JP2823280B2 - Electronic filing equipment - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an electronic filing device such as an image filing device for registering and searching for images.

(Prior Art) In recent years, a scanner (2)
), The read image is stored in an optical disk loaded in the optical disk device, and an arbitrary image stored in the optical disk is searched for a search information group stored in the magnetic disk of the magnetic disk device. 2. Description of the Related Art An image filing apparatus has been put to practical use which searches and reads using database information composed of the above information and outputs it in a state where it can be viewed on an output device such as a CRT display device or a recording device.

The optical disk stores management information such as search information for managing images stored on the optical disk, and history information (indicating update or deletion of images).

In such an image filing apparatus, when inserting an optical disk into the optical disk apparatus, the management information stored on the optical disk is compared with the database information stored on the magnetic disk, and if there is a difference, the database information is managed. Insertion processing is performed as update processing for updating with history information in the information.

However, in such an image filing apparatus, since the insertion process is performed according to a user's instruction, the insertion process is conscious, and the job being executed is interrupted. There is a drawback in that it is troublesome to instruct and the operation is complicated. In some cases, the insertion process is automatically performed when a process such as a search is first performed on the optical disc inserted into the optical disc device. In this case, it takes time to reach the search process. There is a disadvantage that the response is poor.

Therefore, there is a disadvantage that the operability is poor when performing the insertion processing, or the responsiveness is deteriorated during the first search processing.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) As described above, it removes the drawback that the operability is poor when performing the insertion process, or the responsiveness is deteriorated during the first search process. An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic filing apparatus which has good operability when performing an insertion process and does not deteriorate responsiveness at the time of an initial search process.

[Configuration of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) The electronic filing apparatus of the present invention stores a plurality of images in a first storage medium inserted into a first storage device, and individually stores these images. One that stores a search information group for searching for each corresponding image, and that stores a plurality of search information groups corresponding to the plurality of first storage media in a second storage medium inserted into a second storage device. , Detecting means for detecting insertion of the first storage medium into the first storage device, and detecting the first storage medium in the first storage medium by the detecting means
When the insertion into the storage device is detected, the other electronic filing device determines whether or not the storage content of the first storage medium has been changed. When the device determines that the storage content of the first storage medium has been changed,
And processing means for updating the search information group stored in the second storage medium using the search information group in the storage medium.

(Operation) The present invention stores a plurality of images in a first storage medium inserted into a first storage device, and stores a search information group for searching for each image corresponding to each of the images. Storing a plurality of search information groups corresponding to the plurality of first storage media in a second storage medium inserted into the second storage device, wherein the first storage device of the first storage medium is When insertion into the first storage medium is detected, it is determined whether or not the storage content of the first storage medium has been changed by another electronic filing device. The search information group stored in the second storage medium is updated using the search information group in the medium.

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

FIG. 2 shows a configuration example of an image filing apparatus as an electronic filing apparatus of the present invention. That is, the electronic filing device includes a control module 10, a memory module 12, an image processing module 14, a communication control module 16, a scanner device 18, an optical disk (storage means) 20
And an optical disk device 22, a keyboard 23, a CRT display device (display means) 24, a printer device 25, a magnetic disk 26, a magnetic disk device 27, a mouse 29, a system bus 30, and an image bus 32.

The control module 10 includes a CPU 34 for performing various controls for image storage, search, editing processing, and the like, and an optical disk device 22, an interface circuit 36 for connecting the magnetic disk device 27 and the CPU 34. The keyboard 23 and the mouse 29 are connected to the CPU.

The memory module 12 includes a main memory 38 for storing various control programs for image storage, search, editing, etc., management information, and the like, and a page memory as an image memory having a storage capacity corresponding to an image of several pages of an A4 size document. 40, a display memory 42 as a display interface, a display control unit 44, and the like. A buffer memory area 40a is provided in a part of the page memory 40. The page memory 40 is a memory for temporarily storing, for example, images stored on the optical disk 20 and images read from the optical disk 20.

The display memory 42 is for temporarily storing an image displayed by the CRT display device 24. In the display memory 42, an image actually displayed in a display window of the CRT display device 24, such as an image from the page memory 40 or an image from the buffer memory 40a, is enlarged, reduced, rotated, inserted, or inserted. An image subjected to black-and-white inversion is stored.

