JP2017152952A - Communication control apparatus, conference system and program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an apparatus, a system, a method, and a program capable of improving conference efficiency by transmitting important speech to a desired terminal at low delay.SOLUTION: The apparatus for controlling communication among a plurality of conference terminals includes: a receiving unit for receiving voice information of voice generated by a user using a first conference terminal out of a plurality of conference terminals and an attention degree indicating a degree that respective users utilizing respective conference terminals pay attention to respective users displayed on respective conference terminals; a determination unit 61 for determining priority indicating which communication between conference terminals is to have priority on the basis of the received attention degree; and a control unit for performing control for transmitting the received voice information to other conference terminals excluding the first conference terminal.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 5

Description

  The present invention relates to a communication control device for controlling communication between a plurality of conference terminals, a conference system including a plurality of conference terminals and a communication control device, and a program for causing a computer to execute the control.

  Along with the advancement of network technology and the demand for reduction of business trip expenses and business trip time, a conference system is used to realize a conference between long-distance bases via a communication network such as the Internet.

  In this conference system, a system has been proposed in which the delay time of a base where a conversation is detected is reduced and the delay time of other bases is increased (see Patent Document 1).

  However, in a conventional conference system, when a conference is held between multiple sites, important utterances are delayed because data is transmitted without determining the connection between the sites and who is speaking. There was a problem that conference efficiency decreased.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and provides an apparatus, system, method, and program capable of transmitting important utterances to a desired base with low delay and improving conference efficiency. Objective.

  In order to solve the above-described problems and achieve the object, the present invention is a communication control device that controls communication between a plurality of conference terminals, and uses the first conference terminal among the plurality of conference terminals. A receiving unit that receives voice information of a voice uttered by a user and a degree of attention indicating a degree of attention of each user displayed on each conference terminal by each user using each conference terminal; Based on the degree of attention received by the unit, a determination unit for determining a priority indicating which communication terminal to give priority to communication, and voice information received by the reception unit according to the priority determined by the determination unit And a control unit that performs control to transmit to other conference terminals other than the first conference terminal.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to transmit important utterances to a desired base with low delay, and to improve conference efficiency.

The figure which showed the structural example of the conference system. The figure which showed the hardware constitutions of the camera which comprises a conference terminal, and a processing apparatus. The functional block diagram of a conference terminal. The figure which showed the hardware constitutions of the server. The functional block diagram of a server. The figure explaining the 1st example of the determination method of a priority. The figure which illustrated the attention degree used with the determination method shown in FIG. The figure explaining the 2nd example of the determination method of a priority. The figure which illustrated the attention degree used with the determination method shown in FIG. The figure explaining the 3rd example of the determination method of a priority. The figure which illustrated the attention degree used with the determination method shown in FIG. The flowchart which showed the flow of the process performed with a conference terminal. The flowchart which showed the flow of the process performed with a server.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a conference system used for performing a conference between a plurality of bases. Since there are a plurality of bases, the number of bases is three or more. The plurality of bases are, for example, a conference room at the head office, a conference room at branch A, and a conference room at branch B. In the example shown in FIG. 1, three bases A, B, and C are shown. The conference system includes conference terminals A, B, and C installed at the respective bases A, B, and C, and a server 11 as a communication control device connected to each of the conference terminals A, B, and C via the network 10. Consists of including.

  The network 10 may be a LAN (Local Area Network), a WAN (Wide Area Network), or the Internet. The network 10 may be a wired network or a wireless network.

  The conference terminal may be composed of one device or may be composed of a plurality of devices. When configured from a plurality of devices, the devices may be configured from a plurality of separated devices, or may be a device in which the plurality of devices are housed in one housing.

  The conference terminal includes a camera 12 as an imaging device, a display 13 as a display device, a microphone 14 as an audio input device, a speaker 15 as an audio output device, and a processing device 16. The processing device 16 processes information input from the camera 12 and the microphone 14 and information output to the display 13 and the speaker 15. The conference terminal also includes a line-of-sight detection device 17 that continuously detects the position of the user's line of sight in the image displayed on the display 13 as line-of-sight information. In FIG. 1, only the conference terminal A shows the camera 12 and the like constituting the conference terminal A, but the conference terminals B and C have the same configuration and include the camera 12 and the like.

