JPH0686209A - Recording/readout method and recorder for image information - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To efficiently use memory by comparing data obtained by image pickup with image pickup data one before, taking out common image data from the data, storing data that is not the common data by setting them in a pair by the address information of the common data, and reading them out when reading is performed. CONSTITUTION:A connection part 1 is connected to a host device for an electronic still camera or an image information generator, etc., and the image information of a digital signal is inputted to a microprocessor 2. The microprocessor 2 decodes an instruction from the device, and stores it in a PROM 3 in which image data is computed, and the connection part 1, the processor 2, and the PROM 3 are incorporated in one card. A control part 4 which decodes the instruction from the connection part 1 and controls the operation of the inside of the processor 2, an arithmetic part 5 which performs count processing corresponding to the kind of the instruction, a ROW 6 which stores an internal control program and fixed data, and RAMs 7, 8 which store data transiently are provided in the inside of the processor 2, and they are conformed to screen information of one time of photography.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image information recording / reading method and an image information recording apparatus, and more particularly to a recording technique for efficiently using a recording capacity.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Electronic still cameras have been put into practical use.
A magnetic recording medium is used as a recording medium for image information. However, if a semiconductor memory is used in addition to the magnetic recording medium, the recording device can be downsized and the recording medium itself can be easily handled. For example, if the recording medium is an IC card such as a memory card, convenience is increased.

[0003]

Since the price of a semiconductor memory device increases as the storage capacity increases, the memory capacity is limited in order to keep the price low. If the memory capacity is small, the capacity for storing captured image data is small and the amount of recorded information is limited.

Although the memory capacity can be efficiently used by using the image information compression technique, on the other hand, the image deterioration occurs due to the removal or deformation of a part of the information due to the compression.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of recording and reading image information and a recording apparatus for the same, which can effectively use a memory without causing image deterioration.

[0005]

Generally, when continuous shooting is performed by a still camera, the backgrounds of consecutive shots are almost the same in most cases. For example, a commemorative photo of a person corresponds to that case.

In such a case, since the background image information can be viewed as common image data by taking the previous and subsequent shots, the common image data is recorded once on the recording medium, not repeatedly. After that, even if only the image data that is not common to the address information of the common data is recorded, the captured information amount is not lost.

Since the amount of address information is much smaller than the amount of common image data such as the background, the effect of reducing the amount of recorded information is extremely large. The present invention has been made in this way.

The image information recording method according to the present invention includes a step of temporarily storing given image information for each predetermined image data unit amount, and the unit amount of image data temporarily stored for the nth time (n is an integer). A step of comparing the image data of the unit amount temporarily stored in the (n + 1) th time to detect common image data of both image data; and address information in the image data of the unit amount of the common image data. And n + 1
And a step of accumulating in the storage means a group of the image data of the unit amount of the image data stored the second time, which is not the common image data.

A method of reading the image information recorded by the image information recording method according to the present invention comprises a step of reading address information of the common image data paired with the unit amount of image data from the storage means, Reading the common image data from the storage means based on address information of the common image data, and reading the image data of a portion other than the common image data from the storage means,
And storing it in another temporary storage means in combination with the common image data.

The image information recording apparatus according to the present invention is means for temporarily storing given image information for each predetermined image data unit amount, and an image of the unit amount imaged n times (n is an integer). First storage means for temporarily temporarily storing the data and the image data of the unit amount captured at the (n + 1) th time, and the image data of the unit amount captured at the nth time (n is an integer) and (n + 1) Means for comparing the image data of the unit amount imaged for the second time to detect common image data of both image data, address information in the image data of the unit amount of the common image data, and (n + 1) ) A second storage means for accumulating a plurality of the unit amount of image data for storing the unit amount of the image data of the unit amount which is not stored as the common image data of the unit image data stored the second time. .

[0011]

The image data obtained by photographing is compared with the immediately preceding photographed image data, common image data is taken out from the image data, and the address information of the common image data and the non-common image data are paired. And store it in the storage means.

