JP2013206242A - Imaging device, content generation system, and content generation method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To generate a mobile content of a high quality.SOLUTION: An electronic camera 11 is configured to comprise: generating three-dimensional data on the basis of a photographing image; converting a generated three-dimensional data into two-dimensional image data; and transmitting converted two-dimensional image data to a PC12. The PC12, which is connected to a server 13 over an Internet 15, uploads the two-dimensional image data to the server 13. The server 13 receives the two-dimensional image data from the PC12 over the Internet 15 to be converted into a content of a format in accordance with a type of a communication terminal preliminarily registered for each subscriber and transmits a converted content to a communication terminal 14. The communication terminal 14, which is connected to the server 13 over the Internet 15, stores a received content and uses a stored content according to a usage purpose.

Description

  The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus capable of generating mobile content, a content generation system, and a content generation method.

  Content for communication terminals such as mobile phones is required to have individuality and unique style as seen in dress-up mobile phones and design projects. Content is a general term for multimedia content for communication terminals including standby images, wallpaper images, FLASH wallpapers, animated moving images, decoration mail images, pictographic images, and the like.

  As a wallpaper creation service for mobile phones, a form of downloading a template using a Java (registered trademark) application and incorporating an image such as a photograph of each user into the mainstream has been the mainstream. In this case, the user must start and create a Java (registered trademark) application each time, which is very time-consuming and can only be created according to an existing template. It was.

  Recently, a service for synthesizing a photograph with a dynamic SWF (Shock wave Flashfile) file on a network is known. In this case as well, there is no change to embedding a photo in the template, and in terms of user's freedom, characters can be input. For example, Patent Documents 1 and 2 are known as conventional techniques related to wallpaper creation.

JP 2003-274098 A JP 2003-309880 A

  However, the user has a limitation in image creation, and a user with high quality that meets the user's request cannot be obtained. In addition, mobile phones have limited capabilities compared to personal computers (PCs) in terms of screen resolution, calculation capability, communication speed, power consumption, and the like, and there is a problem in generating desired content.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object thereof is to provide an imaging device, a content generation system, and a content generation method that can generate high-quality content other than a mobile phone. .

One aspect of an imaging apparatus illustrating the present invention includes a three-dimensional shape generation unit that generates a three-dimensional shape based on a captured image acquired from an imaging unit, and a two-dimensional image conversion that generates two-dimensional image data based on the three-dimensional shape. Means and content conversion means for converting the image data into a content in a format corresponding to a purpose of use at a predetermined communication terminal.
The content is one of wallpaper, a standby image, a decoration image, a pictographic image, and an animation image.

  As one aspect of the content generation system, an imaging / transmission unit that generates a stereoscopic shape based on a captured image, converts the stereoscopic shape into two-dimensional image data, and sends the two-dimensional image data; A server that converts the content into a format according to the type of the communication terminal that registered the address and transmits the content to the communication terminal; a communication terminal that is connected to the server via the network and receives the content; It is equipped with.

  The present invention creates a three-dimensional shape based on a captured image, generates processing for converting the created three-dimensional shape into two-dimensional image data by an imaging device or an electronic camera, and determines the generated two-dimensional image data in advance. Since the content is converted according to the purpose of use at the communication terminal, it is possible to generate content with high quality.

It is explanatory drawing which shows the outline of the content production | generation system which is one Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the outline of an electronic camera. It is a block diagram which shows the outline of a server. It is a block diagram which shows the outline of a portable terminal. It is a flowchart which shows the operation | movement procedure of an electronic camera. It is a flowchart which shows the procedure which produces | generates 3D object. It is a back perspective view which shows the display part of the electronic camera which is displaying the 3D object produced | generated based on a background image. It is a flowchart which shows the operation | movement procedure of a server. It is a flowchart which shows the operation | movement procedure of a portable terminal.

  A content generation system 10 to which the present invention is applied includes an electronic camera 11, a PC 12, a server 13, and a mobile terminal (communication terminal) 14.

  The electronic camera 11 is connected to the PC 12 by wire. The PC 12 includes communication means and is connected to the Internet (network) 15. Non-text content (hereinafter referred to as “content”) generated by the electronic camera 11 is uploaded to the server 13 via the PC 12. The server 13 is connected to the Internet 15, converts the uploaded content into mobile content in a format corresponding to the type of the mobile terminal 14 registered in advance for each member, and sends the mobile content to the mobile terminal 14. The mobile terminal 14 is connected to the public line network 17 via the radio base station 16, and further connected to the Internet 15 through the public line network 17, and displays mobile content transmitted from the server 13 on the display unit 14a. If necessary, the mobile content is stored and used.