  The camera 12 is a device that captures images such as still images and moving images. The camera 12 participates in a conference at its own location, captures a user (user) who uses the conference terminal, and outputs image information of the image as image data. . When a user who uses the conference terminal A is a user A and a user who uses the conference terminal B is a user B, the base A where the user A is with respect to the user A is his own base. On the other hand, the base B where the user B is with respect to the user A is another base. The number of users at each site may be one or a plurality of users.

  The display 13 accepts input of image data of images taken by cameras at each site and displays those images. The display 13 may be a cathode ray tube (CRT), a liquid crystal display, a plasma display, or an organic EL (Electroluminescence) display.

  The microphone 14 receives an input of a voice uttered by a user at its own base, and outputs voice information as voice data. The speaker 15 outputs audio data transmitted from another site. The microphone 14 and the speaker 15 are not limited to this, but can include a diaphragm (diaphragm) and a coil. The microphone 14 generates a sound signal when the diaphragm receives a sound wave and vibrates, and the coil moves in a magnetic field, and outputs the sound signal as sound data. On the contrary, the speaker 15 moves the coil by the audio signal, vibrates the diaphragm to generate a sound wave, and outputs the sound by the sound wave.

  The processing device 16 transmits the image data output from the camera 12 and the audio data output from the microphone 14 to the server 11. Further, the processing device 16 receives the image data and audio data transmitted from the server 11, transmits the image data to the display 13 for display, and transmits the audio data to the speaker 15 for output. The processing device 16 encodes the data when transmitting the image data and the audio data, and performs a process of decoding the data when receiving the encoded image data and audio data.

  When displaying the image of the image data on the display 13, the processing device 16 can display the image with a specified size at a specified position. Further, when outputting the audio data, the processing device 16 can output the audio at a designated volume.

  The line-of-sight detection device 17 can include, for example, a camera and an image processing device that analyzes an image captured by the camera. The line-of-sight detection device 17 can detect the direction of the line of sight from the positional relationship between the eye and the iris, for example, with the reference point as the head. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the position of the cornea reflected by irradiating infrared light using an irradiation device that irradiates infrared light, a camera capable of imaging infrared light, and an image processing device is a reference point. It is also possible to detect the direction of the line of sight from the positional relationship between the position and the pupil. Note that the image processing apparatus can include a CPU, a memory, an image I / F, and an output I / F in order to detect the direction of the line of sight from an image captured by the camera.

  With reference to FIG. 2, the hardware configuration of the camera 12 and the processing device 16 of the conference terminal will be described in detail. The camera 12 includes a lens 20, an image sensor 21, an image processing circuit 22, and an image I / F 23. The lens 20 receives light reflected from the subject and forms an image of the object. The image sensor 21 is an imaging element such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) or a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor), and converts the target image into an analog signal.

  The image processing circuit 22 includes an A / D converter, converts an analog signal into a digital signal, and outputs it as image data. The image I / F 23 transmits the image data processed by the image processing circuit 22 to the processing device 16.

  The processing device 16 includes a CPU 30, a memory 31, a communication I / F 32, a control circuit 33, an image I / F 34, and an input / output I / F 35. The CPU 30 executes various processes. The memory 31 stores various programs necessary for processing executed by the CPU 30, image data, audio data, and the like. The memory 31 includes, for example, a RAM (Random Access Memory) that is a volatile memory and a ROM (Read Only Memory) that is a nonvolatile memory.

  The communication I / F 32 transmits image data, audio data, control data, and the like to a communication partner connected to the network, and receives those data from the communication partner. The control circuit 33 controls the entire processing device 16. The image I / F 34 receives image data from the camera 12. The input / output I / F 35 controls input of audio data, output of image data received from a communication partner to the display 13, and output of audio data.

  FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of the conference terminal. The conference terminal includes an imaging unit 40, a display unit 41, a line-of-sight detection unit 42, an audio input unit 43, an audio output unit 44, an attention level calculation unit 45, and a communication unit 46. The conference terminal can include an encoding unit 47 and a decoding unit 48 in addition to these functional units.

  The imaging unit 40 is realized by the camera 12, the display unit 41 is realized by the display 13, the line-of-sight detection unit 42 is realized by the line-of-sight detection device 17, and the audio input unit 43 is realized by the microphone 14 for audio output. The unit 44 is realized by the speaker 15. The attention level calculation unit 45, the encoding unit 47, and the decoding unit 48 are realized by the CPU 30 executing a program stored in the memory 31. The communication unit 46 is realized by the communication I / F 32.

  The imaging unit 40 captures an image of a user who uses the conference terminal at the local site, and outputs the image data to the encoding unit 47. The encoding unit 47 encodes the image data and passes the encoded image data to the communication unit 46. In addition, the voice input unit 43 receives voice input from a user at the local site and outputs voice data to the encoding unit 47.

  The encoding unit 47 is realized by an encoder such as H.264 / AVC or H.264 / SVC for encoding image data, and is realized by an encoder such as Speex for encoding audio data. The encoder converts a digital signal such as image data or audio data into a desired code according to a certain rule. For example, the encoder can compress data. The encoding unit 47 passes the encoded data to the communication unit 46.

  The communication unit 46 functions as a transmission unit, and transmits the encoded data to the conference terminal at a base other than its own base via the server 11. The communication unit 46 also functions as a receiving unit, and receives encoded data transmitted from the conference terminal at another site. The communication unit 46 passes the encoded data to the decoding unit 48.

  The decoding unit 48 decodes the encoded data into original image data and audio data. The decoding unit 48 is realized by a decoder such as H.264 / AVC or H.264 / SVC for encoded image data, and is realized by a decoder such as Speex for encoded audio data. The decoder returns the encoded data to the original data. For example, the decoder can expand the compressed data. The decoding unit 48 passes the decoded image data to the display unit 41 and passes the decoded audio data to the audio output unit 44.

  The display unit 41 displays the received image data as a video or the like, and the audio output unit 44 outputs the received audio data as audio.

  The line-of-sight detection unit 42 detects which site in the screen displayed on the display unit 41 the user's line of sight is on. The line-of-sight detection unit 42 detects, for example, two-dimensional coordinates (x, y), determines which base image the coordinates are on, and outputs information identifying the base, such as a base name, as line-of-sight information. To do. The reference point (0, 0) of the two-dimensional coordinates may be any position, but may be a pixel displayed at the upper left corner of the screen, for example. Note that when performing line-of-sight detection, calibration can be performed in order to determine the initial state so that the coordinates of the position expected from the line of sight can be obtained.

  The attention level calculation unit 45 uses the line-of-sight information output by the line-of-sight detection unit 42 and calculates the degree of attention indicating the degree of attention of the user at the local site and the other site in the screen displayed on the display unit 41 by the user. As the degree of attention, for example, a method of calculating the degree of attention with respect to the video of each base in the screen as a percentage from the integrated value of the line-of-sight information acquired in the past 10 seconds can be used. The video at each base is a video that captures the user at each base.

  Specifically, if the video of site B was watched for 8 seconds, the video of site C for 2 seconds, and the video of site A for 0 seconds in 10 seconds, the level of attention of site A was 0%, It is possible to calculate the degree of attention as 80% and the degree of attention of the base C as 20%. The line-of-sight information is not limited to the past 10 seconds, and other periods or periods in which sound is detected may be used.

  The attention level calculation unit 45 passes the calculated attention level of each base to the communication unit 46 as attention level data, and the communication unit 46 transmits the attention level data to the server 11.