The image processing module 14 includes an enlargement / reduction circuit 46 for performing image enlargement / reduction processing, a vertical / horizontal conversion circuit 48 for performing image rotation processing, and an encoding process for performing image compression (reducing redundancy) and decompression. A compression / decompression circuit (CODEC) 5 that performs a decoding process (restores the reduced redundancy)
0, a scanner interface 52 for the scanner device 18,
It comprises a printer interface 54 for the printer device 25, an enlargement / reduction circuit 46, a vertical / horizontal conversion circuit 48, and an internal bus 56 connecting the compression / expansion circuit 50, the scanner interface 52, and the printer interface 54.

The compression / expansion circuit 50 performs band compression or band expansion using an MH (Modified Huffman) method, an MR (Modified Read) method, or the like.

The communication control module 16 is connected to, for example, a LAN
It is constituted by a communication interface 58 such as a CP (Bus Communication Processor). Further, the communication control module 16 may be provided with an FCP (Facsimile Connection Mechanism) or a UCP (Universal Communication Processor) connected to an external device such as a personal computer via an interface.

The system bus 30 is a bus for control signals of various devices, and connects the control module 10, the memory module 12, the image processing module 14, and the communication control module 16. The image bus 32 is an image bus, and connects the memory module 12, the image processing module 14, and the communication control module 16.

The scanner device 18 is, for example, a two-dimensional scanning device that obtains an electric signal corresponding to an image on the original by scanning the original (document) two-dimensionally with a laser beam.

The optical disk device 22 sequentially stores images read by the scanner device 18 on the optical disk 20. Further, it searches the optical disk 20 for an image corresponding to the search information specified by the keyboard 23 or the like. The optical disk device 22 includes a detector 22a for detecting insertion of the optical disk 20.
, And an eject key 22b as an ejection switch for ejecting the optical disc 20.

The optical disc 20 is, for example, a write-once optical disc, and as shown in FIG. 3, is composed of an image storage area 20a in which images are stored and a management information storage area 20b in which management information of each image is stored. . Management information storage area 2
0b stores an optical disk number, history information for each image, and the number of histories, as shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 5, the history information includes history states such as registration, deletion, and update of each image, a number of the history information (the same number is assigned to the magnetic disk 26), and a plurality of search keys. Search information (image name), optical disk 20 for images
, A storage address (storage start position), a document size (image size), and the like. For example, when a predetermined image is deleted or updated, history information indicating the content of the deletion or update is additionally stored. In this case, a storage address and a document size are not added. I have. The number of histories is the number of the history information, and each time one or a plurality of history information is stored,
Lastly, that is, the last information stored in the history information storage area 20b.

The keyboard 23 is used to input search information specific to an image stored in the optical disk 20, various operation commands such as storage, search, and edit processing. Also mouse 29
For example, the cursor (not shown) displayed on the display window of the CRT display device 24 is arbitrarily moved in the up, down, left, and right directions, and an instruction is given at a desired position. (Various operation modes, area designation or icons for image editing, etc.) are selected or indicated.

The CRT display device (cathode ray tube display device) 24 displays an image read by the scanner device 18 and an image retrieved from the optical disc 20. Icons and the like are displayed at the upper, lower, and right ends of the display window of the CRT display device 24.

The CRT display device 24 includes one, two,
Alternatively, it is a multi-window display device capable of simultaneously displaying images using four windows. The images displayed in each of the display windows are independently subjected to editing processing such as enlargement, reduction, rotation, and scrolling of the images.

The printer device 25 prints out (hard copies) an image read by the scanner device 18, an image retrieved from the optical disk 20, or an image displayed on the CRT display device 24.

The magnetic disk device 27 stores various control programs on a magnetic disk 26 mounted on the magnetic disk device 27, and also stores the search information input from the keyboard 23 and the image corresponding to the search information on the optical disk 20. Search data including the storage address, image size, and the like.

The search data is managed by management information stored in a management information storage table 26a in the magnetic disk 26. The management information storage table 26a stores different management information for a plurality of optical discs 20, and as shown in FIG. 6, a management information storage area 26b provided for each optical disc 20. And an update history information storage area 26c in which history information that has been updated is stored. As shown in FIG. 7, an optical disk number, history information for each image, and the number of histories are stored in the management information storage area 26b. As shown in FIG. 5, the history information includes history states such as registration, deletion, and update of each image, a number of the history information (the same number is assigned to the magnetic disk 26), and a plurality of search keys. The information includes search information (image name), storage address (storage start position) of the image on the optical disk 20, document size (image size), and the like. For example, when a predetermined image is deleted or updated, history information indicating the content of the deletion or update is additionally stored. In this case, a storage address and a document size are not added. I have. The number of histories is the number of the history information, and is sequentially updated as the number of histories increases. The update history information storage area 26c stores history information as update information, and this update content is stored in the management information storage area 20b in the optical disk 20 when the optical disk 20 is removed from the optical disk device 22.
And is updated and stored in the management information storage area 26b corresponding to the optical disk 20 to be taken out. After this storage, the update history information storage area 26
The stored contents of c are erased.

