JPH09311831A - Electronic mail system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To send only data which a receiver needs to have in order to reduce the load on a communication path and also to improve the entire operation efficiency of an electronic mail system by sending multimedia data in response to the transmission request given from a mail receiving terminal. SOLUTION: The mail receiving terminal 20 waits for input of a reference request to be given from a user for the multimedia data. When a reference request is received for the prescribed multimedia data, a multimedia data receiving part 23 requests a mail transmitting terminal 10 to send the multimedia data based on the information which is analyzed by an index reading part 22. If a user reject the reference to the multimedia data, these data deleted at the terminal 10. Thus, the multimedia data are directly sent by a user's request with no intervention of a mail service center 30. As a result, the burden of the center 30 can be reduced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic mail system, and more particularly, to an electronic mail system for reducing the load on a communication path when sending an electronic mail containing multimedia data such as image data and voice data. Regarding

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when an electronic mail including multimedia data such as image data and audio data is transmitted in an electronic mail system, the multimedia data included in the electronic mail is converted into image data, audio data and text data. The data was transmitted at the same timing without distinguishing the data type.

As a conventional technique of an electronic mail system that handles this kind of multimedia data, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-
There is an information division type electronic mail system disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 290122. According to the e-mail system described in the publication, multimedia data is structured, divided into data types and handled separately, and when presenting a received mail, each piece of information has a structure specified at the time of transmission. Although multimedia data is reproduced by reproducing it, the email itself is transmitted at the same time regardless of the type of data.

As another conventional technique of this type, there is a mail system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-66830. According to the electronic mail system described in the publication, multimedia data is divided into data types and handled separately, and the received data is discarded if the receiving side does not support the multimedia data. Although it has a function, the same applies in that the e-mail transmission itself is performed at the same time regardless of the type of data.

As described above, in the conventional electronic mail system, when the electronic mail including the multimedia data is handled, the multimedia data which the mail receiver does not need and the kind of multimedia data which cannot be reproduced and used are included. However, it was sent together with other text data without knowing anything.

[0006]

The conventional electronic mail system described above has a problem in that the operational efficiency of the system is lowered due to an unnecessary load on the communication path used by electronic mail and other network services. was there. The reason is that when handling an electronic mail containing multimedia data as described above, the multimedia data is sent regardless of whether or not the mail recipient refers to the multimedia data. This is because, if the data is not referred to, the transmission of the multimedia data is meaningless communication and the communication path is wasted.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, to send only the data required by the receiver for an electronic mail containing multimedia data, reduce the load on the communication path, and improve the entire system. To provide an e-mail system that improves the operational efficiency of.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a mail sending terminal for sending an electronic mail, a mail receiving terminal which is the destination of the electronic mail, and a mail sent from the mail sending terminal. A mail service center that provides an e-mail service that relays an e-mail and passes it to the mail receiving terminal, and connects the mail sending terminal, the mail receiving terminal, and the mail service center to serve as a communication medium for the e-mail. In an electronic mail system including a communication path, the mail transmitting terminal extracts an index from the electronic mail including multimedia data and assigns an index, and an index is assigned by the index creating unit. Multimedia that stores and holds the multimedia data A data storage means, a mail sending means for adding the index created by the index creating means to a portion obtained by extracting the multimedia data from the electronic mail, and sending the mail to the mail service center; When there is a transmission request, a multimedia data transmitting means for transmitting the multimedia data corresponding to the request is provided.

When there is a transmission request from the mail receiving terminal, the multimedia data transmitting means according to the present invention of claim 2 passes the multimedia data corresponding to the request through the mail service center. Instead, it is directly transmitted to the mail receiving terminal.

According to the present invention of claim 3, a mail transmitting terminal for transmitting an electronic mail, a mail receiving terminal which is a destination of the electronic mail, and an electronic mail transmitted from the mail transmitting terminal are relayed to receive the mail. An e-mail system comprising: a mail service center that provides an e-mail service to be delivered to a terminal; The mail service center stores and holds index creating means for extracting the multimedia data from an electronic mail containing the multimedia data and assigning the index, and the multimedia data indexed by the index creating means. Multimedia data storage means, From the electronic mail, a part is obtained by adding the index created by the index creating means to a part obtained by extracting the multimedia data, and a mail sending means for delivering after waiting for access from the mail receiving terminal; When there is a transmission request, a multimedia data transmitting means for transmitting the multimedia data corresponding to the request is provided.

