JPH05167643A - Real time data communication equipment and its communication method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To allow an operator to regard a relative communication time for transmission reception at a sender side and a receiver side eventually zero by taking a data quantity and a communication speed for the transmission and reception at the sender side and the receiver side into account. CONSTITUTION:The operator inputs data through a pad 5 while observing a picture displayed on a personal computer A1, and the inputted data are sent to a personal computer B2 of an opposite party and stored in its own buffer 9. In this case, the raw data as inputted from the pad 5 are sent to the opposite party. Succeedingly, the raw data are used in the processing loop this time and various parameter processing such as the position and the direction is implemented. In this case, the raw data of its own stored in the buffer 9 in the preceding processing loop and the raw data sent from the opposite party are used for the processing. Finally, the raw data sent from the personal computer B2 of the opposite party are received and stored in the buffer 9.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a real-time data communication technique, particularly in multimedia communication.
TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a real-time data communication device that can effectively reduce the communication time in a real-time data communication device by dimension processing and a technique effectively applied to the communication method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, multimedia communication has been put into practical use, in which information of different formats such as images, voices, and graphics are combined for simultaneous communication, and in reality, communication channels are divided to enable mixed communication. It is possible to perform communication in which data such as image and voice are mixed in the same communication line by using ISDN or the like.

For example, by applying such a data communication method, a real-time data communication device or the like capable of a multi-play game by three-dimensional processing is constructed on a personal computer (hereinafter, simply referred to as a personal computer). A game in which multiple humans can move freely in the virtual space, each player impersonating these humans, and two players with one computer or four players with two computers can play at the same time. is there.

In the case of such a real-time game, a game program on a personal computer that performs three-dimensional processing handles various parameters such as coordinates corresponding to positions and angles corresponding to directions as data.

[0005]

However, in the prior art as described above, it has been considered that it is almost impossible to synchronize, for example, between personal computers at remote locations while performing communication from the relationship between the data amount and the communication speed. It was

Therefore, the present inventor reduced the amount of data,
By breaking the barrier of communication speed, we found that multiple people can simultaneously play in real time on PCs at remote locations.

That is, an object of the present invention is to provide an operator with a real-time data communication apparatus and a communication method thereof, which can regard the relative communication time of transmission / reception on the transmission side and the reception side as substantially zero. is there.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a real-time data communication device and a communication method therefor capable of realizing a real-time multi-play game by a plurality of players.

The above and other objects and novel features of the present invention will be apparent from the description of this specification and the accompanying drawings.

[0010]

Among the inventions disclosed in the present application, a brief description will be given to the outline of typical ones.
It is as follows.

That is, the real-time data communication apparatus of the present invention comprises at least two sets of data input means on the transmitting side and the receiving side, a data storage means for storing data from the data input means, and a data storage means for the data storage means. It is a real-time data communication device that includes a data processing unit that performs a predetermined process according to data and an image display unit that displays an image that changes according to the output of the data processing unit, and that handles parameters of three-dimensional processing. Then, the transmission / reception data amount and the communication speed on the transmission side and the reception side are taken into consideration.

In this case, the real-time data communication device is used in a multi-play game in which a plurality of people can play at the same time.

The communication method of the first real-time data communication device of the present invention transmits the raw data from the data input means on the transmitting side to the data processing means on the receiving side,
The data processing means on the receiving side processes the raw data to obtain a parameter, and the image on the image displaying means on the receiving side is changed by this parameter.

Further, in the second communication method of the real-time data communication device of the present invention, data is transmitted from the data input means of the transmitting side to the data processing means of the receiving side, and this data is received by the data processing means of the receiving side. Is processed after a certain amount of time has passed, and the image on the image display means on the receiving side is changed according to the processing result.

Further, the third communication method of the real-time data communication apparatus of the present invention is the transmission of raw data from the transmitting side to the receiving side and a slight time delay for the data transmitted from the transmitting side to the receiving side. This is combined with the processing after the elapse.

[0016]

According to the first real-time data communication device and the communication method thereof described above, the amount of data transmitted and received at the transmitting side and the receiving side is taken into consideration, for example, raw data from the transmitting side is processed at the receiving side. Thus, it is possible to reduce the amount of data communicated between the transmitting side and the receiving side. As a result, the operator can reduce the communication time for transmission and reception by compressing the data considering the communication content.

That is, the image state on each image display means at a certain time is determined by various parameters, and in order to transmit them, the more complicated the data processing means, the more parameters there are. This will be the case.

