 and S2).

  It is determined whether or not there is an image data portion such as a moving image on the screen of the application being executed (step S3). If there is no image data such as a moving image on the screen (step S3 / None), transmission is continued using the RDP method. That is, a command is generated and transmitted.

  When there is image data such as a moving image on the screen (step S3 / Yes), the image data portion (area) is detected and specified (step S4), and the image data portion is transmitted by compressing the encoder method, that is, the image data. . Except for the image data portion in the screen, transmission is performed by the RDP method.

(Detection of image data such as movies)
Next, detection of image data in the above-described step image data S3 and S5 will be described.

  First, when the server 2 is configured to include a GPU, screen information is monitored by the GPU, and image data such as a moving image is detected from the screen.

  In the case of a configuration without a GPU, the image data detection unit 23 detects image data. The image data detection by the image data detection unit 23 can be considered as follows.

[Example 1]
3 to 5 are diagrams for explaining image data detection according to the present embodiment. The image data detection unit 23 places a plurality of arbitrary target points 11 on the screen of the application to be executed based on the operation signal from the client device 1 and monitors the amount of change of the screen. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, a plurality of arbitrary target points 11 are placed on the display screen 10 and the screen information is monitored. The target point 11a can monitor the image data 12 and detect that the amount of change is large. The image data detection unit 23 performs rectangular detection from the target point 11a that has been detected to have a large amount of change, and identifies the region of the image data portion 12.

  In the rectangle detection, for example, as shown in the image diagrams of FIG. 4A and FIG. 4B, the surroundings are monitored around the target point 11a where the amount of change is detected, and the diagonal line of the region of the image data portion 12 The two points on the top are detected. A rectangle can be specified from the two detected points, and this can be specified as an area of the image data portion. Note that the identification is performed on the assumption that the area of the image data portion is rectangular.

  In addition, when a plurality of target points 11 that have detected a large amount of change are present, rectangular detection is similarly performed (see FIG. 5).

[Example 2]
Further, another embodiment in which image data is detected by the image data detection unit 23 will be described. When image data such as a moving image is displayed on the screen, the server 2 cannot transmit the image data portion by the RDP transmission method and cannot view the moving image on the client device 1 side. In such a case, for example, as in the display screen 15 on the client device 1 side shown in FIG. 6, nothing is displayed in a portion where image data such as a moving image is to be displayed, and may be expressed in black (FIG. 6 (reference numeral 13).

  Accordingly, since the amount of commands transmitted from the server 2 to the client device 1 is reduced by the amount of image data such as moving images that cannot be transmitted, the processing amount at the server 2 is reduced. Therefore, since the server 2 can afford the resources that can be used for image data detection, the following detection method can be used.

  Method (a) The image data detection unit 24 sequentially monitors the entire screen and detects the image data portion. For example, as shown in FIG. 7, monitoring is sequentially performed for each fixed monitoring area 16. When a part of the image data part 12 is detected in the monitoring area 16a (determined by the large amount of change), two diagonal points are detected from the detected part, a rectangular range is extracted, and the image data part 12 is specified. Do. The detected image data portion 12 uses an encoder transmission method, that is, a method of compressing and transmitting image data.

  Method (b) The image data detection unit 24 detects the surrounding rectangle from the center of the screen (see FIG. 8).

  In the method (a), image data is detected for a certain arbitrary time. At that time, if the CPU load on the server 2 does not exceed an arbitrary value, the method (a) is continued, and an arbitrary CPU load is detected. If it exceeds the above, the method may be changed to the above method (b) to monitor the screen. When the CPU load is large, there may be two or more image data such as moving images on the screen. Therefore, when rectangle detection is performed from the center of the screen as in the method (b), the image data is faster than the method (a). This is because the part can be specified.

Example 3
In each of the above embodiments, whether or not the image data 12 such as a moving image is on the screen is determined based on the amount of change in the screen information after the actual monitoring is started. Therefore, it is preferable that monitoring is performed at regular intervals. However, it is a burden to perform the monitoring process repeatedly at regular intervals. Therefore, the server 2 has a function of determining the presence of image data (image data presence determination unit), and confirms the presence of the image data, and then performs monitoring processing, that is, the image data detection described in the first and second embodiments. You may make it do.

  The image data presence determination unit according to the present embodiment is a WEB specified by a user inputting a URL (Uniform Resource Locators) from the client device 1 particularly in a configuration in which the server 2 is connected to a WEB server via a network. When a site is acquired as a content from a WEB server and set as a display target, the presence or absence of a moving image on the display target WEB site can be determined. As an application for displaying (browsing) a WEB site, a WEB browser (also referred to as a WWW browser) such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Apple Apple is used, and is executed on the server 2. The image data existence determination unit can check the presence or absence (with or without image data) of a Flash or video file from the source of the display target WEB site (for example, a source file described in Hyper Text Markup Language or the like). . That is, it is determined whether the movie file is linked or the movie file is inserted. Alternatively, when the image data existence determination unit displays the WEB site displayed at the URL specified by the user on the server 2, has the DL (download) (or copy) of the video file been detected in the cache of the server 2? By confirming, it can be determined whether image data is present or absent. This is because when a moving image is included in the WEB site acquired from the WEB server, DL to the cache of the moving image file is temporarily performed.

