JPH05207294A - Picture display control system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To display a picture with low resolution efficiently at a high speed and to reduce the storage capacity by applying hierarchical coding to picture information. CONSTITUTION:The system is the picture display control system displaying and outputting sequentially plural pictures and provided with a hierarchical picture coder 1 generating hierarchical coding data comprising plural picture information sets with different resolution from picture information of one picture being a display object and outputting the data to a picture storage device 2 and with a hierarchical picture decoder 3 selecting and decoding picture information corresponding to an optional picture of a resolution from hierarchical coding data 6 stored in the picture storage device 2 and outputting the decoded data to a picture display device 4 and one picture is displayed at a resolution selected optionally.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image display control system used for retrieving a document or a design drawing containing a still image, and in particular, it can display images at high speed to improve retrieval efficiency. The present invention relates to a suitable image display control system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a system for retrieving still images and the like, a query format represented by assigning a keyword to each image data and using the keyword to retrieve a desired still image from an image storage device It is generally due to. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional image display control system used for image retrieval. In the figure, 2 is an image storage device for storing a still image 5, 4
Is an image display device for displaying a still image group 41 retrieved from the image storage device 2 by a retrieval device (not shown). A large number of still images are stored in the image storage device 2, and each of these still images is added with information used for retrieval such as keywords. The searcher of still images tries to search for a target still image by combining the queries, but even if the search by query can narrow down the candidates for the still image to be searched like the still image group 41. , It is difficult to identify the target still image. Therefore, in the final stage of the search, it is necessary to visually search for the target still image while displaying the still image group 41 on the screen of the image display device 4, and in the final stage of the search for the still image, the search is performed. Burden on the person. In order to reduce such a burden on the searcher, it is effective to switch the display of the still image group 41 on the image display device 4 at high speed. However, still images have a large amount of data, and in general,
It is difficult to display a still image at high speed.

Conventionally, there is one that uses an image data compression technique in order to display an image on an image display device at high speed. For example, in addition to image data for referencing detailed contents, image data whose resolution has been reduced by image data compression technology is prepared for search, and during high-speed display operation,
This low resolution image data is used. When the searcher finds the target image from the images displayed at high speed in this manner, the searcher calls the corresponding high-resolution image data and displays it on the screen. As a result, images can be searched at high speed. However, in such a conventional technique, the low-resolution image data for retrieval must be prepared separately from the normal image data, which requires a large storage capacity.

Regarding the image data compression technique, for example, "Interface '911 12" issued by CQ publisher.
No. 175 "(1991) pp. There is a hierarchical coding described in 158. In this technology, multiple images with different resolutions are created step by step from one image, for example,
At the time of transmission, low resolution images with a small number of pixels are transmitted in order. Then, on the receiving side, by displaying the hierarchical screens sequentially sent in stages, it is possible to grasp the outline of the image contents at the initial stage of transmission. Such hierarchical coding is mainly applied to data communication technology, but is also applicable to image display control. However, in the conventional image display control by hierarchical encoding, the hierarchical screens are sequentially output and displayed, and it takes a lot of time to display one image.
Regarding hierarchical coding, for example, Stephane G.G. There is one using the "wavelet model" proposed by Mallat.

[0005]

The problem to be solved by the prior art is that the conventional technique requires a large storage capacity in order to separately prepare low resolution image data and normal resolution image data. In addition, since the hierarchical screens are sequentially output and displayed, the finally required image cannot be displayed and output at high speed. An object of the present invention is to solve these problems of the prior art, and to display and output either low resolution or high resolution from one image data, reduce the storage capacity, and realize an image display control system that enables high-speed retrieval. Is to provide.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, the image display control system of the present invention comprises: (1) an image for sequentially displaying and outputting a plurality of images stored in an image storage device to the image display device. It is a display control system, and from the image information of one image to be displayed, generates hierarchically encoded data composed of a plurality of image information with different resolutions,
A hierarchical image encoding device for outputting to an image storage device and a hierarchical image for selecting and decoding image information corresponding to an image of an arbitrary resolution from hierarchically encoded data stored in the image storage device, and outputting the image information to an image display device. A decoding device is provided to display one image at a resolution arbitrarily selected. (2) In the image display control system according to (1), the hierarchical image decoding device selects image information corresponding to an image having an arbitrary resolution from the hierarchical encoded data stored in the image storage device. And an image display processing unit for outputting the image information decoded by this image decoding processing unit to the image display device during the decoding processing of this image decoding processing unit. The decoding process and the image output process are performed in parallel.

