JPH06266775A - Image information retrieving device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an image information retrieving device which is capable of performing the reading of image information from an external storage means mechanically and quickly. CONSTITUTION:In an external storage device 4, an image retrieval information input part 10 where image information control information 18 and the reading conditions (image attribute 17) of images are adjacently stored, an image attribute data base 14 is constructed and image attributes as retrieval conditions are set is provided. Thus, by making image information and the control information on this image information be adjacent on the storage area of the external storage device 4, registering and storing by a record and control means and storing control information by adding the information to a data base, image information can be outputted at the same time of the reading of control information when desired image information to be the reading object of control information is outputted when the desired image image information to be the reading object based on control information is outputted.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image information retrieval device for outputting image information registered and accumulated in an external storage device based on retrieval information.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, various types of image information retrieval systems have been developed due to the need for image information retrieval systems for the purpose of rationalizing office processing. This system is for filing information such as documents and drawings as image information, aiming at paperless office work, and searching or displaying or outputting as necessary.

FIG. 3 shows a schematic block diagram of a conventional image information retrieval apparatus. In the figure, a conventional image information retrieval apparatus is an image input unit 1 for optically reading and inputting an image.
A system control unit 2 that controls various processes such as editing, storage, and retrieval of an input image, an input / output control unit 3 that controls input / output of image information of the image, and various types including the image information. An external storage device 4 for registering and accumulating information, an output control unit 5 for controlling output of the image information, a display device 6 for visually displaying the output image information, and a printer for the output image information. An output device 7 for outputting the document information related to the image information and a document search information input section 8 for inputting document search information for searching the document information related to the image information.
And a document information search / registration control unit 9 for searching / registering a desired document based on the document search information.

Next, the operation of the conventional apparatus based on the above configuration will be described. First, the image input from the image input unit 1 is processed by the system control unit 2 and is stored and accumulated in the external storage device 4 including a magneto-optical disk, a magnetic disk, a floppy disk and the like. The system control unit 2 controls the external storage device 4 by instructing the image input unit 1 and the input / output control unit 3 by a command input from the document search information input unit 8. In the search, a document attribute such as a name, a keyword, a date, etc. is given as search information in the document search information input section 8 and the system control section 2 makes a decision and the document information search registration control section 9 searches for a desired document and displays image information. Output.

In such a system, the performance of each section influences the speed of business processing, but it is important to reduce mechanical operations for inputting and outputting image information on an external storage device. In order to search, it is necessary to manage the names, keywords, dates, etc. as search information separately.

[0006]

Since the conventional image information retrieving apparatus is constructed as described above, the attribute of the designated document is used as the retrieval information and must be managed separately from the image information. There is a problem that an image cannot be displayed unless a document is searched by inputting an appropriate attribute from the attribute list of the managed document before searching the display output. In this way, since troublesome preparation is required as a precondition for retrieval, if a certain page in the document cannot be designated, the image cannot be retrieved promptly. The method of reading the image information is performed by reading the page management information from the document and then reading the image information stored in another area.
The reading of the other area has a problem that the reading efficiency is deteriorated when the desired image information is displayed and output because the external storage device requires a mechanical operation.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an image information retrieving apparatus capable of mechanically quickly reading out image information from an external storage means. is there.

[0008]

An image information search device according to the present invention registers and stores an image input from an image input device in an external storage device, and inputs a search among a plurality of registered and stored image information. In an image information retrieval device that outputs desired image information in database management based on information,
In the storage area of the external storage device, the recording control means registers and stores the image information of the input image adjacent to the management information related to this image information, and additionally stores the management information in the database.

If necessary, the image management information in the present invention is the image information position information which is the self-address information of the external storage device in which the image information is registered and stored, the image attribute information indicating the attribute of the image information, and the image information. It is also possible to include the document information management information associated with the document information related to. It is also possible to provide a designation unit for designating image attributes such as document size, resolution, reading density, and image input device as search information. It is also possible to provide display output control means for performing control to display and output desired image information and attributes such as document name, date, number of pages, and the like.

