JPH03104373A - Picture transmitter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To attain a data input from a remote location by detecting a selection signal from a telephone set or an analog telephone line and fetching data with the detected selection signal or combination of selection signals. CONSTITUTION:A telephone set 2 is provided with a function generating a selection signal for dialing, that is, a pushbutton (DTMF) signal or a dial pulse(DP) signal, and when, e.g. a numeral and character pushbutton is operated to generate the DTMF signal, the numeral and character is discriminated by a DTMF tone decoder 15 with a signal from the telephone set 2 and a system controller 12 discriminates the input character or numeral based on the relation of correspondence between the alphabet and numeral and the combination of the pushbutton operation. Moreover, the DTMF tone decoder 15 discriminates the character with respect to the DTMF signal from an analog telephone line. Thus, the system controller 12 fetches the character data corresponding to the DTMF signal generated from the talking opposite party. Thus, a data from a remote location is inputted.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Industrial application field] The present invention relates to an image transmission device that transmits images.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, still picture television telephone equipment has been used as an image transmission device to transmit video information "Current status and trends of video telephones J" (1988).
(September 1988) and the video information r still image video telephone ``Telebittel J,Q'' (September 1988). Currently, the black and white still image television telephone equipment on the market is a product that complies with the unified standard (JJ-40.10 standard) established by the Telegraph and Telephone Technical Commission (TTC). The specifications are as follows.

Connection line Analog telephone line (general subscriber line, private line, etc.) Communication method 2 Half-duplex modulation method (modem) Amplitude phase modulation (AM-PM) Transmission pixel size Mode A: 100 (V) x 160 (H)
) Mode B: 96(V)XIOO(J{) Image sending time
Mode A: Approximately 10 seconds Mode B: Approximately 6 seconds Number of gradations: 32 black and white gradations This black and white still image television telephone device transmits black and white still images captured by a video camera attached to the main unit over a general telephone line. The caller operates a control switch to give operation instructions.

In addition, color still images (such as portraits of people) can be transmitted in a short time using analog telephone lines, a standard modem for GM facsimile (V.29, V.27ter), and color image data compression technology. A picture television telephone device has been proposed. This color still image television telephone device has a voice telephone function built into the main body, and uses the numeric keypad and function keys provided on the main body to enter data and use the data.The modem must be a standard digital modem. It can be transmitted using.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

The black-and-white still image television telephone device described above is a completely single-function device that transmits black-and-white still images captured by a video camera over a general telephone line, and the transmitted image is black and white, and the number of pixels is 100 x 160. or 96 x 10
The resolution is as low as 0, and it takes ~6 seconds to transmit one screen.
It takes 10 seconds, and voice calls cannot be made during this time, so it is considered a low value-added product with very limited marketability. For this reason, the current situation is that sales performance has not improved at all, despite the fact that it is a mass-market product.

In the TTC standard (JJ-40.10 standard), a binary data transmission method is specified in the transmission method standard, but in the current product, this is an ID for transmission procedure (protocol) communication. It is only used for data.

Also, although there are stipulated items for character data transmission, they are undefined. In this way, one of the reasons why the data transmission function is not utilized in actual products, even though still image television telephone equipment has a data transmission function as its latent function, is that the data transmission function is not utilized in actual products. An input means for inputting information can be considered. Attaching an input means, such as a data input keyboard, to the main body of a still image television telephone device would lead to a significant increase in cost and would be impractical.

Further, in the color still image television telephone device, data is input using a numeric keypad and function keys provided on the main body, which leads to a significant increase in cost and is not practical.

