JPH09139829A - Three-dimensional image facsimile equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To realize a series of processing automatically, to improve the processing efficiency through the transmission of a minimum transmission quantity, to send a stereoscopic image of a multi-view point at a remote location and to print out the image as a printed matter for stereoscopic vision automatically. SOLUTION: Only required image information is extracted from an image of a multi-view point with an anisotropic picture element thinning section 7 of this device by utilizing a characteristic of a lenticular plate, the information is facsimile-coded by a FAX coding section 8 and the code is sent via a transmission section 9 and a telephone line. A reception section 10 receives the code and a FAX decoding section 11 decodes it and a 3D printer section 12 printing out a stereoscopic image and using a lenticular lens plate prints out the decoded signal as a stereoscopic image, then the stereoscopic image based on the multi- view point image is printed out at a remote location automatically.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus for transmitting a photograph or the like for printing a three-dimensional image on the back side of a lenticular lens plate by a facsimile or the like to a remote place by communication.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a conventional technique, there is a so-called facsimile in which a general image (two-dimensional image) is read by a scanner, the image is transmitted through a telephone line, and the image is transmitted to a remote place. On the other hand, for stereoscopic image display, as shown in FIG. 8, an image of a plurality of viewpoints obtained by moving the viewpoint of the camera is divided into strips, which are sequentially arranged in one pitch of the lenticular lens ( By arranging a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and h) in Fig. 8, it is possible to observe an image that matches the movement of the observer's viewpoint, the so-called multi-view system (8-eye system). formula)
There is a lenticular method.

[0003]

However, conventional facsimiles can only transmit general two-dimensional images. That is, in order to transmit a stereoscopic image using a lenticular lens, once all the images corresponding to the number of viewpoints are captured and transmitted by a scanner, and then a general-purpose computer is used to perform image processing to arrange the lenticular lens. Rearrange the pixels, output this to the printer,
A complicated and inefficient method of adhering this to the back surface of the lenticular lens plate to make the final output and having a large amount of image transmission was used. Generally speaking, in a multi-lens lenticular stereoscopic image using images from n viewpoints, n types of images are put in one pitch of a lenticular lens. The image resolution at this time depends on the pitch of the lenticular lens. The pitch of the lenticular lens is 1 in the original image
If the width is larger than the pixel width, the image quality is not affected even if the resolution of the original image in the pitch direction of the lenticular lens is reduced depending on the setting of the number of images to be included in one lens pitch. It is inefficient to directly transmit n images by facsimile without considering this.

In the present invention, a series of these processes are automatically realized, and the processing efficiency is improved by transmitting with a minimum transmission amount, and a multi-viewpoint stereoscopic image is transmitted to a remote place, which is automatically transmitted. The purpose is to print out as a printed matter that can be viewed stereoscopically.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention thins out image data of a plurality of viewpoints in a specific direction by an anisotropic pixel thinning unit to reduce the amount of information as necessary for reconstruction. , Encodes for facsimile, transmits on telephone line, decodes received data on the receiving side, and further reconfigures pixels by an anisotropic pixel array restoration unit so as to match the multi-lens lenticular system, and 3D The printer unit automatically prints stereoscopic images using the multi-lens lenticular method.

[0006]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

(Embodiment 1) An embodiment of the present invention will be described below. FIG. 1 (a) is a third embodiment of the present invention.
1 is an overall view of a three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus. In FIG. 1, 7 is an anisotropic pixel thinning unit, 8 is a FAX encoding unit, and 9 is a FAX encoding unit.
Is a transmitting unit, 10 is a receiving unit, 11 is a FAX decoding unit, 12 is a 3D printer unit, and the anisotropic pixel thinning unit 7, the FAX encoding unit 8, and the transmitting unit 9 are the transmitting side three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus. It is configured. Further, the receiving unit 10, the FAX decoding unit 11, and the 3D printer unit 12 constitute a receiving side three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus.

First, the anisotropic pixel thinning section 7 thins out the images 1, 2, ... N captured from a plurality of viewpoints to reduce the amount of information. The reduction method is shown in FIG. FIG.
Describes a five-lens lenticular solid using images (1 to 5) from five viewpoints as an example.
Images 1 to 5 show the low-pass filter 1 in the horizontal video frequency band.
Bands are limited by 4 to 16. This is to prevent aliasing distortion due to the subsequent thinning process.

After the low-pass filtering process, the image data is converted into one image data by the decimation process. The conversion method is from image 1
5 is divided into strip-shaped images each having a width of 1 pixel and long in the vertical direction, and the strips of image 1 and strips of image 2 are sequentially arranged from the left side so as to be arranged in an array like the output image of FIG. ..Image 5
Arrange the strips in order. At this time, the sum of the widths of the strips of the images 1 to 5 is set to be approximately one pitch of the lenticular lens. Next, 5 pixels are skipped in the horizontal direction, and the strip-shaped image of the 6th pixel is similarly arranged. After that, this processing is sequentially performed every 5 pixels to obtain a final composite image. At this time, the information amount of the composite image is ⅕ of the sum of the information amounts of the images 1 to 5.