  Next, the hardware configuration of the server 11 will be described with reference to FIG. The server 11 includes a CPU 50, a ROM 51, a RAM 52, an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) 53, and a communication I / F 54. The CPU 50 reads out the program stored in the ROM 51 or the HDD 53 to the RAM 52 and executes it. The CPU 50 controls the entire server 11 by executing the program and executes a predetermined process. The ROM 51 stores a boot program for starting the server 11 and firmware for controlling the HDD 53 and the like. The RAM 52 provides a work area for the CPU 50. The HDD 53 stores programs and various data for realizing each functional unit described later. The communication I / F 54 is connected to the network 10 and enables communication with the conference terminal at each site via the network 10.

  FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram of the server 11. The server 11 includes a communication unit 60, a determination unit 61, and a video control unit 62 and an audio control unit 63 as control units. The communication unit 60 functions as a transmission unit and a reception unit, and receives voice data of a voice uttered by a user who uses a conference terminal at one site, and image data and a degree of attention from the conference terminal at each site. The video control unit 62 instructs the communication unit 60 to transmit the image data received from the conference terminal at each site received by the communication unit 60 to the conference terminals at all sites having the conference. The communication unit 60 transmits the image data to the instructed conference terminal according to the instruction from the video control unit 62 and displays the video of the user at each base. As a result, it is possible to hold a face-to-face meeting.

  The voice control unit 63 instructs the communication unit 60 to transmit voice data to the conference terminals at all the bases other than the one base where the conference is performed. The communication unit 60 transmits the audio data to the instructed conference terminal according to the instruction from the audio control unit 63, and outputs the audio uttered by the user at all the other bases. As a result, users at all other sites can listen to the voice and have a conversation in response.

  The determination unit 61 determines a priority indicating which conference terminal, that is, which base has priority for communication, based on the attention received by the communication unit 60. A method for determining the priority will be described later. The voice control unit 63 instructs the communication unit 60 to transmit the voice data and controls the transmission. The voice control unit 63 controls the transmission of the voice data according to the priority determined by the determination unit 61.

  Specifically, a priority is given to a voice packet that is voice data, a large amount of network resources are allocated to a voice packet with a high priority, and a voice packet with a low priority is set. The voice packet is transmitted by reducing the allocation of network resources. The network resource is a communication I / F 54 that is connected to the network 10 and controls communication via the network 10. As a result, for high-priority voice packets, the number of packets transmitted per unit time increases, delay of important speech can be reduced, and conference efficiency can be improved.

  Further, the voice control unit 63 can control transmission of voice data to the conference terminals between the bases whose priority determined by the determination unit 61 is lower than the designated priority. With this control, network resources can be saved by reducing network resources allocated to low priority voice packets.

  The network resource saved as described above can be allocated to transmission of audio data to the conference terminal between the bases having the designated priority or higher. Thereby, since the number of high priority voice packets transmitted per unit time increases, the delay of important speech can be further reduced, and the conference efficiency can be further improved.

  The video control unit 62 can instruct the communication unit 60 to transmit the image data acquired from each site to each site. At that time, the video control unit 62 can process the image so that the attention level is included in the image, and pass the image data of the processed image to the communication unit 60 and instruct to transmit it.

  As for the transmission of the image data, similarly to the above, it is possible to control the transmission of the image data to the conference terminals between the bases lower than the designated priority, and to save network resources. In addition, by allocating the saved network resources to the transmission of image data to the conference terminal between the bases having the specified priority or higher, the audio data can be smoothly transmitted and received during that time, thereby improving the conference efficiency. Can be improved.

  Here, the image data of the local site is also transmitted to the local site, but it is also possible to transmit only the image data of other sites to the local site. At each site, the processing device 16 can determine which image data is to be displayed at which screen position and size, and can cause the display 13 to display each image at each position and size.

  An example of a method for determining the priority will be described with reference to FIG. Here, a method for determining the priority according to the degree of attention during a normal meeting will be described. The conference is held at three locations A to C, and the user's image captured at each location is displayed on the screen displayed by the display unit 41 of the conference terminal at each location. Each user's video may be displayed in the same size for all users, or may be displayed in different sizes according to the user's settings, the degree of attention, and the like. In addition, a user who is currently speaking or has recently spoken may be displayed in a large size, and other users may be displayed in a small size.