When reading image data, common image data and non-common image data are read based on the address information.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A method and apparatus for recording and reading image information according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an image information recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. Image information of a digital signal is input to the microprocessor 2 via a connecting unit 1 which is connected to a higher-order device such as an electronic still camera or an image information generating device (not shown).

The input image information includes a command to the microprocessor 2 in addition to the image data of the image itself. In addition to image information, audio information can be input and recorded.

The microprocessor 2 decodes the instruction from the host device, arithmetically processes the image data, and stores it in the PROM 3. The PROM 3 has a storage capacity similar to that of a general photographic film, for example, about ten to several tens of still image data and some audio data can be stored.

The connecting portion 1, the microprocessor 2 and the PROM 3 are built in one card and are integrally formed. However, the form and shape are not particularly limited in the present invention.

A commercially available microprocessor 2 can be used. The inside thereof is a control unit 4 that decodes an instruction sent from the connection unit 1 and controls the operation inside the microprocessor 2, an arithmetic unit 5 that performs a numerical calculation as necessary according to the type of instruction, and an internal control. ROM 6 for storing programs and fixed data, and RA for temporarily storing image data
It is composed of M7 and RAM8.

FIG. 2 shows a recording mode of image data in the PROM 3. Image and sound data are recorded in a plurality of clusters, and a logical set of them is represented by a unit of "packet".
Image information and the like are stored in the information recording areas of packet 1 to packet n (n is an integer). One packet corresponds to image information of one shooting.

As shown in FIG. 3, one packet is composed of two areas of a bank packet header and bank packet data. The bank packet header records address information indicating the location of common image data. Bank packet data stores actual image data and audio data.

Next, the procedure of recording image information in the PROM 3 by the microprocessor 2 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. One packet of captured image data is input to the microprocessor 2 via the connection unit 1,
First, the RAM 7 stores the current (n + 1-th shot) actual image data for one packet (one shot). RA
M8 stores the actual image data one shot before (nth shot) for one packet.

The PROM 3 stores past captured image data for 1 to n packets as shown in FIG. Therefore, the most recent one-packet image data of the PROM 3 corresponds to the image data stored in the RAM 8. PR
OM3 corresponds to conventional photographic film.

The amount of image data for one shot temporarily stored in the RAM 7 or RAM 8 is 512 Kbits. Here, 512K bit image data is set to 1
It is subdivided so as to be composed of 512 units of small areas of K bits.

At step 10 of FIG. 4, (n +
1) The first 1K-bit unit is taken out from the image data of the first time, further the first 1K-bit unit is taken out from the image data of the nth time of the RAM 8 at step 11, and both unit data are compared at step 12.

If both data match, P in step 13
The unit address of the common unit that matches the bank packet header of the (n + 1) packet of the ROM 3 is recorded. At the same time, also in step 14, the unit address of the common unit that matches the bank packet header of the (n) packet of the PROM 3 is recorded.

The reason why the address of the common unit is recorded in the bank packet header of the (n) packet is to have the information that the common data is supplied to the (n + 1) packet.

If it is determined in step 12 that both unit data do not match, in step 15 (n +
1) Record the unit address of the unmatched unit in the bank packet header of the packet.

Further, in step 16, (n +
1) The image data of the unit that does not match the bank packet data of the packet is recorded. In step 17, it is checked whether all the units have been recorded. If it is not the final unit, the process proceeds to step 18, the next 1K-bit unit is designated, and the corresponding data of the n packet and the (n + 1) packet are compared with each other. Repeat ~ 16. When all 512 Kbit units are compared and recorded, the recording operation is completed.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart for explaining the read operation of the image data recorded in the PROM 3. In step 20, when an external device (not shown) issues an instruction to read image data of the (n + 1) th shot to the microprocessor 2, the address information of the bank packet header of the (n + 1) packet is read from the PROM 3 in step 21.

In step 22, it is checked from the address information whether or not there is common data in another packet, that is, the previous (n) packet. If there is no common data, the bank packet data of (n + 1) packets is read from the PROM 3 in step 23, and the image data of the bank packet data is read in the RAM 7 or RA in step 24.
Record on M8.