[0010]

According to the present invention, the recording control means registers and stores the image information and the management information related to the image information adjacent to each other in the storage area of the external storage device, and additionally stores the management information in the database. Thereby, when outputting the desired image information to be read out based on the management information, when outputting the desired image information to be read out of the management information, it is possible to output the image information at the same time as reading the management information, The mechanical operation of the external storage device is reduced as much as possible to speed up the reading operation, and at the same time, the office work efficiency of the image information is improved. In particular,
Mechanical operations can be reduced during sequential reading such as page turning, and the efficiency of business processing in which image information is frequently displayed and output is improved.

Further, as the search information, the image-based search can be carried out by the designation means for designating the document size, the resolution, the reading density, the image attribute such as the image input device. By the display output control means for controlling to display and output attributes such as image information, document name, date, number of pages, etc., an image can be found in advance and the attributes of the document obtained from the image information can be seen later. .

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of the apparatus of this embodiment, in which the same parts as those of the conventional apparatus shown in FIG. 3 are designated by the same reference numerals. In the figure, the image information retrieval apparatus according to the present embodiment includes an image input unit 1, a system control unit 2,
Document information search registration for searching and registering document information from the input / output control unit 3, external storage device 4, output control unit 5, display device 6, output device 7, document search information input unit 8, and system control unit The control unit 9 is provided in common with the conventional device shown in FIG. In addition to this configuration, the apparatus according to the present exemplary embodiment includes an image search information input unit 10 for inputting a condition such that a search target is image information, and image information for searching and registering image information based on image information, image attributes, and image identifiers. A search / registration control unit 11, an image attribute database control unit 12 that manages the image attribute database 14 by obtaining an image attribute identifier based on the image attribute information that writes the image information together with the image attribute in the external storage device 4, and the image information control unit 13. And a configuration including. The images ˜11, ˜12, and ˜13 form the recording control means 100.

Here, the image information input by the image input unit 1 such as a scanner or a microfilm is added with an image attribute by the system control unit 2 and the image information search / registration control unit 1 is added.
1, the image attribute database control unit 12 builds the image attribute database 20 in the external storage device 4.

FIG. 2 shows image information on the external storage device 4,
It is a schematic structure figure of an image attribute and an image attribute database.
In the figure, in the recording area of the external storage device 4, the image attribute database 14, the image-related information 15 and the document information 1 are displayed.
6 are stored in each individual area.

The image-related information 15 corresponds to the image information 17-1 to 17-n of the actual image data and the display image data and the image information 17-1 to 17-n, and manages each image. Image information management information 18-1 to 18-n and corresponding information 17-1 and 18-1 to 17-
n.18-n are stored in adjacent recording areas. Further, the image information management information 18-1 to 18-n
Is the image information position information 19-1 to 19-n having the contents of the next image information address and the previous image information address, and the image information managed by the image information management information 18-1 to 18-n. Image attribute information properties 20-1 to 20-n and image information 17-1 to 17-n, which are information as to what conditions (document size, resolution, reading density, image input device, etc.) are input by the unit 1. Document information management information 21-1 to 21 which is management information for the document from information related to the image such as information (identifier) of the document and the next image information (page) address of the image information 17-1 to 17-n. -N.

Next, the image search operation of the apparatus of this embodiment based on the above configuration will be described. First, the image search information input unit 10, which is a specifying unit for specifying an image attribute, inputs attributes such as a document size, resolution, reading density, and image input device of an image to be searched as search information. When the search information indicating the image attribute is input from the image search information input unit 10, the system control unit 2 gives the image attribute as the search target to the image information search registration control unit 11. The image information search registration control unit 11 obtains a desired image attribute identifier by giving the search image attribute information to the image attribute database control unit 12, and gives the list to the image information control unit 13 to obtain the image information 17-1 to 17. -N is read sequentially. The read image information 17-1 to 17-n is controlled by the system control unit 2 and reaches the display device 6 via the output control unit 5 to be displayed as an image. Since the image information 17-1 to 17-n and the image attributes 18-1 to 18-n are recorded in adjacent areas, if the identifier list is sequential, the mechanical operation is minimized and high-speed display is achieved.