As shown in FIG. 2, the electronic camera 11 includes an imaging unit 18, a control unit 19, an input unit 20, a RAM 21, a ROM 22, a display unit 23, a storage unit 24, a three-dimensional shape generation unit 25, a tag information addition unit 26, and an I / F27 etc. The imaging unit 18 includes a photographic lens, an imaging device, an AFE (analog front end), and the like. The imaging device captures a subject image formed by the imaging lens and outputs an image signal. The AEF converts an image signal into digital image data and outputs it.
The control unit 19 includes a CPU and its peripheral circuits, and controls each of the above units using the RAM 21 as a work memory according to a program stored in the ROM 22. The input unit 20 includes various operation units such as a power key, a shutter key, and a cross key and a touch panel, and outputs an input signal corresponding to the operation to the control unit 19. The display unit 23 includes a liquid crystal display panel provided on the back of the body and a driving circuit thereof, and displays character information and image information. The storage unit 24 stores captured image data, stereoscopic shape data (3D object), 2D image data converted from the stereoscopic shape data, and the like. The I / F 27 is an interface such as a USB standard, and controls transmission / reception of image data and the like with an external device connected to the external connection unit 28.

  The three-dimensional shape generation unit 25 is constructed by 3D modeling software executed by the control unit 19 in response to an execution instruction. The 3D modeling software is polygon-based for creating 3D shape data used for 3DCG, CAD, game production, etc., and includes an automatic generation unit 29, a reference shape storage unit 30, a viewpoint rotation output unit 31, an editing unit 32, A rendering unit 33, a layer function unit 34, a 2D image conversion output unit 35, and the like are provided.

  The automatic generation unit 29 automatically generates a 3D object expressed by, for example, a wire frame based on the shape of the subject by extracting the outline and vertex of the subject from the captured image. The reference shape storage unit 30 registers a plurality of basic shape 3D objects such as a circle and a rectangular parallelepiped in advance. These basic shapes are appropriately read and displayed as wire frames. The editing unit 32 edits 3D objects such as movement, copying, and deformation, or edits the sum, difference, product, and the like of 3D objects by a Boolean operation. The layer function unit 34 is a function for displaying the 3D object so as to overlap the captured image like a cell image. The rendering unit 33 maps the texture onto the surface to represent the 3D object with a polygon.

  The viewpoint rotation output unit 31 rotates and displays the 3D object by changing the viewpoint position. The 2D image conversion output unit 35 converts the 3D object into 2D image data and outputs it. The tag information adding unit 26 adds content for use such as wallpaper, a standby image, a decoration image, a pictographic image, and an animation image to the 2D image data to generate content data (hereinafter referred to as “content”).

  As shown in FIG. 3, the server 13 includes a control unit 37, a communication unit 38, a RAM 39, a ROM 40, a member authentication unit 41, a tag information reading unit 42, a content conversion unit 43, a content storage unit 44, and the like. . The control unit 37 controls each of the above units using the RAM 39 as a work memory in accordance with a program stored in the ROM 40. The communication unit 38 transmits / receives data such as contents to / from the PC 12 and the portable terminal 14 via the Internet 15. The tag information reading unit 42 reads tag information added to the content, and reads information such as the purpose of use of the description in the tag information. The member authentication unit 41 performs authentication of the PC 12 and the mobile terminal 14 that can be used via the Internet 15 by collating with information registered in the member information DB 45.

  The content conversion unit 43 converts the content into a format corresponding to the type (model or carrier) of the mobile terminal 14 registered in advance for each member, and stores the converted content in the content storage unit 44. The control unit 37 reads the converted content (mobile content) from the content storage unit 44 and transmits it to the mobile terminal 14 registered in advance. This transmission is sent as an e-mail attachment to the address of the mobile terminal 14 registered in advance.

  The mobile terminal 14 is a telephone, and as shown in FIG. 4, a wireless communication unit 46, a voice processing unit 47, a control unit 48, a key input unit 49, a display unit 14a, a ROM 50, a RAM 51, a user memory 52, and an image A memory 53 is provided.

  The wireless communication unit 46 executes a communication control sequence based on a predetermined wireless communication protocol with the wireless base station 16, and transmits / receives a transmission signal and a reception signal including a control signal and an audio signal via the antenna 54. . The audio processing unit 47 includes a microphone, a speaker (audio output means), an audio conversion circuit, etc., and processes input / output of audio signals.

