JPH06326902A - Picture input device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the efficiency of sorting at the time of storing data in a picture input device having a place attribute as a place name by detecting the longitude, latitude and height of an inputted picture by using a global positioning system, converting an inputted position into a place name by means of a place name dictionary and adding the converted place name to the picture as an index. CONSTITUTION:A position detecting means 1 detects the position of a system by using a global positioning system or the like. A memory 2 is constituted of a RAM 2-1 and a ROM 2-2, the RAM 2-1 is provided with an index storing part 2-11 and a picture storing part 2-12 and the ROM 2-2 is provided with a place name judging part 2-21 and a picture storage control part 2-22. The judging part 2-21 converts a detected position, i.e., the longitude, latitude, etc., into a place name by means of the place name dictionary 3 and the control part 2-22 edits information such as a place name and a date as an index and adds the index to picture data to store the data.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image input device having a place as a file attribute, and more particularly to an image input device having a place attribute as a place name.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, portable image input devices such as cameras, still cameras and handy video movies have been widely used. When the input image is stored as a photograph or the like, it is generally classified into items such as the input date and time and place.

In order to classify images, there is a function of a clock / calendar inside the apparatus, a method of automatically adding a creation (shooting) date and time to an image, a selection from pre-registered titles, etc. There are methods such as adding to the image.

The former method is widely implemented in cameras, handy video movies and the like. The latter method is realized by, for example, a digital title bank function of Hitachi 8 mm video camera VM-E27.

[0005]

When storing an image,
It may be difficult to remember the place name in a place that is not bright in the geography only by the creation date and time, or sufficient classification may not be possible due to forgetting the input place. Further, in the method of selecting from pre-registered titles, the information that can be added is limited to the number of registered titles, the work of selecting titles occurs, and classification is troublesome.

An object of the present invention is to make image classification efficient.

[0007]

In the present invention, a position detecting means utilizing a global positioning system (hereinafter referred to as GPS) or the like is used to detect an image input position (latitude, longitude,
Height) is detected, the input position is converted into a place name using a place name dictionary, and added to the image as an index.

With the above functions, the position where an image is input can be automatically used as an attribute of an image as a place name.

[0009]

According to the present invention, it is possible to automatically add information on the input position to the image in addition to the information on the date and time when the image was input, which has been added in the past. It is possible to improve efficiency.

[0010]

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a system configuration for realizing an image input device with a location attribute according to the present invention.

Reference numeral 1 in the figure is a position detecting means for detecting the position of the system by utilizing GPS or the like. In addition, GPS
Is a system that receives radio waves from artificial satellites and accurately measures the position (latitude, longitude, height) and moving direction in real time. It should be noted that a method of detecting a region by using an electromagnetic wave having a frequency specified for each region may be used as the position detecting means of the system.

Reference numeral 2 denotes a memory, which is RAM 2-1 and R.
The RAM 2-1 includes an index storage unit 2-11 and an image storage unit 2-12.
2 includes a place name determination unit 2-21 and an image storage control unit 2-22. The place name determination unit 2-21 uses the place name dictionary 3 to perform a process of converting the position (latitude, longitude) detected by the position detection unit into a place name, and the image storage control unit indexes information such as place name and date and time. As a result, a process of adding and storing the image data is performed.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a place name dictionary, which has an area corresponding to each place name as coordinate data and is managed as vector data. Reference numeral 4 is an image input means such as a TV camera or a scanner which is composed of a CCD or the like. Further, a device such as an optical lens that exposes an image to a film may be used. Reference numeral 5 is a display for visually confirming an image and an index. A storage medium 6 stores images such as magnetic media (magnetic tape, FD, etc.) and films. Reference numeral 7 is a code information input means for instructing switching of the place name level and selection of an index to be added to the image. Reference numeral 8 is a CPU that controls the entire system.

The flow of processing in this system is shown in FIG. In step 100, an image is input by the image input means and stored in the image storage unit. In step 102, the position (latitude, longitude, height) where the system is present is detected by the position detecting means. In step 104, the place name is determined from the detected position.

FIG. 3 shows a detailed processing flowchart of the place name determination in the place name determination unit. In step 200, the position (latitude, longitude) output by the position detecting means is read.
In step 202, the place name level is input by the code input means. If no place name level is entered,
The value set as the default is the place name level.

The place name level has a hierarchical structure as shown in FIGS. In this example, country, prefecture, city,
It is composed of 5 levels, town and chome. In step 204, the rectangular table is reconstructed according to the input place name level. An example of the rectangular table is shown in FIG. The rectangular table is the lowest-level component of the place name level (here,
"Chome") and rectangle information of each component are associated and managed. Although the rectangular table and the place name table are separately provided here, it is also possible to have only the place name table and create the rectangular table by using the coordinate data managed by the place name table. In this case,
Rectangular data can be created by calculating the maximum and minimum values of the x and y coordinates that make up the coordinate data.

