JPH06292159A - Picture transmitter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To send picture data via a communications circuit by using a modulation circuit so as to modulate picture data picked up by a camera section into an audio signal and outputting the signal as audio data. CONSTITUTION:The transmitter is provided with a television tuner section 4, a liquid crystal display section 5 displaying a received video image received by the television tuner section 4, and a camera section 6 picking up an object picture as picture data. Then the picture data picked up by the camera section 6 are modulated into an audio signal at a modulation circuit 7 and prescribed picture data modulated into an audio signal by the modulation circuit 7 are outputted from a speaker section 8 as audio data. Furthermore, the transmitter is provided with a picture compression circuit 9 compressing the picture data picked up by the camera section 6 and the modulation circuit 7 modulates the compressed picture data by the picture compression circuit 9 into an audio signal, then the compressed picture data are utilized as picture data to be sent and data are sent efficiently.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image transmitting device,
More specifically, the present invention relates to an image transmission device that transmits image data via a communication line.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, C which is one of general display devices
In place of RT (Cathode Ray Tube), liquid crystal televisions that use a liquid crystal display device for the display device are becoming popular due to their advantages of being lightweight and thin, and are widely used in the fields of in-vehicle use and sports watching, for example. There is.

In particular, recently, for example, a liquid crystal television which has been downsized so that it fits in a chest pocket of a shirt has been developed, and it has become possible to carry the television at any time while commuting or on a business trip. There is.

[0004]

However, in such a conventional liquid crystal television, the liquid crystal television is configured to receive television radio waves and display only the received image data on the liquid crystal display device. The only images that could be viewed by were the received images of the television broadcast.

On the other hand, although there are many opportunities to use a telephone while out of the office, naturally only a voice can be transmitted by the telephone.

As described above, it is unreasonable that only voice can be transmitted when using a telephone while carrying a liquid crystal television capable of viewing images.

The present invention has been made in view of such a background, and an object thereof is to transmit predetermined image data using a communication line.

[0008]

The means of the present invention are as follows.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, a television tuner section 4, a liquid crystal display section 5 for displaying a received image received by the television tuner section 4, and a subject image as image data. A camera unit 6 for capturing, a modulation circuit 7 for modulating the image data captured by the camera unit 6 into an audio signal, and a speaker unit for outputting predetermined image data modulated by the modulating circuit 7 into an audio signal as audio data. 8 is provided.

In this case, as in the invention described in claim 2,
It is effective to provide an image compression circuit 9 for compressing the image data taken in by the camera section 6, and the modulation circuit 7 is effective to modulate the compressed image data compressed by the image compression circuit 9 into an audio signal.

Further, as in the third aspect of the invention, it is preferable that the liquid crystal display section 5, the camera section 6 and the speaker section 8 are integrally formed in a housing constituting the apparatus main body 2. Further, in this case, as in the invention described in claim 4, it is effective that the image data taken in by the camera unit 6 is stored in a removable memory card in the housing.

[0012]

The operation of the means of the present invention is as follows.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the image data taken in by the camera unit is modulated into the audio signal by the modulation circuit and is output as the audio data by the speaker unit, so that the image data is transmitted through the communication line. Can be transmitted.

In this case, as in the invention described in claim 2,
An image compression circuit for compressing the image data captured by the camera unit is provided, and the modulation circuit compresses the compressed image data compressed by the image compression circuit into an audio signal to compress the image data to be transmitted. Since the compressed image data that has been compressed can be used, data can be transmitted efficiently.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the size of the entire apparatus can be reduced by integrally forming the liquid crystal display section, the camera section, and the speaker section in the housing constituting the apparatus main body. You can

Further, as in the fourth aspect of the present invention, by storing the image data captured by the camera unit in the removable memory card in the housing, a plurality of image data can be easily stored. .

[0017]

EXAMPLES Examples will be described below with reference to FIGS.

2 to 5 are views showing an embodiment of the image transmitting apparatus according to the present invention.

First, the structure will be described. FIG. 2 is an external view of the image transmitting apparatus of the present invention viewed from the front side.
[FIG. 3] is an external view of the image transmitting apparatus of the present invention as viewed from the rear side. The same parts as those in the block diagram shown in FIG. 1 are designated by the same reference numerals, and a case where an analog telephone general subscriber line is used as a communication line will be described below.