  In this example, the image of the user of the site B with the highest degree of attention is displayed large on the screen of the site A, and the video of the user of the site C with the next highest degree of attention and the highest degree of attention are displayed on the right side. The video of the user at the low base A is displayed small. Similarly, at the base B, the video of the user at the base A with the highest degree of attention is large and the video of the users at the other bases B and C is displayed small. In addition, at the base C, the video of the user at the base B with the highest degree of attention is large and the video of the users at the other bases A and C is displayed small. In addition, the degree of attention is also displayed on the video of each site.

  FIG. 7 illustrates the degree of attention received from the conference terminal at each site. The degree of attention with respect to the base A indicates how much the users of the bases A to C are paying attention to the video at the base A. Similarly, the degree of attention to the base B indicates how much attention is paid to the video of the base B, and the degree of attention to the base C indicates how much attention is paid to the video of the base C.

  In the example illustrated in FIG. 7, the degree of attention to the base A is 0% for the user at the base A, 70% for the user at the base B, and 30% for the user at the base C. The user can know which base image he / she is watching by looking at the displayed attention level.

  Referring to FIG. 6 again, the user at each site speaks in the conference, but the voice is transmitted as voice data to other sites other than the site where the user who spoke is present and output. At that time, it is transmitted to the other base according to the priority. Specifically, the utterance A of the user at the site A is transmitted to the sites B and C according to the priority.

  Prior to determining the priority, the determination unit 61 averages the attention level between the bases, and calculates the degree of association indicating the degree of relevance between the bases. Specifically, the degree of attention of the base B with respect to the base A is 80%, and the degree of attention of the base A with respect to the base B is 70%. The degree of association between bases A and B is calculated as 75% by averaging these attention degrees. Similarly, the degree of association between bases A and C is calculated as 25%, and the degree of association between bases B and C is calculated as 40%.

  The determination unit 61 determines that the connection between the bases AB having the highest degree of association is the strongest and the communication should be given the highest priority, and the priority is high for the voice data exchanged between the bases AB. Decide on a value. The priority can be set in a ToS (Type of Service) field, a DSCP (Differentiated Service Code Point) field, or the like of an IP header included in the voice packet when voice data is transmitted as a voice packet. The voice control unit 63 can perform priority control (QoS control) with reference to this field.

  Since the ToS field represents priority with 3 bits, priority can be defined in 8 stages. On the other hand, since the DSCP field represents priority with 6 bits, priority can be defined in 64 steps.

  In this example, in order to give the highest priority to the voice data between the bases AB, the determination unit 61 sets a high priority for the voice data received from the base A and sent to the base B, and sent to the base C. Set low priority for data. The determination unit 61 sets a high priority for the audio data received from the base B and transmitted to the base A, and sets a low priority for the audio data transmitted to the base C.

  The determination unit 61 may set the priority according to the relevance level for the audio data received from the bases A and B and transmitted to the base C, but since both are low relevance levels of 50% or less, priority is given. It is not necessary to set the degree. In this case, the voice control unit 63 can instruct the communication unit 60 to perform normal processing (best effort processing) for transmitting each of them most efficiently regardless of the priority.

  In the example illustrated in FIG. 6, the degree of association is different between all the bases, and there is a place where communication should be given the highest priority. However, the degree of association is not necessarily different among all the bases. FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining another example of a method for determining the priority. The conference is held at three locations A to C, and the user's image captured at each location is displayed on the screen displayed by the display unit 41 of the conference terminal at each location. In each user's video, for example, a user who is currently speaking or a user who has recently spoken is large, and other users are small.

  FIG. 9 illustrates the degree of attention received from the conference terminal at each site. As for the degree of attention to the base A, each user of the bases A to C pays attention to the video of the base A, the degree of attention to the base B to the video of the base B, and the degree of attention to the base C to the video of the base C. It shows that.

