JPH10257205A - Communication terminal equipment with sound function - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To eliminate the need of making a call for a message and explanation and to facilitate the combination of a picture and sound on a reception side by encoding inputted sound, converting sound data into encoded picture data, transmitting it with picture data, encoding and decoding only the picture of a prescribed range among the received pictures and outputting it to sound. SOLUTION: A sound encoding/decoding part 7 constitutes a sound encoding part encoding inputted sound data at the time of transmission. On the other hand, it constitutes a sound decoding part decoding encoded sound data and outputting sound at the time of reading after reception. A picture encoding/ decoding part 8 constitutes a picture conversion part converting encoded sound data into encoded picture data at the time of transmission and constitutes a sound conversion part converting picture data which is read and converting it into encoded sound data at the time of reading after reception. Thus, sound can be reproduced from received picture data with simple constitution.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication terminal device having a voice function such as a facsimile device for simultaneously transmitting image data and voice data converted into image data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, communication terminal devices such as facsimile devices have been widely used in offices and ordinary homes because they can transmit and receive arbitrary image data (document data and the like). At present, when a message or explanation is desired, a telephone call is made after facsimile transmission.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional communication terminal device, the receiving side is provided with a separate image data.
Because of the phone call, the association was cumbersome. That is, when a plurality of image data have been received, it is necessary to search for the image of the incoming call, which is troublesome. Also, on the sending side, if the other party is absent when making a call and the receiving side does not have an answering machine function, it is necessary to make another call. Was needed.

[0004] The present invention has been proposed in view of such circumstances, and a communication terminal device capable of simultaneously transmitting an image and a voice in one communication and realizing the voice reproduction on the receiving side with a simple configuration. The purpose is to provide.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, a communication terminal device having a voice function according to the present invention comprises the following means. Claim 1 is a case where it is used as a transmitting side, wherein an audio encoding unit that encodes input audio, and an image conversion unit that converts the encoded audio data into encoded image data. Wherein the image data converted by the image conversion unit is read and transmitted together with the encoded image data.

According to another aspect of the present invention, a reading section for reading only a predetermined range of image data from a received and recorded image, and audio data obtained by encoding the read image data are used. An audio conversion unit for converting the
An audio decoding unit that decodes the converted audio data and outputs audio. Here, the predetermined range in which the reading unit reads the image data includes a predetermined range in the recording paper, a range after a mark indicating that there is audio data converted into image data, and the like.

According to a third aspect, in the first aspect, the image data to be transmitted is added with image data indicating that there is audio data. The image data to be added includes not only a text message that can be recognized by the user on the receiving side, but also image data (a mark or the like) that indicates that the receiving side has voice data when read.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a communication terminal device with a voice function according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a basic configuration of a facsimile apparatus F which is one of the communication terminal apparatuses according to the present invention. The present invention is not limited to the facsimile apparatus F, but is also applicable to a communication terminal apparatus such as a personal computer having a function of transmitting image data.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a main control unit which is constituted by a CPU or the like, and performs signal control of each unit.
Is a ROM storing a processing program, etc., 4 is a RAM for temporarily storing data, 5 is a reading section for reading and scanning an original image for facsimile transmission or the like, and 6 is a printer for printing out image data on a preset recording paper. The recording unit 7 encodes (digitizes) audio input through the microphone MI by the ADPCM method or the like, decodes the encoded audio data (analogizes), and outputs audio from the speaker SP. The encoding / decoding unit 8 encodes the encoded audio data into MH or MR image data, or decodes the data in reverse, decodes the facsimile-received image data, and reads the image read by the reading unit 5. An image encoding / decoding unit 9 for encoding data; a modulation / demodulation unit (modem) 9 for modulating / demodulating a signal for facsimile communication of image data 10 is a line control unit for controlling the delivery, such as the dial signal to the communication line L (such as a telephone line).

[0010] This facsimile apparatus F
Audio data can be converted into image data, added to image data read by the reading unit 5 and encoded by the image encoding / decoding unit 8, and transmitted. The audio input through the microphone MI is encoded by the audio encoding / decoding unit 7, converted into encoded image data by the image encoding / decoding unit 8, and transmitted.

On the other hand, at the time of reception, image data is received through the communication line L, decoded by the image encoding / decoding unit 8, and recorded on recording paper by the recording unit 6. In this image data,
When voice data is included, the reading mode can be changed by operating the operation unit 2 and only the image data in a predetermined range corresponding to the voice data can be read by the reading unit 5 and output as voice. That is, image data in a predetermined range read by the reading unit 5 is decoded by the image encoding / decoding unit 8 and converted into encoded audio data, and the converted audio data is converted into the audio encoding / decoding unit 7. To decrypt
The sound is output from the speaker SP. Note that the predetermined range in which the reading unit 5 reads an image includes a predetermined range in a recording sheet and a range after image data indicating that audio data converted into an image is included.

As described above, the voice coding / decoding section 7 constitutes a voice coding section for coding the input voice data at the time of transmission, and converts the coded voice data at the time of reading after reception. An audio decoding unit for decoding and outputting audio is configured. Also, the image encoding / decoding unit 8 transmits
An image conversion unit that converts encoded audio data into encoded image data is configured. On the other hand, during reading after reception, an audio conversion unit that converts read image data into encoded audio data is configured. I do.