In FIG. 2, the image transmitting apparatus 1 is roughly divided into an apparatus main body 2 and a power source section 3, and the apparatus main body 2
Is composed of a case made of reinforced plastic having a size of 65 mm in length, 60 mm in width, and 24 mm in thickness, and the front part of the apparatus main body 2 has a liquid crystal display unit 5 in the case as shown in FIG. The camera section 6 is integrally provided, and the speaker section 8 is integrally provided on the back surface of the apparatus body 2 as shown in FIG.

The power source unit 3 is mounted on the lower portion of the apparatus main body 2 to supply a predetermined power source current to the apparatus main body 2. Specifically, it contains a dedicated Ni-Cd storage battery. It consists of a battery pack. In the present embodiment, as the power supply unit 3 attached to the lower portion of the apparatus main body 2, a battery pack having a dedicated NiCd storage battery is described as an example. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and for example, a AAA alkaline A dry battery pack that contains five dry batteries, an AC adapter that uses an AC (alternating current) power supply,
A car adapter that uses a DC (direct current) battery from a cigarette lighter portion of an automobile may be used.

The liquid crystal display unit 5 is a TFT type active matrix liquid crystal display device having a screen size of 1.4 inches, and has three primary colors of R (Red) and G (Green).
n), and a high resolution color liquid crystal display panel of 220 × 279 = 61380 pixels in which pixels corresponding to B (Blue) are arranged in a delta shape.

As shown in FIG. 2, the camera unit 6 is a small CCD (Charge Coupled Device) camera which is detachably provided in the same plane direction as the display surface of the liquid crystal display unit 5, and is connected via a video cable 6a. It is connected to the device body 2.

The speaker section 8 is composed of, for example, a dynamic type cone speaker, and as shown in FIG. 3, a speaker hole 8b bored inside a sound insulation wall 8a which is erected on the back surface of the apparatus main body 2 in an annular shape. To output audio data. In this embodiment, a dynamic cone speaker is described as an example of the speaker unit 8, but the present invention is not limited to this, and a speaker used in the speaker unit 8 may be, for example, a capacitor type or a flat panel type. It may be an all-drive type speaker or a dome speaker.

As shown in FIG. 2, the device main body 2 includes a power switch 11, a power indicator 12, a tuning button 13, a volume dial 14, an earphone terminal 15, a video on / off switch 16, a video switch 17, Various operation switches such as the image capture switch 18 are provided.

The power switch 11 is a switch for selecting whether or not to energize the image receiving apparatus 1 with the power supply voltage supplied from the power supply section 3, and the power indicator 1
2 is composed of an LED (Light Emitting Diode),
The light is turned on when the power switch 11 is turned on.

The tuning button 13 is for instructing up or down of the tuning frequency, and the volume dial 14 is for adjusting the earphone volume.

The earphone terminal 15 is a terminal for connecting an earphone that also serves as a wire antenna, and also has a function as an antenna terminal.

The video on / off switch 16 is a toggle switch for instructing the liquid crystal display unit 5 whether or not to display an LCD screen, and the video changeover switch 17 is a liquid crystal display unit 5.
The image capture switch 18 is a toggle switch for switching and displaying either the television broadcast reception screen or the image data captured by the camera unit 6 as the image to be displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 5. It is a switch for instructing to store the stored image in a predetermined memory as image data.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the image transmitting apparatus 1 shown in FIGS. 2 and 3. In FIG.
The image transmission device 1 includes a power supply unit 3, a TV tuner unit 4, a liquid crystal display unit 5, a camera unit 6, a modulation circuit 7, a speaker unit 8,
The image compression circuit 9, the control circuit 10, and the key operation unit 10a are included. The modulation circuit 7, the speaker unit 8, the image compression circuit 9, the control circuit 10, and the key operation unit 10a are connected to the bus B, respectively. .

As described above, the power supply section 3 is composed of a battery pack containing a Ni-Cd storage battery, and when the power switch 11 is turned on, a predetermined power supply voltage is applied to each section in the apparatus body 2. To supply.