  In the same manner as described above, the determination unit 61 averages the attention level between the bases and calculates the degree of association between the bases before determining the priority. In this example, the degree of association between any of the bases is 50%, and there is no superiority or inferiority in the connection between the bases. For this reason, the determination unit 61 does not set the priority, and the voice control unit 63 instructs the communication unit 60 to perform normal processing.

  The conference described above is a normal conference in which users at each base freely speak and exchange utterances, but there are conferences of a format different from the normal conference. An example of such a meeting is a presentation-type meeting in which a user who speaks during a question-and-answer session is a user at one site. A method of determining priority in this presentation type meeting will be described with reference to FIG.

  In the example illustrated in FIG. 10, the conference is also performed at three sites A to C, and the user's image captured at each site is displayed on the screen displayed by the display unit 41 of the conference terminal at each site. Each user's video may be displayed in the same size for all users, or may be displayed in different sizes according to the user's settings, the degree of attention, and the like. In addition, a user who is currently speaking or has recently spoken may be displayed in a large size, and other users may be displayed in a small size.

  In this example, the image of the user of the site B with the highest degree of attention is displayed large on the screen of the site A, and the video of the user of the site C with the next highest degree of attention and the highest degree of attention are displayed on the right side. The video of the user at the low base A is displayed small. Similarly, at the base B, the video of the user at the base A with the highest degree of attention is large and the video of the users at the other bases B and C is displayed small. In addition, at the base C, the video of the user at the base B with the highest degree of attention is large and the video of the users at the other bases A and C is displayed small.

  FIG. 11 illustrates the degree of attention received from the conference terminal at each site. As for the degree of attention to the base A, each user of the bases A to C pays attention to the video of the base A, the degree of attention to the base B to the video of the base B, and the degree of attention to the base C to the video of the base C. Indicates whether or not

  In the same manner as described above, the determination unit 61 averages the attention level between the bases and calculates the degree of association between the bases before determining the priority. In this example, it is determined that the connection between the bases B and C is the strongest. However, since a question and answer is actually made between the bases A and B, an erroneous determination is made if only the line-of-sight information is determined. Therefore, in addition to the line-of-sight information, determination can be made using audio data. Since the audio data includes ambient noise, etc., the volume related to the volume included in the audio data at each site is excluded in order to remove the noise. Judgment can be made in consideration of data.

  At the time of this question and answer, since a loud sound is received from the bases A and B, the determination unit 61 determines that a question and answer is being performed between the bases AB, and sets a high priority between the bases AB. can do. By controlling the transmission of the audio data in consideration of the volume information, it is possible to prevent erroneous determination and reduce the delay of speech between bases that are actually highly relevant.

  So far, the process performed by the conference terminal and the process performed by the server 11 have been described with some examples. Here, FIG. 12 summarizes the flow of processing performed by the conference terminal, and FIG. 13 summarizes the flow of processing performed by the server 11. The conference terminal starts processing from step 1200, and in step 1205, the gaze detection unit 42 of the conference terminal installed at each site detects the gaze and acquires gaze information. Then, the attention level calculation unit 45 calculates the attention level indicating the degree of attention of the video of each base displayed on the display unit 41 based on the line-of-sight information. This degree of attention is calculated for each site when videos of users at three sites A to C are displayed as images.

  In step 1210, it is determined whether the conference has ended. If not completed, the process proceeds to step 1215, and the communication unit 46 transmits the attention level calculated by the attention level calculation unit 45 to the server 11. Then, the process returns to step 1205.

  On the other hand, if the process is completed, the process proceeds to step 1220, and the process by the conference terminal is ended. A conference can be started by logging in to a conference with a conference name registered in advance, and can be ended by logging off. For example, the user can log in by pressing the login button displayed on the screen using an input device such as a mouse and entering a user name, password, etc., and input the logoff button displayed on the screen. It is possible to log off by pressing using the device. Note that it can be determined that the conference has ended after being logged off at all conference terminals used in the conference.

