JP2680308B2 - Information processing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Object of the Invention (Industrial field of application) The present invention relates to a device for storing and storing image information such as a document, a search, and the like, and more particularly to a storage for storing and storing image information. The present invention relates to an information processing device capable of displaying the remaining amount of storage capacity of a medium (hereinafter, referred to as remaining capacity). (Prior Art) Conventionally, for example, image information such as a document described in a manuscript is read by using a reading device, the read image information is displayed on a display device, and the image information is compressed and then stored. The device is used to record and store a large number of images in a storage medium such as an optical disk, and further, the desired specific image information is searched from the registered image information based on the search condition input together with the image information. Therefore, a large amount of image information is handled in the information processing work such as displaying on the screen of the display device and recording and outputting using a printer or the like. On the other hand, the recording medium has a certain storage capacity, and the storage capacity has been dramatically increased in recent years. For example, it is possible to record and store up to about 40,000 pages of image information as an A4 standard document on one side of an optical disc. The amount of image information recorded and accumulated is simply subtracted from the total storage capacity of the storage area on one side of the optical disk as the remaining capacity, which is used as a guide for further storage and storage. Regarding the display of the remaining capacity of the storage capacity reduced by the recording and storage of this image information, the amount of image information stored in the storage medium is calculated from the address information, as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application No. 55-155473. There is known an information processing apparatus that displays the remaining capacity of image information, for example, in page units in consideration of the average compression rate of the compression processing of image information performed when recording and accumulating in this amount of image information in a storage medium. It was being done. (Problems to be Solved by the Invention) However, in this conventional information processing apparatus,
In order to save the storage capacity used by recording and storing, the image information is recorded and stored after being compressed according to the image information by using, for example, a CODEC. When calculating and displaying the remaining capacity of image information, for example, when recording and storing a document including many photographs or a patent publication after recording and storing a large number of documents with a large blank area and a high compression ratio, Since the information density of the manuscript is high and the compression rate of the image information is inevitably low, there are cases where even if the remaining capacity is displayed as 100 pages, only 80 pages can actually be recorded and stored. Therefore, when attempting to record and store a large amount of image information when the remaining capacity becomes small, it is necessary to accurately know the remaining capacity. Since it varies depending on the rate, it is difficult to know the exact remaining capacity, and in some cases, the last page portion of a series of image information consisting of many pages cannot be registered. The present invention has been made in view of the above, and an object thereof is to provide an information processing apparatus capable of accurately determining the remaining capacity of a storage medium. [Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving Problems) In order to achieve the above object, the present invention stores information in an information storage medium, and has a hierarchical structure and has a predetermined storage capacity. Of the information stored in the information storage medium, a storage unit that manages information stored by setting a plurality of management areas, and a desired management area is specified from among the plurality of management areas that are set, Search means for searching for desired information, first calculating means for calculating the remaining storage capacity ratio based on the amount of information already stored for a management area different from the specified management area, and the above-mentioned specified With respect to the management area, the second calculation means for calculating the remaining storage capacity ratio based on the amount of information already stored and the remaining storage capacity ratio calculated by the first calculation means are designated as above. Hierarchical structure than management area The third calculating means for calculating the smaller remaining storage capacity ratio by comparing the upper remaining storage capacity ratio with the remaining storage capacity ratio calculated by the second calculating means, and the search means. A display unit for displaying the remaining storage capacity ratio calculated by the third calculating unit together with the search information in the search processing is configured. (Operation) In the information processing apparatus according to the present invention, when the management area is designated and stored in the storage unit which is formed of a plurality