JPH07325836A - Electronic publication system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide economical electronic publication for which a production period is short. CONSTITUTION:The coder 16 of a preparation part 15 reads digital information from a storage device 14 where information to be published is stored, converts it into digital signals and records them in a recording medium 12 in the form of visible signs. The recording medium 12 is distributed as electronic information paper. The distributed recording medium 12 is set, the scanner 20 of a reproduction part 19 reads the visible signs from the recording medium and the visible signs 12 are reproduced as digital signals by a decoder 22. A character conversion part 24 and a picture conversion part 25 convert the digital signals into character codes, decode them and expand them. A video signal generation part 26 outputs them as video signals to a video monitor 27. Thus, characters and graphics recorded in the recording medium 12 are displayed at the video monitor 27. A communication equipment 29 transfers the information to be published from the storage device 14 to another system by a communication line 28 and performs remote publication for supplying the publication information of the other system to the preparation part 15.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic publishing system, and more particularly to an electronic publishing system that issues a recording medium recording information. The invention also relates to a recording medium for electronic publication suitable for such a system, its issuing device and a reproducing device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The publication of publications has hitherto been mainly made of paper as a recording medium such as periodicals such as newspapers and magazines and books. For example, newspapers and publications such as pamphlets have typography and images printed on paper, and because these printed information contains many visible characters, there is a high degree of redundancy, and thus the increase in information further increases the space on those papers. It is thick. However, over time they have become just trash, compounding environmental and transportation difficulties.

Electronic publishing digitizes the issued information.
Record on a file recording medium such as a CD-ROM. Therefore, although it is advantageous in that redundancy is small and space is saved, it takes a long period of about one week to create a file recording medium in the case of a CD-ROM, for example. Therefore, the application to publications whose mission is immediacy, such as newspapers and weekly magazines, is
There are difficulties in terms of time. In addition, it requires highly specialized equipment and is not suitable for small business.

Online publication in which digital information to be printed is transferred through a communication line and visualized as readable information on a recording medium such as paper at a receiving terminal has immediacy,
This is advantageous in that a recording medium for transferring information is unnecessary. In addition, the high speed communication network is advantageous in the application example in which a large amount of data is transferred bidirectionally due to its nature. However, in general, one-way communication is sufficient for electronic publishing, and thus it is difficult to realize an economically advantageous system without the spread of suitable communication networks and terminals. For example, it is difficult to issue a national paper scale. there were. At this point, a simple ROM (Read-
Only Media) is more advantageous.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art and to provide an electronic publishing system that is suitable for existing printing equipment and has immediacy.

[0006]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, an electronic publication issuing apparatus according to the present invention stores a digital information from a storage means for storing information to be published in the form of digital information. Code conversion means for reading and converting to a corresponding visible code and recording means for recording the visible code on a recording medium are included.

According to the present invention, the recording medium is paper, and the recording means includes a printing device for printing the visible code on the recording medium.

Further, according to the present invention, an electronic device including code reading means for reading a visible code from a recording medium on which a visible code representing information to be published is recorded, and decoding means for converting the visible code into a corresponding digital code. A publisher playback device is provided.

The reproducing apparatus may further include image conversion means for converting the digital code into a video signal representing a character, and output means for visually outputting the character represented by the video signal.

The present invention further provides a recording medium for electronic publication, in which a visible code representing information to be published is recorded, and the visible code is a non-readable code whose meaning cannot be read by humans.

Further, the electronic publishing system according to the present invention is
Storage means for storing information to be published in the form of digital information, code conversion means for reading digital information from the storage means and converting it into a corresponding visible code, recording means for recording the visible code on a recording medium, and recording medium It is characterized by including a code reading means for reading a visible code from, a decoding means for converting the read visible code into a corresponding digital code, and an output means for visually outputting a character represented by the digital code.

[0012]

According to the invention, the information to be published is stored in the storage means in the form of digital information. Digital information is read from the storage means and converted into a corresponding visible code by the code conversion means. The recording means records the visible code on the recording medium. This recording medium is set in the code reading means, from which the visible code is read. The read visible code is converted into a corresponding digital code by the decoding means. The output means visually outputs the character represented by the digital code.

As a result, the density of the recording becomes higher than that of the character printing, and the recording medium becomes light and thin.
Since recording can use conventional printing and exposure techniques, the production period is as short as that of conventional printing and publishing. Also,
In an application example in which a plurality of systems transfer digital information via a communication network and share a recording device, the equipment scale is reduced.