The TV tuner unit 4 includes a tuner 21 and
The tuner 21 is configured by an ADC 22 and selectively receives a predetermined television radio wave and outputs a video signal to the buffer memory 30 in the image compression circuit 9 via the ADC 22. It converts an input video signal which is an analog signal into a digital signal.

As shown in FIG. 4, the liquid crystal display section 5 has a DD
(Display Driver) 23 and LCD (Liquid Crystal D
isplay) 24. In addition, in FIG.
IN connected to D23 is a video input terminal and OUT is a video output terminal.

The DD 23 is a display driving unit that drives the LCD 24 to display an image on the LCD 24 based on a video signal captured by the camera unit 6 or a video signal input from the video input terminal IN.
Specifically, the input video signal is converted into an analog video signal (analog RGB signal) of a predetermined bit by 220 × 279 pixels and output to the LCD 24.

The LCD 24 is composed of a color liquid crystal display device having a liquid crystal panel (not shown), and the LCD 24 in this embodiment has a small flat fluorescent tube (not shown) as its backlight (backside illumination). Is used.

The camera section 6 includes a lens 25 and a CCD 26.
And ADC 27.

The lens 25 is an optical lens made of glass or plastic provided in the main body 2 of the image transmitting device 1. The CCD 26 generates an electric signal based on the intensity of the light imaged by the lens 25. The electric signal (analog signal) is output to the ADC 27.

The ADC 27 converts the image signal (analog signal) input from the CCD 26 into a signal (digital signal) that can be processed in the image compression circuit 9.

As shown in FIG. 4, the modulation circuit 7 is composed of a buffer memory 28 and a data modulator 29.

The buffer memory 28 includes a data modulator 29.
It temporarily stores and holds the compressed image data to be modulated by.

The data modulator 29 includes a buffer memory 28.
The digital signal held in the communication line (in this case,
"Modulato (modulato) that converts and transmits to a transmission signal (analog signal) that can be transmitted by analog telephone general subscriber line)
r)) ”, and the data modulation unit 29 in the present embodiment captures image data by voice using an analog telephone general subscriber line, so that the data transmission rate is 1200 bps. It is set.

For example, as shown in FIG. 5, the speaker section 8 is bored inside the sound insulation wall 8a by pressing the sound insulation wall 8a standing on the apparatus main body 2 against the mouthpiece of the receiver 101 of the telephone. Speaker hole 8b (see Figure 3)
The voice data is output to the mouthpiece via the. The sound insulation wall 8a is made of, for example, a flexible member such as synthetic rubber.

The image compression circuit 9 includes a buffer memory 30,
Data compression unit 31, video memory (VRAM) 32, D
It is composed of an AC (Digital to Analog Converter: D / A converter) 33.

The buffer memory 30 includes a data compression unit 31.
The compressed image data that has been data-compressed by is temporarily stored and held, and the image data stored in the buffer memory 30 in a compressed state is output to the modulation circuit 7 based on a control command from the CPU 35. .

The data compression section 31 uses a predetermined encoding method for the image data stored in the video memory 32, that is,
Depending on the type of image to be handled (still image in this case), for example, JPEG (Joint Photographic (Coding) Expert
s Group) algorithm performs compression (encoding) processing based on DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform), quantization, and Huffman encoding for each 8 × 8 pixel block, and buffers the compressed image data. It is output to and stored in the memory 30, and in this case, a maximum of 409 with 110 × 160 pixels via the communication line.
Image data to be sent as a 6-color (12-bit) color video signal is composed of a luminance signal corresponding to 220 × 279 pixels (hereinafter referred to as Y signal) and a color signal corresponding to 4096 colors (hereinafter referred to as C signal). It has a function of processing as a YC signal, and the above-mentioned 220 × 279 pixel 12-bit digital image data is converted into 110 × 160 pixel 12-bit image data. Note that the data compression rate of the compressed image data to be transmitted is about 7/100 (about 68/1000) from the relationship with the image quality after compression / decompression.
Has become.

The video memory 32 is a VRAM (Video R
AM) and is a semiconductor image memory for storing original image data (digital data) to be compressed by the data compression unit 31.