Furthermore, in the above-mentioned black and white still image television telephone device, the caller operates the operation switch to give operation instructions.
If the caller is out of reach of the operation switch, he or she will not be able to give any operational instructions. Some models have a wired remote control switch, but this model requires a wired remote control switch, which increases costs. In addition, in recent years, cordless phones have become widespread, and there are cases where it is desired to operate the black-and-white still image television telephone device from a considerable distance from the main body, but such operation is impossible. The same problem also occurs in the color still image television telephone device.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to improve the above-mentioned drawbacks and to provide an image transmission device that allows information to be input via a telephone without using any special equipment.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the invention of claim 1 provides an image transmission device using an analog telephone line, comprising a detection means for detecting a selection signal from a telephone connected to the image transmission device and/or the analog telephone line; Data is taken in by a selection signal and/or a combination of selection signals detected by the detection means, and the invention of claim 2 is an image transmission device using an analog telephone line, which is connected to the image transmission device. The device is equipped with a voice recognition means for recognizing voice from a voice signal from a telephone and/or an analog telephone line, and is configured to capture data by the voice recognized by the voice recognition means and/or a combination of voices, which is defined in claim 3. The present invention provides an image transmission device using an analog telephone line, which includes a detection means for detecting a selection signal from a telephone connected to the image transmission device, and detects a selection signal detected by the detection means and/or a combination of the selection signals. The system is designed to instruct the operation of the image transmission device.

[For production]

In the invention of claim 1, the selection signal from the telephone and/or the analog telephone line is detected by the detection means, and data is captured by the selection signal and/or the combination of the selection signals detected by the detection means.

In the invention of claim 2, the voice recognition means recognizes the voice from the voice signal from the telephone and/or the analog telephone line, and the data is captured by the voice recognized by the voice recognition means and/or the combination of the voices.

In the third aspect of the invention, the selection signal from the telephone is detected by the detection means, and the operation instruction of the image transmission apparatus is given by the selection signal detected by the detection means and/or a combination of the selection signals.

〔Example〕

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of an embodiment of the invention according to claim 1.

This embodiment is an example of a still picture television telephone device,
The main body l does not have the function of an original voice telephone,
A telephone 2 connected to the main body 1 by a telephone connection line 6 functions as a voice telephone.

The analog telephone line is connected to the main body 1 by a telephone line connecting line 8, and in the case of a normal voice call, signals in the voice band are exchanged between the telephone set 2 and the analog telephone line. In the case of a normal voice call, the main body 1 displays a moving image captured by a video camera 4 as a monitor image on a display 5,
Alternatively, a still image that has already been received can be displayed, and this operation is independent of the voice call. When the caller wants to send the monitor image displayed on the display 5, the monitor image can be sent by pressing the switch that means "image sending" among the operation switches 6. When receiving images, the reception operation is automatically performed using the functions of the main unit 1. Voice calls cannot be made while images are being sent (TTC standard (JJ-40
．． 10) Standards).

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing this embodiment, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing image sending and receiving operations in this embodiment. ■When monitoring a moving image, an image is captured by the video camera 4 and converted to a video signal 16, and this video signal l6 is input to the video signal input circuit 9 and converted to a digital image signal 18, and then sent to the image memory 11. is temporarily stored as image data. The image data stored in the image memory 11 is immediately read out and becomes a digital image signal 19, which is input to the video signal output circuit 10 and converted to a video signal 17, and then input to the display 5 and displayed as an image. Ru. Since all of the above operations are performed in real time, it is possible to monitor moving images.

■When making a normal voice call, the line control circuit 14 is controlled by the line switching signal detection circuit 21 and the line changeover switch 22 as shown in FIG. 3, and the line changeover switch 22 is connected to the A side. , the analog telephone line and the telephone set 2 are directly connected. Therefore, the telephone set 2 operates in the same manner as a normal telephone set, and the caller can make a voice call using the telephone set 2.