[0014]

Embodiments of the electronic publishing system according to the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 shows an issuing system 10 of an electronic publishing system according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 shows a reproducing system 30 in the system. This system focuses on the fact that one-way communication from publishers is sufficient for printed publications such as newspapers and magazines, and electronic publications such as CD-ROMs, especially periodic publications. It aims to publish economically and quickly with a small amount of information-bearing media or publications. Therefore, in the publishing system 10, basically, the published information is recorded on the recording medium 12 such as paper with the mechanically readable visible code 11, and the reproduction system is used.
In 30, the reproducing unit 19 reads the visible code 11 of the recording medium 12, converts it into human-readable information such as characters and / or images, and outputs it. To record the published information on the recording medium 12, a conventional printing technique or photographic recording technique is used.
Further, for transfer to a remote place, data transfer in which published information is directly transmitted from the issuing system 10 in the form of digital data, and facsimile communication in which these are output as a visible code 11 at a terminal are advantageously applied.

In the present embodiment, the visible code 11 recorded on the recording medium 12 is composed of characters or images made up of simple marks such as a checkerboard pattern, a bar code and dots. The visible code 11 is a code that can be read mechanically, for example, optically, but is not necessarily a code that can be directly read by humans as meaningful information, that is, a character or a figure. Therefore, a large amount of information can be recorded in a small space as a code, that is, with a small degree of redundancy.

As the recording medium 12, for example, a visible information recording medium such as printing paper, ultra-high contrast microfilm, photographic film, photographic paper or photosensitive paper is advantageously applied. For recording binary data, ordinary resolution printing or photographic recording medium is sufficient, and for high resolution recording such as multilevel data recording requiring halftone, ultra-high contrast micro film, photographic film. Alternatively, a photographic recording medium such as photographic paper is advantageous. Appropriate recording media are selected according to the nature of the information. Microfilm requires a great deal of labor for copying in the private sector, and by using this, it is possible to prevent misuse of copying. In this embodiment, visible recording is applied, but a recording medium such as an optical sheet or a magnetic sheet may be used, or a rewritable medium may be used. The form of the medium 12 may be a sheet, a roll, a card, or the like. A roll medium is suitable for automatic search.

The publication information is recorded on the recording medium 12 by the recording device 17. The recording device 17 may be, for example, a printing device or a photographic recording device, depending on the nature of the recording medium 12. For example, when printing a dot mark as the visible code 11, a laser printer is suitable. In that case, for example, recording density 300 to 400 dots / inch (DPI)
It ’s fine. Further, when recording on a photographic film, high density recording having halftone can be realized. Like newspapers,
In an application example having characteristics such as immediacy, one-way communication, and no need for rewriting, the recording medium 12 of the present embodiment is the same as the existing printing equipment as compared with the conventional electronic publication such as CD-ROM, CD-I, and floppy disk. Is advantageous in that it can be used and can be published quickly.

The visible code 11 recorded on the recording medium 12 is read by the reproducing system 30 and converted into human readable information such as characters and / or images. The converted readable information is finally displayed on the video monitor 27 and output as a hard copy from the printer 43 (FIG. 5) as in the conventional electronic publishing.

Referring to FIG. 1, the issuing system 10 of the embodiment has a control unit 13, and the control unit 13 electronically publishes a newspaper or a book as a recording medium 12 by controlling each device section of the issuing system 10. It is an overall control device. The information to be issued is stored in the storage device 14, which includes a file storage device and a temporary storage device. In this embodiment, the coder 16 of the creation unit 15 is controlled by the SCSI (small computer system interface) bus 50. It is connected to the.

The creating unit 15 is a device that encodes the issued information into a visible code 11 and records it in the recording medium 12. This encoding is performed by the coder 16. The coder 16 has a buffer memory (not shown), and temporarily stores the issued information read from the storage device 14 at high speed in the buffer memory, and converts it into a digital signal representing the visible code 11, The output 52 at a speed corresponding to the recording operation of the recording device 17
It is an encoding circuit sent from the recording device to the recording device 17. The output 52 of the coder 16 is also connected to the communication device 29. These digital data may be subjected to code compression. Recording device
An output device 17 generates the visible code 11 from the digital signal and records the visible code 11 on the recording medium 12. If the recording medium 12 is paper, a normal printing device that prints on paper may be used. The recording device 17 is also a photographic exposure device for performing photographic printing if the recording medium 12 is a photographic film, and a magnetic recording device for a magnetic card.