The storage address is a logical address from which a physical track address and a physical sector address are calculated at the time of access.

The document management system in this embodiment includes a cabinet,
It has four levels of binders, documents, and pages, and the cabinet corresponds to one side of the optical disc 20. Up to eight binders can be defined in the cabinet, and up to 30,000 documents can be stored in the binder.
Each document has a title, and its structure is defined for each binder. The above-mentioned document is a basic unit of the file, and an annotation (description of the document) can be added in addition to the title. Documents are composed of up to 4095 pages.

Next, the operation of image storage and retrieval processing in the electronic filing apparatus in such a configuration will be described. First, an image storage process will be described. For example, the registration mode is selected and set by the keyboard 23, and the search information of the image stored in the optical disk 20 is input. The search information is composed of a plurality of search keys, and the contents of the items of the search key are set in advance. The CPU 34 checks the validity of the input search information according to a predefined format. In addition, already 20 optical discs
The double registration is checked by comparing with the search information registered in. The input search information is stored in the main memory 13 according to the result of this check.

Next, the original is set on the scanner device 18, and the CPU 34 operates the optical disk device 22 and the scanner device 18. The scanner device 18 two-dimensionally scans an image of a set document or the like and performs photoelectric conversion. The line information of the photoelectrically converted image is sequentially stored in the page memory 40. The image stored in the page memory 40 is enlarged or reduced by an enlargement / reduction circuit 46 in accordance with the display size of the CRT display device 24, and then stored in the display memory 42 and displayed on the CRT display device 24.

The skew, density, and the like of the image displayed on the CRT display device 24 are checked, and when the displayed image is satisfactory, a storage key (not shown) is input. Then, the CPU 34 copies the image stored in the page memory 40,
In the compression / expansion circuit (CODEC) 50 for each line information,
The encoding process is performed by band compression using a well-known MR method or the like. The encoded image is transferred to an optical disc device.
The data is supplied to the optical disk 22 and stored on the optical disk 20.

When the storage of the image on the optical disk 20 is completed, the CPU 34 associates the physical track address where the image is stored, the logical address determined from the physical sector address, the image length represented by the block length, etc. with the search code (search information). It is stored in the main memory 38.

Next, the CPU 34 supplies the search data stored in the main memory 38 to the magnetic disk device 27. Thus, the magnetic disk device 27 stores the supplied search data in the corresponding update history information storage area 26c in the magnetic disk 26 as the history information as the storage address (storage start position) of the image on the optical disk 20 and the document size ( (Image size), history state jam registration “1”, and history information number.

 In this way, other images are registered in the same manner as described above.

Next, a search process of an image stored in the optical disc 20 will be described. First, a search mode is set using the keyboard 23, and search information corresponding to an image to be searched is input. The CPU 34 sequentially compares and compares the input search information with the search information stored in the title management table 26a of the magnetic disk 26, and sequentially checks whether search information that matches the input search information is stored. And extract the corresponding history number. As a result, the CPU 34 stores the history number of the extracted candidate in the main memory 38.

Then, when the above check is completed, the CPU 34 displays a list of search information for the matching history number on the CRT display device 24. From this list, a desired one is selected. Then, the storage address of the image corresponding to the search information is stored in the management information storage table in the magnetic disk 26.
26a, and calculates a physical track address and a physical sector address corresponding to the storage address of this image,
The reproduction of the image from the optical disk 20 is performed by the optical disk device 22 based on these addresses.

That is, the CPU 34 compresses the image (compressed information) for each scanning line supplied from the optical disc device 22 into a compression / decompression circuit 50.
To the page memory 40 after performing band extension processing. The image stored in the page memory 40 is output to the display memory 42 as it is, and the CRT display device 2
The details are displayed at 4 or output to the printer 25 via the printer interface 54, and the printer 25 prints out the detailed image.

