JPH01211075A - Picture input/retrieval device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve glance properties by selecting only those pictures of the same size and/or set in the same direction and displaying plural retrieved pictures at one time. CONSTITUTION:A processor MPU 10 is connected to each part via a data line D, an address line A and a control line C and carries out the prescribed processing based on the program stored in a ROM 12. Then the directions and/or the sizes of the retrieved pictures are decided and only plural pictures of the same direction are displayed at one time. While the information showing the directions of pictures are added to a data base to simplify the decision of these directions. Then the pictures are retrieved based on said information showing the directions and only the pictures of the same direction are displayed at one time. As a result, the glance properties can be improved.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an image input search device, and is particularly effective when the image size of a business card or the like is constant but the image orientation is different. be.

[Conventional technology]

Conventional systems for searching five images, especially still images, and one example include Information Processing Society of Japan Transactions Vol. 1.28° No. 7 (J
There is a [prototype of still image search system FORKS] as described in [Uly 1987 pp758-766]. Such a search system has the feature that it can be viewed at a glance because it simultaneously displays a plurality of candidate images when searching for still images.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In the above still image search system, the size of the displayed still image is -
For example, if the size of the image is the same but there are two types depending on how it is used, vertical and horizontal, if you create a database and display it on the above still image search system, it will look like the following. For example, if the relationship between the input image and the characters written in it is vertically written on a vertically long sheet of paper, as shown in Figure 2 (,) and (b),
The word "image" is written horizontally, and also (C), (d
) describes the case where characters are written vertically and horizontally on a horizontally long paper. Here, the arrow represents the main scanning direction of the image input device, and when the scanning direction and the scanning direction of the display attachment match, the following results. That is, if the main scanning direction of the display is from top to bottom, the image shown in FIG. 2(a)
, (b) are displayed as they are, so Figure 2 (c) and (d)
) will be displayed as shown in FIGS. 3(a) and (b). Therefore, the characters written on the paper are 90 as shown in Figure 3.
The display is rotated several times, making it difficult to read. Therefore, the second
In order to display figures (c) and (d) as they are, it is necessary to rotate the input image by how many degrees by 90 degrees. Even if such processing is performed to make the display orientation the same, the following problems still occur. In other words, since there is a mix of vertical and horizontal paper, complicated processing is required for image placement and address calculation for display in order to simultaneously display multiple candidate images during still image search. become.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention determines the direction and/or size of the searched images, and displays only a plurality of images in the same direction. Furthermore, in order to simplify the determination of the direction, information indicating the direction of the image is added to the database, such information is used to search for images, and only a plurality of images in the same direction are displayed.

[Effect]

With the above configuration, only images in the same direction and/or size are selected, thereby improving visibility and processing speed.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram of an apparatus for implementing the present invention. The structure of the first @ is as follows,
The processing unit (MPU) 10 has a data line D, an address line A,
It is connected to each section by a control line C and executes the processing described below according to a program stored in a read-only memory (ROM) 12. A random access memory (RAM) 11 contains data necessary for processing and an image input device (SC) connected to a processing unit (MPU) 10 via a scanner interface (SINF) 151.
The image data input from 152 is processed by a processing device (MP
U) Store under control of 10. The data necessary for controlling and processing the processing unit (MPU) IQ is sent to the processing unit (MPU) 1 via the keyboard interface (KINF) 141.
It is input from a keyboard (KB) 142 connected to 0. The image data stored in RAM II is transferred to the image controller interface (IINF) 1.
An image controller (IC) 172 connected to the processing unit (MPU) 10 via an image controller 71 performs image processing such as enlargement, rotation, reduction, movement, etc., and controls the image controller (IC) 172 to another area of RAMII. Store in . Such image data is sent to a multiplexer (MPX) 162 and a path buffer (BB) 16 by MPU10.
5 and stored in a video memory (VRAM) 163, and the stored image data is stored in a CRT controller (CRT controller).
The video is displayed on a display device W (CRT) 166 via a video conversion circuit (VC) 164 via a video conversion circuit (VC) 164 via a video conversion circuit (RTC) 161. Furthermore, the stored image data is transferred to the processing device (M
The data processing controller (PU) connected to
A magnetic disk (MD) which compresses image data by a PC (PC) 182 and is connected to a processing unit (MPU) 10 via a disk interface (DINF) 131.
132. The data stored in the magnetic disk (MD) 132 is processed by the data processing controller (PC) 182.
The image data is decompressed and read out to RAMII. In addition, magnetic disk (MD) 132
Needless to say, the storage means 1 may be other than this, such as a floppy disk or an optical disk.