Referring to FIG. 2, the reproduction system 30 includes a reproduction unit 19 and a video monitor 27. The reproducing unit 19 is a reproducing device in which the recording medium 12 is set, the visible code 11 carried by the recording medium 12 is read, and in the present embodiment, this is converted into a video signal, which is output to an output device such as the monitor 27. Scanner 20
It is an input device that sets a recording medium 12, optically scans it to read its visible code 11, and outputs a digital signal corresponding to it to its output 21. This output 21 is connected to a decoder 22, and the latter is a decoding device which converts the digital signal of the input 21 into character code and image data and outputs it to its output 23. The output 23 is connected to the character conversion unit 24 and the image conversion unit 25. The character conversion unit 24 inputs
A character generation circuit that generates a character signal corresponding to the character code input to 23, and the image conversion unit 25 is a functional unit that decodes and decompresses code-compressed image data and converts the image data into an image signal. These character signal and image signal are supplied to the video signal generator 26. The video signal generator 26 is a circuit that converts these signals into raster scan video signals and outputs them to the video monitor 27 in this embodiment. The video monitor 27 is an image output device such as a TV receiver that receives the video signal and visually displays the characters and figures represented by the video signal.

In this embodiment, the issuing system 10 is also a communication device 29.
Under the control of the control unit 13, the communication device 29 is connected to the communication line 28 and transmits the digital signal representing the visible code 11 output from the output 52 of the coder 16 to another system. Is. The communication line 28 may be a public communication network, and the called system may be, for example, a digital or analog facsimile terminal. Of course, when the communication line 28 is an analog line, the communication device 29 having a modem is applied. The communication device 29 also has a dotted line 54
As shown in FIG. 2, the information to be published received from another system may be stored in the storage device 14, or the information to be published may be read from the storage device 14 and sent to another system. This enables online remote publishing.

In the present embodiment, when electronically publishing a publication such as a newspaper or a book, the control unit 13 reads out the issued information stored in the storage device 14 to the coder 16 of the creating unit 15 at high speed. The coder 16 temporarily stores this in the buffer memory, converts it into a digital signal of the visible code 11, and sends it to the recording device 17. The recording device 17 generates the visible code 11 and records it on the recording medium 12. This recording medium 12 is delivered to the user by an ordinary transportation means.

When the published information is transferred to another remote system for remote publication, or when the visible code 11 is recorded on the recording medium 12 by the facsimile terminal, the control unit 13 controls the communication device 29. This is connected to the communication line 28. As a result, the other remote system can record the visible code 11 on the recording medium 12 using the same functional unit as the creating unit 15.
Further, the facsimile terminal can also obtain the recording medium 12 on which the visible code 11 is recorded.

The recording medium 12 thus delivered or transmitted and output is set in the reproducing section 19. The scanner 20 scans the recording medium 12 to read the visible code 11, and the digital signal thereof is converted into a character code and image data by a decoder 22. The character code is converted into a corresponding character signal by the character conversion unit 24, and the image data is converted into an image conversion unit.
Decrypted and decompressed at 25. The character signal and the expanded image signal are converted into a video signal by the video signal generation unit 26,
It is output as a visible image on the video monitor 27. In this way, on the screen of the video monitor 27, characters and figures corresponding to the visible code 11 recorded on the recording medium 12 are displayed.

When the recording device 17 prints the visible code 11 on the recording medium 12, for example, it becomes an index of the information content in relation to the portion of the recording medium 12 where the visible code 11 of the information content is recorded. The readable characters 60 (FIG. 3) may be printed. By doing so, when the visible code 11 of the recording medium 12 is read by the scanner 20, it is possible to determine the location of the desired information content from the printed readable characters and selectively cause the scanner 20 to read it. .

The electronic publishing system described above with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2 was dedicated to the electronic publishing function. On the other hand, FIG. 4 shows an embodiment of a system for recording, reproducing and online transferring electronic publication based on a general-purpose computer. In the figure, components similar to those in FIGS. 1 and 2 are designated by the same reference numerals. In this system, two systems 31 and 32 are communication networks 33.
It is connected to the. For example, one system 31 has a general-purpose personal computer 34 and a large-capacity file storage device 14 connected to it by a SCSI interface.
Published information is stored in 14. The other system 32
Similarly, it has a general-purpose personal computer 34 and a large-capacity file storage device 14 connected to it by a SCSI interface.

For example, the personal computer 34 of one system 31
Reads out the published information from the mass storage device 14 and sends it to the other system 32 via the communication network 33. The personal computer 36 of the other system 32 receives this and temporarily stores the published information in the storage device 14. Then the system 32
The personal computer 36 prints the published information through the bus 37.
It is sent to 38 and printed in the form of visible code 11 on the recording medium 12 as electronic information paper 41 (FIG. 5). With such a configuration, it is possible to share a large number of electronic information papers 41 and a printing device 38 that can issue the electronic information papers among a plurality of publishing systems 31 and 32.
Of course, the two systems 31 and 32 are merely examples, and the number of systems is not limited to this.

