JPH0668754B2 - Image retrieval device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial field of application] The present invention, when searching stored image information, displays a reduced image of a stored image and mainly characters before displaying the searched image. The present invention relates to an image search device capable of promptly specifying a target image by displaying search auxiliary information consisting of.

[Prior Art] In the conventional image search, most of the search means mainly use the registration date of the image, the keyword indicating the content of the image, or the like.

Also, for example, as reported in the IPSJ 28th (first half of 1984) National Convention 5C-1, save or manage a reduced image as data separately from the searched image, or search for the searched image at the time of search. It is also proposed to perform a search by reducing and displaying.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, the amount of information of keywords and the like is overwhelmingly smaller than that of images, and when the number of accumulated image information increases, it becomes difficult to specify a target image, There is no choice but to perform a trial-and-error search in which an error is noticed only after displaying the searched image itself.

In addition, in the conventional method that uses reduced image data for retrieval,
There is a problem that any one of the storage storage capacity, the buffer storage capacity, the display speed of the searched image and the display speed of the reduced image is sacrificed.

In view of the above point, the present invention displays a plurality of sets of reduced images of search target images and search auxiliary information at the time of search without requiring duplicate data or unreasonably large buffer storage, and one of the sets is designated as an indicating means. An object of the present invention is to provide an image search device that can perform a search by instructing using.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The image search device according to the present invention has a memory
An n-bit parallel writing bit map type display means composed of a chip, a storage means for storing data in accordance with a storage format composed of search auxiliary information, a high frequency reduced image, a low frequency reduced image and complementary information, and a searched from the stored data It is provided with a control means for reproducing the image, its 1 / n reduced image, and search assist information, and by this, both the image to be inspected and its 1 / n reduced image can be displayed at high speed. The present invention further includes an instruction means for instructing an image to be displayed from a plurality of sets of search auxiliary information displayed for search and the 1 / n reduced image.

[Operation] In storing each image data, 1) search assist information mainly consisting of characters, 2) reduction image composed of a bit group extracted by dividing 1 bit into n bits from data forming the searched image Among them, the frequently used part, 3) the same as above, the remaining part of the reduced image, and 4) the information for restoring the searched image by complementing the combination of 2) and 3) are stored in this order. Then, the sum of the information amounts of 2), 3) and 4) is equal to the bit image amount of the searched image.

According to this data format, at the time of displaying the reduced image, it is sufficient to read from the storage means up to 2) or 3). When displaying the searched image, first 2), 3)
Each bit of is written discretely, and then 4) is written in between. These operations are accomplished by the control means as follows, and time-consuming work such as cutting out bits and repeating shifts is unnecessary.

The control means is provided with an address conversion function for each memory chip as a part thereof, and all the memory chips are given the same address when displaying a reduced image, and each bit of 2) and 3) is discretely provided. When writing, all different addresses are given to the respective memory chips, and when writing 4), each of the memory chips is given one of two addresses that differ by only one address.

Since the above address conversion function can be realized by combinational logic, a storage element is unnecessary.

[Embodiment] An embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIG. For convenience of explanation, it is assumed that this embodiment has a 4-bit parallel write bit map type display means. Therefore, in this case, n = 4 in the figure
Is. The four memory chips 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 included in the display means correspond to the four bits to be written in parallel, respectively. The four bits stored at the same address in the four memory chips are displayed as four horizontally adjacent dots. Since the four memory chips are independent devices, they can be written to different addresses in parallel or to the same address in parallel. This is controlled by the address translation function forming part of the control means by supplying independent addresses to the four memory chips.

When performing an image search according to the present embodiment, first, as shown in FIG. 2, a card image in which a plurality of reduced images each having a size of 1/4 are superposed is displayed, and, for example, a mouse or a tablet is displayed on this screen. Alternatively, when "file 2" is selected by an instruction means such as a light pen, the searched image "file 2" is displayed in its original size. In FIG. 2, "File 2", "File 3", "File 4", and "File 5" are partly hidden by the cards placed in front of them, and only the inverted L-shaped portion is overturned. It is displayed. In the present embodiment, this inverted L-shaped portion is a high-frequency reduced image of each image. Also, although "File 1" is displayed in a rectangular shape,
It is also composed of an inverted L-shaped high-frequency reduced image and a low-frequency reduced image that is a small rectangle.

Each file is stored in the data format shown in FIG. That is, the search assist information is at the top, and the high-frequency reduced image is next. In order to perform the display of FIG. 2, it is sufficient to read up to the frequently reduced image for “file 2”. In the illustrated example, the character string "file 2" is stored at the end as the search assist information, but for this display, it is necessary to specify the display position in addition to the character size and the writing direction. This display position (Xa, Y
a) is generally a function of the position (Xi, Yi) of the image and an integer n indicating the number of images from the front, Xa = f (Xi, Yi, n) Ya = g (Xi, Yi, n) ), The search assist information includes f and g.