of management areas having a hierarchical structure and each having a predetermined storage capacity, the specified management area is stored. The remaining storage capacity ratio for the management area different from that is calculated by the first calculating means, and the remaining storage capacity ratio for the designated management area is calculated by the second calculating means. Further, the third computing means computes the remaining storage capacity ratio hierarchically higher than the designated management area in the remaining storage capacity ratio computed by the first computing means and the second computing means. The smaller remaining storage capacity ratio is calculated by comparing the remaining storage capacity ratio of the designated designated management area. Since the calculation result is displayed on the display means, it is possible to obtain an accurate information regarding the amount of stored information. Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an image information storage / retrieval device as an information processing device of the present invention. The image scanner device 99 is a device for reading the contents described in an original such as a photograph or a document as image data,
An operation unit 99c for setting parameters such as a document size of a document to be read, a document density, and a reading density, a memory (not shown) for storing these set parameters, and a CPU for controlling the entire image scanner device 99. (Not shown)
And a display unit that displays input information such as setting conditions and processing time
99b and automatic paper feed mechanism (A
DF) 99a. A control unit (CPU: Central Processing Unit) 1 controls the overall operation and data flow of this device. Also, the remaining capacity of the storage medium is calculated from the information amount of the image information input from the image scanner device 99, and further comparison is performed. For example, character information is input to the control unit 1 when a document is created using a word processing function, and the movement or function of the cursor displayed on the screen of the display device 77 is performed when searching or performing image processing. A keyboard 11 for inputting search information and various command information for changing over is connected. The DMA (Direct Memory Access) 3 transfers data regardless of the operation of the control unit 1, and, for example, transfers data between a main memory 51 and a storage device 30 described later via the interface 3a. . The storage device 30 corresponds to information for specifying desired image information from a large number of image information, that is, a magnetic disk device 31 for storing search information, the large number of image information and the individual image information. The optical disc device 33 stores search information and the like. As conceptually shown in FIG. 2, an optical disc 33a used as a storage medium of the optical disc device 33 has a search area B for managing the optical disc 33a set near the center of the optical disc 33a. A storage area A is set around the. Further, it is assumed that the image information is recorded on the track of the optical disc 33a, and the image information is sequentially recorded from the innermost track of the storage area A for convenience. The innermost track is the first block, the outermost tracks are the second block, the third block, ..., The outermost track is the xth block. The main memory 51 stores the operation program of the control unit 1 and the like. The page memory 53 has a storage capacity corresponding to, for example, several pages of an A4 size document, and the image scanner device 99
This is a memory for storing image information and the like input from. The code / image conversion unit 71 converts, for example, character code data input from the keyboard 11 into image data and outputs the image data to the display memory 73. By performing reverse conversion as necessary, the image on the screen can be converted. Modify the data characters. The display memory 73 is a memory that temporarily stores the image information when the image is displayed on the display device 77 based on the image information from the page memory 53 or the like. The display control unit 75 controls the drive of the display device 77 such as a CRT and displays the image information stored in the display memory. CODEC95 is an encoding / compositing circuit unit, which can reduce the storage area of a storage medium such as an optical disk used at the time of registration by performing compression processing (reducing redundancy) of image information, Further, the circuit unit outputs the original image information by expanding the compressed image information (restoring the reduced redundancy). The CODEC 95 includes an enlarging / reducing unit 91 for enlarging and reducing the image information and a vertical / horizontal converting unit 93 for rotating the image information.
An IPU (Image Processing Unit) containing and is connected. An image scanner device 99, a printer 97, etc. are connected to the interface circuit 95a of the CODEC 95. The printer 97 is a device that prints out image information as visible information such as characters on a recording medium such as paper, and uses, for example, laser printing. Also, control unit 1, DMA 3, main memory 51, page memory
The display memory 73, the display memory 73, the display control unit 75, the CODEC 95 and the like are connected via the system bus 20, and the page memory 53, the display memory 73, the CODEC 95 and the like are the image bus 4 for transmitting image information.
