JP3121413B2 - Image filing method and apparatus - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image filing method, and more particularly, to a filing method for recording, for example, still image data on an optical disk, and an apparatus therefor.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The image data recorded on an optical disk of the so-called compact disk (CD) standard by Philips Kodak Company is defined to have a standard size of 2048.times.3072 pixels per screen image. This image size is
This can be achieved with some sort of high-resolution film scanner. However, in the market, image data of a variety of pixel numbers other than the standard size, that is, image data of an image size is distributed through various media. For example, standard television images, such as electronic still cameras and NTSC, have 4 pixels.
It is 88 × 640. Also, image data with 960 × 1280 pixels can be captured from a so-called Hi-Vision camera. The new CD-I standard, also proposed by Sony Philips, can reproduce text information, images, and audio,
It is a standard that mainly focuses on home appliances. This standard is an extension of the conventional CD-ROM standard. These CDs
As described above, the number of pixels of an image of various multimedia such as -I and homes is 960 × 1280 pixels or less, which is equivalent to the number of pixels of an image captured from a high-definition camera.

When recording such various source images on a compact disc, it is conceivable that one source image is uniformly captured as one screen of the above-mentioned standard size and recorded and stored, regardless of the size of the image. Can be

[0004]

The standard size of the compact disc is considerably large as described above.
If one frame of various source images as described above is uniformly captured in a standard size screen recording area of a compact disc, a large waste may occur. For example, 2048x pixels from a high-resolution film scanner
The 3072 images correspond to the above-mentioned standard size at a ratio of 100%. However, in the case of an image captured from a high-definition camera or CD-I, or a standard television image obtained from an electronic still camera, their respective ratios to the standard size are slightly less than 20% and 5%, respectively. Moreover, of the image data actually recorded and stored on the compact disc, the image with a high frequency of storage is expected to be an image with a small number of pixels, such as an image captured from a high-definition camera or a standard television image.

Therefore, when image data obtained from a high-definition camera or a standard television image medium is stored as it is in a compact disc of the standard size and recorded and stored on the compact disc, a considerably large margin is left in a standardized memory area. And edits with low efficiency are expected. This situation raises not only the problem of memory utilization efficiency, but also the problem of providing stutter images that are entirely visually uncluttered.

An object of the present invention is to provide an image filing method and apparatus capable of resolving such disadvantages of the prior art and capable of reproducing an image with good visibility.

[0007]

According to the present invention, the visibility of an image is improved by incorporating another image into a blank area according to the prior art of an image size screen according to the recording format of a compact disc. Plan.

According to the present invention, there is provided an image filing method for recording image data on a compact disk standard optical disk in a compact disk standard recording format.
Providing a storage area capable of storing at least image data of an image size of one screen of the recording format;
Storing image data representing a first image of at most said image size in a storage area; and loading image data representing a second image smaller than said image size into said storage area;
Combining a second image with the first image as a background;
Recording the combined image data as image data of the image size on an optical disc in a recording format.

According to the present invention, an image filing apparatus for recording image data on a compact disk standard optical disk in a compact disk standard recording format represents at most a first image having an image size of one screen of the recording format. First storage means for storing image data, input means for receiving image data representing a second image smaller than the image size, and second storage having at least a storage area capable of storing image data of the image size Means for controlling the first and second storage means, reading out image data representing the first image from the first storage means, expanding the read image data in the storage area, and representing the second image received by the input means. Synthesizing means for fetching image data into a storage area and synthesizing a second image with the first image as a background; And recording means for recording on the optical disk in a recording format data as image data of the image size.

[0010]

According to the present invention, image data representing a first image is stored in a storage area, image data representing a second image is fetched into the storage area, and a second image is stored with the first image as a background. Are combined, and the combined image data is recorded on the optical disk in a recording format as image data of the image size. As a result, the first space is provided in a portion that can be a blank space on the screen in the recording format of the compact disc.
Is captured, and the visibility of the image is improved.