The rectangular table is reconstructed by calculating the maximum and minimum values of the x and y coordinates forming the rectangular data having the same name at the designated place name level.

[0018]

## EQU00001 ## xs _k = min (x _km ) (m = 1, 2, ..., L) (1) ys _k = min (y _km ) (m = 1, 2, ..., L) _{... (2) xe k = max} (x km) (m = 1,2, ···, L) ... (3) ye k = max (y km) (m = 1,2, ···, L) (4) Here, L is the number of rectangles having the same name.

In step 206, rectangular data including the position output by the position detecting means is searched. Step two
At 08, it is identified whether or not the retrieved rectangular data is one.

FIG. 6 shows an outline of the inclusion determination process using a rectangle. (A) is the case where there is only one rectangle,
(B) is a case where the included rectangle is three. In (a), the position P output by the position detection unit exists in the region Fld12, and the circumscribed rectangle RCT1 of the other regions Fld12 to 13 is present.
Since 2 to 13 do not include the point P, it is possible to determine the area in which the point P exists only by the inclusion determination based on the rectangle. In (b), the point P exists in the region Fld21,
The circumscribed rectangles RCT22-23 of the other regions Fld22-23
Also includes the point P, it is necessary to make an inclusion determination for each area.

When the contained rectangular data is one, in step 220, the place name is registered in the index and the process is terminated. If there are a plurality of rectangular data to be included, the processes of steps 210 to 218 are executed. Step 21
At 0, the number of place name data corresponding to the rectangular data retrieved in step 206 from the place name table is set to K. In step 212, the place name data pointer j is initialized to 1. In step 214, the jth place name data is read from the place name table. In step 216, it is checked whether the area represented by the vector data of the place name data includes the position output by the position detecting means.

The principle of the inclusion check process is shown in FIG. 7, and an example of a process flow chart to be realized is shown in FIG.

As shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B, a half line PQ is drawn in an arbitrary direction from the point P which is the position output by the position detecting means. Here, the point Q is located outside the circumscribed rectangle of the closed region ABCDEFG so that the half line PQ is parallel to the x axis. Next, the half line PQ and the closed area ABCDE
Calculate the number of intersections with the sides of the FG. If the number of intersections is odd, the point P exists inside the closed region, and if it is even, it exists outside the closed region. In FIG. 7A, the half line PQ is the closed region A.
Since BCDEFG has three intersections of c1, c2, and c3, and the number of intersections is odd, the point P is a closed area ABCD.
Included in EFG. In FIG. 7B, the half line PQ is
Since there are two intersections of the closed area ABCDEFG and c1 and c2, and the number of intersections is an even number, the point P is the closed area ABCDE.
Independent of FG.

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of a process for realizing the inclusion check. Here, the vector data of the closed region is composed of N coordinates A _i (x _i , y _i ) (i = 1, N),
A _N and A ₁ are adjacent to each other. In step 300,
Determine the coordinates of point Q. The x-coordinate Qx is a value at a position shifted in the positive direction by s (s> 0) from the circumscribed rectangle of the closed region, and the y-coordinate Qy is the same value as the y-coordinate Py of the point P. In step 302, the intersection point counter is initialized to 0, and in step 304, the coordinate counter i of the closed region is initialized to 1.

In steps 306 and 308, it is determined whether or not the half line PQ and the half line A _i A _{i + 1} have an intersection point. If they do not have the intersection points, the processes from step 324 are performed. Performs the process of step 310.
In step 310, it is determined whether or not A _i (x _i , y _i ) is on the half straight line PQ. If it is not, the processing of step 320 and subsequent steps is performed, and if it is, the processing of step 312 is performed. . In step 310, a point A _i-1 and the point A _{i + 1} immediately after the immediately preceding A _i is determined whether or not on the same side, when on the same side performs processes in and after step 324, different If it is on the side, the process of step 312 is executed. In step 312, it is judged whether or not A _i-1 is on the half line PQ, that is, whether or not the half line A _i-1 A _i is on the half line PQ, and if not, step 320. The subsequent processing is performed, and if there is, the processing of step 314 is performed. In step 314, a point A _{i + 1} immediately after the point A _i-2 and A _i immediately before the A _i is determined whether or not on the same side,
If it is on the same side, the process from step 324 is performed, and if it is on a different side, the process of step 316 is executed. In step 316, whether A _{i + 1} is on the half line PQ, that is, the half line A _i A _{i + 1} is the half line PQ.
It is determined whether it is above, and if not, step 320
The subsequent processing is performed, and if there is, the processing of step 318 is performed. In step 318, the point immediately before the A _i A _i-1
And A _{i + 2} immediately after A _{i + 1} are on the same side, and if they are on the same side, the processes in and after step 324 are performed. Execute the process. In step 322, the intersection point counter c is incremented by 1, and in step 324, the coordinate counter i is incremented by 1. In step 326, the coordinate counter i
Checks if N exceeds N, and if it exceeds N, the processes in and after step 328 are performed, and if it does not exceed N, the processes in steps 306 to 324 are repeated.