This composite image is encoded as it is by the FAX encoding unit 8 and sent to the telephone line by the transmitting unit 9. The FAX encoding may be performed by using the existing existing technology, for example, run length encoding such as G3 fax is performed before transmission. Regarding this, a case where the simplest input image is a monochrome binary will be described a little. In FIG. 5, the input image data is divided into scanning lines, the value of the first pixel (whether it is white or black), the information about the break of the scanning line, and the information about the number of pixels for which the white and black states continue are coded for each scanning line. Turn into. This is the case of a monochrome binary image, but dither processing or the like is applied to the gradation image.

The FAX coded signal as described above is transmitted to the receiving side through the telephone line. Receiver 10
The FAX decoding unit 11 reproduces the data of the output image shown in FIG. Based on this data, the 3D printer unit 12
A 5-lens lenticular image including images from 5 viewpoints is printed.

The operation of the 3D printer unit 12 is shown in FIG. Image data is stored in the memory of the printer,
This is sequentially transferred to the print head 114, and the ink is transferred to the lenticular plate 101 by heating the ink ribbon 113 pixel by pixel with the heating element 115. Every time one pixel is printed, the lenticular plate moving device 110 connected to the motor 112 moves the lenticular plate 101 by one pixel. At this time, in order to confirm the position of the pitch of the lenticular, the sensor 111 moves the lenticular plate 101 while measuring the position of the head 114. By doing so, as shown in FIG. 7, the image of each viewpoint is printed in a strip shape in one pitch of the lenticular plate 101 (in this case, the images of the viewpoints of 6 directions are printed. Is). 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in the upper part of FIG.
Indicates the positions of the eyes of the observer, and the three-dimensional image printed in this manner can sequentially observe images 1 to 6 according to the movement of the viewpoint of the observer.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, a plurality of images are displayed with the characteristics (spatial anisotropy) of the lenticular lens.
The information is deleted by utilizing, and the information is transmitted, and the data is output on the receiving side by the 3D printer, whereby the multi-lens lenticular stereoscopic image can be efficiently transmitted.

(Second Embodiment) FIGS. 1 (b) and 3 are an overall view and a partial detailed configuration showing a second embodiment of the present invention. In this case, the difference from the first embodiment is that the anisotropic pixel array restoring unit 13 is added and the anisotropic pixel thinning unit 7 is different from the overall view of FIG. The difference is the operation of.

FIG. 3 illustrates the case where the input image has five viewpoints. The images 1 to 5 have their frequency bands laterally limited to ⅕ by the low-pass filters 14 to 16, respectively. This is to prevent aliasing distortion due to the subsequent thinning process. After low-pass filtering, each image is thinned out every 5 pixels in the horizontal direction, and 5 images with reduced information amount are obtained. These images are sequentially encoded by the FAX encoding unit 8,
It is transmitted by the transmitter 9 using a telephone line. The operations of the fax encoder 8 and the transmitter 9 are the same as those in the first embodiment.

The five transmitted image signals are received by the receiving unit 10.
The FAX decoding unit 11 decodes the decoded images 1 to 5 in FIG. The operations of the receiving unit 10 and the FAX decoding unit 11 are the same as those in the first embodiment of the present invention.

Next, all the decoded images are input to the anisotropic pixel array restoration unit 13 and the pixel arrays are rearranged so as to match the multi-lens lenticular stereo system. This is image 1
Divide ~ 5 into strip-shaped images that are 1 pixel wide and long in the vertical direction,
The strips of Image 1, the strips of Image 2, and the strips of Image 5 are sequentially arranged in order from the left side so that the arrangement is the same as the output of the anisotropic pixel arrangement restoring unit 13 in FIG. Deploy. After that, this processing is sequentially performed every 5 pixels to obtain a final composite image. This composite image data is transferred to the 3D printer unit 1
Output to 2 and print on multi-lens lenticular stereoscopic image that can display images from 5 viewpoints. The operation of the 3D printer section is
This is the same as the first embodiment.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, information is deleted from a plurality of images by utilizing the characteristics of the lenticular lens, the information is transmitted, and this data is rearranged on the receiving side for a multi-lens lenticular stereoscopic image. Moreover, by outputting with a 3D printer, a multi-lens lenticular stereoscopic image can be efficiently transmitted.