[0011]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an image filing method and apparatus according to the present invention;
Referring to FIG. 1, an image data filing system 10 of an embodiment processes an image signal obtained from an image data source such as a high-definition camera 20 and an image data decompression device 30, and edits an image represented by the image signal. This is a filing device that records and saves on a compact disc 52 by a CD) writer 50. The image data filing system 10 has an image data editing device 11, and this editing device 11 is advantageously implemented in the present embodiment, including peripheral devices to be described later, by a general-purpose processing system such as a commercially available personal computer, for example. The high-definition camera 20 and the image data decompression device 30 are interfaced with connection lines 22 and 24 of a small computer system interface (SCSI), respectively. Editing processing in the editing device 11 includes:
For example, analog / digital conversion for converting an analog image signal input from the high-definition camera 20 to corresponding digital image data, color correction and gradation correction of image data, compression coding by orthogonal transform such as discrete cosine transform, and quantization, and the like. , And conversion to the recording format of the compact disc standard. The editing device 11 further synthesizes an auxiliary image to be described later with the main image as one of important features of the present embodiment.

The image data decompression device 30 is connected to a memory card by a digital electronic still camera (not shown), for example.
32 is a device having a function of reading out still image data stored in a storage medium such as 32, decoding and expanding the same, and outputting the resulting image data to the editing device 11. In this embodiment, the image data obtained from the memory card 32 by the image data decompression device 30 is, as shown in FIG.
Electronic still camera standard image size, ie NT
Same image size as standard television images such as SC 4
It has 88 × 640 pixels. Also HDTV 20
As a result, image data having 960 × 1280 pixels is obtained as shown as a source image 120 in FIG. In the present embodiment, one pixel of each of the source images 130 and 120 is represented by 8-bit gradation in the present embodiment. Here, the image size refers to a so-called pixel number of the number of vertical pixels × the number of horizontal pixels of an image of one screen.

The CD writer 50 is an optical disk writing device for recording image data on the compact disk 52. In this embodiment, the compact disk 52 is advantageously of the write-once type. Here, the write-once type means both a so-called one-time ROM of one-time writing and a rewritable type. In this embodiment, the image data recorded on the compact disc 52 is accommodated in a recording format including 24 images 200 (FIG. 2) of 2048 × 3072 pixels (hereinafter referred to as “standard size”) per screen. . Image data decompression device 11
For details on the write-once compact disc 52, see Japanese Patent Application No.
112 and Japanese Patent Application No. 03-173307.

The image data editing device 11 includes a hard disk I (HD I) 12 for executing an editing function,
An II (HD II) 14, a temporary storage memory 16, an operating device 18 having a keyboard and / or a mouse, and a monitor display 40 such as a CRT are provided. The hard disk I12 stores a processing program for executing an editing process in the editing device 11, and is also used as a storage area for holding image data during and after the editing process. This processing program is read into the temporary storage memory 16 when the power of the apparatus is turned on. The hard disk II 14 is used as an area for storing various data required for editing a source image obtained from the image data sources 30 and 20, that is, a main image. These various types of data include standard size plain screens, backgrounds 160 such as colored paper patterns and background images, frames 150 such as picture frames, titles 170, and data representing illustrations and user-created words and phrases 180 (FIG. 2). Including. These various data are referred to as image data for convenience of description, but are used as auxiliary images to be combined with the main image. Although the image size of the auxiliary image is basically the standard size in the present embodiment, the frame 150, the title 170, and the phrase 180 may have various sizes smaller than the standard size forming a part of the standard size. Good. As will be described in detail later, the user can select these auxiliary images as needed.

The operating device 18 is a monitor display device described below.
In connection with 40, it is a selection command input unit for selecting options and guidance displayed on the monitor display 40. The device 18 is an input unit for inputting auxiliary images created by the user, for example, new titles, illustrations, recorded words, and the like.
It is also a means for inputting operation instructions such as frame setting. The monitor display 40 is a device that displays various types of image information related to image processing to the operator, such as system status, processing images, and guidance on processing procedure options. The hard disks I12 and II14 are shown to include not only a recording medium but also a driving device thereof. In each drawing, similar components are denoted by the same reference numerals.