In step 328, it is determined whether the intersection point counter c is an odd number or an even number (including 0). If it is an odd number, the point P is determined to be the inclusion point in step 330 and the process returns and is determined to be an even number. If so, the point P is determined to be an independent point in step 332, and the process returns.

Returning to FIG. 3, in step 218, it is discriminated whether or not the point P is an inclusion point, and if it is an independent point, step 2
In step 22, the place name data pointer j is incremented by 1 and the step
At 224, it is checked whether j exceeds N. If it exceeds N, error processing is executed at step 226, and if it does not exceed N, the processing of steps 214 to 218 is repeated. If it is the inclusion point, the place name is registered in the index in step 220 and the process returns.

Returning to FIG. 2, in step 106, an index is generated by using the place name, date, date and time, etc. In step 108, an index is added to the input image and the image is stored in the storage medium. 9 and 10 show examples of storage in the storage medium. FIG. 9 shows an example of storage in a magnetic storage medium such as a floppy disk or optical disk. Here, the created location 40-5 is the file name 40-1, the file attribute 40-2, the file ownership 40-3, the created date and time 40-.
4, the file size 40-6 and the like are stored as an index. Although the file format is used here for storing images, MS-DOS, UNIX
A file format in which an attribute relating to a location is added to the file management information managed by the conventional file system may be used. When using the latter file format,
It can be easily applied to the management of files created on mobile terminals such as mobile computers and pen input computers.

FIG. 10 shows an example of storage in a storage medium such as a film. In the case of a film, the generated place name 45-1 is exposed with the date 45-2 and the time (not shown).

(Second Embodiment) FIG. 11 shows an image input device section 50.
1 is a block diagram showing an example of a system configuration that realizes an image input device with a location attribute that separately configures -1 and a place name determination device unit 50-2.

Reference numeral 50-1 in the figure denotes an image input device section. Reference numeral 51 is a position detecting means for detecting the position of the system using GPS or the like, and the position (latitude, latitude,
Accurately measure the longitude and height. 52 is a memory,
It consists of RAM 52-1 and ROM 52-2, and RA
The M52-1 includes an index storage unit 52-11 and an image storage unit 52-12, and the ROM 52-2 includes an image storage control unit 52-22. 53 is an image input means,
The same as 4. A temporary storage medium 54, such as a floppy disk, an optical disk, or a magnetic tape, manages an image in association with a temporary registration index. Reference numeral 55 is a code input means, which is the same as 7. 56 is a CPU,
Control the entire system.

50-2 is a position determination device section. Reference numeral 57 denotes a memory, which includes a RAM 57-1 and a ROM 57-2, and the RAM 57-1 is an index storage unit 57-1.
1 and an image storage unit 57-12, and a ROM 57-2
Is a place name determination unit 57-21 and an image storage control unit 57-22.
Consists of. The place name determination unit 57-21 uses the place name dictionary 58 to convert the position (latitude, longitude) detected by the position detection unit into a place name, and the image storage control unit indexes information such as place name and date and time. As a result, a process of adding and storing the image data is performed. Reference numeral 58 is a place name dictionary, which has coordinate data of an area corresponding to each place name and manages the area as vector data. A storage medium 59 stores images such as magnetic media (magnetic tape, FD, etc.) and films. Reference numeral 60 denotes a code input means, which is the same as 7. Reference numeral 61 is a CPU that controls the entire system.

In this system, the image created by the image input device section is added to the position output by the position detecting means as a temporary storage index, stored in a temporary storage medium, and then temporarily stored by the place name determination apparatus section. An image is read from the medium, the temporary registration index is converted into a place name, and registered in the storage medium.

(Embodiment 3) FIG. 12 shows an image input device section 7
It is a block diagram which shows an example of a system configuration which implement | achieves the image input device with a location attribute which comprises 0-1 and the place name determination apparatus part 70-2 separately.

Reference numeral 70-1 in the figure denotes an image input device section.
Reference numeral 71 denotes an image input unit, which is the same as 4. Reference numeral 72 denotes a memory, which includes a RAM 72-1 and a ROM 72-2, and the RAM 72-1 is an index storage unit 72-1.
1 and an image storage unit 72-12, and the ROM 72-2 includes an image storage control unit 72-22. Reference numeral 73 is a code input means, which is the same as 7. 74 is a storage medium,
It is a storage medium that stores images such as magnetic media (magnetic tape, FD, etc.) and images. Reference numeral 75 denotes a communication unit that transmits / receives data to / from the place name determination device unit by wireless or a cable. A CPU 76 controls the entire system.