The DAC 33 converts the image signal (digital signal) of the image data stored in the video memory 32 into a signal (analog signal) that can be displayed by the liquid crystal display unit 5 and outputs it. In this embodiment, since the analog data driver is used as the data driver of the LCD 24 described above to perform the multi-gradation display, the DAC is used.
Although a (D / A converter) is required, for example, when a digital data driver is used as the data driver of the liquid crystal display unit 5, the DAC 33 becomes unnecessary.

The control circuit 10 includes a CPU (Central Process).
sing unit) 34 and RAM (Rand-om Access Memory)
35 and a ROM (Read Only Memory) 36.

The CPU 34 outputs various control signals for controlling the respective parts in the image receiving apparatus 1 to the respective circuits via the bus B, and the CPU 34 outputs the image compressing circuit 9
The compressed image data input from the bus B via the bus B is output to the modulation circuit 7 via the bus B.

The RAM 35 is a semiconductor memory for storing program data used in the program processing executed by the CPU 34, compressed image data, audio data, and the like.

The ROM 36 is a semiconductor memory that stores programs and data used in the image transmitting apparatus 1.

The key operation unit 10a is for turning on the above-mentioned image.
It is composed of various operation key switches such as an off switch 16, a video changeover switch 17, an image capture switch 18, etc. When the key switch is pressed, the CPU 34 executes a process corresponding to the key switch.

The bus B includes a demodulation circuit 7, an image compression circuit 9,
It is a common signal path for connecting the control circuit 10 and the key operation unit 10a, and is composed of an address bus for instructing an address and a data bus for transferring data.

The image data handled in this embodiment is color image data of 4096 colors (12 bits) with 110 × 160 pixels on one screen, and the image data amount for one screen is 11
It becomes 0 × 279 × 12 = 211200 bits (about 25.8 kilobytes). This is about 68 / by image compression processing.
The data is collectively compressed into 1000 to obtain 14400-bit image data, and this 14400-bit is set to 1 per second.
200 bits each are transmitted, that is, 12 seconds (= 144
(00/1200), an intermittent still image is transmitted at a rate of one frame.

Therefore, the data actually transmitted in one second is image data of 17600 bits (about 2.15 kilobytes) obtained by dividing 211200 bits by 12, and the image data of 17600 bits is about 68.
The video code is compressed to / 1000 and includes 1200-bit image data.

In general, a liquid crystal display device is extremely thin as compared with an image display means such as a CRT, and it is easy to reduce the size and weight, and an active matrix type LCD.
Compared with a simple matrix type LCD, a finer control of halftones is possible, a high contrast ratio can be secured, and the response speed is fast. Therefore, high image quality and multi-gradation color display are required. It is an effective device in the field, and particularly, an active matrix type LCD using a TFT which is a three-terminal element can obtain a high image quality comparable to that of a CRT.

In the present embodiment, in order to further utilize the excellent advantages of this liquid crystal display device, a flat fluorescent tube is used as the backlight, and the size is further reduced.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described.

First, the operation of the control circuit 10 shown in FIG. 4 will be described. The CPU 34 in the control circuit 10
The program corresponding to the processing operation of
It is stored in the ROM 36 in 0.

The image transmitting apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment.
Receives a television broadcast by the television tuner unit 4,
Each operation mode of displaying the received broadcast on the liquid crystal display unit 5, that is, a mode of operating as a so-called television and a mode of operating as an image data transmitting device by transmitting predetermined image data from an analog telephone general subscriber line. Is equipped with.

When operating as a television, the power switch 11 is turned on and the tuning button 13 is operated to tune to a radio wave from a desired television broadcasting station to display a television image on the liquid crystal display portion 5 and an earphone terminal. The sound is heard from the earphone connected to 15. The earphone volume is adjusted by the volume dial 14, and the optimum volume is set.

If only the voice is desired to be received at the time of receiving the television broadcast, the display of the television image on the liquid crystal display unit 5 is turned off by pressing the image on / off switch 16.

When operating as an image data transmitting device,
First, the operation mode is changed by pressing the image changeover switch 17, and as shown in FIG. 5, the sound insulation wall 8a formed on the back side of the device main body 2 is attached to the mouthpiece of the handset 101 of the telephone during communication. It is pressed to bring the speaker unit 8 into a standby state for outputting audio data.