In the present embodiment, the compact disc 52
This is a write-once optical disc of the Sony Philips standard, and the image data recorded on the optical disc is accommodated in the above-mentioned standard size, that is, a format that composes one screen 200 (FIG. 2) with 2048 × 3072 pixels. This image size is
It has the same image size as the image obtained from some type of high-resolution film scanner (not shown). The apparatus of the present embodiment records an image of an image size other than the standard size represented by the image data obtained from the high-definition camera 20 and the memory card 32 on the compact disc 52 in the format of the standard size. At that time, if one screen of an image size other than the standard size is simply assigned to one screen of the standard size of the compact disk format, a large margin will be generated in the storage area. Therefore, in the present embodiment, when an image having a size other than these standard sizes is recorded as the main image, another image or an auxiliary image such as character data is synthesized and edited in the area 160 which is originally a margin. Compact disc 52
To record. The editing device 11 also performs a process of synthesizing the recording data of the main image and the auxiliary image on a single screen (FIG. 4).

In the operating state, for example, a memory card
32 is loaded into the image data decompression device 30, and desired image data is read from the memory card 32. This instruction operation is performed by operating the operation device 18 while viewing the display on the monitor display 40. In response to this, the image data decompression device 30
The image data of one frame of image 130 recorded in 32 is read out (300, FIG. 4), and is decompressed and decoded. This image data is captured by the editing device 11 and temporarily stored in the temporary storage memory 16. The editing device 11 displays an image represented by the image data recorded in the temporary storage memory 16 on a monitor display.
Display on 40 display screens. The operator can input various image processing instructions by operating the keyboard or the mouse of the operation device 18 while viewing this image. In response to this, the editing device 11 performs image processing 301 such as color and density correction on the image data in the memory 16. Image data of the processed main image is stored in the hard disk I12 (302).

Then, the user operates the operating device 18 in accordance with the display on the display unit 40 to select an auxiliary image to be the background of the main image 130 (303). This auxiliary image is used for backgrounds such as a standard size plain screen, colored paper pattern and background image.
Is selected from Alternatively, a frame image such as a frame of a standard size may be used. For example, if the main image is a photograph of a family at the seaside, it is preferable to select a seascape photograph or Ukiyo-e at Hodogaya in Katsushika Hokusai as the background image of the image. When the auxiliary image 160 is designated by the operation device 18, the editing device 11 responds to the designation by
From the corresponding auxiliary image 160, and expands the data in the standard-size storage area of the temporary storage memory 16 (30
Four). The entire auxiliary image 160 is visually displayed on the display 40.

Next, the image data editing apparatus 11 transmits the main image currently being processed, that is, the hard disk I in step 302.
The image data of the main image 130 evacuated to the storage area 12 is read out to the storage area of the temporary storage memory 16, and the auxiliary image already developed in this storage area, ie, the background 1 in this example, is read.
Combine to 60 (305). The resulting standard size image 200
Is as shown in FIG. At this time, in the system of this embodiment, the operating device 18 is operated to operate the image area 2 of the standard size.
The position of the main image 130 at 00 can be selected. If there is no auxiliary image to add to this (3
10), the editing device 11 compression-encodes the image data of the resultant composite image 200 expanded in the temporary storage memory 16.
(311). The compressed and encoded image data is stored on the hard disk I
It is stored in I 14 (312).

In step 310, when another auxiliary image is to be added, the operation device 18 is operated to designate and select a desired auxiliary image. This auxiliary image may be, for example, a frame 150 such as a picture frame smaller than the standard size, a title 170, an illustration or a phrase 180 created by the user independently. In response to this, the editing device 11 downloads the image data of the selected auxiliary image from the hard disk II 14 and develops it in the storage area of the composite image 200 in the temporary storage memory 16.
(320). This state is displayed on the monitor display 40, and the operator can also operate the operation device 18 to specify the arrangement position of the auxiliary image in the standard size image area 200. An image 200 of a standard size in which the frame 150, the title 170, the illustration and the phrase 180 are combined in this manner is shown in the lower part of FIG.

In the present embodiment, a general-purpose auxiliary image is registered in the hard disk II 14 and is selected and used as needed. For example, title 170, commentary 180
Auxiliary images that the operator wants to create independently, such as images, illustrations, etc., can be created by the editing device 11 by operating the operating device 18. For example, the commentary 180 can be created by using the operation device 11 in the same operation as a word processor. In this way, the auxiliary image 170 and the like created independently by the operator are taken into the temporary storage memory 16 and further combined with the combined image already developed therein (320). Note that the created image data can be recorded and stored in the hard disk II 14.