Connected via 0. Next, the operation of the present embodiment will be described in accordance with the operation procedure, taking as an example the case where a large number of originals are read using the image information storage / retrieval apparatus, the image information described in the originals is registered, and further retrieval and printout are performed. explain. After powering on the image information storage / retrieval device, according to the instruction of the initial screen displayed on the display screen of the display device 77, the reading of the document and the continuous reading of the read image information to the predetermined optical disk device 33 are performed. A command or the like for performing registration is input from the keyboard 11 to put the image information storage / retrieval device in the "read / register" mode. Next, after placing a large number of stacked originals at a predetermined position of the image scanner device 99 and setting the "automatic paper feed" mode for continuously reading the stacked originals, the original size of the originals and the originals are set. Keyboard 11
Alternatively, it is input from the operation unit 99c of the image scanner device 99. In addition, DM the image information from the image scanner device 99.
The optical disc 33a is transmitted to the optical disc device 33 via A3.
To be able to register for. Using the keyboard 11, search information such as the title name and the amount of information of the original to be registered is input according to the format displayed on the screen of the display device 77. This format is for inputting and setting a key name or the like for identifying a document to be registered and facilitating a search process, and various information such as the remaining capacity of the storage device 30 when the document is read by the image scanner device 99. A "table" for inputting the key names and the like, and the function of this function key when inputting with the function key are displayed. Further, in the lower part of the "table", there is provided a display column for the remaining capacity or the like for each area on the storage medium, and the remaining capacity to be described later is displayed using numbers or a histogram. When the reading of the original is started, the image information read from the image scanner device 99 is temporarily stored in the page memory 53 via the interface 95a, and further the image information is compressed by the CODEC 95, and then the interface 3a.
The search information is registered in the magnetic disk device 31, and the search information and the image information are registered in the optical disk device 33 via. When a specific image information is searched from a large number of image information registered in the optical disc device 33 and is printed out, a search command is input using the keyboard 11 as in the case of reading and registration. Enter search mode. Next, the search information for specifying the desired image information is input using the keyboard 11, the desired search information is searched from the large number of search information recorded in the magnetic disk device 31, and based on this search information. The desired image information registered in the optical disk device 33 is searched. Further, the retrieved image information is subjected to processing such as decompression by the CODEC 95 or the like, and then displayed on the display device 77 via the display memory 73 or the like. Further, when making a hard copy of the displayed image information, the keyboard 11 is used to specify the image information for which a hard copy is desired and to set the number of output sheets, etc.
Print out from 97. The outline of the information management system of this embodiment will be described below with reference to FIG. The information management system in the present embodiment has a pyramid-like hierarchical structure in order to accurately manage a wide range and a huge amount of information. For example, an optical disc used as a storage medium in this embodiment.
In the case of 33a, information can be stored on both sides of the optical disc 33a, and one side of this optical disc 33a is called a cabinet. A "binder" is set as a management area in this cabinet, and a "document" composed of a plurality of "pages" is normally stored in this binder. Hereinafter, the information storage amount will be described with an example. Up to 8 binders can be set in the cabinet, "Documents" can store up to 40,000 documents, and "Pages" can store up to 40,000 A4 standard manuscript pages. Further, the binder can store a maximum of 30,000 documents, and similarly a maximum of 30,000 pages. Furthermore, a maximum of 4095 pages can be stored in one document. That is, one optical disk consists of two cabinets with one cabinet on one side, and can store and store image information equivalent to 16 binders, 80,000 documents, and 80,000 pages. For example, one cabinet defines 4 binders. If you store up to 30,000 documents with 1 binder, the remaining capacity of the cabinet is 10,000 documents, so the remaining 3 binders can store up to 10,000 documents in total. It will not be possible. Therefore, in this embodiment, the ratio of the remaining capacity to the total storage capacity is calculated and displayed for each management area of the storage medium. That is, as a "binder", 8 per cabinet
"Documents" for the binder are limited to 40,000 documents per cabinet, 40,000 documents per binder, 30,000 documents per document, and 4095 pages. It is to calculate if yes or not, and compare each. The following is an arithmetic expression for displaying the remaining capacity in each area as a percentage. BT = {(30000-K) / 30000} × 100% CT = {(40000-L) / 40000} × 100% IMG = {(TE-PE) / TE} × 100% However, BT is the remaining capacity in the binder. %, K is the number of registered documents in the binder, CT is the percentage of the remaining capacity in the cabinet, L is the number of registered documents in the cabinet, and IMG is the information on one side of the information storage medium. The percentage of the remaining capacity in the storage area, TE indicates the storage capacity of the information storage area on one side of the information storage medium, and PE indicates the storage capacity of the information storage area that has been used for storing and storing image information. For example, when 4 binders are set up in one cabinet, 5000 documents are stored in the first binder and 2950 documents are stored in the second binder.