In this state, the image data taken in from the camera section 6 is converted into digital data and then stored in the video memory 32, and the image data stored in the video memory 32 is compressed by the data compression section 31. It is stored in the buffer memory 30.

Then, the compressed image data stored in the buffer memory 30 is output to the bus B based on the instruction of the CPU 34, and is temporarily stored in the buffer memory 28 in the modulation circuit 7 via the bus B.

Next, the data modulator 29 sequentially reads the written compressed image data from the buffer memory 28, modulates the read compressed image data, and the modulated compressed image data is output as audio data from the speaker unit 8. It is output and transmitted to the communication partner via the communication line (in this case, the analog general subscriber line).

On the other hand, the image data (digital data) written in the video memory 32 is D / A converted by the DAC 33 and output to the DD 23, and the DD 23 displays the image data on the LCD 24.

Here, when the image changeover switch 17 is pressed, a television broadcast reception screen is displayed as an image to be displayed on the LCD 24, and when it is pressed again, it is transmitted via the analog telephone general subscriber line. The image data is displayed. The above switching display is alternately performed every time the video switch 17 is pressed.

Furthermore, when the operator wants to record a self-portrait (transmission image) displayed on the LCD 24 during a call, the operator depresses the image capturing switch 18,
The image data stored in the buffer memory 27 is the RAM 3
Stored in 5.

In this case, as described in the above transmission processing, the data amount of the compressed image data for one screen is about 2.
Since it is 5.8 kilobytes, if the image data storage area of the RAM 35 is 256 kilobytes, about 10
Up to the screen can be stored.

If the condition of the communication line is deteriorated during communication and the quality of the image to be transmitted is remarkably lowered, the image data is automatically transmitted by the judgment of the CPU 34 based on the image data to be transmitted. You may make it stop.

As described above, in this embodiment, based on the data transmission rate (1200 bps) of the compressed image data transmitted via the communication line, the image data for one screen (211200 bits) displayed by the LCD 24 is displayed. ) Is transmitted at a rate of 1 screen for 12 seconds, whereby a high-quality image is transmitted on the analog general subscriber line. That is, the screen size of the LCD 24 is 1.4 inches, and one screen is 110 × 160 pixels × 12 bits (409
6 colors) = 21 1200 bits of data, so 1
Image data is transmitted at a rate of one frame every two seconds, but image data for one screen is transmitted as the number of pixels and the number of colors (number of gradations) in one screen increase and decrease as the screen size changes. The time to do is changed.

Specifically, for example, the mode for transmitting image data in 4096 colors is set to the normal mode, and the same number of pixels (1
When the mode for displaying 65536 colors (16 bits) with 10 × 160 pixels) is set to the high image quality mode, when transmitting image data in the high image quality mode, the image data amount for one screen is 110 × 160 × 16 = It becomes 281600 bits (about 34.4 kilobytes), which is 1 when the data is compressed to about 68/1000 by the image compression process.
It is image data of 9200 bits, and this 19200 bits is divided by the number of bits (1200 bits) that can be transmitted in 1 second (that is, 19200 ÷ 1200 = 16).
Intermittent still images are transmitted at a rate of 1 frame per second).

Further, in the conventional apparatus, in order to previously record the image to be transmitted, another recording apparatus (for example, an audio cassette tape recorder) is required for recording, but in the present embodiment, , Large capacity RAM35
When it is desired to record an image captured by the camera unit 6 in advance by mounting the, the desired image can be easily saved by pressing the image capture switch 10. In this case, RAM3
As shown in FIG. 6, a memory card 51 composed of a non-volatile flash memory or the like may be used instead of 5, and the image to be transmitted is stored in the memory card 51, so that the memory card 51 can be replaced. This allows multiple images to be saved.

In this case, the memory card 51 storing a plurality of image data can be printed out by mounting the memory card 51 in a video printer 61 as shown in FIG. 7, for example.

FIG. 7 is an external view showing an example of the video printer 61. In FIG. 7, 62 is the memory card 51.
The video printer 61 outputs 8-bit 256 gradations (16.77 million colors) for each of the three primary colors R, G and B. Is a sublimation type thermal transfer color printer.