The operation of the present invention in the above-described configuration will be explained with reference to the drawings.1 The gist of the present invention lies in the display method of input images and the processing for such display.
) 152 is already stored in the RAM 11, but it goes without saying that it can be input by normal means.

FIG. 4 discloses a part of the data structure inside the image data stored on the magnetic disk (MD) 132.

As shown in FIG. 4(b), the magnetic disk (MD) 132 stores a plurality of image data and attribute data indicating the attributes of each image. Furthermore, the attribute data is shown in Figure 4 (
As shown in Q), it consists of an image number, image size, direction, keyword for search, and image address indicating the starting address of the memory address where the corresponding image is stored, and there are as many as there are images. Inputting data of such a structure is performed as follows when an image is input from the image input device (SC) 152 and displayed on the display device (CRT) 166. That is, using the keyboard (KB) 142,
The size of the input image and its direction (vertical or horizontal),
Enter the keyword (for example, name) to be used for the search.

However, here, vertical or horizontal is defined as follows.

That is, when the main scanning direction of the display device and the main scanning direction of the human-powered image device match (FIG. 2(a)).

In the case of (b)), it is called a vertical row, and when the main scanning direction of the display device and the sub-scanning direction of the image input device match (the second
Figures (c) and (d) are called horizontal rows. Processing equipment (M
When such data is input, the PU) 10 searches the magnetic disk (MD) 132 for data that has already been input, and calculates a serial number indicating the number of input data and a memory address to store the image that has just been input. do. Thereafter, the processing unit (MPU) 10 converts the image from the previously input attribute data (for example, when the image is displayed as shown in FIG. 3(a) or (b), that is, in the case of horizontal row). A controller (IC) 172 performs rotational image processing and normalizes it to vertical rows. RA that does not illustrate this image
In addition to storing the image in another area of the MII under the control of the image controller (rc), the processing unit (MPU) 10 selects the multiplexer (MPX) 162 through the signal line 162a, and also stores it as a display image in the video memory (VRAM) 163. do. Furthermore, the stored display data is transmitted to the display device (CRT) by controlling the video conversion circuit (VC) 164 through the signal line 161a of the CRT controller (CRTC) 161.
) 166.

The attribute data created as described above and the vertically normalized image data are stored in the magnetic disk (MD) 132 in a structure as shown in FIG. 4.