Therefore, according to the present invention, the voice data converted to the image data can be transmitted together with the image data by one communication, so that it is necessary to separately make a telephone call to give a message or explanation as in the prior art. And the receiving side can easily associate the image with the sound. Further, it is not necessary to provide a voice memory for recording a voice message on the receiving side, and a voice can be reproduced from the received image data with a simple configuration. Further, according to such a method, it is only necessary to transmit and receive image data as in the related art without using a special communication method.

Next, the above operation will be described with reference to a flowchart. 2 shows the operation at the time of transmission, and FIGS. 3A and 3B show the operation at the time of reception. When transmitting image data by facsimile, first, a document is read by the reading unit 5, and the read image data is coded by the image coding / decoding unit 8 and stored in the image memory (RAM 4). If there is a voice to be added to the image, a predetermined operation of the operation unit 2 is used to convert a character code (for example, “there is voice data”) indicating that there is voice into image data and encode it. It is stored in the image memory following the image data. Next, the microphone MI
Are encoded by the audio encoding / decoding unit 7 and converted into image data encoded by the image encoding / decoding unit 8 and stored in the image memory.

As described above, when the image data to be transmitted is arranged in the image memory, the telephone number of the other party is called, and the facsimile transmission through the modem unit 9, the line control unit 10, and the communication line L is started. , Steps 100-107). The sound that is converted into image data and transmitted is the microphone M
It is not limited to voice input through I
The music or voice message registered (recorded) in the RAM 3 or the RAM 4 may be used. If a plurality of these are registered in advance, it is convenient that the operation unit 2 can select the message or voice message when transmitting.

On the other hand, in the case of facsimile reception, FIG.
As shown in (a), the image data received through the communication line L is recorded on the recording paper by the recording unit 6 while being decoded by the image encoding / decoding unit 8 by the normal reception operation (step 200). To 202). When the user confirms the character indicating that the sound added at the time of transmission is included in the recorded image, the recording unit is caused to read the recording paper. Here, an audio mark is recorded on the recording paper, and by detecting this, it is recognized that the subsequent read data is audio data (described later).

When the image data (pattern image) obtained by converting the audio data is read, the image data is sequentially decoded by the image encoding / decoding unit 8 and converted into audio data, which is further converted by the audio encoding / decoding unit 7. The data is decoded and reproduced and output from the speaker SP (steps 210 to 213). Next, FIG. 4 shows an example of the recording paper K output by the recording unit 6 at the time of reception. Here, the function provided for the facsimile apparatus F to perform communication by adding audio data to image data is referred to as “voice F
"AX mail".

As shown in the figure, the transmitted image data is not limited to the image data D originally transmitted by facsimile, but also includes image data D1 (which indicates that audio data is added to the recording paper K). Guidance display), and a voice mark m indicating that voice data is recorded thereafter
And audio data D2 (in the figure, a barcode) that has been imaged.

When these images are recorded on the recording paper K,
Since it can be seen that there is a sound by the image data D1,
The recording sheet K is read by the reading unit 5. When the reading unit 5 detects the voice mark m, it can be understood that the data to be read thereafter is voice data, and thus the data D2 in this range is set as a target to be converted into voice. Here,
The image data D1 indicating that there is voice data is a text message that can be recognized by the user on the receiving side, but the present invention is not limited to this, and may be a mark or pictogram. Also, audio data D2 converted to image data
May be coded data or the like other than the barcode.

Further, the presence of the audio data is not limited to being indicated by printing out the image data D1 on the recording paper K. For example, in a facsimile communication procedure, a signal including this information in a signal is transmitted. On the receiving side, this may be displayed on a screen, or a lamp may be turned on or blinked.

[0021]

As can be understood from the above description, in the facsimile apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention, voice data converted into image data can be transmitted together with image data by one communication. As described above, it is not necessary to make a telephone call for a message or an explanation, and the receiving side can easily associate the image with the sound.

According to the second aspect, by reading the received and recorded image data, it is possible to hear a voice message or explanation related to the image. Therefore, the voice can be reproduced with a simple configuration without a voice memory for recording a voice message. According to the third aspect, the image recorded on the receiving side indicates that audio data is present in the image, so that a user who has seen this can easily identify that the audio data has been added, Can be played immediately.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a main configuration of a communication terminal device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a basic operation at the time of transmission of the communication terminal device of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a basic operation at the time of reception of the communication terminal device of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example in which received image data is recorded.

[Explanation of symbols]

F: Communication terminal device with voice function according to the present invention (facsimile device) 1: Main control unit 5: Reading unit 6: Recording unit 7: Voice encoding / decoding unit 8 ... Image encoding / decoding unit K: recording paper D: image data read on the transmission side D1: image data indicating that there is audio data (guidance display) D2: converted to image data M (voice code)

Claims (3)

[Claims] An audio encoding section for encoding input audio, and an image converting section for converting audio data encoded by the audio encoding section into encoded image data. A communication terminal device with a voice function, wherein image data converted by an image conversion unit is read and transmitted together with encoded image data. 2. A reading section for reading only image data in a predetermined range from an image received and recorded, an audio converting section for converting image data read by the reading section into encoded audio data, A communication terminal device with a voice function, comprising: a voice decoding unit that decodes voice data converted by the conversion unit and outputs voice. 3. The communication terminal device with an audio function according to claim 1, wherein image data indicating that audio data is present is added to the image data to be transmitted.