Reference numeral 70-2 is a place name determination device section. Reference numeral 77 is a position detecting means for detecting the position of the system using GPS or the like, and accurately measures the position (latitude, longitude, height) in real time. Reference numeral 78 is a memory, RAM7
8-1 and ROM 78-2, and RAM 78-
1 is an index storage unit 78-11 and an image storage unit 78-1.
2, the ROM 78-2 has a place name determination unit 78-21.
And an image storage control unit 78-22. Place name determination unit 78
-21 uses the place name dictionary 79 to convert the position (latitude, longitude) detected by the position detecting means into a place name,
The image storage control unit performs processing of adding information such as a place name and date and time to the image data as an index and storing the image data. 79
Is a place name dictionary, which has coordinate data of an area corresponding to each place name, and manages the area as vector data. 8
Reference numeral 0 is a communication means, which is the same as 75. Reference numeral 81 is a CPU that controls the entire system.

In this system, when an image is input by the image input means in the image input device section, the image is stored in the image storage section, and the place name determination device section is queried via the communication means to determine the place name. By transmitting the designated place name to the image input device section via the communication means, the image having the index to which the place name information is added is registered.

[0038]

According to the present invention, it is possible to automatically add information about an input position to an image in addition to the information about the date and time when an image is input, which is conventionally added.
It is possible to improve the classification efficiency when storing the images.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a system.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of processing.

FIG. 3 is a processing flowchart of a place name determination.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a rectangular table.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a place name table.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory view of determination of inclusion by a rectangle.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of the principle of inclusion check.

FIG. 8 is a processing flowchart of inclusion check.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram of a storage medium.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram of a storage medium.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram of a second embodiment of the system.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram of a third embodiment of the system.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Position detecting means, 2 ... Memory, 3 ... Place name dictionary, 4 ... Image input means, 5 ... Display, 6 ... Magnetic medium, 7 ... Code information input means, 8 ... CPU.

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An image input device comprising a position detecting means for detecting the position of the device itself on the earth, a photographing means for inputting a still image or a moving image, and a storage medium for storing an image and an index. An image input device, characterized in that the index is generated from the position on the earth detected by the detecting means, and the image inputted by the photographing means is accumulated in the storage medium together with the index. 2. A position detecting means for detecting the position of the own device on the earth, a place name judging means for converting the detected position into a place name, a photographing means for inputting a still image or a moving image, and an image and an index are stored. In the image input device provided with the storage medium, the position on the earth detected by the position detecting unit is converted into a place name by the place name determining unit, the index is generated, and the image input by the photographing unit is An image input device characterized by accumulating in the storage medium together with the index. 3. A photographing means for inputting a still image or a moving image, a storage medium for storing an image and an index, an image input section having a communication means, and a position detecting means for detecting the position of the own device on the earth. In the image input device including a place name determination unit that converts the detected position into a place name and a place name determination unit including a communication unit, when an image is input by the image capturing unit, the position detection unit is generated by the communication unit. On the other hand, the place where the image is input is inquired, and in the place name determining unit that receives the inquiry, the position on the earth detected by the position detecting unit is detected by the place name determining unit.
Converted to a place name, by the communication means, the place name is transmitted to the image input unit, the image input unit that received the place name, the place name is used to generate the index, the image input by the photographing unit, An image input device characterized by accumulating in the storage medium together with the index. 4. The place name determining means for converting a position included in the index into a place name, and a storage medium storing the image and the index, according to claim 1, wherein the position included in the index is the place name. An image input device for converting the place name into a place name by the judging means, generating the index, and accumulating the image input by the photographing means in the storage medium together with the index. 5. The place name judging means according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the place name is managed by a hierarchical structure, the place name is converted into a place name of a designated hierarchy, an index is generated, and an image inputted by the photographing means is An image input device for accumulating in the storage medium together with the index. 6. A position detecting means for detecting the position of its own device on the earth is provided, the position where the file is created and updated is detected by the position detecting means, and the information about the place is held as file management information. The file system to do. 7. A global positioning system is used as said position detecting means for detecting the position of said device on the earth according to claim 1, 2, 3 or 6, and information including latitude, longitude and height is provided. Image input device that outputs as position. 8. The method according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the place name determining means has coordinate data of an area corresponding to the place name, and when the area is managed as vector data, rectangular information corresponding to the place name is generated from the coordinate data. A place name judging means having a step of checking whether or not the detected position is included in the rectangular data, and a step of making an inclusion check of the area by using the coordinate data when there are a plurality of the rectangular data to be included. An image input device including.