[0011] In the mail receiving terminal according to the present invention of claim 4, when the received electronic mail is added with an index of multimedia data, an index for analyzing the index to obtain information about the multimedia data. According to an instruction from the reading means and the user, a request to send the multimedia data specified based on the information acquired by the index reading means is sent to the mail sending terminal, and the mail sent from the mail sending terminal is sent. Multimedia data receiving means for receiving multimedia data, and the multimedia data received by the multimedia data receiving means at a predetermined position of the electronic mail specified based on the information acquired by the index reading means. The message to insert and display Characterized in that it comprises a display means.

[0012] According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, in the mail displaying means, when the multimedia data receiving means has not received the multimedia data, the multimedia data is received based on the information obtained by the index reading means. It is characterized in that an integrated image in which an icon set corresponding to the attribute of the multimedia data is inserted at the position where the is inserted is displayed.

[0013]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

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

As shown in the figure, the electronic mail system of this embodiment includes a mail transmitting terminal 10 for transmitting electronic mail,
A mail receiving terminal 20 for receiving an electronic mail, a communication path 40 for providing an electronic mail service, and a mail service center 30 are provided. Note that the communication path 4 is actually
0 is connected to a plurality of terminal devices having the same configuration, and both the mail sending function and the mail receiving function are realized as the functions of each terminal device. , Mail sending terminal 10 and mail receiving terminal 20
And divided into Further, in the figure, only the characteristic configuration of the present embodiment is described, and the description of other configurations is omitted.

The mail transmission terminal 10 is realized by a personal computer, a workstation terminal device, or the like,
To create a mail creation unit 11 for creating an E-mail, a mail sending unit 12 for sending an E-mail that does not include multimedia data, and to extract the multimedia data included in the E-mail and send it separately from other parts. The index creation unit 13, the multimedia data storage unit 14, and the multimedia data transmission unit 15 are provided.

The mail creating unit 11 is realized by a program-controlled CPU and an input device such as a keyboard,
Create an email using a given user interface. As an environment for creating an electronic mail, a text editor for inputting a document, a video editor for editing a moving image, a drawing tool for creating a drawing, an audio editor for recording and editing a voice, and the like are provided. As a result, the electronic mail can include multimedia data such as image data and audio data.

The mail sending unit 12 is realized by a program-controlled CPU and an interface corresponding to the communication path 40, and sends an electronic mail created by text data to the mail service center 30 via the communication path 40. As a result, the electronic mail service provided by the mail service center 30 is used. The emails to be sent are the emails whose body is composed of only text data, and the emails created by including the multimedia data. And an email composed of parts.

The index creating unit 13 is realized by a program-controlled CPU or the like, extracts multimedia data from an electronic mail including the multimedia data created by the mail creating unit 11, and extracts the multimedia data. Index and attach to emails. That is, first, the multimedia data included in the electronic mail and the other text data portion are divided, an index is assigned to the extracted multimedia data, and the index is created and added to the text data portion of the electronic mail. The text data includes the mail body, mail sender, mail destination, mail title, and the like. The multimedia data corresponds to audio data, image data including moving images and still images such as pictures and drawings, binary data generated by measuring instruments and the like. FIG. 4 shows the structure of the e-mail with the added index. As shown in the figure, the index describes predetermined information for identifying the multimedia data. In the example shown in the figure, the type of data, the display position when displayed on an email, and the data Storage location and included.

The multimedia data storage unit 14 has an RA
It is realized by a memory such as M and a storage device such as a magnetic disk device, and stores and holds the multimedia data extracted from the electronic mail by the index creating unit 13. At this time, the storage position of the multimedia data in the multimedia data storage unit 14 is the index creation unit 1
3 is described in the index. The multimedia data stored in the multimedia data storage unit 14 is
It is deleted from the multimedia data storage unit 14 after the transmission of the multimedia data or when a request for discarding the multimedia is received from the mail receiving terminal 20. In addition, after being stored in the multimedia data storage unit 14, it may be automatically deleted after a certain period of time.