[0007]

In the present invention, the image is hierarchically encoded. Then, a plurality of image data having different resolutions created from one image are individually handled. This enables representation of images at multiple resolutions, that is, multi-resolution representation. For example, using a part of hierarchically encoded data, a group of images can be consecutively formed at low resolution. It can be displayed at high speed. In addition, a high-resolution display for a specific image can be performed as required by the searcher. As a result, the overall data reading time can be shortened, the time required for image search can be shortened, and the burden on the searcher can be reduced. Further, since the low-resolution data dedicated to display is unnecessary, it is possible to reduce the storage capacity.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a configuration relating to the present invention of an image display control system to which the present invention is applied. In the figure, reference numeral 1 is a hierarchical image encoding device that encodes a still image 5 in the image storage device 2 by hierarchical encoding to obtain hierarchical encoded data 6.
Reference numeral 3 denotes a hierarchical image decoding device that decodes the hierarchical encoded data group 7 read from the image storage device 2 by an inquiry from a search processing device (not shown) by a searcher and outputs the decoded layered data group 7 to the image display device 4. Is. In the image display control system having such a configuration, first, the still image 5 is encoded by the hierarchical image encoding device 1, and the result, that is, the hierarchical encoded data 6 is stored in the image storage device 2. I'll do it. When the still image searcher searches the still image 5 using a keyword or the like, a plurality of corresponding hierarchically encoded data 6 is output as a hierarchically encoded data group 7. The respective layers of the hierarchically encoded data group 7 are decoded by the hierarchical image decoding device 3 and the decoded still image is displayed on the image display device 4. Then, the searcher specifies the still image while switching the display of the still image on the image display device 4. The still image displayed at this time is hierarchically encoded, and high-speed display can be performed by using image data having a small number of pixels, for example. Below, FIG.
The hierarchical encoded data 6 handled by the hierarchical image encoding device 1 and the hierarchical image decoding device 3 will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an embodiment of the operation relating to the hierarchical coding performed by the hierarchical image coding apparatus and the hierarchical image decoding apparatus in FIG. In the hierarchical encoding, one image information is divided into a plurality of layers at the time of encoding, and at the time of decoding, according to the resolution to be displayed,
Data can be decrypted and displayed using only the necessary layers. For example, in this figure,
The hierarchically encoded data 6 includes data having a small number of pixels required to display the still image 21 having a low resolution in the layer (N), and the still image having a higher rank resolution than that. Data necessary for displaying 22 are included in the hierarchy (N-1). That is, the layer (N-1) includes data for increasing the resolution by one rank, and by using the data of the layer (N) and the layer (N-1), the data is higher than that of the layer (N). An image of resolution can be obtained. Thereafter, the hierarchical image encoding device 1 of FIG. 1 sequentially encodes layers (1) up to the level (1), and the hierarchical image decoding device 3 of FIG. 1 determines the resolution required for image display. The still images 21 to 24 are decoded by using the hierarchized layer, and display output to the image display device 4 is performed.

