JPH11288364A - Information reading method, device therefor and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enable a visually handicapped person to recognize the image information on a home page of an internet by displaying the text data which are obtained by analyzing the images on the home page of the internet and outputting the display contents of the text data to a recognizing means that can be recognized by the visually handicapped person. SOLUTION: The text data which are obtained by analyzing the images on a home page of an internet, and the display contents of the text data are outputted to a recognizing means that can be recognized by a visually handicapped parson. In such a constitution, an information reading device 100 inputs an output form and then requests a Web server 201 for a URL. Thus, a storage device 102 holds an HTML file acquired from the server 201 and also an image data file that is described in the HTML file. The contents of both files are outputted to an output device 104 and then to a voice synthesizing device 105 and a braille display device 106 according to the setting of a flag.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information browsing method and apparatus for browsing information on an Internet homepage and a storage medium storing a control program for controlling the information browsing apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional browsing method and apparatus for browsing information on a homepage on the Internet, of the information on the homepage on the Internet, text information is recognized by a text browser even for visually impaired persons. Can be.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional example, of the information published on the Internet homepage, the character information is the content displayed on the display screen by the text browser. Although the visually impaired person can recognize the display contents by the output by the speech synthesis or the display by the braille display, the visually impaired person cannot recognize the contents of the image information at all. was there.

[0004] The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems of the above-described conventional technology, and a first object of the present invention is to provide, for example, image information on an Internet homepage for a visually impaired person. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information browsing method and apparatus which can be recognized.

[0005] A second object of the present invention is that, in addition to the first object, it is possible to answer the needs of both visually impaired and non-visually impaired persons, and to share information. It is an object of the present invention to provide an information browsing method and an information browsing method capable of achieving the above.

A third object of the present invention is to provide a storage medium storing a control program capable of smoothly controlling the information browsing apparatus as described above.

[0007]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information browsing method for analyzing text information obtained by analyzing image information on a homepage on the Internet by an analyzing means. It is characterized by comprising a display step of displaying on the display means, and an output step of outputting the display contents displayed in the display step to a recognition means that can be recognized by a visually impaired person.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information browsing method according to the first aspect, wherein the information is image information.

In order to achieve the first object, an information browsing method according to a third aspect is the information browsing method according to the first aspect, wherein the information is information in which character information and image information are mixed. It is characterized by the following.

In order to achieve the first object, an information browsing method according to claim 4 is characterized in that in the information browsing method according to claim 1, the information is information on a home page on the Internet. I do.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information browsing method according to the first aspect, wherein the information has a file format in which character information and image information are mixed. It is characterized by information.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in order to achieve the first object, in the information browsing method according to the first aspect, the recognizing means outputs the display content displayed in the display step by voice. , So that the visually impaired person can recognize it.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, in order to achieve the first object, in the information browsing method according to the first aspect, the recognizing means converts the display content displayed in the display step into Braille. , So that the visually impaired person can recognize it.

In order to achieve the first object, an information browsing method according to claim 8 is the information browsing method according to claim 1, wherein the analyzing means is an optical character recognition device. And

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information browsing method according to the first aspect, further comprising a switching step of switching between text-based display and image-based display. It is characterized by having.

According to a tenth aspect of the present invention, in order to achieve the first object, a display means for displaying text data obtained by analyzing information by an analysis means; A display means for recognizing the displayed content by a visually impaired person.

[0017] In order to achieve the first object, an information browsing apparatus according to claim 11 is the information browsing apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the information is image information.

According to a twelfth aspect of the present invention, in the information browsing apparatus according to the tenth aspect, the information is information in which character information and image information are mixed. It is characterized by the following.

According to a thirteenth aspect of the present invention, in order to achieve the first object, in the information browsing apparatus according to the tenth aspect, the information is information on a home page of the Internet. I do.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information browsing apparatus according to the tenth aspect, wherein the information has a file format in which character information and image information are mixed. It is characterized by information.

In order to achieve the first object, an information browsing apparatus according to a fifteenth aspect is the information browsing apparatus according to the tenth aspect, wherein the recognizing means outputs the display content displayed by the display means. , So that the visually impaired person can recognize it.