However, each parameter is determined by calculation based on the value of the data input means, and usually the data of the data input means is smaller than the parameter. Therefore, by transmitting the raw data of the data input means and obtaining the parameter from the raw data, the effective speed of communication can be increased by calculating the parameter on the receiving side on the assumption that the calculation time is short, for example. The same effect as will be obtained.

That is, T1 = (data amount of all parameters) / (communication speed) T2 = (raw data amount of data input means) / (communication speed) T3 = convert raw data of the data input means into parameters If T1> T2 + T3 is satisfied as the calculation time, the effective communication speed can be increased.

Further, according to the second real-time data communication device and the communication method therefor, the transmission / reception communication speeds on the transmission side and the reception side are taken into consideration, for example, the data transmitted from the transmission side to the reception side may take some time. By being processed after the lapse of time, it is possible to cause the operator to display a state of some time ago that can be ignored in terms of time.

Thus, the operator can regard the relative communication time of transmission / reception as zero by transmitting the data considering the communication time.

That is, even if the data amount is reduced as in the first communication method, the communication time will be increased by (data amount) / (communication speed). Therefore, if the other party transmits the data before the time when the actually transmitted data is used, the effective communication time can be regarded as zero.

Further, according to the third real-time data communication device and the communication method thereof, the transmission / reception communication time is reduced by considering the transmission / reception data amount and the transmission speed on the transmission side and the reception side. Moreover, the relative communication time can be virtually zero.
In particular, when applied to a multiplayer game, multiple people can play in real time at the same time.

[0024]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a real-time data communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing the processing in the real-time data communication device of this embodiment, and FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a process corresponding to the flow of time. FIG.

First, the configuration of the real-time data communication apparatus of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

The real-time data communication device of this embodiment is a real-time data communication device that handles parameters by three-dimensional processing in multimedia communication, for example, and two personal computers A1 and B2 are connected via modems 3 and 4. They are connected and can send and receive to each other.

Each of the personal computers A1 and B2 has two sets of pads (data input means) 5-8 for inputting data and a buffer (data storage means) for storing the input data.
9 and 10 are connected. Also, personal computers A1 and B2
Data processing means (not shown) for performing processing in accordance with the input data are respectively built in the inside of the, and further, the displays (image display means) 11 and 12 on the front surface are processed by the data processing means. A changing image is displayed.

Next, the operation of the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 2 which is a flow of an actual data communication method.

For example, in the personal computer A1, the operator first inputs data through, for example, the pad 5 while looking at the image displayed on the personal computer A1 (step 201A). Then, this input data is transmitted to the other party's personal computer B2 and stored in its own buffer 9 (step 202A). In this case, the raw data transmitted from the pad 5 is transmitted to the other party.

Subsequently, in the current processing loop, various parameters such as position (coordinates) and direction (angle) are processed using the raw data (step 203A). In this case, the processing is performed using the raw data stored in the buffer 9 in the previous processing loop and the raw data sent from the other party.

If the data which should have been received in the previous processing loop transmitted from the other side has not arrived at the time of executing the processing of this processing loop, the buffer 9 is increased to 1 more. The raw data of the previous processing loop is used.

Finally, the raw data sent from the other party's personal computer B2 is received and stored in the buffer 9 (step 204A). In this case, since the reception of data from the other party is actually performed by the interrupt processing by the hardware, it is processed in the current processing loop.

As described above, the processing from the input of the own data to the reception of the data of the other party is repeated as one processing loop. Similarly, in the personal computer B2, one processing loop from the input of its own data to the reception of the other party's data is repeated in steps 201B to 204B.

In this case, since this one processing loop is a time that can be almost ignored by the operator, such processing is possible, and considering each processing along the same time flow, as shown in FIG. Can be represented.

That is, in the previous processing loop, from the data input in step 201, the transmission to the partner in step 202 to the time when the partner receives in step 204, the raw data is used for a predetermined communication time.

Then, after the processing loop this time, that is, after a time that can be almost ignored by the operator,
In step 203, the processing based on the raw data stored in the previous processing loop is executed.

As a result, the operator can display a state that is a little before the time, which can be neglected in terms of time, so that the relative communication time of transmission / reception can be regarded as virtually zero for both operators.

Next, as a real-time game capable of multi-play by the above data communication method, for example, a plurality of virtual spaces created on the respective displays 11 and 12 of the personal computers A1 and B2 are created. A survival battle game in which the characters can move freely and each player who is an operator can impersonate and play as these characters can be considered.