Specifically, first, after mounting the memory card 51 in the slot 62 of the video printer 61, the power switch 63 is turned on and the various operation switches 64 are turned on.
Is operated to select any image data stored in the memory card 51, and the selected image data is
It is printed out on 6-size dedicated paper.

Further, the conventional device is generally made on the assumption that it is a stationary type, and once installed, it cannot be moved to another place for use. Due to the high image quality of the liquid crystal display device, by adopting a color TFT type liquid crystal display device instead of the conventional CRT as the display device, it is possible to reduce the power consumption and to reduce the size and weight of the device. ing. In this case, since a small flat fluorescent tube is used for the backlight used in the liquid crystal display device, LC
The D24 part can be made even thinner, and the size and weight can be greatly reduced.

The ADC 22 for outputting the input signal from the tuner 21 to the buffer memory 27 is provided with a composite video input / output terminal, an analog / digital RGB input / output terminal or the like as a video input terminal so that a video cassette recorder (VCR) or It is also possible to connect to a video device including a laser disc player (LDP), a computer, or the like. For example, by connecting a video cassette recorder or the like having a video output terminal, a video image is displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 5. Is also possible.

The image data compression method is not limited to the JPEG algorithm in this embodiment, and may be, for example, a block coding method, a predictive coding method, an orthogonal transform coding method, or the like.

[0081]

According to the present invention, in the invention described in claim 1, the image data taken in by the camera section is modulated into the audio signal by the modulation circuit and is output as the audio data by the speaker section. The image data can be transmitted via the.

In this case, as in the invention described in claim 2,
An image compression circuit for compressing the image data captured by the camera unit is provided, and the modulation circuit modulates the compressed image data compressed by the image compression circuit into an audio signal to compress the image data to be transmitted. The compressed image data that has been compressed can be used, and data can be transmitted efficiently.

According to the third aspect of the invention, the size of the entire apparatus can be reduced by integrally forming the liquid crystal display section, the camera section, and the speaker section in the housing constituting the apparatus main body. You can

Further, as in the invention described in claim 4, by storing the image data taken in by the camera unit in the detachable memory card in the housing, a plurality of image data can be easily stored. .

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an image transmitting apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an external perspective view of the image transmitting apparatus according to the present embodiment as seen from the front direction.

FIG. 3 is an external perspective view of the image transmitting apparatus according to the present embodiment as viewed from the rear side.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a main configuration of an image transmitting apparatus in this embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view for explaining an operation example of the image transmitting apparatus according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 6 is an external perspective view of an image transmitting apparatus according to another embodiment.

FIG. 7 is an external view showing an example of a video printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Image transmission device 2 Device body 3 Power supply unit 4 TV tuner unit 5 Liquid crystal display unit 6 Camera unit 7 Modulation unit 8 Speaker unit 8a Sound insulation wall 8b Speaker hole 9 Image compression circuit 10 Control circuit 10a Key operation unit 11 Power switch 12 Power indicator 13 Tuning button 14 Volume dial 15 Earphone terminal 16 Video on / off switch 17 Video switch 18 Image capture switch 21 Tuner 22 ADC 23 DD 24 LCD 25 Lens 26 CCD 27 ADC 28 Buffer memory 29 Data modulator 30 Buffer memory 31 Data compression Part 32 Video Memory 33 DAC 34 CPU 35 RAM 36 ROM 51 Memory Card 61 Video Printer 62 Slot 63 Power Switch 64 Various Operation Switches B Bus

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A television tuner section, a liquid crystal display section for displaying a received image received by the television tuner section, a camera section for capturing a subject image as image data, and an image data captured by the camera section for audio. An image transmitting apparatus comprising: a modulation circuit that modulates a signal, and a speaker unit that outputs predetermined image data that is modulated into an audio signal by the modulation circuit as audio data. 2. An image compression circuit for compressing image data captured by the camera unit, wherein the modulation circuit modulates the compressed image data compressed by the image compression circuit into an audio signal. The image transmission device according to claim 1. 3. The image transmitting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the liquid crystal display section, the camera section, and the speaker section are integrally formed in a housing forming the apparatus main body. 4. The image transmitting apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the image data taken in by the camera unit is stored in a removable memory card in the housing.