JPH08305725A - Picture file management for picture information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To enable a user to easily manage picture information even when plural magneto-optical disk drives are connected. CONSTITUTION: At the time of registering picture information, a virtual drive number recording picture information, a file name, picture size, an encoding format, ID information for distinguishing plural magneto-optical disks, etc., are recorded in addition to retrieving information such as a title name and a keyword. The virtual drive number and plural drive names, e.g. (C:) and (D:), capable of recognizing the OS of a system control part 101 correspondingly to the virtual drive number are recorded in a drive management table 111. When a user loads a magneto-optical disk to either one of the drives (C:) and (D:), the control part 101 discriminates the drive (C:) or (D:) from the table 111 and the ID information of the magneto-optical disk concerned is reproduced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image information processing apparatus in which image information and search information are associated with each other and registered in a storage device, and desired image information is searched and read from a plurality of registered image information. Regarding

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the increase in the amount of information, the rationalization of paperwork, and the paperless process, documents such as documents and drawings are optically read, and the read image information is compressed to have a large capacity such as a magneto-optical disk. 2. Description of the Related Art An image information processing apparatus that records in a storage medium and retrieves, displays, or prints image information stored in the storage medium as necessary has been put into practical use. For example, there is “Optical Disk Filing System SOF-FS21” manufactured by Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.

In order to record the image information obtained by using some input means in the storage device and read the image information from the storage device after the fact, the information artificially added to the image information and the image information are inevitably added. Attribute information such as the associated image size, resolution, and encoding method is recorded in the storage device as search information at the same time as the recording of the image information. When the recording of the image information and the search information is regarded as a cohesive series of operations, the series of operations will be referred to as “registration” below.

Further, a part or all of the above-mentioned search information is designated, a list of desired image information is created from a plurality of registered image information, and the image information that is truly necessary is created from the list. Hereinafter, the series of operations for reading from the corresponding storage device will be referred to as “search”.

A computer system in which a user can freely select and connect a hard disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM, a printer, or the like as needed by technical innovation of computer systems / peripheral devices and standardization of input / output interfaces. Has been realized. In some computer systems, a unique name (hereinafter, drive name) is added to a connected storage device (hereinafter, drive) for management. For example, in the case where one floppy disk drive, one hard disk drive, and one magneto-optical disk drive are connected, management is performed by specifying drive names as "A:", "B:", and "C:" in the above order. . The user uses these storage media by specifying the drive name,
It is possible to use it without being aware of the difference in media.

Due to the speeding up and cost reduction of computer systems, an increasing number of systems have realized image information processing apparatuses using the computer systems. In the case of a system configuration having the above-mentioned three storage devices, the search information is recorded on a hard disk characterized by a higher input / output speed than the magneto-optical disk, and the image information is recorded on the hard disk. By recording on a magneto-optical disk characterized by having a large capacity, image information having a large amount of information can be efficiently managed.

The search information includes document names, registration dates, keywords added for managing individual image information, and attributes such as image size, resolution, encoding method, used capacity, and the image. The image file name is included as the name of the file in which the information is recorded. When the image information is searched for and read out, the image information is specified by a document name, a keyword, etc. from the search information, and is read out using the image file name and the image attribute. The image file name is composed of a drive name and a file name such as “C: DOC00001.IMG”.
The "C:" part indicates a drive name such as a magneto-optical disk drive. This makes it possible to access the correct image file stored on the magneto-optical disk.

In such a computer system, a user can freely add a hard disk drive or a magneto-optical disk drive. When adding a hard disk drive or a magneto-optical disk drive, a drive name is assigned with a new connection configuration. When one magneto-optical disk drive is added to the system configuration having the above-mentioned three storage devices, a drive name "D:" is assigned to the new magneto-optical disk drive. The user can use the magneto-optical disk by mounting the magneto-optical disk in the drive "C:" or the drive "D:", but "C: DOC00" is used as the image file name of the search information.
001. With the method of specifying "IMG" and the like including the drive name, the magneto-optical disk must be mounted on the "C:" drive when reading the image information.

That is, in order to read out the image information, it is necessary to mount it in the magneto-optical disk drive mounted when the image information was registered. When such a mounting instruction is used to record a large amount of image information or is used by a plurality of users, it is difficult to correctly manage the correspondence with the magneto-optical disk drive used when the image information was registered.

Further, depending on how to add a hard disk drive or a magneto-optical disk drive, the magneto-optical disk drive, which was the "C:" drive before, is
There is a problem that it becomes a "D:" drive. In such a case, since the image information in the system configuration having the above-mentioned three storage devices is stored as “C: DOC00001.IMG” as the search information of the image information, it cannot be read correctly. This can be handled by rewriting "C:" in the image file name as "D:", but for all search information managed as "C:" managed in the image information device It is necessary to rewrite "C:" as "D:". If the number of image files is large and the rewriting process is performed every time the connection configuration is changed, the effective use of the image information processing device is hindered.