FIG. 5 shows an embodiment of a personal system 40 for reproducing the visible code 11 on the electronic information paper 41 as visible information. The system 40 has an electronic information paper player 42, which is a visible code on which the electronic information paper 41 is set and carries it.
This is a reading device that reads 11 and outputs a video signal similarly to the scanner 20. The system 40 also includes a video monitor 27 that visually displays characters and images, and a printer 43 that partially outputs the display screen of the monitor 27 as a hard copy.
Is equipped with. The printer 43 may be a video printer that makes a hard copy of a video signal, or may be a printer that prints with a character code before conversion into a video signal.

In operation, when the electronic information paper 41 is set on the electronic information paper player 42, the electronic information paper player 42
The visible code 11 carried by the device is read to output a video signal. This video signal is displayed on the video monitor 27 as characters and images. The printer 43 can output a portion designated by the mouse 44 in the video displayed on the display screen of the monitor 27 as a hard copy. In this way, by connecting the video output or character code from the playback system 40 to the printer 43, it is possible to create a hard copy of the desired portion, so that all information can be printed in readable characters such as newspapers. Compared to this, there is less waste and it is advantageous for environmental protection.

[0031]

As described above, according to the present invention, since electronic information paper can be prepared by using existing recording equipment such as a newspaper printing apparatus and a photographic film exposing apparatus, a conventional recording medium for electronic publication, for example, CD. Compared with electronic publishing using ROM, CDI, and floppy disk, it has the advantage of not requiring new capital investment. At present, the production period of a CD-ROM is, for example, about one week, but since the electronic information paper of the present invention can be published in several hours, it is suitable for publication such as newspapers requiring immediacy. The recording medium requires a small amount and is therefore easy to deliver.

Since information is digitized despite using such a recording medium, a database using this can be easily constructed. It can also be used for recording reservations of TV programs, for example. In that case, for example,
Software for copying the code of the target program on the display screen and specifying it with the pointer to set the reservation data can be created.

The present invention is applicable to all forms of publication such as newspapers, advertising publications, magazines and books.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an issuing system of an electronic publishing system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a reproduction system of the electronic publishing system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a recording format of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an electronic publishing system realized by a general-purpose system.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a reproduction-type personal system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10,31,32 Electronic publishing system 11 Visible code 12 Recording medium 13 Control unit 14 Storage device 15 Creating unit 16 Coder 17 Recording device 19 Playback unit 20 Scanner 22 Decoder 24 Character conversion unit 25 Image conversion unit 26 Video signal generation unit 27 Video Monitor 28 Communication line 29 Communication device 33 Communication network 34,36 Personal computer 40 Personal system 41 Electronic information paper 42 Electronic information paper player 43 Printer

Claims (13)

[Claims] 1. Storage means for storing information to be published in the form of digital information, and code conversion means for reading the digital information from the storage means and converting it into a corresponding visible code.
A publishing device for electronic publication, comprising: a recording unit that records the visible code on a recording medium. 2. The electronic publication according to claim 1, wherein the recording medium is paper, and the recording means includes a printing device for printing the visible code on the recording medium. apparatus. 3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording medium is a photographic recording medium, and the recording means includes a photographic recording device that records the visible code on the recording medium by photographic exposure. Issuing device for electronic publishing. 4. The electronic publication according to claim 1, wherein the device includes communication means for connecting the code conversion means to a communication line and transmitting the visible code to the communication line. Issuing device. 5. A code reading means for reading the visible code from a recording medium on which a visible code representing information to be published is recorded, and a decoding means for converting the visible code into a corresponding digital code. Playback device for electronic publishing. 6. The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the apparatus further comprises a signal converting means for converting the digital code into a video signal representing a character, and visually outputting a character represented by the video signal from the video signal. An electronic publishing reproducing apparatus comprising: an output unit. 7. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the signal converting means includes image converting means for decoding and expanding the digital code to generate a video signal representing an image. Playback device. 8. The reproducing apparatus for electronic publishing according to claim 6, wherein the output unit includes a video monitor for reproducing the character as a video. 9. The device of claim 5, wherein the device includes a printer for printing characters from the digital code as a hard copy. 10. The reproducing apparatus for electronic publication according to claim 6, wherein the output unit includes a printer for printing characters as a hard copy from the video signal. 11. A recording medium for electronic publication, wherein a visible code representing information to be published is recorded, and the visible code is a non-readable code whose meaning cannot be read by humans. 12. The recording medium according to claim 11,
A recording medium for electronic publication, wherein readable characters serving as an index of the information to be published are recorded on the recording medium in association with a corresponding visible code. 13. Storage means for storing information to be published in the form of digital information, code conversion means for reading the digital information from the storage means and converting it into a corresponding visible code, and the visible code on a recording medium. Recording means for recording, code reading means for reading the visible code from the recording medium,
An electronic publishing system comprising: a decoding means for converting the read visible code into a corresponding digital code; and an output means for visually outputting a character represented by the digital code from the digital code.