■When sending an image, the caller turns on the image sending switch in the operating switch 6 to instruct image sending, and the system controller 12 detects the image sending instruction signal from the operating switch 6, and first inputs the video signal. Stop writing image data from the circuit 9 to the image memory 11 (
This is called image freezing). At this point, the captured image data is stored in the image memory 1 as still image data, and therefore the monitor image on the display 2 also becomes a still image. The system controller 12 reads the image data of this still image from the image memory 11 via the system bus 20 and performs image data compression processing. This image data compression process may be performed in a conventional manner. Next, the system controller l2 sends the compressed image data to the modem l3 via the system bus 20. At this time,
The system controller l2 sets the line changeover switch 22 to B.
to connect the modem 13 to the analog telephone line. Therefore, voice calls cannot be made at this time. The compressed image data from the system bus 20 is modulated into a voice band signal by the modem l3 and sent to the analog telephone line 3. In the image sending operation, the system controller 12 sends a line switching signal (such as a dual tone similar to the conventional one) to the analog telephone line 3 prior to the above operation.

■When receiving data, if a line switching signal is sent from the analog telephone line while the line switching switch 22 is connected to the A side, the line switching signal detection circuit 21 detects the line switching signal. The system controller l2 detects the detection signal from the line switching signal detection circuit 21 and switches the line changeover switch 22 to the B side. Compressed image data modulated into a voice band signal, which is sent from the analog telephone line following the line switching signal, is input to the modem 13 through the line control circuit 14, where it is demodulated and then read into the system controller 12. . The system controller l2 performs image data decompression processing on this demodulated image data, and writes the decompressed image data (still image data) to the image memory l1 via the system bus 20. The image is displayed on the display 5. However, at the time of reception, writing of image data from the video signal input circuit 9 to the image memory 11 is stopped by the system controller 12, and no moving image monitoring operation is performed, resulting in an image freeze state.

■When operating the display screen, the system controller 12 is activated by the video signal input circuit 9 due to image freeze.
After stopping the writing of image data to the image memory l1, arbitrary data can be written to the image memory 11 and displayed on the display 5 (the image memory I1 corresponds to a so-called bitmap memory)6. Therefore, for example, By writing character data into the image memory l1, the characters can be displayed on the display 5.

Next, the character input operation of this embodiment will be explained. The telephone 2 has a function of generating a selection signal for making a call, that is, a push button (DTMF) signal (or dial pulse (OP) signal), and generates a signal according to the push button (or dial number). do. When generating a DTMF signal, press the numbers and letters O to 9 on the push button.
A dual tone according to #, is generated, and its frequency is determined as shown in FIGS. 5(a) and 5(b). The DTMF tone decoder 15 can recognize the dual tone frequency according to the numbers and letters on the push button, and when the number and letter push buttons are operated on the telephone 2 to generate a DTMF signal, the number and characters are discriminated from the signal from the telephone set 2 by the DTMF tone decoder l5. When the character input mode is designated by the operation switch 6, the system controller 12 stores the numbers or characters determined by the DTMF tone decoder 15, and refers to a character pattern generation memory (not shown) to input the DTMF tone decoder l5. The character pattern data corresponding to the numbers or characters determined by is read out and written in the image memo IJII, whereby the numbers or characters input by operating the push button of the telephone 2 are displayed on the display 5. However, with this alone, only numbers or letters as shown in FIGS. 5(a) and 5(b) can be input, but alphabets and the like can be input by a combination of push button operations. In this embodiment, the correspondence between the push button operation combinations and the alphabets and numbers is as shown in FIG. When a DTMF signal is generated by operating the number and letter push buttons on the telephone 2, the DTMF tone decoder 15 distinguishes the numbers and letters from the signal from the telephone 2, and the system controller 12 uses the numbers and letters to The input characters or numbers are determined based on the correspondence between the push button operation combinations shown in FIG. 6 and the alphabets and numbers. Note that the operation switch 6 is provided with a switch for inputting characters, and after turning on this switch to switch to character input mode when inputting characters, input characters by operating the push button of the telephone 2. The operation will be more reliable if you do this.