That is, in such a real-time game, by taking into consideration the transmission / reception data amount and communication time on the transmitting side and the receiving side,
For each player, the spoofed characters will always be in the same image state, so real-time 3D-like images will be developed without any time lag with respect to the player's input, and multiple images will be displayed simultaneously. Real-time multiplayer can be realized by the players.

Therefore, according to the real-time data communication apparatus of this embodiment, the raw data from the transmitting side is processed on the receiving side to reduce the data amount between the transmitting and receiving,
Also, since the data transmitted from the transmitting side to the receiving side can be processed after a lapse of almost negligible time, the communication speed barrier can be broken. The relative airtime can be considered virtually zero. In particular,
When applied to a real-time game, real-time multiplay for input is possible.

Although the invention made by the present inventor has been specifically described based on the embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. Needless to say.

For example, with respect to the real-time data communication apparatus of this embodiment, the case where the amount of data between transmission and reception can be reduced and the barrier of communication speed can be broken has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and it is possible to improve the effective speed as compared with the related art by executing one of the communication methods.

Further, a specific game can be favorably applied to various real-time games in which the communication speed between transmission and reception is a major factor of the game.

In the above description, the invention mainly made by the present inventor is applied to the real-time data communication device by the three-dimensional processing in the multimedia communication which is the field of use thereof, but the invention is not limited to this. Instead, it can be widely applied to other real-time data communication devices that require real-time transmission and reception.

[0045]

The effects obtained by the typical ones of the inventions disclosed in the present application will be briefly described as follows.
It is as follows.

(1) Considering the amount of data transmitted / received on the transmitting side and the receiving side, for example, raw data from the data input means on the transmitting side is transmitted to the data processing means on the receiving side, and the data processing means on the receiving side is transmitted. By processing the raw data to obtain the parameter, by changing the image of the image display means of the receiving side by this parameter, it is possible to reduce the amount of data communicated between the transmitting side and the receiving side, for the operator It is possible to reduce the communication time of transmission and reception by compressing the data considering the communication content.

(2) Considering the transmission / reception communication speeds on the transmitting side and the receiving side, for example, data is transmitted from the data input means on the transmitting side to the data processing means on the receiving side, and this data is transmitted by the data processing means on the receiving side. By processing after a lapse of a predetermined amount of time, and changing the image of the image display means on the receiving side according to the processing result, it is possible to display to the operator a state that is a little before time and can be ignored. For the operator, it is possible to regard the relative communication time of transmission and reception as zero by transmitting the data considering the communication time.

(3) In consideration of the transmission / reception data amount and communication speed on the transmission side and the reception side according to the above (1) and (2), the communication time for transmission / reception is reduced and
It is possible to obtain a real-time data communication device capable of making the relative communication time virtually zero.

(4) According to the above (1) to (3), a real-time game in which a plurality of people can play in real time at the same time, particularly when playing a game on a device between remote places, A data communication device can be obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing a real-time data communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart diagram showing processing in the real-time data communication apparatus of the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing processing corresponding to a time flow in the present embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 personal computer A 2 personal computer B 3,4 modem 5-8 pad (data input means) 9,10 buffer (data storage means) 11,12 display (image display means)

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. At least two sets of data input means on the transmission side and the reception side, data storage means for storing data from the data input means, and data for performing a predetermined process according to the data of the data storage means. What is claimed is: 1. A real-time data communication device, comprising processing means and image display means for displaying an image that changes according to the output of the data processing means, which handles three-dimensional processing parameters. In consideration of the amount of data and the communication speed, the real-time data communication device is characterized in that the communication time of the transmission and reception is reduced or made relatively zero for the operator from the data input means. 2. The real-time data communication device according to claim 1, wherein the real-time data communication device according to claim 1 is used in a multi-play game in which a plurality of people can play at the same time. 3. The communication method of the real-time data communication device according to claim 1, wherein the raw data from the data input means of the transmission side is transmitted to the data processing means of the reception side, A communication method characterized in that the data processing means on the receiving side processes the raw data to obtain a parameter, and the image of the image displaying means on the receiving side is changed by the parameter. 4. The communication method of the real-time data communication device according to claim 1, wherein the data input means on the transmitting side transmits data to the data processing means on the receiving side, and the data is transmitted to the data processing means on the receiving side. A communication method, characterized in that the data processing means on the receiving side performs processing after a predetermined time has elapsed, and changes the image on the image display means on the receiving side in accordance with the processing result. 5. A communication method for a real-time data communication device, characterized by combining the communication methods according to claims 3 and 4.