[0011]

As described above, in an image information processing apparatus in which a hard disk drive and a magneto-optical disk drive can be freely configured, when a plurality of magneto-optical disk drives are connected, a user reads out image information. Sometimes it must be installed in the same magneto-optical disk drive as when it was registered. In addition, it cannot flexibly respond to changes in the configuration of the connected drive.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and a user can easily manage image information when a plurality of magneto-optical disk drives are connected or when the connection drive configuration is changed. It is an object of the present invention to provide an image information processing device that can be used.

[0013]

[Means for Solving the Problems] Having one or more storage devices for recording image information, recording search information for searching the image information, and recording based on the search information. In an image information processing apparatus that retrieves desired image information from a plurality of pieces of image information, as a method of identifying the storage device in which the image information is recorded, numerically managing the storage device with a drive management table is characterized. According to the image information management method described above, or the image information and the search information are associated with each other and recorded in one or more storage devices, and among a plurality of image information recorded based on the search information. In an image information processing apparatus for searching for desired image information, a search file including information specifying a storage device in which image information is recorded corresponding to each image information, and a search file The image information in the search file is recorded by an image information processing apparatus including a search information recording / reproducing processing unit that processes recording and reproduction, and a drive management table that numerically manages the storage device. By recording the virtual drive number in the drive management table and the file name indicating the storage position in the storage device as the information of the storage device, it becomes possible to avoid specifying the physical drive name.

[0014]

In the present invention, the drive management table is set prior to registration and retrieval of image information. In the drive management table, correspondence between virtual drive numbers and actual physical drive names is made.

For example, when two magneto-optical disk drives are connected, virtual drive number 1 is set as drives "C:" and "D:". When the magneto-optical disc is initialized, ID (identity / identification) information of the magneto-optical disc for distinguishing a plurality of magneto-optical discs is recorded at predetermined positions on both the magneto-optical disc and the search file. At the same time, information that the virtual drive number 1 is used at the time of registration / search is also recorded in the search file.

At the time of registration of image information, the user mounts the magneto-optical disk on the magneto-optical disk drive of either the drive "C:" or "D:", and after inputting the search information, the image information is recorded. . The image information processing apparatus according to the present invention detects from the search file that the registration processing is related to the virtual drive number 1, and further, according to the drive management table, the magneto-optical disk of the drive "C:" or "D:". It turns out that the registration is related to the drive. The ID information stored in the search file is reproduced by sequentially reproducing the ID information of the magneto-optical disk mounted on the magneto-optical disk drive.
Image information registration / reading is performed on the magneto-optical disk that matches the information. Moreover, even if the connection configuration of the magneto-optical disk drive is changed, it is possible to register and read correctly even after the change by simply changing the correspondence between the virtual drive number in the drive management table and the actual drive name. Is.

[0017]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings showing the embodiments thereof.

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

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing the recording format of the search file. The image attribute information corresponding to the number of registration times of the image information is recorded classified by the ID information of the magneto-optical disk and the virtual drive number.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing the recording format of the drive management table. All corresponding actual drive names are recorded for each virtual drive number.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of the setting screen of the drive management table, and the setting can be changed on this screen every time the connected drive is actually changed.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the control procedure of the initialization processing of the magneto-optical disk.

FIG. 6 is a schematic view of a screen for executing the initialization of the magneto-optical disk. The name of the magneto-optical disk and the actual magneto-optical disk drive to be used are designated on this screen.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for registering image information.

FIG. 8 is a schematic view of the registration screen. In the display of this screen, the paper size, resolution, and title name or keyword to be added regarding the image information to be registered are input and designated.

In FIG. 1, a main controller 1 has a scanner 2 for optically scanning and reading image information to be input and converting it into dot data, a display 3 for performing control display and output display, and image information. The magneto-optical disk drive 4 in which the magneto-optical disks 4 and 5 for storing
Magneto-optical disk drives 6 and 7 for performing registration / reproduction with respect to 5 and 5, a keyboard 8 for input, and a mouse 9 as a pointing device are connected as peripheral devices.

The main controller 1 is constructed as follows.

First, the system control unit 101 includes a memory and an operating system (hereinafter, referred to as an OS) which is configured by a microcomputer for performing various controls and stores the control procedure. Next, scanner I / F
The (interface) circuit 102 controls an interface with the scanner 2. Further, the display memory 103 stores data such as image information output and displayed on the display and data such as control information. The display control unit 104 controls the display of the information stored in the display memory 103 on the display 3. The compression / expansion unit 106 performs compression / expansion processing of image information recorded on the magneto-optical disks 4 and 5 or read from the magneto-optical disks 4 and 5.
The buffer memory 107 temporarily stores data such as compressed image information before decompression or after compression. The drive I / F 108 controls the I / F between the magneto-optical disk drives 6 and 7 and the system controller. Search file 10
Reference numeral 9 indicates search information added by a user when the image information is registered, such as a title and a keyword, and image information recording destination and image information attribute information such as image size, resolution, encoding method and data length. Record. The search file recording / playback unit 110 records / plays back the search file 109. The drive management table 111 is a table for managing a plurality of magneto-optical disk drives with one virtual drive number.