When the system controller 12 is switched to the character input mode by the operation switch 6 as shown in FIG.
From the numbers or characters determined by the TMF tone decoder 15, the input numbers or numbers are determined based on the combination of push button operations shown in FIG. 6 and the correspondence between alphabets and numbers, and the input characters or numbers are stored. , and reads the character pattern data corresponding to the incoming character or number by referring to the character pattern generation memory and creates image memo 1.
The numbers or letters entered by pressing the push button on the telephone 2 are displayed on the display 5. Therefore, character strings input by operating the push buttons on the telephone 2 are stored by the system controller 12, written in the image memo 1, and displayed on the display 5. The DTMF tone decoder 15 also performs character discrimination on the DTMF signal input from the analog telephone line through the line control circuit 14. Therefore, the system controller 12 can take in character data corresponding to the DTMF signal issued by the other party, and data can be input from a remote location. Data such as character strings thus input are sent by the system controller 12 to the modem 13, modulated into voice band signals, and sent out to the analog telephone line through the line control circuit 14. Conversely, data such as a character string modulated into a voice band signal sent from an analog telephone line is demodulated by the modem 13 through the line control circuit 14 and read by the system controller 12. In this way, according to this embodiment, it is possible to transmit characters over an analog telephone line. In this case, the data to be transmitted may be a character pattern signal written in the image memory 11, or a character code stored in the system controller l2. In general, the latter method requires less data to be transmitted and is advantageous in terms of transmission time. Note that although the above embodiment is an example in which letters or numbers are input by operating the push buttons of the telephone 2, it is also possible to input letters or numbers similarly by operating the dial of the telephone.

In fact, in recent years, many telephones have push-button type dial operation switches and actually generate dial signals. Further, although the above embodiment is an example in which characters are input, by further devising combinations of push button operations on the telephone 2, it is possible to input any data. In other words, it is possible to use a telephone as an input device similar to the keyboard of a personal computer. According to the above embodiment, in the still image television telephone device, data is input from the telephone set or analog telephone line, so data such as characters can be easily and inexpensively inputted without using special equipment, and it is possible to It is possible to dramatically expand the scope of use of the image television telephone device and increase its added value.

FIG. 8 shows an embodiment of the invention according to claim 2.

In this embodiment, in the above embodiment, a voice recognition 11LsI23 is provided in place of the DTMF tone decoder l5, and a system controller 12a is used in place of the system controller l2, and operations other than character input operations are performed in the same manner as in the above embodiment. .

Next, the character input operation of this embodiment will be explained. A voice signal is input to the voice recognition mLsI23 from the telephone set 2 through the line control circuit 14. In other words, the voice emitted by the caller is converted into a voice signal by the telephone set 2, and the voice is recognized as a voice signal.
It is input to LsI23. The voice recognition 11LsI23 recognizes the voice of the caller, for example rLSI
T6658AJ (Toshiba Review Vol. 40 No. 11 No. 973
(See page 976) is used, but other voices! ! A smart LSI may also be used. Since this speech recognition LSI 23 recognizes the speech of a specific speaker, it is necessary to register recognizable words in advance, but the telephone 2 can be used for this purpose. When registering a word in the voice recognition LSI 23 by voice, when the caller instructs to register the word using the operation switch 6, the system controller 12a sends a command to the voice recognition LSI 23 to inform it that it is in the registration mode, as shown in FIG. , and then sends out a number corresponding to the character to be recognized. When the voice recognition LSI 23 receives the above-mentioned command and number from the system controller 12a, it performs a registration process according to a voice signal corresponding to the voice of the caller input from the telephone set 2. When the voice recognition LSI23 finishes registering the required number of characters,
The system controller 12a sends a command to cancel the registration mode to the voice recognition LSI 23 and terminates voice registration. At this time, the system controller 12a writes a message indicating that it is in the registration mode in the image memory l1, a message indicating the characters being registered, whether registration is possible, etc. in a character pattern, and these messages are displayed on the display 5. The caller can perform the voice registration task in a conversational manner. When the caller completes voice registration, the registered caller can input characters by voice. When the caller instructs voice input using the operating switch 6, the system controller 12a sends a voice recognition mode command to the voice recognition raLsI 23 as shown in FIG. Voice recognition L
When the command is input, the SI 23 performs voice recognition processing using the voice signal input from the telephone 2, and recognizes the voice from the telephone 2 as registered voice.
The number can be output. system controller l2
When a detects that the voice recognition LSI 23 has finished voice recognition by a signal from the voice recognition mLsI 23, it reads out the number of the recognized voice to the voice recognition mLsI 23, stores the character data corresponding to that number, and also stores the character pattern generation memory. (not shown), read out the character pattern data of the character data corresponding to the number from the voice recognition 11LsI23, and write this into the image memory 11 to display the recognized voice on the display 5. Data such as a character string inputted from the telephone set 2 in this manner is sent to the modem 13 by the system controller 12a, modulated into a voice band signal, and sent to the analog telephone line through the line control circuit 14. Conversely, data such as a character string modulated into a voice band signal sent from an analog telephone line is demodulated by the modem l3 through the line control circuit 14, and is demodulated by the system controller 13.
2a. In this way, according to this embodiment, character transmission via an analog telephone line is possible. In this case, the data to be transmitted may be a character pattern signal written in the image memory 11, or the data to be transmitted may be a character pattern signal written in the image memory 11.
The character code stored in a may also be used.