If 0 documents are stored respectively, 5500 documents can be stored as the "binder" in the third and fourth binders. At this time, the% ratio of the remaining capacity of the first binder is BT = {(30000-5000) / 30000} × 100% = about 83% The% ratio of the remaining capacity of the second binder is similarly about 1.7% Cabinet The remaining capacity% ratio is CT = {(40000-34500) / 40000} × 100% = about 14% Therefore, when the first binder is specified, the BT value and the CT value are compared and the As shown in Fig. 4, the remaining capacity of the cabinet: 14% is displayed on the upper right side of the screen of the display device 77, and when the second binder is designated, the same applies.
1.7% is displayed. When a third binder is specified, from the beginning
14% is displayed. That is, 30,000 documents could be stored as a binder, but (29500 + 5000) documents were already stored as a cabinet (40000-
34500) Only documents can be stored. The percentage of the remaining capacity in the binder (BT) and the percentage of the remaining capacity in the cabinet (CT) have been described above, but the same applies to the IMG, for example, the nth block is recorded and stored in FIG. In case of {(x
-N) / x} × 100% is displayed as the remaining capacity. In this embodiment, since the smallest remaining capacity value is always displayed as% as described above, there is no risk of erroneously storing image information that exceeds the remaining capacity, and more accurate information management is possible. You can In the present embodiment, each management area is, for example, one cabinet formed on the front and back of one optical disk to form two cabinets, and up to eight binders can be set in this one cabinet. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The storage area is not limited to one side of the optical disk, and for example, a storage area may be provided only on one side of the optical disk, and up to 12 binders can be set in this one-sided cabinet. In the present embodiment, the names of the management areas and the like are cabinet, binder, document, page and the like, but it goes without saying that the names are not limited to these. [Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, the remaining capacity of the storage medium is accurately displayed. Therefore, the remaining capacity of the storage medium can be accurately determined, and the efficiency of information processing is improved. It is possible to achieve such effects as.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram conceptually showing a storage area in an optical disc, and FIG. 3 is a diagram explaining the configuration of an information processing system. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a display example when the remaining capacity is displayed in%. 1 ... Control unit, 10 ... Input device 3 ... DMA, 30 ... Storage device 31 ... Magnetic disk device 33 ... Optical disk device 77 ... Display device 95 ... CODEC

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] Information is stored in an information storage medium, and a storage unit configured to set a plurality of management areas having a hierarchical structure and each having a predetermined storage capacity, and managing the stored information, and among the plurality of management areas set above , A search means for designating a desired management area and searching for desired information among the information stored in the information storage medium, and a management area different from the specified management area,
First computing means for computing the remaining storage capacity ratio based on the already stored information amount, and first computing means for computing the remaining storage capacity ratio for the designated management area based on the already stored information amount. Of the remaining storage capacity ratio calculated by the first calculation means, and the remaining storage capacity ratio hierarchically higher than the designated management area, and the second calculation means. A third calculating means for calculating the smaller remaining storage capacity ratio by comparing the calculated remaining storage capacity ratio with the search information in the search process by the searching means, together with the third calculating means. An information processing device comprising: a display unit that displays the calculated remaining storage capacity ratio.