Also, in the first and second embodiments, the input images 1, 2 ... n are mere image data, and no acquisition of them is shown. Of course, the image data may be directly input using a computer, but as shown in FIG. 10A, the n images printed on the paper are sequentially read by the image scanner 20, and these are read as images 1 and 2. ...
If input to the anisotropic pixel thinning unit 7 as n data,
It is possible to transmit multiple images printed on paper. Further, in FIG. 10B, a stereoscopic image of a plurality of viewpoints printed on the lenticular plate 101 (the same as that of FIG. 8).
May be imaged by the imaging camera 19. At this time, the angle of the lenticular plate 101 is changed little by little by the lenticular plate mounting bracket 18 and the motor 19, and an image is picked up by the imaging camera 19 at each time to obtain images of a plurality of viewpoints printed on the lenticular plate 101. Image data of a plurality of viewpoints is obtained by converting these into images 1, 2, ... N. This allows you to capture the stereoscopic image printed on the lenticular plate as it is, and obtain a copy of the same at a remote location.

At this time, the lenticular lens is moved to pick up the image, but the same thing can be realized by moving the image pickup camera 19 and the illumination 21 as shown in FIG. . In addition, the lenticular lens 101 linearly moves to the left and right, and the illumination 21 and the imaging camera 19
May move along an arc.

Further, in the first and second embodiments, as shown in FIG. 5, by making the scanning line direction of FAX encoding coincide with the longitudinal direction of the lenticular lens, the FAX is obtained.
Even if an erroneous line or the like occurs in the scanning line direction due to the image coding error due to the encoding error of the image, the image is deteriorated within one pitch of the lenticular, so that only the image at one viewpoint of the observer is deteriorated. It is possible to prevent image deterioration from occurring in a wide range even in images from a plurality of viewpoints (increase in crosstalk between viewpoints).

In the first and second embodiments, low-pass filtering is performed before the decimation process, but when the spatial frequency band of the input image is narrow, aliasing distortion does not occur. This process can be omitted for simplification.

In the first and second embodiments, in the thinning process, the frequency band is reduced to 1 / n in the case of a stereoscopic image with n viewpoints. You may change one. That is, as shown in FIG. 9, when an image of up to 6 pixels in one pitch can be printed, in the case of a two-viewpoint stereoscopic image, the lenticular lens 1
Although two types of images are printed in the pitch, even if each of these two types of images uses data of only one pixel,
Data of a plurality of pixels may be used as shown in (b). Alternatively, a weighted average value may be used for the pixels of the original image as in (c). In the case of (a), the amount of image information to be transmitted is 1
It will be decimated to / 6, and in the case of (b), it will be decimated to 1/2. In the case of (c), it is thinned to 1/6. Which thinning method is selected is a system design item.

Further, in the first and second embodiments, the plurality of input images are images with different viewpoints. However, this is a plurality of images extracted from the sequence of moving images,
An entirely different image may be used. In this case, the longitudinal direction of the lenticular is set to the lateral direction, and the same image is displayed on the left and right eyes at the same time. By rotating the lenticular plate by an observer's hand, a moving image and a plurality of images on which different images are printed can be sequentially observed in time.

In the first and second embodiments, F
Although AX encoding and decoding are performed, a general image compression method may be used. For example, if a technique such as JPEG compression is used, higher information compression efficiency can be obtained. Furthermore, although a telephone line is used as the transmission line, an existing network such as Ethernet may be used for efficient transmission. Further, it goes without saying that if it is directly connected to the output terminal without using the transmission path, it functions as a three-dimensional copying machine.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, a stereoscopic image composed of multi-viewpoint images is efficiently transmitted, and by automatically printing the stereoscopic image, a stereoscopic image can be easily displayed at a remote place. Can be transmitted.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1A is an overall view of a three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 1B is an overall view of a three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an anisotropic pixel thinning unit of the three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an anisotropic pixel thinning unit of a three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an anisotropic pixel array restoration unit of a three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an operation of a FAX encoding unit of the three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to the first and second embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the operation of the 3D printer unit of the three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to the first and second embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an image printing result of the 3D printer unit of the three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to the first and second embodiments of the present invention.

[Fig. 8] Principle diagram of multi-lens lenticular system

9A to 9C are diagrams showing a pixel thinning method in the multi-lens lenticular system of the present invention.