Example 4
In addition, the user can arbitrarily specify a portion desired to be transmitted by the encoder transmission method from the client device 1 side. For example, as described above, there is a case where nothing is displayed in a portion where image data such as a moving image is to be displayed in the client device 1 and it is expressed in black (see reference numeral 13 in FIG. 6). The user specifies the image data portion (for example, specifies two points on the diagonal line), and instructs the client device 1 to transmit the specified portion by the encoder transmission method. The server 2 transmits the image data portion specified by the user by the encoder transmission method. When two points on the diagonal line are designated, rectangle detection is performed from the two points, and the image data portion is extracted.

  Each of the above-described embodiments is a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and the scope of the present invention is not limited to only the above-described embodiments, and those skilled in the art do not deviate from the gist of the present invention. It is possible to construct a form in which various modifications are made by modifying or substituting the embodiment.

  For example, the control operation in the above-described embodiment can be executed by hardware, software, or a combined configuration of both.

  When executing processing by software, whether the program is read from the ROM storing the program recording the processing sequence to the memory (RAM) in the computer incorporated in the dedicated hardware and executed. Alternatively, the program can be installed and executed on a general-purpose computer capable of executing various processes.

  For example, the program can be recorded in advance on a hard disk or a ROM (Read Only Memory) as a recording medium. Alternatively, the program is stored on a removable recording medium such as a magnetic disk such as a floppy (registered trademark) disk, an optical disk such as a CD (Compact Disc) or DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), or a magneto-optical disk such as an MO (Magneto optical) disk. It is possible to store (record) temporarily or permanently.

  Such a removable recording medium can be provided as so-called package software.

  The program is installed on the computer from the removable recording medium as described above, or is wirelessly transferred from the download site to the computer, or is wired to the computer via a network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) or the Internet. However, the computer can receive the transferred program and install it on a recording medium such as a built-in hard disk.

  In addition to being executed in time series in accordance with the processing operations described in the above embodiment, the processing capability of the apparatus that executes the processing, or a configuration to execute in parallel or individually as necessary Is also possible.

  In addition, the system described in the above embodiment can be configured to have a logical set configuration of a plurality of devices or to mix the functions of each device.

1 Client device 2 Server 3 Network 21 CPU
22 storage unit 23 image data detection unit 25 image data compression unit 26 command generation unit 27 communication unit

Claims (13)

A server remotely operated from a client device connected via a network,
Image data detecting means for monitoring a screen of an application to be executed based on an operation signal transmitted from the client device, detecting an image data portion, and controlling a transmission method between the detected image data portion and another portion. A server characterized by that. Command generation means for generating a command for displaying a screen of the application to be executed;
Image data compression means for compressing image data obtained by capturing the screen of the application to be executed,
The image data detection means transmits the detected image data portion by a method for transmitting the image data compressed by the image data compression means, and the other portion transmits a command generated by the command generation means. 2. The server according to claim 1, wherein the server is controlled so as to transmit.   The image data detecting means places an arbitrary plurality of target points on the screen of the application to be executed, monitors the amount of change of the screen, and performs rectangular detection centering on the target point at which the amount of change is detected. 3. The server according to claim 1, wherein the server is configured to identify an area of the image data portion.   The image data detection means sequentially monitors the entire screen of the application to be executed, monitors the amount of change of the screen, performs a rectangle detection centering on a location where the change amount is large, and detects the image data portion The server according to claim 1, wherein the server is specified.   The server according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the image data detection means detects a rectangle from the center of the screen of the application to be executed and specifies an area of the image data portion.   The server according to any one of claims 3 to 5, wherein the region of the image data portion is specified by detecting two diagonal points and extracting a rectangular range. Image data presence determination means for determining the presence of the image data,
The said image data detection means starts the detection of the said image data part, when the presence of image data is confirmed by the said image data presence determination means, The any one of Claim 1 to 6 characterized by the above-mentioned. The listed server. The server connects to a WEB server via the network,
The application to be executed is a WEB browser that acquires a WEB site from the WEB server and is a display target.
The server according to claim 7, wherein the image data presence determining unit determines the presence of the image data from a source of the display target WEB site. The server connects to a WEB server via the network,
The application to be executed is a WEB browser that acquires a WEB site from the WEB server and is a display target.
8. The image data existence determining unit, when the WEB site is to be displayed, determines whether the image data exists based on whether or not download of image data is detected in a cache. Server. A remote operation system in which a client device and a server remotely operated from the client device are connected via a network,
The server
Image data detecting means for monitoring a screen of an application to be executed based on an operation signal transmitted from the client device, detecting an image data portion, and controlling a transmission method between the detected image data portion and another portion. A remote operation system characterized by that. A transmission method control method for a server remotely operated from a client device connected via a network,
Monitoring a screen of an application to be executed based on an operation signal transmitted from the client device, detecting an image data portion, and controlling a transmission method between the detected image data portion and another portion. Transmission method control method. A transmission method control program for a server remotely operated from a client device connected via a network,
Monitor a screen of an application to be executed based on an operation signal transmitted from the client device, detect an image data portion, and cause a computer to execute processing for controlling a transmission method between the detected image data portion and another portion. A transmission method control program.   A computer-readable recording medium for recording the processing of the transmission method control program according to claim 12.

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