  The control unit 48 includes a CPU and its peripheral circuits, and controls each of the above units using the RAM 51 as a work memory in accordance with a program stored in the ROM 50. The key input unit 49 includes various operation keys such as a power key and a character input key, and outputs a key input signal corresponding to the key operation to the control unit 48. The display unit 14a includes a liquid crystal display panel and its drive circuit, and displays character information and image information. The user memory 52 is a non-volatile memory. The user memory 52 includes an identification number (including model and carrier information) of the mobile terminal 14, phone book data, address book data, and e-mail data (transmitted mail and received mail). ) And various data such as contents (mobile contents) are stored. In particular, the mobile content is stored in the content data storage unit 56 in order to be managed and stored for each predetermined designated place (designated folder). The mobile content is composed of a standby image, a wallpaper image, a FLASH wallpaper, an animation movie, a decoration mail image, a pictographic image, and the like, and is appropriately selected and used according to each use purpose.

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be described. When making a high-quality wallpaper used by the portable terminal 14, for example, as shown in FIG. 5, an object to be used as a wallpaper, such as a building, is photographed with the electronic camera 11 (S-1), and the photographed image (background image) is displayed. Save (S-2). Thereafter, the 3D modeling software is executed by operating the input unit 20 (S-3).
The 3D modeling software selects the background image, and then displays the selected background image on the display unit 23 (S-4). Thereafter, the 3D modeling software performs processing for generating a 3D object (S-5).

  When the 3D object is generated, the viewpoint rotation output unit 31 rotates the generated 3D object in a desired direction in response to an operation from the input unit 20 (S-6). Thereafter, when an instruction for a conversion request to 2D image data is given from the input unit 20, the 2D image conversion output unit 35 outputs 2D image data from the 3D object by processing such as screen capture, and displays the 2D image data. (Output) (S-7). Thereafter, when a save request is instructed from the input unit 20, a pull-down box for selecting the purpose of use of the displayed 2D image data is displayed. By selecting a purpose of use from the pull-down box, for example, wallpaper, for example, tag information describing wallpaper information is added to 2D image data to create content data (hereinafter referred to as “content”). The data is stored in the storage unit 24 in a compressed format such as JPEG (S-8).

  Thereafter, the electronic camera 11 is connected to the PC 12. The PC 12 recognizes the electronic camera 11 as an external storage device. Thereafter, the file management software is activated by operating the keyboard and mouse of the PC 12, and the content stored in the external storage device (electronic camera 11) is copied or moved to the storage unit of the PC 12 (S-9). Then, the browsing software (browser) is started, connected to the Internet 15, the address of the server 13 determined in advance is specified, and the member ID and password displayed on the top screen of the HP are entered to perform member authentication. After that, the content is uploaded to the server 13 (S-10).

  Here, the automatic generation of the 3D object will be briefly described. When the automatic generation is selected, as shown in FIG. 6, the automatic generation unit 29 corrects the aberration of the background image (S−) in order to easily detect the outline and the vertex from the building shown in the background image. 11) and the brightness, contrast, and hue are adjusted (S-12). After that, a simple 3D object is generated by automatically detecting outlines and vertices from the building shown in the background image (S-13). The automatically generated 3D object is displayed in a wire frame 60 as shown in detail in FIG. At this time, the layer function unit 34 displays the wire frame 60 on the second layer 64 different from the first layer 63 that displays the sketch image 61 on the front surface of the building 62 that appears in the sketch image 61.

  Thereafter, the wire frame 60 is modeled by editing such as deformation or combination (S-14). Then, a material setting for pasting an image for expressing the texture of the surface of the wire frame 60 by texture mapping is performed on the modeled wire frame 60 and displayed as a polygon (S-15). As an image to be pasted at this time, it is preferable to trim or copy and paste the image in the range corresponding to the surface of the wire frame in the sketch image 61. In addition, you may produce | generate manually instead of automatic generation. In this case, a 3D object, for example, a rectangular parallelepiped is selected from the reference shape storage unit 30, the selected object is displayed in a wire frame, and the object is subjected to editing such as deformation to match the shape of the subject. . At this time, in order to simplify the editing operation with the electronic camera 11, a vertex is selected by a screen touch operation, and the selected vertex is slid on the screen to move the selected vertex and deform the object. It is preferable to edit as follows.

  As shown in FIG. 8, the server 13 performs member authentication (S-16), and when it is determined to be a member (S-17), permits uploading of content (S-18). Then, the uploaded content is stored in the content storage unit 44 in association with the member ID (S-19). The tag information reading unit 42 reads tag information from the content read from the content storage unit 44 (S-20), and stores the read information such as the purpose of use in the RAM 51. The control unit 37 of the server 13 sets the 2D image data included in the content read from the content storage unit 44 according to the type (carrier etc.) of the mobile terminal 14 registered in advance for each member, and further according to the purpose of use. Conversion into a format (mobile content) (S-21). Then, the control unit 37 sends the mobile content (converted content) to the address of the mobile terminal 14 registered in advance, for example, attached to an e-mail (S-22). Here, if the member authentication unit 41 determines that the member is not a member, the control unit 37 discards the content (S-23). Instead of registering the type of the mobile terminal 14 in the server 13 for each member, information on the type (identification number) of the mobile terminal 14 may be described in the tag information of the content.