  The server 11 starts processing from step 1300, and in step 1305, the communication unit 60 receives the attention level calculated from the conference terminal installed at each base as attention level data. In step 1310, the determination unit 61 calculates the degree of association between bases. In step 1315, the determination unit 61 compares the calculated degrees of association between the bases, and determines whether base A-B> base A-C ≧ base B-C. If this condition is satisfied, the process proceeds to step 1320. Otherwise, the process proceeds to step 1335.

  In step 1320, the determination unit 61 determines the audio data between the sites A and B with high priority. In step 1325, the voice data between bases A and C is determined to have a low priority, and in step 1330, voice data between bases B and C is also determined to have a low priority. Here, the priority is expressed in two stages of high priority and low priority, and it is determined to be either one, but it is set to three or more stages, for example, high priority, medium priority, low priority, etc. Also good.

  In step 1335, the determination unit 61 determines whether the relationship between the bases A and C> the bases B and C ≧ the bases A and B. If this condition is met, the process proceeds to step 1340, and if not, the process proceeds to step 1355. In step 1340, the determination unit 61 determines the audio data between the locations A and C with high priority. In step 1345, the determination unit 61 determines the voice data between the bases B and C to be low priority, and in step 1350, the voice data between the bases A and B is also determined to be low priority.

  In step 1355, the determination unit 61 determines whether the relationship between the bases B and C> the bases A and C ≧ the bases A and B. If this condition is satisfied, the process proceeds to step 1360; otherwise, the process proceeds to step 1380. In step 1360, the determination unit 61 determines the audio data between the bases B and C with high priority. In step 1365, the determination unit 61 determines the audio data between the bases A and C to be low priority, and in step 1370, the audio data between the bases A and B is also determined to be low priority.

  In step 1375, the voice control unit 63 controls the transmission of voice data according to the determined priority, and the communication unit 60 transmits the voice data to each conference terminal in response to the control. In step 1380, since priority is not determined, normal processing is executed. In other words, the audio data is not preferentially transmitted to a specific conference terminal, but is controlled so that the audio data is most efficiently transmitted to all the conference terminals.

  In step 1385, it is determined whether or not the conference has ended. If it has not ended, the process returns to step 1305. If it has ended, the process proceeds to step 1390, and the processing by the server 11 is ended.

  In this way, the priority of voice data is determined according to the degree of association between the bases based on the line-of-sight information between the bases, and the transmission of the voice data is controlled according to the priority, thereby reducing the delay of important speech. This can reduce the meeting efficiency.

  Although the present invention has been described with the above-described embodiments as a communication control device, a conference system, and a program, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments. The present invention can be modified within a range that can be conceived by those skilled in the art, such as other embodiments, additions, modifications, and deletions, and the present invention is not limited as long as the operations and effects of the present invention are exhibited in any aspect. It is included in the scope of the invention.

  Therefore, the above program is a file in an installable or executable format, such as a floppy (registered trademark) disk, CD (Compact Disk), CD-R (Compact Disk Read Only Memory), DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), It can be configured to be recorded on a computer-readable recording medium such as an SD memory card (SD Memory Card) or a USB memory (Universal Serial Bus Memory). Further, the above program may be configured to be provided or distributed via a network such as the Internet. Further, the program may be provided by being incorporated in advance in a ROM or the like together with other various software.

  In the above embodiment, each functional unit described above is generated by the CPU 30 reading and executing the program stored in the memory 31 and the CPU 50 reading and executing the program stored in the HDD 53 or the like. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, at least a part of each functional unit may be realized by a dedicated hardware circuit (for example, a semiconductor integrated circuit).