10A and 10B are views showing a method for inputting a plurality of images according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Observer's viewpoint 1 2 Observer's viewpoint 2 3 Observer's viewpoint 3 4 Observer's viewpoint 4 5 Observer's viewpoint 5 6 Observer's viewpoint 6 7 Anisotropic pixel thinning unit 8 FAX encoding unit 9 Transmission Part 10 Reception part 11 FAX decoding part 12 3D printer part 13 Anisotropic pixel array restoration part 14 Low-pass filtering part 15 Low-pass filtering part 16 Low-pass filtering part 17 Motor 18 Lenticular plate mounting bracket 19 Multi-view image imaging Part 20 Image scanner 21 Light source 110 Lenticular plate moving device 111 Sensor 112 Motor 113 Ink ribbon 114 Print head 115 Heating element 117 Memory 118 Printer main body

Claims (12)

[Claims] 1. An anisotropic pixel decimating unit for decimating a plurality of image data from a scanner unit and decimating these image data in a specific direction, and facsimile encoding is performed on the output of the anisotropic pixel decimating unit. FAX encoding unit and the FA
A transmitting section for transmitting the output of the X-encoding section to a telephone line, a receiving section for receiving data from the telephone line, a FAX decoding section for decoding the output of the receiving section for facsimile, and the FAX decoding section. Observed by a lenticular plate based on the output of the anisotropic pixel array restoration unit that rearranges the pixel array of multiple images to a specific pixel array based on the output, and the output of the anisotropic pixel array restoration unit A three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus having a three-dimensional printer unit for obtaining a printed image in which different images can be observed depending on a person's viewing direction. 2. A lenticular lens angle control unit for sequentially changing an angle with respect to an imaging camera of a multiple image display device capable of selecting and observing a plurality of images formed on the back surface of a lenticular lens, and the angle is sequentially changed. An imaging camera that captures an image displayed through the lenticular lens each time, an anisotropic pixel thinning unit that thins out a plurality of image data obtained by the imaging camera in a specific direction, and the anisotropic pixel thinning FAX encoding unit for performing facsimile encoding on the output of the unit, and FAX
Based on the output of the transmitting unit, which sends the output of the encoding unit to the telephone line, the receiving unit which receives data from the telephone line, the FAX decoding unit which performs decoding for facsimile on the output of the receiving unit, and the output of the FAX decoding unit. An anisotropic pixel array restoration unit that rearranges the pixel arrays of a plurality of images to a specific pixel array,
A three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus comprising a three-dimensional printer unit for obtaining a print image capable of observing a different image depending on a viewing direction of an observer with a lenticular plate based on an output of an anisotropic pixel array restoration unit. 3. A three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of image data stored in a storage device is directly transferred and used. 4. The three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of image data directly uses outputs of a plurality of image pickup apparatuses capable of outputting image data in real time. 5. The image pickup camera sequentially picks up a plurality of images printed on the back surface of the lenticular lens by moving the image pickup camera itself, the lenticular lens, or the direction of a light source for irradiating the lenticular lens. The three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus described in 2. 6. The anisotropic pixel thinning unit low-pass filters n image data in the vertical or horizontal direction, respectively, and then performs thinning processing to divide each image into strips in the horizontal or vertical direction. 3. The three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus is rearranged so that strips of different kinds of images are continuously arranged. 7. The anisotropic pixel thinning section low-pass filters n pieces of image data in a vertical or horizontal direction, respectively, and sequentially outputs these to the FAX encoding section. The array restoration unit is characterized by thinning out sequentially input image signals in the horizontal or vertical direction to divide them into strips, and rearranging them so that strips from different types of images are continuously arranged. The three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to claim 1 or 2. 8. A three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the low-pass filtering process is omitted. 9. The FAX encoding unit and the FAX decoding unit are set so that the image scanning direction is the direction of the lenticular lens in the output of the three-dimensional printer unit, and an encoding error occurs in each lens of the lenticular lens. It occurred so that it may be generated. 3 according to any one of claims 1 to 8.
Dimensional image facsimile machine. 10. An anisotropic pixel thinning unit for thinning out a plurality of image data in a specific direction, a FAX coding unit for coding the output of the anisotropic pixel thinning unit for facsimile, and the FAX coding unit. A three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus having at least a transmitter for transmitting the output of the above. 11. A receiving unit for receiving the transmitted data,
F for performing facsimile decoding on the output of the receiving unit
An AX decoding unit, an anisotropic pixel array restoring unit that rearranges pixel arrays of a plurality of images into a specific pixel array based on the output of the FAX decoding unit, and the anisotropic pixel array restoring unit A three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus having at least a three-dimensional printer unit for obtaining a print image capable of observing an image that is different depending on a viewing direction of an observer by the lenticular plate. 12. A lenticular lens angle control unit for sequentially changing an angle with respect to an image pickup camera of a multi-image display device capable of selecting and observing a plurality of images formed on a lenticular lens surface according to the observation angle, and the angle in sequence. An imaging camera that captures an image displayed through the lenticular lens each time it is changed, an anisotropic pixel thinning unit that thins out a plurality of image data obtained by the imaging camera in a specific direction, and the anisotropic pixel thinning A three-dimensional image facsimile apparatus comprising at least a FAX encoding unit for performing facsimile encoding on the output of the unit and a transmission unit for transmitting the output of the FAX encoding unit.