As a procedure for searching a still image, first, using the data contained in the layer (N), or the layer (N) and the layer (N-1), the still image 21 or the still image 22 is retrieved. Such a low resolution is displayed on the image display device 4,
At the same time, different hierarchical encoded data 6 are displayed. Among these, if there is a still image that you want to see in more detail, and if the searcher inputs an operation instruction to that effect, the display for that data will be replaced with the one with higher resolution sequentially, and Then, the image is gradually made clearer. Then, when the searcher gives an instruction to stop the switching when the required resolution is reached, the decoding process is once completed. In addition, subsequently, when the searcher gives an instruction to search for another still image, the process returns to the still image search by displaying the low-resolution still image again.

According to such a procedure, for each image in the image search mode by low-resolution image display,
Only part of the data from the image storage device 2 of FIG.
All that is required is to read it into the hierarchical image decoding device 3 of. As a result, in FIG. 1, the necessary data is read from the image storage device 2 to the hierarchical image decoding device 3, and the hierarchical image decoding device 3 decodes the data and displays the image. It is possible to reduce the time required to read the data in the series of processing groups. As a result, in the image search, it is possible to reduce the entire data reading time and speed up the image display.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the structure relating to the present invention of the hierarchical image decoding apparatus in FIG. The hierarchical image decoding device 3 of the present embodiment includes an image decoding processing unit 31 that decodes each image data of the hierarchically encoded data group 7, and a still image image display device decoded by the image decoding processing unit 31. 4 is composed of an image display processing unit 32 which performs display output to the display unit 4. The data read by the hierarchical image decoding device 3 is first obtained by the image decoding processing unit 3
The image display processing unit 32 performs the decoding processing at 1, and the data thus decoded is displayed on the image display device 4. Thus, by dividing the processing performed by the hierarchical image decoding device 3 into two processing units, it is possible to perform the processing for decoding and the processing for screen display in parallel. The overhead due to the decoding process can be suppressed.

As described above with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3, in the image display control system of this embodiment, the image is encoded by using the hierarchical encoding, and the multi-resolution representation of the image is performed. , Continuous display of image groups with arbitrary resolution. As a result, high-speed display with low resolution can be performed, and display change with high resolution can be easily performed. Then, it is possible to shorten the time required to retrieve the still image by shortening the overall data reading time. Also, the low-resolution data dedicated to display is not required, and the storage capacity can be reduced. still,
The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described with reference to FIGS. For example, although the display control target is a still image in the present embodiment, the present invention is also applicable to a moving image.

[0014]

According to the present invention, it is possible to display and output either low resolution or high resolution from one image data, and it is possible to perform a high-speed search by displaying the low resolution image, thereby reducing the storage capacity. In addition, it is possible to reduce the load on the searcher and improve the performance of the system such as the image database.

[0015]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a configuration relating to the present invention of an image display control system to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of an operation related to hierarchical encoding performed by the hierarchical image encoding device and the hierarchical image decoding device in FIG.

3 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a configuration according to the present invention of the hierarchical image decoding apparatus in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional image display control system for image search.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Hierarchical image encoding device 2 Image storage device 3 Hierarchical image decoding device 4 Image display device 5 Still image 6 Hierarchical encoded data group 7 Hierarchical encoded data 21-24 Still image 31 Image decoding processing unit 32 Image display processing unit 41 Still image group

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Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An image display control system for sequentially displaying and outputting a plurality of images stored in a provided image storage means to an provided image display means, and from image information of one image to be displayed, An image of any resolution is generated from hierarchical image coding means for generating hierarchical coded data composed of a plurality of image information with different resolutions and outputting the hierarchical coded data to the image storage means, and hierarchical coded data stored in the image storage means. An image characterized by including a hierarchical image decoding means for selecting and decoding image information corresponding to, and outputting the image information to the image display device, and displaying the one image at a resolution arbitrarily selected. Display control system. 2. The image display control system according to claim 1, wherein the hierarchical image decoding means selects image information corresponding to an image of an arbitrary resolution from the hierarchical encoded data stored in the image storage means. And an image display processing unit that outputs image information that has been decoded by the image decoding processing unit to the image display device during the decoding process of the image decoding processing unit. An image display control system, comprising: a decoding process and an image output process in parallel.