Also, "file 2" is "file 1" in FIG.
When the card is first in front of the card group, even a low-frequency reduced image is read and displayed.

That is, when the image information to be displayed is the first image, the high-frequency reduced image and the low-frequency reduced image are used, and when the image information is the second and subsequent images, only the high-frequency reduced image is used. Since the reduced image is divided into the high-frequency reduced image and the low-frequency reduced image and stored, it is not necessary to read the portion hidden by the card coming in front, and the reading speed is increased.
In addition, there is no need to cut off the hidden part at the time of display, and the card image can be displayed quickly.

Now, in the case where the "file 2" thus reduced and displayed is selected and the entire "file 2" is displayed, in this case, all the data including the complementary information is required. A rectangular reduced image can be easily obtained by combining the high-frequency reduced image and the low-frequency reduced image. It is considered that the reduced image is enlarged four times in the horizontal and vertical directions and the gap is filled by using the complementary information. If one word of the reduced image, that is, each bit in 4 bits written in parallel is numbered as shown in FIG. 4 a), the original image can be restored by 4 as shown in b).
^It must be expanded to ² words and the gap must be filled with complementary information. Conversely, from the original image 16 words shown in FIG. 4 b)
Data of 15 words excluding 4 bits extracted as a 1/4 reduced image is complementary information. Since all of the 4 bits extracted as the reduced image belong to the first row, the second row, the third row, and the fourth row can be restored by simply writing back the complementary information. Regarding the first row, the reduced image data and the complementary data are combined and restored by supplying separate addresses to the four memory chips constituting one word. First, each bit of the reduced image is discretely written into each word forming the first row by the address conversion mechanism of the control means. Incidentally, in the present embodiment, the words adjacent to each other in the horizontal direction have different addresses, and the addresses increase toward the right. When discrete writing is performed, there is an interval of exactly 4 bits, and therefore the address conversion function is also used to write one word of complementary information in parallel there.

In this way, it is possible to restore and display the search target image at approximately the same speed as in the case of the conventional example in which reduced image data and search target image data are stored separately.

In FIG. 4, writing between and is called interpolation 0, writing between and is called interpolation 1, and writing between is called interpolation 2, and the address conversion functions required in this example are As shown in FIG. 5 for each memory chip, that is, four addresses are given different addresses to each memory chip at the time of discrete writing, and when the complement is 0, only one bit is given to the memory chip of bit 0 from the others. If a complementary address is given, a memory chip of bits 0 and 1 is given a larger address by one than the memory chip of bits 2 and 3 when complement 1, and a memory chip of bit 3 when complement 2 It is sufficient to give an address smaller than the others by 1 and to give the same address to four memory chips at the time of other accesses.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, it is preferable to provide an address adder for each memory chip to add to the reference address according to the type of writing.

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION Since the image search device of the present invention provides more information to the user at the time of image search in a more easy-to-receive manner, the image search efficiency can be significantly improved, and data can be duplicated. Therefore, it is possible to avoid the waste of storing.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an image retrieval apparatus of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of a display at the time of image retrieval in an embodiment of the present invention,
FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram of a format for storing image information in the present invention, FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram showing how a searched image is restored from reduced image data and complementary information, and FIG. 5 is an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 6 is a diagram summarizing the address conversion function required in FIG. 6, and FIG. 6 is a diagram in which the address conversion function is realized by using an adder. 1 ... Bit map type display means 1.0, 1.1, ..., 1.n-1 ... Memory chip forming part of display means 2 ... Storage means 3 ... Control means 3A ... Address conversion function 4 ... Indication means

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An n-bit parallel writing bit map type display means for displaying search auxiliary information consisting of an image, a name, etc., and an image, of the data constituting the image, the image is reduced to 1 / n. What is also used in 1 / n reduced image,
The high-frequency reduced image data and the low-frequency reduced image data are bisected and stored, and further, complementary data capable of complementing the high-frequency reduced image data and the low-frequency reduced image data to restore the image is stored. At the same time, a storage unit that stores the search auxiliary information, and the display unit that reproduces either the image, the 1 / n reduced image, or the search auxiliary information from the data stored in the storage unit. And a command means for selecting and indicating what the display means should display, and a plurality of groups of the 1 / n reduced image and the search assist information are displayed at the time of image retrieval, and An image retrieval device that causes one of the sets to be selected by the instructing means and restores the selected set to the image and displays the image.