If it is determined in step 22 that there is common data, the bank packet data of the (n) packet designated by the address information is read out in step 25, and in step 24 the image data of the bank packet data is stored in the RAM 7 or RAM 8. To record. As a result, the common data and the non-common data are recorded in the RAM 7 or the RAM 8. The above-described operation is performed in the unit of 1 Kbit unit like the recording, and it is determined in step 26 whether or not the final unit has been executed.

When the final unit has not been executed, the next 1K bit unit is designated in step 27, and steps 20 to 26 are repeated. When the processing is executed up to the final unit, the flow of FIG. 5 ends.

It goes without saying that various modifications and applications can be made by those skilled in the art based on the disclosure of the embodiments of the invention described above.

[0034]

According to the present invention, the image data obtained by photographing is compared with the immediately preceding photographed image data, the common image data is taken out of the image data, and the address information of the common image data is obtained. Since image data that is not common is stored as a set in the storage means, the required memory capacity can be reduced and the memory can be used efficiently without degrading the image information.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an image information recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a data storage form in a PROM.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a structure of packet data.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of data recording of the recording device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for reading data from the recording device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1-Connect unit 2-Microprocessor 3-PROM 4-Control unit 5-Computing unit 6-・ ROM 7, 8 ・ ・ ・ ・ RAM

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A step of temporarily storing given image information for each predetermined image data unit amount; image data of the unit amount temporarily stored at the nth time (n is an integer) and temporarily stored at the (n + 1) th time The step of comparing the image data of the unit amount to detect the common image data of both image data; the address information in the image data of the unit amount of the common image data and the n + 1th time of storage. And a step of accumulating the image data of a portion other than the common image data in the unit amount of image data in a storage unit. 2. The image information is digital data representing a still image, the image data unit amount corresponds to digital data of the still image of one sheet, and the step of detecting the common image data is Subdividing digital data of one still image into a plurality of predetermined small units, and comparing the n-th image data with the (n + 1) -th image data for each subdivision small unit, In the step of accumulating in the storage means, the address information of the common image data of the subdivision small unit and the image data of the portion other than the common image data in the (n + 1) th stored image data are grouped. The image information storage method according to claim 1, wherein the image information is stored in the storage means. 3. A method for reading out image data stored by the storage method according to claim 1 from said storage means, wherein said common image data paired with said unit amount of image data is stored from said storage means. Reading the address information, reading the common image data from the storage means based on the address information of the common image data, and reading the image data of the portion that is not the common image data from the storage means, And a step of storing it in a separate temporary storage means in combination with the common image data. 4. The step of reading the address information, the step of reading the common image data from the storage means, and the step of storing the common image data in the temporary storage means are performed for each subdivision small unit. How to read the described image information. 5. Means for temporarily storing given image information for each predetermined image data unit amount, wherein the unit amount of image data imaged at the nth time (n is an integer) and the (n + 1) th time image pickup The first storage means for temporarily temporarily storing the image data of the unit amount, the image data of the unit amount imaged at the n-th time (n is an integer), and the unit amount of image data captured at the (n + 1) -th time. Means for comparing image data to detect common image data of both image data; address information in the image data of the unit amount of the common image data and the unit amount stored in the (n + 1) th time Image data storage device having a second storage means for accumulating a plurality of the unit amount of image data for storing a part of the image data of the image data other than the common image data. 6. The image information is digital data representing a still image, and the first storage means can store two image data unit amounts corresponding to one digital image of the still image. The memory device is a readable / writable memory device at any time, and the unit for detecting the common image data subdivides the digital data of the one still image into a plurality of predetermined small units and the n-th image data ( The comparison with the (n + 1) th image data is performed for each subdivision small unit, and the second storage unit stores the address information of the common image data of the subdivision small unit and the (n + 1) th stored image. 6. The image information storage device according to claim 5, wherein the image information storage device is a programmable memory device that stores a pair of image data of the data that is not the common image data.