The voice recognition LSI 23 also recognizes voice signals input from the analog telephone line through the line control circuit 14.

Therefore, character data based on voice signals emitted by the other party can be captured, and data can be input from a remote location.

Further, although this embodiment is an example of inputting characters, it is possible to input any data by inputting a combination of recognizable words. In other words, it is possible to use the telephone as an input device similar to the keyboard of a personal computer or the like.

In this embodiment, in a still image television telephone device,
Since data is input as a voice signal from a telephone or analog telephone line, it becomes possible to input data such as characters easily and inexpensively without using special equipment, dramatically expanding the scope of use of still image television telephone equipment. It can be expanded to other areas and increase its added value.

FIG. 11 shows an embodiment of the invention according to claim 3.

This embodiment differs from the embodiment shown in FIG. An auxiliary image memory 24 is provided. This example is the above ■~
The operation (2) is performed in the same manner as in the embodiment shown in FIG. Further, after the above-mentioned receiving operation (2), the system controller 12b transfers the received image data to the image memory 11 according to instructions from the operation unit.
and stored in the auxiliary image memory 24 via the system bus 20, thus allowing a plurality of received screens to be stored. Further, the system controller 12b reads out the received image data stored in the auxiliary image memory 24 in response to an instruction from the operation unit and writes it into the image memory 11 again. If there is data for multiple received images, the system controller 12b sequentially transfers the data for different received images from the auxiliary image memory 24 to the image memo IJII in accordance with instructions from the operation unit, and the multiple received images are sequentially displayed on the display. Displayed as 5.

Next, operations using the telephone set 2 of this embodiment will be explained.

As mentioned above, the DTMF tone decoder 15 determines the frequency of the dual tone according to the numbers and letters on the push button! 7! When a DTMF signal is generated by operating the number and letter push buttons on the telephone 2, the digits and letters are discriminated from the signal from the telephone 2 by the DTMF tone decoder 15. The system controller 12b is a DTMF tone decoder l5.
The operations of this embodiment are performed according to the numbers and characters determined by the above. That is, in the same way that the caller instructs the operations of this embodiment by operating the operation switch 6, the caller can issue similar operation instructions by operating the push button. FIG. 12 shows the correspondence between the combinations of push button operations and the operations of this embodiment.

FIG. 13 shows the flow of remote control using the telephone set 2 of this embodiment.