The multimedia data transmitting unit 15 is realized by a program-controlled CPU and an interface corresponding to the communication path 40, and the multimedia data accumulating unit 14 responds to the request from the mail receiving terminal 20. Is read and transmitted to the mail receiving terminal 20 via the communication path 40. Here, the transmission of the multimedia data from the multimedia data transmitting unit 15 to the mail receiving terminal 20 is performed only through the communication path 40 without relaying the mail service center 30.

The mail receiving terminal 20 is realized by a personal computer, a workstation terminal device or the like,
A mail receiving unit 21 for receiving an electronic mail that does not include multimedia data, an index reading unit 22 for reading an index of the multimedia data added to the electronic mail, and a multimedia data receiving unit 23 for receiving the multimedia data. And a mail display unit 24 for displaying an electronic mail.

The mail receiving unit 21 is realized by a program-controlled CPU and an interface corresponding to the communication path 40, and accesses the mail service center 30 to receive an electronic mail.

The index reading unit 22 is realized by a program-controlled CPU or the like, and when the e-mail received by the mail receiving unit 21 includes an index of multimedia data, the index is analyzed to analyze the index. Media data transmission request location, display method,
Obtain information for processing the multimedia data, such as display location.

The multimedia data receiving section 23 is realized by a program-controlled CPU, an input device such as a keyboard, and an interface corresponding to the communication path 40.
Based on the information about the multimedia data acquired by the index reading unit 22, the mail transmitting terminal 10 is requested to transmit the multimedia data, and
The multimedia data sent from the mail sending terminal 10 in response to the request is accepted.

The mail display section 24 is realized by a program-controlled CPU and a display device such as a CRT display device, and the electronic mail received by the mail receiving section 21 and the multimedia received by the multimedia data receiving section 23. Display data and. Here, when the mail receiving unit 21 receives the electronic mail, the electronic mail contains only text data. Therefore, when the index of the multimedia data is added to the e-mail, the multimedia data is associated with the position at which the multimedia data should be displayed according to the information obtained by the analysis of the index reading unit 22. The displayed icon (the icon set according to the type of image data, audio data, etc.) is displayed, and the image integrated with the text of the mail body is displayed. Then, when the multimedia data receiving unit 23 requests transmission of the multimedia data corresponding to the icon by the user's operation and the multimedia data is received,
The multimedia data is displayed instead of the icon. When the multimedia data cannot be directly displayed like audio data, an interface (icon or the like) for reproducing the data is displayed.

The mail service center 30 provides an electronic mail service like the service center in the conventional electronic mail system.

The communication path 40 is a predetermined LAN line or WAN.
It is realized by a line and connects the mail transmitting terminal 10, the mail receiving terminal 20, and the mail service center 30 to deliver electronic mail and multimedia data referred to by electronic mail.

Next, the operation of the electronic mail system of the present embodiment configured as described above will be described with reference to the flow charts of FIGS. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the mail transmitting terminal 10, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the mail receiving terminal 20.

First, in the mail sending terminal 10, the mail creating unit 10 creates an electronic mail. When the creation of the electronic mail is completed and the user performs an operation of transmitting the electronic mail, the mail data of the electronic mail is sent to the index creating unit 13. Then, the index creating unit 13 divides the received mail data into multimedia data and other parts (step 201 in FIG. 2).

If there are a plurality of multimedia data divided from the electronic mail, the multimedia data is further divided for each multimedia data, and an index indicating the attribute of each data and the storage location in the multimedia data storage unit 14 is determined ( Step 202). Then, the index assigned to each multimedia data is added to the text data after the multimedia data is extracted from the mail data (step 203).

Next, the mail transmission unit 11 sends an electronic mail consisting of text data with the added index to the mail service center 30 through the communication path 40 (step 204). On the other hand, the multimedia data extracted from the mail data is stored in the multimedia data storage unit 14 as a pair with the index assigned in step 202. (Step 205) After that, the mail transmitting terminal 10 waits for a request for transmitting multimedia data from the mail receiving terminal 20, and the multimedia data storage unit 14 waits until the request is received.
Save the contents of.

