JPH04253275A - Distributed processing system for image data - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To accelerate a processing, to distribute a load and to easily extend a system by dividing the management of an image data base. CONSTITUTION:The server function of an image system is divided into the directory server part of much access frequency/small data amount and the image data server part of less access frequency/large data amount, and the respective server parts are separately and independently managed by a directory management processor 1 and image management processors (41-4N). An image display terminal inputs images to the image management processors allocated in advance, and an image display terminal selects the desired image to be retrieved by the service of the directory management processor 1 and outputs it from the relevant image management processor.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

FIELD OF INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION The present invention relates to an image data distributed processing system, and in particular, a method for storing a large amount of image data in a distributed manner in a plurality of image databases, and storing the storage locations of these stored images in a directory database. The present invention relates to an image data distributed processing method that can manage the input/output of a large number of image data using processors connected to each of these image databases and directory databases.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of image data processing system, a processor included in a host computer and a large-capacity storage device provided in the host computer, such as a collective optical disk device, are used. A process of inputting image data from the image input terminal into the above-mentioned image database using the image database used, a process of extracting the corresponding image data from the image database for the image display terminal, and a process of transferring the extracted image data to the image display terminal. The process of extracting the directory information requested by the image display terminal from the directory provided in the host computer and sending it to the image display terminal is performed centrally by one processor provided in the above-mentioned host computer. I came here.

0003

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] The above-mentioned conventional image data processing method is concerned with allocating storage locations for image data, processing and displaying the correspondence between desired image data, its contents, and identification numbers, that is, directory information. All processing, including processing and processing for extracting stored image data and transferring it to a predetermined image display terminal, is centrally managed by a processor within the host computer. The time required for input/output processing of image data is much longer than the time required for processing directory information related to image data as described above. On the other hand, the number of times the above-mentioned directory information processing is performed per unit time is larger than the number of times image data is input/output per unit time. Therefore, in the conventional image data processing method of this kind, when image data is being input/output, directory information related to the image is processed, that is, extraction and display of the identification number of the desired image data, or information related to these is performed. The disadvantage of this method is that it takes an extremely long time to input the data.

In addition, in the conventional image data processing method of this type, as the system expands, that is, the number of image input terminals and image display terminals increases, and the storage capacity of the image data storage device increases, the image data is stored. This has the disadvantage that the input/output time to the device increases and the response time of all processes becomes longer.

An object of the present invention is to perform the above-mentioned directory processing and image data input/output processing in separate processors, and to separate the directory information storage section and the image data storage section. Processing related to directory information is performed almost independently even when image data input/output processing is being performed, and when the amount of target images increases, the image management processor It is an object of the present invention to provide a distributed processing method for image data that can prevent an increase in the input/output time of image data by adding a database connected to this image management processor, and can eliminate the above-mentioned drawbacks.

[0006]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The image data distributed processing method of the present invention acquires image data using an image input terminal, stores the image data in an image database, and stores information on which the image data can be searched in a directory database. In the image data distributed processing method in which the stored image data is displayed on an image display terminal, an operator inputs directory information that can identify the image data and outputs the input directory information; a local area network that connects a management terminal to the image input terminal and the image display terminal; a directory database that inputs and stores output from the management terminal and directory update information via the local area network; a directory management processor inserted between an area network and the directory database for processing writing of directory information to and reading of directory information from the directory database; and information for acquiring image data and identifying this image data. an image input terminal that outputs the data; an image database that inputs and stores output from a predetermined image input terminal of the image input terminals via the local area network; and the local area network. inserted between the image database and processes writing of the image data to the image database and reading of the image data from the image database, and outputs the update information when the image data is stored in the image database. an image management processor that is connected to the image management processor via the local area network and refers to the directory database via the directory management processor for desired image data among the image data stored in the image database; and the image display terminal that selects the desired image data, extracts and imports the desired image data from the image database via the image management processor, and displays an image of the desired image data.

[0007]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 2A, 2B, and 2C are flowcharts explaining the operation of the embodiment shown in FIG.

The directory management processor 1 stores information stored in the directory database 2, that is, information about the content of each image data, and information about the identification number of each image data. The information stored in association with each image data, that is, directory information, is processed and written to the directory database 2 mentioned above, and this directory database 2
The image management processor 41 is a processor that performs the process of reading out the above-mentioned directory information from a local area network 3, and is connected to a plurality of image management processors 41, 42, . . . 4N via the local area network 3.

The directory management processor 1 connects image input terminals 61 to 6 via the local area network 3.
It is also connected to the management terminal 8 in addition to the image display terminals 71...7P.

The new image data is sent to the image input terminals 61, 6.
Prior to being acquired from M, directory information corresponding to the image data is input from the management terminal 8 (step 101). An identification number for identifying each image is also input into this directory information.

These directory information are input to the directory management processor 1 via the local area network 3, processed by the directory management processor 1, and additionally stored in a storage location of the directory database 2 specified by the directory management processor 1. In other words, the contents of the directory database 2 are updated.