It is assumed that the image data stored as described above is in a data retrieval mode based on the input data. In this mode, the previously inputted keyword is input for search from the keyboard (KB) 142, and the processing unit (MPU) 10 is caused to execute the search process using a search key (not shown). The processing unit (MPU) 10 reads the attribute data stored in the magnetic disk (MD) 132, searches for the keyword part, and when the same keyword as the input keyword is found, it displays the image as the attribute data corresponding to the image. The number, size, and direction are read and stored in a search data area (not shown) of the RAM 11 as shown in FIG. That is, the search results are divided according to the size and direction of each image based on the attribute data, the image number of each image is stored as shown in the figure, and the number of stored images is counted according to the size and direction of each image. When the search for all attribute data is completed, the processing device (M
The PU) 10 searches for data in the search data area shown in FIG. 5, reads image data of the same size and direction with an image number from the magnetic disk (MD) 132, and stores it in RAM II. (If the RAM II capacity is small, limit the number of image data read from the magnetic disk (MD) 132 and repeat the following process.) After that, the data processing controller (PC) 182 decompresses the image data, and the image data It is stored in an area (not shown) of RAMII as a file name. Furthermore, an image controller (IC) 172
performs image reduction processing and stores it in another area of RAM II under the control of the image controller (rc). Such image data is sent to a multiplexer (MP
X) 162, the image data is stored in the video memory (VRAM) 163 via the path buffer (BB) 165, and the stored image data is stored in the CRT controller (CRTC) 161.
The image is displayed on a display device (CRT) 166 via a video conversion circuit (VC) 164 as shown in FIG. For example, when data of a vertical image of size A is read, the processing unit (MPU) 10 is used to read data of a horizontal image of size A, as shown in A1 in FIG. 6(a). )10 is displayed as shown in B1 of FIG. 6(b). After that, the number of search data areas is subtracted by 1. When the number of search data areas is not zero, the above-described operation is repeated until a predetermined number is displayed.

However, the processing unit (MPU) 10 controls the start address of the display location, size, number of images that can be displayed on one screen, etc. according to the attribute data being read. Image data with image numbers of the same size and direction are stored on a magnetic disk (MD).
) 132 and check the image using a search key (not shown). If there is no corresponding image, the processing unit (MPU) 10 is loaded with a keyboard (KB) 142.
reads the next image data of the same size and direction with the image number from the magnetic disk (MD) 132,
Repeat the process described above. When a corresponding image is found, use the enlarge key (not shown) to specify the reduced image by number, etc., and it will be saved in RAMI as image data.
The unreduced original image data stored in an area (not shown) of I is read and displayed on the display device (CRT) 166 at the input image size. When the image cannot be completely displayed on the display device (CRT) 166, the CRT controller (CRTC) 161 performs scroll display.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, since a plurality of searched images are displayed simultaneously, it is possible to provide an apparatus with good viewing performance, and its practical effects are extremely large.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a circuit block diagram of a device for realizing the present invention, Figs. 2 and 3 are explanatory diagrams to facilitate understanding of the present invention, and Fig. 4 is a storage on a magnetic disk (MD) 132. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram that discloses a part of the data structure inside the searched image data, FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram that discloses a part of the data structure of search data, and FIG. It is an explanatory diagram for explanation. 10...Microprocessor 11...
...Random access memory 12...
...Read-only memory 131...Disk interface 132...Magnetic disk 141...Keyboard interface 142... ... Keyboard 151 ... Scanner interface 1
52... Image input device 161...
...CRT controller 162...
Multiplexer 163...Video memory 164...Video conversion circuit 165...
......Path buffer 166...Display device 171...Image controller interface 172...Image controller 181
......Data processing controller interface 182......Data processing controller first
Figure 2) (b)

Claims (7)

[Claims] (1) In a system that creates, searches and displays a database containing a mixture of images that differ in at least one of the display orientation and size attributes, searches for images that have at least one attribute in common among the registered images. An image input/search device characterized by having a search means for simultaneously displaying images. (2) In the image input/search device according to claim 1, the database stores information indicating display directions or sizes of registered images, the search means includes means for searching the information, and the information is common. An image input/search device characterized by displaying multiple images at the same time. (3) The image input/search device according to claim 1, wherein the search means displays each image having the same information in common. (4) The image input/search device according to claim 1, wherein the search means includes means for selecting one of the plurality of images displayed simultaneously, and displays a detailed image of the selected image. An image input/search device featuring: (5) An image input/search device according to claim 1, wherein information indicating at least one of a display direction and a size is input when registering an image. (6) An image input/search device according to claim 1, wherein when an image is input, it is rotated in the display direction and then stored as a database. (7) The image input/search device according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of images displayed are reduced versions of detailed images in the database.