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Network, 11 ... Server, 12 ... Camera, 13 ... Display, 14 ... Microphone, 15 ... Speaker, 16 ... Processing device, 17 ... Gaze detection device, 20 ... Lens, 21 ... Image sensor, 22 ... Image processing circuit, 23 ... Image I / F, 30 ... CPU, 31 ... Memory, 32 ... Communication I / F, 33 ... Control circuit, 34 ... Image I / F, 35 ... Input / output I / F, 40 ... Imaging section, 41 ... Display Unit, 42 ... gaze detection unit, 43 ... audio input unit, 44 ... audio output unit, 45 ... attention degree calculation unit, 46 ... communication unit, 47 ... encoding unit, 48 ... decoding unit, 50 ... CPU, 51 ... ROM 52 ... RAM, 53 ... HDD, 54 ... Communication I / F, 60 ... Communication unit, 61 ... Determining unit, 62 ... Video control unit, 63 ... Audio control unit

JP 2011-66480 A

Claims (10)

A communication control device for controlling communication between a plurality of conference terminals,
Voice information of a voice uttered by a user using the first conference terminal among the plurality of conference terminals, and each user displayed on each conference terminal by each user using each conference terminal A receiving unit that receives a degree of attention indicating a degree of attention;
A determination unit for determining a priority indicating a degree of priority for communication between the conference terminals based on the attention level received by the reception unit;
And a control unit that controls transmission of the audio information to other conference terminals other than the first conference terminal according to the priority determined by the determination unit. The receiving unit receives image information of an image obtained by capturing each user who uses each conference terminal from each conference terminal;
The communication control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit controls transmission of the plurality of image information received by the receiving unit to each conference terminal according to the priority. The voice information includes volume information regarding volume,
The communication control device according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit determines the priority based on the attention level and the volume information.   The said control part controls transmission of the said audio | voice information to the conference terminal between the conference terminals in which the said priority determined by the said determination part is lower than the designated priority. The communication control device according to 1.   The control unit according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the control unit controls transmission of the plurality of pieces of image information to a conference terminal between conference terminals in which the priority determined by the determination unit is lower than a specified priority. The communication control apparatus according to item 1.   The control unit reduces a communication amount per unit time to be transmitted to a conference terminal between conference terminals lower than the designated priority, and a unit to be transmitted to a conference terminal between conference terminals having the designated priority or higher. The communication control device according to claim 4, wherein control is performed so as to increase a communication amount per hour. A conference system including a plurality of conference terminals and a communication control device that controls communication between the plurality of conference terminals,
The communication control device is
Voice information of a voice uttered by a user using the first conference terminal among the plurality of conference terminals, and each user displayed on each conference terminal by each user using each conference terminal A receiving unit that receives a degree of attention indicating a degree of attention;
A determination unit for determining a priority indicating a degree of priority for communication between the conference terminals based on the attention level received by the reception unit;
A control unit that controls transmission of the audio information to other conference terminals other than the first conference terminal according to the priority determined by the determination unit.   The conference terminal outputs audio based on an imaging unit that captures an image of the user of the conference terminal, an audio input unit that receives input of audio generated by the user, and audio information transmitted from another conference terminal Based on image information transmitted from another conference terminal, and detecting the position of the user's line of sight in the image displayed on the display unit as line of sight information A line-of-sight detection unit, an attention level calculation unit that calculates the degree of attention based on the line-of-sight information detected by the line-of-sight detection unit, and image information of the image captured by the imaging unit and the audio input unit The conference system according to claim 7, further comprising: a transmission unit that transmits the voice information of the voice and the attention level calculated by the attention level calculation unit to the communication control device.   The said display part receives the said attention degree transmitted from each other conference terminal from the said communication control apparatus, and displays this attention degree with the image imaged by the imaging part of each said other conference terminal. The conference system described in 1. A program for causing a computer to control communication between a plurality of conference terminals,
Voice information of a voice uttered by a user using the first conference terminal among the plurality of conference terminals, and each user displayed on each conference terminal by each user using each conference terminal Receiving a degree of attention indicating a degree of attention;
Determining a priority indicating a degree of priority for communication between conference terminals based on the received attention degree;
And a step of controlling transmission of the audio information to other conference terminals other than the first conference terminal according to the determined priority.