When the multimedia data transmission request is received from the mail receiving terminal 20, the multimedia data transmitting unit 15 collates the index to identify the corresponding multimedia data, and stores the multimedia data. It is read from the unit 14 and is directly transmitted to the mail receiving terminal 20 through the communication path 40 (steps 206 and 207). After that, the multimedia data storage unit 14 deletes the index of the multimedia data that has been transmitted and the corresponding multimedia data (step 209).

When the request for discarding the multimedia data is received from the mail receiving terminal 20 instead of the request for transmitting the multimedia data, the multimedia data accumulating section 14 is transmitted without transmitting the multimedia data.
Deletes the transmitted multimedia data and the corresponding index (steps 206, 208, 20).
9).

This completes the electronic mail transmission process by the mail transmission terminal 10. In addition, in the multimedia data accumulating unit 14, if an appropriate time limit is set and neither the transmission request nor the discard request of the multimedia data is made from the mail receiving terminal 20 within the time limit, the multimedia data and the index are stored. You may delete it. That is, in this case, it is possible to avoid the wasteful use of the multimedia data storage unit 14 due to the carelessness and negligence of the mail recipient, by deleting the data by considering that the recipient is not interested in the data.

Next, in the mail receiving terminal 20, first, the mail service center 30 is accessed, and the mail receiving unit 21 receives the electronic mail that has reached the mail receiving terminal 20 (FIG. 3, step 301). Then, the index data reading unit 22 detects and reads the index information of the multimedia data from the electronic mail received by the mail receiving unit 21 (step 302), and based on the index information, the multimedia data is sent to the mail transmitting terminal. Analyze information such as where it is stored in 10 and what data should be displayed at which position when displaying an email (step 3)
03). The mail display unit 24 is the index reading unit 2
Based on the information analyzed in step 2, the multimedia data portion is replaced with the corresponding icon and an image integrated with the text of the mail body is displayed (step 30).
4).

In this state, the mail receiving terminal 20 waits for the input of the multimedia data reference request from the user. The request to refer to the multimedia data is made by, for example, placing the cursor on the icon of the multimedia data to be referred to and inputting a predetermined command.

When there is a request to refer to predetermined multimedia data, the multimedia data receiving section 23
The index reading unit 2 for the mail transmission terminal 10
Request transmission of multimedia data based on the information analyzed in step 2 (steps 305, 306). When the requested multimedia data is received from the multimedia data transmitting unit 15 (step 307), the mail display unit 24 displays the multimedia data received by the multimedia data receiving unit 23 by the icon that has been displayed until then. Is displayed instead of (step 308).

Regarding the data for which the user refuses to refer to the multimedia data in step 305, the multimedia data storage unit 14 is requested to discard the multimedia data (step 309).

With the above, the processing for receiving the electronic mail by the mail receiving terminal 20 is completed. As described above, in this embodiment, the multimedia data is directly transmitted at the request of the user without passing through the mail service center 30, so that the load on the mail service center 30 can be reduced.

Further, when the user refuses to refer to the multimedia data, the multimedia data is deleted at the mail sending terminal 10 without being sent to the mail receiving terminal 20. Therefore, unnecessary multimedia data that is not referred to by the user does not pass through the communication channel 40, and therefore unnecessary addition is not applied to the communication channel 40.

As another embodiment of the present invention, the index creation unit 13, the multimedia data storage unit 14, and the multimedia data transmission unit 15 can be installed in the mail service center 30.

In this case, the mail sending terminal 10 sends the created e-mail as it is to the mail service center 30 regardless of the presence or absence of multimedia data.
Then, the mail service center 30 extracts the multimedia data and sets the index, and adds the index to the electronic mail. Email receiving terminal 2
0 receives a request for multimedia data transmission from the mail service center 30 after receiving an e-mail, if necessary.
Do against. When the mail service center 30 receives a request for sending multimedia data from the mail receiving terminal 20, the mail service center 30 sends the corresponding multimedia data to the mail receiving terminal 20.

According to this embodiment, although the multimedia data is transmitted from the mail transmitting terminal 10 to the mail service center 30, the mail is received from the mail service center 30 when the user refuses to refer to the multimedia data. No multimedia data is transmitted to the terminal 20. Therefore, the load on the communication path 40 is reduced.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments, the present invention is not necessarily limited to the above embodiments. For example, when transmitting multimedia data, the multimedia data transmitting unit may compress the data by a predetermined method, and the multimedia data receiving unit may restore the compressed multimedia data. It goes without saying that the amount of data flowing through the communication path can be reduced, and the load added to the communication path can be further reduced.

[0046]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since the multimedia data does not flow through the communication path until the mail recipient requests the transmission of the multimedia data, it is possible to avoid unnecessary data transmission using the communication path.

Particularly, since multimedia data uses a relatively large bandwidth among data of various network services using a communication path, it is possible to prevent unnecessary data from flowing through the communication path, and The effect is that the bandwidth of can be effectively used between various network services.

Further, in the present invention, if the storing means and transmitting means for multimedia data are installed in the terminal device on the mail sending side, even if a request for sending multimedia data is made, the mail service center is relayed. Since the multimedia data can be directly transmitted to the terminal device on the mail receiving side without the need, there is an effect that the burden on the mail service center can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the mail transmitting terminal in this embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the mail receiving terminal in this embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a structure of mail data forming an electronic mail according to the present embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 mail sending terminal 11 mail creating section 12 mail sending section 13 index creating section 14 multimedia data storing section 15 multimedia data sending section 20 mail receiving terminal 21 mail receiving section 22 index reading section 23 multimedia data receiving section 24 mail display section 30 Mail Service Center 40 Communication Channel

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A mail sending terminal for sending an electronic mail, a mail receiving terminal as a destination of the electronic mail, and an electronic mail service for relaying the electronic mail sent from the mail sending terminal and delivering the same to the mail receiving terminal. In a mail service center that provides a mail transmission terminal, the mail transmission terminal, the mail reception terminal, and a communication path that serves as a communication medium for e-mail by connecting the mail service center, wherein the mail transmission terminal is An index creating means for extracting the multimedia data from an electronic mail containing the multimedia data and assigning an index, and a multimedia data storing means for storing and holding the multimedia data indexed by the index creating means , From the email to the email If there is a transmission request from the mail receiving terminal, a mail sending means for adding the index created by the index creating means to a portion where the chimeda data is extracted, and sending the index to the mail service center An electronic mail system comprising: multimedia data transmitting means for transmitting corresponding multimedia data. 2. The multimedia data transmitting means comprises:
When a transmission request is made from the mail receiving terminal, the multimedia data corresponding to the request is directly transmitted to the mail receiving terminal without passing through the mail service center. The electronic mail system described in 1. 3. A mail sending terminal for sending an electronic mail, a mail receiving terminal which is a destination of the electronic mail, and an electronic mail service for relaying the electronic mail sent from the mail sending terminal to the mail receiving terminal. In a mail service center that provides the mail sending terminal, the mail receiving terminal, and the mail service center, the communication path serving as a communication medium of an electronic mail, wherein the mail service center is An index creating means for extracting the multimedia data from an electronic mail containing the multimedia data and assigning an index, and a multimedia data storing means for storing and holding the multimedia data indexed by the index creating means , Said email There is a mail sending unit that adds the index created by the index creating unit to a portion where the multimedia data is extracted and delivers the mail after waiting for access from the mail receiving terminal, and a sending request from the mail receiving terminal. And a multimedia data transmitting means for transmitting the multimedia data corresponding to the request, the electronic mail system. 4. The mail receiving terminal, when an index of multimedia data is added to a received electronic mail, an index reading unit that analyzes the index and acquires information about the multimedia data, and a user. In response to the instruction from the mail sending terminal, the sending request of the multimedia data specified based on the information acquired by the index reading means is made to the mail sending terminal, and the multimedia data sent from the mail sending terminal is received. And a multimedia data receiving unit for displaying the multimedia data received by the multimedia data receiving unit at a predetermined position of the electronic mail specified based on the information acquired by the index reading unit. E-mail display means provided The electronic mail system according to claim 1, wherein: 5. The position where the mail display means should insert the multimedia data based on the information obtained by the index reading means when the multimedia data receiving means has not received the multimedia data. 5. The electronic mail system according to claim 4, wherein an integrated image in which an icon set corresponding to the attribute of the multimedia data is inserted is displayed.