Next, the processing when the optical disk 20 is inserted into the optical disk device 22 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. That is, the optical disk 20 is
When the insertion into the sensor 22 is detected by the detector 22a, a detection signal from the detector 22a is output to the CPU. Then, the CPU 34 determines the loading process of the optical disk 20, reads the optical disk number and the number of histories stored in the management information storage area 20b of the optical disk 20, and reads the number of histories and the management information storage table 26a of the magnetic disk 26. By confirming whether or not the number of histories stored corresponding to the optical disk number which matches the above, it is determined whether or not registration, deletion, etc. have been performed by another system. If registration, deletion, or the like has not been performed by another system, the process proceeds to the next process, for example, a registration or search process, or returns to the process that was being executed. Also registered by other systems,
When deletion or the like has been performed, the CPU 34 uses the history information stored in the management information storage area 20b of the optical disk 20 to update the history information in the management information storage table 26a of the magnetic disk 26. That is, the magnetic disk 26
The history information subsequent to the history number is read from the management information storage area 20b of the optical disk 20, stored in the corresponding management information storage area 26b of the magnetic disk 26, the history number is updated, and the loading process ends. Thereafter, the process proceeds to the next process, for example, a registration and search process, or returns to the process being executed.

In this case, the loading process can be performed during registration and search without selecting the initial menu screen.

Next, the process of taking out the optical disk 20 from the optical disk device 22 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. That is, when the eject key 22b of the optical disk device 22 is turned on, an instruction to eject the disk using the eject key 22b is output to the CPU. Then, the CPU 34
The removal process of the optical disk 20 is determined, and the update history information storage area 2 in the management information storage table 26a of the magnetic disk 26 is determined.
The history information stored in 6c is stored in the management information storage area 20b of the optical disc 20, and the number of histories added to the original number of histories by the number of stored history information is stored in the management information storage area 20b of the optical disc 20. An update process to be stored after the last history information is performed.

Thereafter, the CPU 34 stores the history information of the corresponding update history information storage area 26c in the magnetic disk 26 in the management information storage area 26b, updates the number of histories, and erases the contents of the update history information storage area 26c. .

Then, the optical disc device 22 takes out the optical disc 20 by a take-out mechanism (not shown), and ends the take-out process.

In this case, even during registration and search, the extraction process can be performed without selecting the initial menu screen.

As described above, when the insertion of the optical disk into the optical disk device is detected, whether or not the storage content of the optical disk has been changed by another electronic filing device is determined by the number of management information, and the change has been made. When it is determined that the management information has been updated in the optical disk, an update process of storing the updated management information in the magnetic disk is performed.
As a result, the loading process is automatically started just by inserting the optical disk into the optical disk device, and the trouble of inserting the optical disk, selecting the initial menu, and instructing the loading process as in the related art is eliminated. When performing the loading process, the operability is good, and the responsiveness at the time of the first search process does not deteriorate. In addition, the loading process can be performed at any time without interrupting the work in progress.

In the above embodiment, the case where the optical disc is of the write-once type has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the present invention can be similarly applied to a rewritable optical disc.

[Effects of the Invention] As described in detail above, according to the present invention, an electronic filing apparatus is provided that has good operability when performing a loading process and does not deteriorate responsiveness during the first search process. it can.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a flowchart for explaining a loading process when an optical disk is inserted, FIG. 2 is a block diagram schematically showing a configuration of an electronic filing apparatus, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a configuration of an optical disk, FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a storage example of a management information storage area of the optical disk, FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining a storage example of history information, and FIG. FIG. 7 illustrates a configuration of a management information storage table, FIG. 7 illustrates a storage example of a management information storage area of a magnetic disk, and FIG. 8 illustrates a removal process when removing an optical disk. It is a flowchart for the. 18 scanner device, 20 optical disk (first storage medium), 20a image storage area, 20b management information storage area, 22 optical disk device (first storage device), 22a detector (detection means), 22b: Eject key, 23: Keyboard, 24: CRT display device, 25: Printer device, 2
6 ... magnetic disk (second storage medium), 26a ... management information storage table, 26b ... management information storage area, 26c ... update history information storage area, 27 ... magnetic disk device (second storage device), 34 ... CPU 38, a main memory, 40, a page memory, 40a, a buffer memory, 42, a display memory, 44, a display controller, 46, an enlargement / reduction circuit, 50, a compression / expansion circuit.

Continuation of the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) G06F 17/30 G06F 12/00

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A plurality of images are stored in a first storage medium inserted into a first storage device, management information corresponding to these images is stored, and the first storage medium is stored in a second storage medium.
An electronic filing device that stores management information stored in a storage medium according to claim 1, wherein: a detection unit that detects insertion of the first storage medium into the first storage device; and a first storage medium that is detected by the detection unit. When the insertion into the first storage device is detected, a determination means for determining whether or not the storage content of the first storage medium has been changed by another electronic filing device; When another electronic filing device determines that the storage content of the first storage medium has been changed, the electronic filing apparatus stores the content in the second storage medium using the management information stored in the first storage medium. An electronic filing apparatus, comprising: processing means for performing update processing of management information.