In this way, the user operates the operating device 18 to
One or more images stored on the memory card 32
Each of the 130 image data is read from the card 32, subjected to image processing 301 of the main image, and combined with a desired auxiliary image, and stored in the hard disk I12 in a compressed and encoded form. This is performed by circulating the loop including step 330 by operating the operation device 18. With respect to the image data of the source image 120 obtained from the HDTV camera 20, an auxiliary image can be similarly synthesized and stored in the hard disk I12.

Thus, the edited image 200 of the standard size is completed for the desired frame on the hard disk I12. In the present embodiment, the image data editing apparatus 11 has an editing screen 200 of such a standard size in units of 24 sheets.
From now on, a compact disc image file in the standard file format (ISO9660) will be created using the CD-ROM authoring system (332). The created file data is sent to the CD writer 20, and the CD writer 20 writes this to the compact disc 52, and thus writes the CD
-Image file of ROM is completed.

The edited image 200 finally recorded on the compact disc 52 may of course include images from various image data sources such as the memory card 32 and the high-definition camera 20. In addition to a single source image as the main image to be edited, a plurality of standard images
Editing on one screen of 200 would also be effective. For example, a standard size seaside image may be used as the background image 160, and a plurality of standard TV size person images 130 photographed on the beach may be scattered and edited as appropriate.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, when a small-sized image is captured on a large-sized screen of the compact disk standard and recorded and stored, a play portion generated in a recording area of a recording medium is effectively utilized. Thus, it is possible to reproduce an image with good visibility. In addition, it is possible to easily edit an image that the user likes, and to record information other than the image on one screen, thereby improving the versatility.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of an image data editing processing system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of editing image data of the Hi-Vision standard and the electronic still camera standard on a screen of a standard size of a compact disc in the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example in which a main image conforming to the electronic still camera standard is synthesized on a screen of a standard size of a compact disc in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing procedure for combining a main image and an auxiliary image according to the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 Image data editing system 11 Image data editing device 20 CD writer 30 HDTV camera 40 Monitor display (CRT) 50 Image data decompression device 120 HDTV standard source image 130 Electronic still camera standard source image 200 Standard size image

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04N 5/76-5/956 G11B 20/10-20/12

Claims (9)

(57) [Claims] 1. An image filing method for recording image data in a removable recording medium in a predetermined recording format, the method comprising: storing at least a storage area capable of storing image data of an image size of one screen of the recording format; Providing; storing image data representing a first image of at most the image size in the storage area; capturing image data representing a second image smaller than the image size into the storage area; Combining the second image with the image of the background as a background, and recording the combined image data as image data of the image size on the storage medium in the recording format as the image data. Filing method. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first image is a frame image surrounding the second image. 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: providing image data representing a third image including character data; and adding a third image to the combined image data. Capturing and synthesizing the data. 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the second image is represented by image data of a standard television standard including an electronic still camera standard. 5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the second image is represented by Hi-Vision standard image data. 6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of compression-encoding the combined image data. 7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method comprises:
The storage medium is an optical disk of the compact disk standard.
The recording format is Disc rules
Image file, which is a
Illing method. 8. An image filing apparatus for recording image data on a removable storage medium in a predetermined recording format, the apparatus comprising at least a first image size of one screen of the recording format.
A first storage unit for storing image data representing an image of the first type, an input unit receiving image data representing a second image smaller than the image size, and a storage area capable of storing at least image data of the image size. A second storage unit, controlling the first and second storage units, reading out image data representing a first image from the first storage unit, expanding the image data in the storage area, and storing the image data received by the input unit. Synthesizing means for fetching image data representing the second image into the storage area and synthesizing the second image with the first image as a background; and the recording format as image data of the synthesized result as image data of the image size. An image filing apparatus, comprising: a recording unit for recording in the storage medium . 9. The apparatus according to claim 8, wherein
The storage medium is an optical disk of the compact disk standard.
The recording format is defined by the compact disc format.
Image file, which is a
Illing device.