In the search file 109, search information such as a title name and a keyword input by a user when registering image information, a virtual drive number recording the image information, a file name, an image size, a resolution, and a code. The recording method, data length, and ID information for distinguishing a plurality of magneto-optical disks are recorded in the format shown in FIG.

In the drive management table 111, a virtual drive number and a plurality of drive names corresponding to the virtual drive number and recognized by the OS of the system control unit 101 are recorded in the format shown in FIG.

The user operates the image information processing apparatus of this embodiment by tapping the keyboard 8 or operating the mouse 9 as a pointing device.

Next, a method of setting the drive management table in the image information processing apparatus of this embodiment having the above configuration will be described.

First, the user uses the keyboard 8 and the mouse 9 to start the work of setting the drive management table 111. The system control unit 101 receives the instruction to start the setting work for the drive management table 111 and transfers the drive management table setting screen shown in FIG. 4 to the display memory 103. The drive management table setting screen data transferred to the display memory 103 is displayed on the display 3 by the display control unit 104. After that, the display processing of various control screens is performed in the same procedure.

The system control unit 101 reproduces and displays the latest setting information from the drive management table 111. The user inputs the drive name assigned to the virtual drive number using the keyboard 8. The drive name is used to specify the magneto-optical disk drive and is managed by the OS of the system control unit 101.

For example, it is assumed that the magneto-optical disk drive 6 is a "C:" drive and the magneto-optical disk drive 7 is a "D:" drive. In order for the user to be able to register and retrieve image information regardless of whether the magneto-optical disk drive 6 or 7 is equipped with the magneto-optical disk,
Both “C:” and “D:” are set as the actual drive names for the virtual drive number 1. Although not shown in FIG. 1, when a hard disk drive is connected as another storage device for registering image information,
For another virtual drive number, for example virtual drive number 2, enter the drive name corresponding to the hard disk drive. The user clicks the setting key with the mouse after inputting all the input work, and the system control unit 101 stores the setting information after the input change in the drive management table 111.

Next, FIG. 5 as a control procedure of initialization processing of the magneto-optical disk 4 used for registration of image information of this embodiment.
The flow chart of FIG.

The user uses the keyboard 8 and the mouse 9 to instruct the start of initialization work (P1: P means process). In response to the start instruction, the system control unit 101 displays the magneto-optical disk initial screen shown in FIG. 6 on the display 3 (P2).

The magneto-optical disk to be initialized is mounted in the magneto-optical disk drive 6 or 7, and the magneto-optical disk drive name ("C:" or "D:") in which the magneto-optical disk is mounted by the keyboard 8 and the mouse 9. Enter
An instruction to start the initialization execution process is given (P3). The system control unit 101, which has received the instruction to start the initialization execution process, formats the magneto-optical disk by the OS (P4), reproduces the drive management table 111 (P5), and then drives the drive management table 11
The virtual drive number in 1 is searched for including the drive name input by the user (P6). The system control unit 101 records the virtual drive number obtained in the process P6 in a predetermined location in the search file 109 (see FIG. 2) (P
7). Further, the ID information for identifying the magneto-optical disk is recorded in the search file 109 (P8), and the same ID information is recorded in a predetermined place in the magneto-optical disk (P9). The ID information is information for uniquely specifying the magneto-optical disk by using the year / month / day / hour / minute / second when the magneto-optical disk is initialized. System control unit 1
01 indicates on the display 3 that the initialization processing of the magneto-optical disk is completed.

Next, a method of registering image information in the image information processing apparatus of this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 7 showing the control procedure thereof.

First, the user gives an instruction to start the registration work using the keyboard 8 and the mouse 9 (S1: S is the processing step S).
Point). Upon receiving the instruction to start the registration work, the system control unit 101 displays the registration screen shown in FIG. 8 on the display 3 (S2). The user inputs the title, keyword, document size, resolution, etc. of the image information to be registered with the keyboard 8 and mouse 9 (S3), and instructs the recording execution after setting the document to be registered on the scanner 3 (S4). Upon receiving the recording execution instruction, the system control unit 101 reads the search file 109 via the search file recording / reproducing unit 110 and obtains ID information and a virtual drive number (S
5). Further, the system control unit 101 uses the drive management table 1
11 is read (S6), and the drive name of the OS corresponding to the virtual drive number read from the search file 109 is obtained (S7). The drive names obtained in step S7 are "C:" and "D:", the drive "C:" corresponds to the magneto-optical disk drive 6, and the drive "D:" corresponds to the magneto-optical disk drive 7. And The system control unit 101 sets "C:" as the drive to be searched (S8), and reproduces the ID information of the magneto-optical disk mounted in the magneto-optical disk drive via the drive I / F 108 (S9). Since the drive "C:" corresponds to the magneto-optical disk drive 6, the ID information of the magneto-optical disk 4 is reproduced. The ID information reproduced in step S9 is compared with the ID information obtained from the search file 109 in step S5 (S10). If they match, the process proceeds to step S13.