[0013] Next, when inputting this directory information, the identification number given to the image data is input from one of the image input terminals 61, 6M, etc. when acquiring the image data. (Step 201
and 202). The output from each image input terminal 61, 6M is preliminarily connected to one or more image management processors 41, 4.
2,...4N are connected via the local area network 3 so as to be input to a specific one.

[0014] Therefore, for example, the image data acquired by the image input terminal 61 is transferred to a preset specific image management processor, for example 41, together with an identification number (step 203).

When image data is input to the image management processor 41, the image management processor 41 specifies a storage location in the image database 51 connected to the image management processor 41 and stores the image data (step 204).

As shown in the block diagram of FIG. 1, image databases 51, 52, . . . 5N are connected to the image processors 41, 42, . . . 4N, respectively. These image databases are storage devices with sufficient storage capacity to store image data.

As mentioned above, the image management processor 41,
42,...4N are image databases 51, 52, respectively.
...Manages and stores storage locations of image data stored in 5N, and image database 51, 52, ...5N of image data.
Processes the input and output of image data to.

As mentioned above, the image management processor 41
When storing such image data in the image database 51, it sends an image data storage notification accompanied by an identification number assigned to the stored image database to the directory management processor 1 (step 205).

Directory management processor 1 updates the contents of directory database 2 based on this notification (step 206).

[0020] Image databases 51, 52,
5N, first input an image list request from the image display terminal 71 to request an image list (
Step 301).

This image list request is input to the directory management processor 1 via the local area network 3. Based on this image list request, the directory management processor 1 searches and extracts an image list related to the corresponding image data from the directory database 2,
That is, it is read out and transferred to the image display terminal 71 (
Steps 302 and 303).

The image display terminal 71 displays this image list (step 304). When there is a desired image in this image list and the operator of this image display terminal specifies the desired image (steps 305 and 306), an image that is connected to an image database in which image data related to this image is stored is displayed. A request to output specified image data is made to the management processor via the local area network 3, and the image management processor to which this request has been made, for example 41, receives the request from the image database 51 connected to this image management processor 41. The image display terminal 7 searches and extracts the image data (step 307), and makes an image display request via the local area network 3.
1 (step 308), and this image display terminal 71
An image is displayed on top (step 309).

As is clear from the above explanation, even if image data is transferred from one image input terminal to an image database via a corresponding image management processor, or transferred to one image display terminal at any one of the Even when image data is being transferred from the image management processor,
There is no waiting at all in the process of referring to directory information regarding images from another image display terminal, or transmitting and storing directory information regarding new images from a management terminal to a directory database via a directory management processor.

[0024]

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention,
A processor that processes image data and an image database that stores image data are separated from a processor that processes directory information and a directory database that stores directory information to process directory information and image data related to images in a distributed manner. By using this method, the directory management processor is used when starting or ending input/output of image data.
Except for such cases, it is possible to process directory information regarding images separately and independently even when inputting and outputting image data. Note that processing time related to directory information is generally much shorter than the time required to input and output image data, so even if processing related to multiple directory information overlaps, processing related to the next directory information can be started after a short waiting time. There is an effect that can be done.

Further, according to the present invention, as the amount of images to be processed increases, the image management processor and the image database connected to this image management processor can be easily added, and The storage capacity of each image database does not require the use of a single, large-capacity storage device unlike conventional image data processing methods of this type, so it is easy to read desired image data from the image database. This has the effect of preventing the required time from increasing.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of this embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Directory management processor 2 Directory database 3 Local area network 8 Management terminals 41 to 4N Image management processors 51 to 5N
Image database 61 Image input terminal 71 Image display terminal

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Image data is acquired by an image input terminal, the image data is stored in an image database, information that allows the image data to be searched is stored in a directory database, and the stored image data is acquired by an image display terminal. In an image data distributed processing method for displaying image data, an operator inputs directory information that can identify the image data, and a management terminal that outputs the input directory information is connected to the management terminal, the image input terminal, and the image display terminal. a local area network for inputting and storing output from the management terminal and directory update information via the local area network; and a directory database inserted between the local area network and the directory database. a directory management processor that processes writing directory information to and reading directory information from the directory database; the image input terminal that acquires image data and outputs the image data together with information that can identify this image data; an image database that inputs and stores output from a predetermined image input terminal among the image input terminals via the local area network; and an image database that is inserted between the local area network and the image database and inputs the output to the image database. an image management processor that processes the writing of the image data and the reading of the image data from the image database and outputs the update information when the image data is stored in the image database; The desired image data is selected from among the image data connected to the image management processor and stored in the image database by referring to the directory database via the directory management processor, and the desired image data is selected from among the image data stored in the image database. An image data distributed processing method comprising: the image display terminal for displaying an image of the desired image data extracted and imported from the image database via a management processor.