  As shown in FIG. 9, the control unit 48 of the mobile terminal 14 receives the e-mail attached with the mobile content (S-24), and displays the mobile content image on the display unit 14a (S-25). ). Then, an inquiry about whether to use the mobile content is displayed to the user (S-26). When “use” is selected by an operation from the key input unit 49, the control unit 48 determines the purpose of use from the format of the mobile content, and stores a storage location corresponding to the determined purpose of use, that is, content data storage The data is automatically saved in the unit 56 (S-27). Note that if not used is selected, the mobile content is discarded (S-28).

  In the above embodiment, mobile content is automatically distributed to a mobile terminal registered in advance in the server. However, the mobile content is stored in the server 13 by connecting to the server 13 from the mobile terminal 14 through member authentication. You may comprise as follows. In this case, a determination unit that determines the type (carrier) of the mobile terminal 14 that is accessing from the information of the user agent in the HTTP request is provided, and the content conversion unit 43 is configured to convert the format to the format determined by the type. May be. In addition, as a determination part, you may determine by the identification number (IP address) of a portable terminal.

In each said embodiment, although the portable terminal 14 is used, you may utilize communication terminals, such as a smart phone and a tablet-type terminal.
In each of the above embodiments, the electronic camera 11 generates two-dimensional image data as content. However, a plurality of two-dimensional image data are stored in one file and displayed in order to display a moving image. An animation file (moving image file) to be expressed may be generated as content by the electronic camera 11. In this case, a plurality of two-dimensional image files may be generated and stored in order, and finally these may be stored in one file to create an animation file.

  In each of the above embodiments, content is uploaded to the server 13 via the PC 12. However, a wireless LAN communication unit is provided in the electronic camera 11 so that the electronic camera 11 is directly connected to the server 13 without going through the PC 11. It may be. In this case, browsing software is installed in the electronic camera 11, the browsing software is activated by the electronic camera 11, the HP of the server 13 is browsed, and the content is uploaded after performing member authentication.

  In each of the above embodiments, the content generated by the electronic camera 11 is transmitted to the mobile terminal 14 via the server 13, but the present invention is not limited to this, and a wireless communication unit such as infrared communication is provided, or A wired connection unit may be provided in the electronic camera 11, and the content may be transmitted directly from the electronic camera 11 to the mobile terminal 14 without going through the server 13. In this case, the electronic camera 11 may be provided with a content conversion unit that converts the content into a format corresponding to the type of the mobile terminal 14.

10 Content Generation System 11 Electronic Camera 12 PC (Personal Computer)
13 Server 14 Mobile terminal

Claims (6)

Three-dimensional shape generating means for generating a three-dimensional shape based on a captured image acquired from the imaging unit;
Two-dimensional image conversion means for generating two-dimensional image data based on the three-dimensional shape;
Content conversion means for converting the two-dimensional image data into a content in a format according to the purpose of use in a predetermined communication terminal;
An imaging apparatus comprising: The imaging device according to claim 1,
The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the content is any one of a wallpaper, a standby image, a decoration image, a pictographic image, and an animation image. Imaging / transmission means for generating a three-dimensional shape based on a captured image, converting the three-dimensional shape into two-dimensional image data, and sending the converted two-dimensional image data;
Connected to the imaging / transmission means via a network, receiving the two-dimensional image data, converting the content into a format in accordance with the purpose of use in a communication terminal in which an address is registered in advance, and converting the content into the content A server to send to the communication terminal;
A communication terminal connected to the server via the network and receiving the content;
A content generation system comprising: The content generation system according to claim 3,
The content generation system, wherein the content is any one of a wallpaper, a standby image, a decoration image, a pictographic image, and an animation image. A step of generating a three-dimensional shape based on a captured image and then generating a two-dimensional image data based on the three-dimensional shape with an electronic camera;
Converting the two-dimensional image data into a content in a format according to the purpose of use in a predetermined communication terminal, and sending the content to the communication terminal;
A content generation method comprising: A step of generating a three-dimensional shape based on a captured image, and then performing a process of converting the three-dimensional shape into two-dimensional image data with an electronic camera;
Sending the two-dimensional image data to a server;
Converting the two-dimensional image data received via a network into content in a format according to the purpose of use in a communication terminal in which an address is registered in advance, and sending the content to the communication terminal;
Receiving the content at the communication terminal via the network;
A content generation method comprising:

Images