If the IDs do not match, step S11
In step S12, it is checked whether there is any drive left to be searched. In step S12, the drive name is reset to the drive to be searched next (drive “D:”), the process returns to step S9, and the drive is turned on again. Magnetic disk ID
Play the information. In the above example, since the drive "D:" corresponds to the magneto-optical disk drive 7, the ID information of the magneto-optical disk 5 will be reproduced.

If there is no drive to be searched in step S11, the magneto-optical disk on which the image information is to be recorded is not mounted yet, so the user is notified of that fact and the operation is interrupted.

When a magneto-optical disk on which image information is recorded is found in steps S8 to S12, the system control unit 101 instructs the scanner 2 to read a document by the scanner I / F circuit 102 (S13). Scanner 2
The image information read by the scanner is the scanner I / F circuit 10
2 is transferred to the image memory 105 via S2 (S14).
The image information stored in the image memory 105 is read and compressed by the compression / expansion unit 106, and then transferred to the buffer memory 107 as code data (S1).
5). The code data transferred to the buffer memory 107 is transferred from the steps S8 to S1 via the drive I / F 108.
Recording is performed on the magneto-optical disk obtained in step 2 (S1
6). After recording all the code data, the system control unit 101 inputs the file name recording the image information, the image size, the resolution, and the encoding method via the search file recording / reproducing unit 110 by the user. It is recorded in the search file 109 together with the added search information such as the title and the keyword (S17). As described above, a series of recording processing of image information (this is called image information registration processing) is completed.

The image information registered by the above-mentioned procedure is reproduced in the search file 109 to obtain the image size, the resolution, the encoding method, the virtual drive number, and the image file name, and the same procedure as in the registration processing. Then, the magneto-optical disk from which the image information should be read is searched for and the encoded data recorded with the image file name is reproduced.

[0045]

According to the image information processing apparatus in which the hard disk drive and the magneto-optical disk drive can be connected in a free configuration, even when a plurality of magneto-optical disk drives are connected, the registration / readout of the image information can be performed.
The magneto-optical disk can be properly processed regardless of which magneto-optical disk drive is mounted.

In the above embodiment, the description has been made of the configuration in which two magneto-optical disk drives are connected, but even if three or more magneto-optical disk drives are connected, another type of storage is used instead of the magneto-optical disk drive. The effects of the present invention are exhibited even when the devices are connected.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a recording format of a search file of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a recording format of a drive management table of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a setting screen of a drive management table of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for initialization of the magneto-optical disk of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing a screen for initializing a magneto-optical disk of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of image information registration according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing an execution screen for registration of image information of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Main control unit of image information processing device. 101 System control unit of main controller. 102 Scanner I / F circuit of main controller. 103 Display memory of main controller. 104 Display control unit of main controller. 105 Image memory of main controller. 106 A compression / decompression unit for image information of the main control unit. 107 Buffer memory of main controller. 108 Drive I / F of main controller. 109 Search file for main controller. 110 Search file recording / playback unit of main controller. 111 Drive management table of main controller. 2 Scanner of image information processing device. 3 Display of image information processing device. 4 Magneto-optical disk 1 of image information processing apparatus. 5 Magneto-optical disk 2 of the image information processing apparatus. 6 Magneto-optical disk drive 1 of the image information processing apparatus. 7 Magneto-optical disk drive 2 of the image information processing apparatus. 8 Keyboard of image information processing device. 9 Mouse of image information processing device.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of image information recorded based on the search information, having one or more storage devices for recording image information, recording search information for searching the image information. In an image information processing apparatus for retrieving desired image information from among the image information, as a method of specifying the storage device in which the image information is recorded, numerically managing the storage device by a drive management table is used. Management method. 2. Corresponding image information and search information 1
In an image information processing apparatus for recording desired image information from a plurality of image information recorded on the basis of the search information, the image information is recorded in one or two or more storage devices. A search file including information for identifying the storage device in which the image information is correspondingly recorded, a search information recording / reproducing processing unit that processes recording and reproduction in the search file, and a drive management table that numerically manages the storage device An image information processing apparatus comprising: