JPH0877049A - Method and device for information recording of electronic still camera - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To decrease storage capacity required for the file management of the RAM in the electronic still camera by shortening the time of recording operation for digital image data. CONSTITUTION: When a hard disk is formatted, a FAT table is generated in a FAT area R12 in a management data area and information on the size of a file, etc., is written in the directory entry of a root directory area R14 so that image data of fixed length are recorded in a file area R15 of an image data area. When image data are recorded on the hard disk, the file name, time, and date are written in the directory entry of the root directory area R14 and the image data are recorded in plural successive clusters of the file area R15.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for recording information such as image data on a recording medium such as a hard disk attached to an electronic still camera.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there is known an electronic still camera capable of recording image data in a digital signal format by using a memory card, a hard disk or the like as a recording medium (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-90423). Such image data can be image processed by a computer, and its application range is wide.

[0003]

However, when digital image data is recorded, after recording the image data on the recording medium, file management information indicating which area of the recording medium the image data is recorded on is recorded. Since it is necessary to record on the medium, there is a problem that the recording operation takes a long time. Further, during the image data recording operation, information indicating the area where the image data is recorded is stored in the RAM of the computer in the electronic still camera, and after the recording operation, this information is recorded on the recording medium to perform file management. The RAM required a predetermined storage capacity.

In view of the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to shorten the recording time of digital image data and to reduce the storage capacity required for file management of RAM in an electronic still camera. I am trying.

[0005]

An information recording apparatus for an electronic still camera according to the present invention is provided in an electronic still camera, and has a management data area for storing file management information and image data for storing image data. A recording medium having an area and a fixed length image data is recorded in the image data recording area in the image data area,
Formatting means for generating a FAT table in the FAT area in the management data area and writing information in the directory entry of the root directory area, and writing the file name, time and date in the directory entry, and the image data in a predetermined area in the image data area. Image data recording means for recording in the image data recording area.

Further, the information recording method of the electronic still camera according to the present invention manages so that fixed length image data is recorded in the image data recording area in the image data area during the formatting operation of the recording medium. FA in data area
The FAT table is generated in the T area, the information is written in the directory entry of the root directory area, and the file name, the time, and the date are written in the directory entry during the recording operation of the image data on the recording medium, and the image data is recorded in the image data area It is characterized in that the image is recorded in a predetermined image data recording area within.

[0007]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to illustrated embodiments. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information recording apparatus for an electronic still camera which is an embodiment of the present invention.

The system control circuit 11 is a microcomputer, which controls the entire electronic still camera and has a memory (RAM) 12. By the control of the system control circuit 11, the image data is converted into a digital signal,
The data is recorded on the hard disk in the hard disk device (HDD) 13. The hard disk device 13 is detachably attached to the electronic still camera, and can also be attached to a computer (not shown). Note that control such as writing and reading of image data and the like to and from the hard disk is performed based on the operating system MS-DOS (a product name of Microfusoto Co.) of the computer.

A light beam incident through an optical system (not shown) is imaged on the light receiving surface of the solid-state image sensor (CCD) 14,
As a result, an image signal corresponding to the subject image is generated in the CCD 14. This image signal is subjected to processing such as gamma correction in the process circuit 15 and converted into a digital signal in the A / D converter 16. The CCD 14, the process circuit 15, and the A / D converter 16 operate according to the clock signal output from the clock generation circuit 17, and this clock signal is generated under the control of the system control circuit 11.

The digital image data is stored in the memory 19 under the control of the memory control circuit 18. The memory control circuit 18 operates according to the clock signal generated by the clock generation circuit 17, and controls the address of the memory 19 based on the command signal output from the system control circuit 11.

The operation unit 21 has a power switch, a shutter release switch, a hard disk operation switch, and the like. According to the operation of the operation unit 21, the photographing operation, the recording of image data on the hard disk, and the like are controlled.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the file system of the MS-DOS, that is, the recording area on the hard disk.
The recording area includes a management data area for storing file management information and an image data area for storing image data.

A file area R constituting the image data area
15 is composed of a large number of sectors, and for example, one cluster is composed of four sectors. In this embodiment, one image data is recorded in 100 clusters. As will be described later, the file area R15 is divided into 100 continuous clusters in advance.
In a given area within the first of the clusters,
A header section that stores information indicating the amount of one image data and the like is recorded.

The management data area comprises a boot sector R11, a first FAT area R12, a second FAT area R13 and a root directory area R14. The boot sector R11 is provided at the head of the recording area of the hard disk and includes a BPB and the like in which information about the hard disk is recorded. The first FAT area R12 is FA
The T table is stored and the FAT table is provided to indicate in which cluster one image data is recorded in which cluster in the file area R15 and in what order. The second FAT area R13 stores the same FAT table as that of the first FAT area. The root directory area R14 has a large number of directory entries, and each directory entry stores a file name and the like as described below.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing the structure of a directory entry. The directory entry has a data length of 32 bytes and is composed of 7 fields.
The contents of each field are the file name, that is, the name of the image data, the attribute of the directory entry, the time when the image data was recorded, the date when the image data was recorded, the address of the first cluster (that is, the start cluster) in which the image data is recorded, The file size (the number of bytes) of one image data is the same.

FIG. 4 shows the F stored in the FAT area R12.
An example of the correspondence between the AT table and the cluster of the file area R15 is shown.

Each sector forming the file area R15 has a data length of 512 bytes, for example. In this embodiment, one cluster is composed of 4 sectors and has a data length of 2048 bytes, and one image data is recorded in 100 clusters.

In the FAT area R12, an address is defined for each word (16 bits). FAT area R1
Address 0 of 2 indicates a media descriptor code, and information "FFF8" indicating that the recording medium is a hard disk is stored therein. A fixed code “FFFF” is stored in the address 1. Addresses 2-101 correspond to each cluster in the file area R15. That is, the addresses 2, 3, ... 101 are cluster 2, cluster 3, ... Of the file area R15.
Each corresponds to the cluster 101. Further, at address 2, cluster 3 following cluster 2 has address 3
“0003” indicating that the address corresponds to is stored, and in the same manner, “0065” (10
The decimal number 101) is stored. Information “FFFF” indicating that this is the end of one image data is stored in the address 101.

The second image data is recorded continuously with the first image data. That is, in the second image data, the start cluster number is 102, and this image data is recorded up to the cluster 201. Ie 1
One image data is defined to be recorded in 100 clusters, and this data length is fixed. Note that this data length is an example, and is set to an appropriate size according to the purpose.

FIG. 5 shows the recorded contents of the directory entry after the formatting operation and after the image data recording operation. As described below, in the format operation,
The start cluster in which the image data is recorded and the size of one image data file (in this embodiment, 2048 × 1)
00 bytes) is written in the directory entry, and the initial value 0 is written in the other fields. On the other hand, during the recording operation of the image data, the file name corresponding to the image data and the time and date when the recording operation is performed are written.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a header portion and image data in the file area R15. The header part has fields G11 to G15 for storing information indicating the amount of one image data, and a reserved area. Information indicating the size of the file (for example, 2048 × 100 bytes) is stored in the field G11 similarly to the directory entry (FIG. 5). The field G12 stores information indicating the offset of the image data. This offset is the address (3A
H) is the relative distance between the header address (00H) of the header. Information indicating the width and height of the image is stored in the fields G13 and G14, respectively. The width of the image is, for example, 640 pixels, and the height of the image is, for example, 480 pixels.
It is a pixel. The field G15 stores the number of color bits per pixel, that is, the number of bits assigned to the three primary colors R, G, and B (for example, 8 bits).

As described above, the image data is the 3rd AH byte counted from the start address of the header part (5 in decimal).
It is recorded from the 8th byte). Therefore, in one image data recording area consisting of 100 clusters, the header section and the image data are recorded in the first sector, and only the image data is recorded in the other sectors.

Similar to FIG. 2, FIG. 7 shows the recording area of the hard disk, and particularly shows the relationship between the header part and the image data in the image data area.

The image data area (file area) is previously
It is divided into 100 continuous clusters. That is, one image data is recorded in the image data recording area G21 consisting of 100 clusters, and the header portion G22 is provided at the head portion of each image data recording area G21.
As will be described later, in the formatting operation, each field G of the header part G22 of each image data recording area G21 is
The data as shown in FIG. 6 is written in 11 to G15.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart showing the formatting operation of the hard disk. In step 101,
A boot record, that is, BPB (see FIG. 2) is written in the boot sector R11 of the management data area. In step 102, a media descriptor code (“FFF” in the present embodiment) is assigned to address 0 of the FAT area R12.
8 ") is written, and the fixed code" F
FFF "is written. And in step 103,
The parameters N, M, and L are set to 2, 1, and 1, respectively.

In step 104, "N + 1" data is written in the address N of the FAT area R12. If it is determined in step 105 that the parameter M is smaller than 100, the parameters M and N are incremented by 1 in step 106, and step 104 is executed again. That is, step 104 is executed 100 times, and as a result, a FAT table in which only 100 recording areas for one word are continuous is generated.

In step 105, the parameter M is 1
When it is determined that the number of the image data reaches 00, the information "FFFF" indicating the end of one image data is written in the address N of the FAT area R12 in step 107. Next, at step 108, the parameter L is incremented by 1. If it is determined in step 109 that the parameter L is smaller than 20, the parameter M is set to 1 and the parameter N is incremented by 1 in step 110, and step 104 is executed again. That is, step 104
Up to 109 are executed 20 times, whereby 20 image data recording areas G21 are defined in the file area R15. In other words, 20 pieces of image data can be recorded on the hard disk.

In step 111, the parameter L is set to 1 again.
Is set, and in step 112, the Lth directory entry of the root directory area R14 is written. In the information written at this time, the starting cluster is (L−1) × 100 + 2, the file size is 2048 × 100 bytes, and the initial value 0 is written in the other fields of the directory entry.

In step 113, the parameter L is 2
If it is determined that it is smaller than 0, the parameter L is incremented by 1 in step 114, and step 112 is executed again. That is, step 112 is executed 20 times, whereby the initial values are written in 20 directory entries.

In step 115, the parameter L is set to 1 again.
In step 116, the L-th header part G22 of the file area R15 is written. The information written in this header part G22 is always the same for one hard disk. In step 117, it is judged whether or not the parameter L is smaller than 20, and 20
If so, the parameter L is incremented by 1 in step 118 and step 116 is executed again. That is, step 116 is executed 20 times. When the writing to the 20 header parts is completed, this routine ends.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the operation of writing image data in the hard disk. Step 20
In 1, the file name of the directory entry recorded in the root directory area R14 is read.
In step 202, it is determined whether this file name is "invalid". That is, it is determined whether image data is recorded in the image data recording area G21 corresponding to this directory entry. Steps 201 and 202 are repeatedly executed until the directory entry having the file name "invalid" is searched, and the directory entry having the file name "invalid" is searched, that is, the image data in which the image data is not recorded is searched. When the recording area G21 is searched, the photographing operation and the recording operation of the image data on the hard disk are performed in step 203 and subsequent steps.

At step 203, the starting cluster number stored in the directory entry is read out and stored in the RAM 12 in the system control circuit 11.

At step 204, it is judged if the shutter release has been performed. When the shutter release is performed, in step 205, the CCD 14 is exposed for a predetermined shutter time. In step 206, the image signal is read from the CCD 14. This image signal is converted into a digital signal in step 207 and written in the memory 19 in step 208.

In step 209, the image data is read from the memory 19, and the image data for one cluster is transferred to the hard disk and written in a predetermined cluster in the image data recording area G21. This cluster is the starting cluster stored in RAM 12 in step 203 when step 209 is executed for the first time. In step 210, image data for one screen, that is, 10
It is determined whether the transfer of the image data of 0 cluster is completed. If this transfer operation is not completed, in step 211, the image data for the next one cluster is transferred to the hard disk and written in the next continuous cluster. When it is determined in step 210 that the transfer of the image data for one screen is completed, the file name, time, and date are written in the directory entry in step 212, and this routine ends.

Although it is determined in step 202 whether or not the file name is "invalid", the presence or absence of image data recording is determined based on the data of fields other than the file name. Good.

As described above, according to this embodiment, it is sufficient to record the image data in the hard disk during the recording operation of the image data, and the file management information indicating the plurality of clusters in which the image data is recorded is recorded in the hard disk. You don't have to. Therefore, the time for the recording operation is shortened. Further, at the time of this recording operation, since only the start cluster needs to be stored in the RAM 12 of the computer, the storage capacity of the RAM required for file management can be reduced.

The recording medium is not limited to the hard disk, but may be an IC memory card.

[0038]

As described above, according to the present invention, the recording operation time of image data can be shortened and the storage capacity required for file management of the RAM in the electronic still camera can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information recording apparatus for an electronic still camera that is an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a recording area on a hard disk.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing the structure of a directory entry.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a correspondence relationship between a FAT table stored in a FAT area and a cluster in a file area.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing recorded contents of a directory entry after a formatting operation and an image data recording operation.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a header portion and image data in a file area.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a relationship between a header section and image data in an image data area.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a hard disk format operation.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing an operation of writing image data in a hard disk.

[Explanation of symbols]

 13 hard disk drive (HDD) 14 solid-state image sensor (CCD) R11 boot sector R12 first FAT area R13 second FAT area R14 root directory area R14 R15 file area

Continuation of front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Office reference number FI Technical display location H04N 5/765 5/781 5/91 9369-5D G11B 27/10 A

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A recording medium provided in an electronic still camera, having a management data area for storing file management information and an image data recording area for storing image data; and image data in the image data area. Formatting means for generating a FAT table in the FAT area in the management data area and writing information in the directory entry of the root directory area so as to indicate that fixed-length image data is recorded in the recording area; An information recording apparatus for an electronic still camera, comprising: an image data recording unit that writes a file name, a time, and a date on the image data, and records image data in a predetermined image data recording area in the image data area. 2. The information recording apparatus for an electronic still camera according to claim 1, wherein the recording medium is detachable from the electronic still camera. 3. The information recording apparatus for an electronic still camera according to claim 1, wherein the image data recording area is composed of a plurality of continuous clusters. 4. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the formatting means records a header portion including information indicating an amount of one image data in a predetermined area in the image data recording area. Information recording device for still cameras. 5. A recording status determining means for determining whether or not image data is recorded in an image data recording area of the recording medium by referring to information recorded in a directory entry of the recording medium. An information recording device for an electronic still camera according to claim 1. 6. A method for recording information on a recording medium provided in an electronic still camera, the recording medium having a management data area for storing file management information and an image data area for storing image data, the method comprising: During the formatting operation of the recording medium, the FA in the management data area indicates that fixed-length image data is recorded in the image data recording area in the image data area.
The FAT table is generated in the T area, the information is written in the directory entry of the root directory area, and the file name, the time and the date are written in the directory entry during the recording operation of the image data in the recording medium, and the image data is written in the An information recording method for an electronic still camera, comprising recording in a predetermined image data recording area within an image data area.