When a document attribute display instruction of the image information 17-1 to 17-n is instructed from the document search information input unit 8, the system control unit 2 causes the image information search registration control unit 1 to operate.
1 and the document information search / registration control unit 9 are controlled as follows to display the document attributes. The image information search / registration control unit 11 uses the image attribute identifier as the image attribute database control unit 12
To obtain the document information management information 21-1 to 21-n in the image information management information 18-1 to 18-n. The document information search / registration control unit 9 obtains the document attributes from the document information management information 21-1 to 21-n as usual, and the document attributes are displayed on the display device 6 by a series of operations. Thus, according to such control, for example, when looking through the documents around us, the external storage device 4 in which the image information such as the A5 size slip, the A3 size drawing, the resume containing the photograph, etc. is stored. The desired image information 17-1 to 17-n can be searched earlier by searching the image information (document) first without using the document name and date, which are the document attributes, instead of searching. In this case, it is possible to efficiently search for images, and the efficiency of office work can be significantly improved. Moreover, it is highly practical because it can be controlled by adding to the conventional technology.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. For example, if the image input unit is a voice input unit, the image search information input unit 10 is a voice search information input unit, the image information search registration control unit 11 is a voice information search registration unit, and the image attribute database control unit 12 is a voice attribute database. The control unit and the image information control unit 13 can be implemented with the voice information control unit, that is, if the image information is the voice information and the image attribute is the voice attribute, various settings can be made according to the search target.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, in the storage area of the external storage device, the recording control means registers and stores the image information and the management information related to the image information adjacent to each other, and stores the management information. When the desired image information to be read out is output based on the management information by adding it to the database, the management information is read at the same time as the desired image information to be read out from the management information is output. Since the image information can be output, the mechanical operation of the external storage device can be reduced as much as possible to speed up the reading operation, and the office work efficiency of the image information can be improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an image information search device according to a practical example of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a registration storage format of a recording area of an external auxiliary storage device in the apparatus of this embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a schematic block configuration diagram of a conventional image information retrieval device.

[Explanation of sign]

 1 image input unit 2 system control unit 3 input / output control unit 4 external storage device 5 output control unit 6 display device 7 output device 8 document search information input unit 9 document information search registration control unit 10 image search information input unit 11 image information search Registration control unit 12 Image attribute database control unit 13 Image information control unit 14 Image attribute database 15 Image related information 16 Document information 18-1 to 18-n Image information management information 19-1 to 19-n Image information position information 20-1 To 20-n image attribute information 17-1 to 17-n image information 21-1 to 21-n image information management information

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An image in which an image input from an image input device is registered and stored in an external storage device, and desired image information is displayed and output by database management based on search information among the plurality of registered and stored image information. In the information retrieval device,
Recording control means for registering and accumulating the image information of the pre-input image in the image part storage device adjacent to the image management information relating to the image information, and for adding the image management information to a database and accumulating it in an external storage device. An image information retrieval device comprising: 2. The image management information includes image information position information that is self-address information of an external storage device in which the image information is registered and accumulated, image attribute information indicating an attribute of the image information, and document information related to the image information. The image information search device according to claim 1, further comprising document information management information to be associated. 3. The document size, resolution, and
3. The image information retrieval device according to claim 1, further comprising a designation unit that designates an image attribute such as a reading density and an image input device. 4. The image according to claim 1, further comprising display output control means for performing control to display and output desired image information and attributes such as document name, date, number of pages and the like. Information retrieval device.