When the system controller 12b detects from the signal from the DTMF tone decoder 15 that the DTMF tone decoder 15 has recognized the dual tone frequency according to the numbers and letters on the push button, the system controller 12b sends a signal if the numbers or letters on the push button are . Turn on the screen switch (
The process jumps to step SA in which the line changeover switch 22 shown in FIG. 4 is switched to the B side. The system controller 12b also has a DTMF tone decoder l5.
If the number or character that Lg recognizes the frequency of the dual tone is , 1, it is judged as an instruction to freeze the image and freezes the image as described above, and the DTMF tone decoder l5
The number or letter that recognized the frequency of the dual tone is
, 2, it is determined that this is an instruction to unfreeze the image, the unfreeze the image, and monitor the moving image. Furthermore, the system controller 12b has a DTMF tone decoder l.
If the number or character 5 recognizes the frequency of the dual tone is 3, it is determined that this is an instruction to switch the reception screen, the image is frozen, and then the received image data is transferred from the auxiliary image memory 24 to the image memory l1.

According to this embodiment, since the operation instruction can be given using the telephone 2, the operation instruction can be given using the telephone 2 even in a position where the operation switch 6 is out of reach without the need to attach a special device to the outside of the main body 1.

Although this embodiment is an example of using a DTMF signal, a DP signal may also be used in the same way to issue an operation instruction using a telephone. [Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the invention of claim 1, in an image transmission device using an analog telephone line, detection is performed to detect a selection signal from a telephone connected to the image transmission device and/or from the analog telephone line. Since data is captured by the selection signal and/or the combination of selection signals detected by the detection means, data can be input without using a special device.

Further, according to the invention of claim 2, an image transmission device using an analog telephone line includes a voice recognition means for recognizing voice based on a voice signal from a telephone connected to the image transmission device and/or an analog telephone line, Since data is captured using the voice and/or a combination of voices recognized by this voice recognition means, data can be input without using any special equipment.

Furthermore, according to the invention of claim 3, the image transmission apparatus using an analog telephone line includes a detection means for detecting a selection signal from a telephone connected to the image transmission apparatus, and a selection signal detected by the detection means. Since the operation instruction of the image transmission device is given by a combination of the and/or selection signals, the operation instruction can be given by telephone even in a position where the operating section is out of reach without using any special equipment.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the invention of claim 1;
FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the same embodiment, FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a line control circuit in the same embodiment, FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing image sending and receiving operations in the same embodiment, and FIG. )
(b) is a diagram showing the DTMF signal frequency of the telephone in the same embodiment, Figures 6 (a) and (b) are diagrams showing the correspondence between push button operations and input characters and numbers in the same embodiment, and Figure 7 8 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the invention of claim 2, FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the flow of the registration mode of the embodiment, and FIG. The figure is a flowchart showing the flow of the voice recognition mode in the same embodiment, FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the invention of claim 3, and FIG. 12 is the correspondence between push button operations and operation instructions in the same embodiment. FIG. 13 is a flowchart showing the operation flow using the telephone of the same embodiment. 2...Telephone, l5...DTMF tone decoder,
23...Speech recognition LSI. V) δ Circle shape I Re Z day shape G (d) (φ) Kufushi 4i 匡] 7 shape e mouth

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In an image transmission device using an analog telephone line,
It is characterized by comprising a detection means for detecting a selection signal from a telephone and/or an analog telephone line connected to the image transmission device, and capturing data by a selection signal and/or a combination of the selection signals detected by the detection means. image transmission device. 2. In an image transmission device using an analog telephone line,
It is characterized by comprising a voice recognition means that recognizes voice based on a voice signal from a telephone set and/or an analog telephone line connected to the image transmission device, and capturing data by the voice recognized by the voice recognition means and/or a combination of voices. image transmission device. 3. In an image transmission device using an analog telephone line,
It is characterized by comprising a detection means for detecting a selection signal from a telephone connected to the image transmission device, and instructing the operation of the image transmission device based on the selection signal detected by the detection means and/or a combination of the selection signals. image transmission device.