JPH11187372A - Multi-spot television conference system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To process an image at a terminal for image compositing and to improve image quality by encoding image data, executing a post-filter processing before transmitting it to an opposite terminal, removing noises from image data and improving image quality and a frame rate. SOLUTION: A block distortion due to quantizing differences or mosquito noises, etc., occurs in image data which is decoded by a decoding device 4 of a multi-spot television conference system. Image data is inputted to an image processor 5, image processing is executed for image data from respective image communication terminals and, at the same time, processed image data from the respective image communication terminals is composited with an input from a camera 12. The composited image data is inputted to an encoding device 8 and encoded by a prescribed method. Encoded image data is multiplexed with voice data and another kind of data, etc., by a multiplexing device 9 and transmitted by a line I/F 10.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication system in which image data is communicated between a plurality of video conference devices, and more particularly, to a single terminal screen when a multipoint video conference is performed by three or more video conference devices. The present invention relates to a multipoint video conference system that simultaneously displays image data from a plurality of terminals, encodes the images, and performs post-filter processing before transferring the images to a partner terminal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional multipoint video conference system, a channel control circuit, that is, an MCU (MultiPod) is provided to at least one terminal of a plurality of video conference devices.
(Int Conference Unit), so that the display screen of the video conference
Some of the videoconferencing devices that are divided and are communicating at the same time are those that display the displayed images on one terminal screen at the same time if they are within four videoconferencing devices.

[0003]

As described above, in a conventional multipoint video conference system, at least one terminal has an MCU function without using an expensive MCU so that a plurality of televisions simultaneously communicating can be provided. Image data from the conference device can be displayed simultaneously. However, it has been found that there is no description of how to display image data from a plurality of video conference devices simultaneously communicated on one terminal screen. Therefore, the present applicant has focused on improving image quality by performing image processing in a terminal that performs screen synthesis.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve these problems, and it is intended to transmit n pieces of transmission data from encoded image data and audio data transmitted from different n points. In a multipoint video conference system that decodes and further decodes the decoded image data and transmits it as coded data to a partner terminal, a post-filter process is performed before the image data is coded and transmitted to the partner terminal. Provided is a multipoint video conference system capable of improving image quality and frame rate by removing noise from data.

[0005]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a multipoint video conference system according to one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an embodiment of an image processing circuit of the multipoint video conference system according to one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a procedure of an embodiment of image synthesis and image processing relating to a multipoint video conference system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, only image data is shown, and audio data and other data are not particularly described. In FIG. 1, S0 to S2 are communication terminals, 2a to 2c are line I / Fs, 3a to 3c are separation devices, 4 is a decoding device, 5 is an image processing device, 6 is D / A, and 7 is A / D. , 8 is an encoding device, 9 is a multiplexing device, 10 is a line I / F, 11
Is a monitor, and 12 is a camera.

The teleconference device communication terminal M0 communicates with the communication terminals S0 to S2 via a network. The teleconference device communication terminal M0 transmits data such as image data and audio data from the communication terminals S0 to S2 to the line I / Fs 2a to 2c.
Receive through. The received data is separated into image data, audio data, and the like using the separation devices 3a to 3c.
The separated image data is decoded by the decoding device 4.

[0007] When the image data decoded by the decoding device 4 is encoded by, for example, the method of ITU-T H.261, block distortion due to a quantization error, mosquito noise and the like are generated. This image data is input to the image processing device 5 and subjected to image processing on the image data from each image communication terminal. At the same time, the image data from each image communication terminal subjected to image processing and the input from the camera 12 are combined.

[0008] The synthesized image data is input to the encoding device 8 and encoded by the method of ITU-T H.261. The coded image data is multiplexed with audio data and other data by the multiplexing device 9 and
Sent by / F10. In FIG.
The image data from each of the video conference devices input from a to 3c is decoded by a decoding device by an appropriate method. The decoded image data is stored in the image memory 12 via the image memory control device 11. The image data sent from each video conference device stored in the image memory 12 is processed by an appropriate method and stored as shown in FIG.

[0009] This image data contains block noise and mosquito noise. If the image data is re-encoded as it is, the encoding efficiency becomes very poor due to the influence of these distortions. Therefore, this data is subjected to image processing by the image processing device 5 of FIG. 2 to remove block distortion, mosquito noise, and the like. The data from which this noise has been removed is shown in FIG.
It is shown in (b). By adding image data from the camera 12 or the like input from the encoding format conversion device 13 in FIG. 2 to this data, the image data in FIG. 3C is obtained. This data is input to the decoding format conversion apparatus shown in FIG. 2 and the image transmitted from each video conference apparatus and its own image are combined and displayed on the monitor. Therefore, a good image without distortion is displayed on the monitor.

The image data obtained by performing the image processing and synthesizing the own image is stored in the image memory controller 11.
After being read out of the memory via the interface and input to the encoding device 8 for encoding, it is input to the multiplexing device. As a result, the synthesized image transmitted to the plurality of video conference devices connected to the multipoint video conference system is a good image with little distortion. A good image without distortion is displayed. As a result, a smooth multipoint video conference can be held.

[0011]

As described above, according to the present invention, when image data transmitted by encoding is decoded and synthesized, image processing is performed on the synthesized data.
By removing distortions due to various types of encoding, it is possible to improve the encoding efficiency at the time of re-encoding. Therefore, a good image with little distortion can be transmitted.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an embodiment of a multipoint video conference system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an embodiment of an image processing circuit of the multipoint video conference system of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a procedure of an embodiment of image synthesis and image processing according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 S0, S1, S2 Communication terminals 2a, 2b, 2c, 10 line I / Fs 3a, 3b, 3c, demultiplexer 4 demultiplexer 5 image processor 6 D / A 7 A / D 8 encoder 9 multiplexer 11 monitor 12 camera

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Decoding n pieces of transmission data from coded image data and audio data transmitted from different n points, respectively, and further decoding the decoded image data to obtain the other party as coded data. In a multipoint video conference system for transmitting to a terminal, the image quality and frame rate can be improved by removing noise from the image data by performing post-filter processing before encoding and transmitting the image data to a partner terminal. Multipoint video conference system.