In order to achieve the first object, an information browsing apparatus according to a sixteenth aspect is the information browsing apparatus according to the tenth aspect, wherein the recognizing means converts the display content displayed by the display means into Braille. , So that the visually impaired person can recognize it.

In order to achieve the first object, an information browsing apparatus according to claim 17 is the information browsing apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the analyzing means is an optical character recognition apparatus. And

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information browsing apparatus, wherein the switching means for switching between text-based display and image-based display is provided. It is characterized by having.

In order to achieve the third object, a storage medium according to a nineteenth aspect is a storage medium for storing a control program for controlling an information browsing apparatus for browsing information. A control module having a control module for displaying text data obtained by analysis by the means on the display means, and controlling the display contents displayed by the display means to output to the recognition means recognizable by the visually impaired person. The program is stored.

In order to achieve the third object, a storage medium according to claim 20 is the storage medium according to claim 19, wherein the information is image information.

In order to achieve the third object, a storage medium according to claim 21 is the storage medium according to claim 19, wherein the information is information in which character information and image information are mixed. Features.

In order to achieve the third object, the storage medium according to claim 22 is characterized in that, in the storage medium according to claim 19, the information is information on a home page on the Internet.

In order to achieve the third object, a storage medium according to claim 23 is the storage medium according to claim 19, wherein the information is information in a file format in which character information and image information are mixed. There is a feature.

In order to achieve the third object, a storage medium according to claim 24 is the storage medium according to claim 19, wherein the recognizing means converts display contents displayed by the display means into voice. By doing so, the visually impaired person can be recognized.

In order to achieve the third object, a storage medium according to claim 25 is the storage medium according to claim 19, wherein the recognizing means converts display contents displayed by the display means into Braille. By doing so, the visually impaired person can be recognized.

In order to achieve the third object, the storage medium according to claim 26 is the storage medium according to claim 19, wherein the analysis means is an optical character recognition device. .

In order to achieve the third object, the storage medium according to claim 27 is the storage medium according to claim 19, wherein the control program switches between text-based display and image-based display. And a control module for the step of performing control.

[0034]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an information browsing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The information browsing apparatus shown in FIG. 1 is an OCR (optical character).
erreader: an optical character recognition device).

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 100 denotes an information browsing device.
The information browsing apparatus 100 includes a central processing unit 101 that performs processing according to a program for realizing the present invention, a main storage device 102 that stores a program main body and a temporary file used by the program when the program is executed, a link destination selection and URL ( User RequirementsLa
input device 103 for designating the language (user request language), an output device 104 for displaying information, and an output device 1
Output device 1 by contents displayed on 04 or key operation
Speech synthesis device 10 that outputs a character string (cursor position) at a designated portion on the screen of screen 04 by speech synthesis
5. A Braille display device 106 for outputting the content displayed on the output device 104 or a character string (cursor position) at a designated portion on the screen of the output device 104 by a key operation in Braille, and a process for realizing the present invention. Program (hereinafter referred to as the program of the present invention) body and OC
An external storage device 107 for storing the R program is provided.

The information browsing apparatus 100 is connected to the Web server 201 via the network 200.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a flow of a program and data. As shown in the figure, the program P1 of the present invention and the OCR program P2 are read from the external storage device 107 to the main storage device 102 when the programs are executed.

As shown in FIG. 2, the program P1 of the present invention
Is the communication with the web server 201 and the web server 20
1 is analyzed, the contents are displayed on the output device 104, and the speech synthesis device 105 is displayed.
And the output to the Braille display device 106 and the control of the OCR program P2, exchange of data with the OCR program P2, a series of processes for key input from the input device 103, and the like.

The OCR program P2 analyzes the image data file, extracts character information from the image data file, and outputs the extraction result as a text data file.

Next, the information browsing apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment
The operation of 00 will be described based on the flowchart of FIG.

First, in step S301, an output mode is input. The output mode means that the display content displayed on the screen of the output device 104 is output to the voice synthesizing device 105 or the Braille display device 106. The output to the speech synthesizer 105 or the braille display device 106 in step S304 or step S307 is determined.

Next, in step S302, a text-based browsing method which is supposed to be used by speech synthesis or Braille or a browsing method including general image data (hereinafter referred to as an image-based browsing method) is selected. Determine whether you have done. When the text-based browsing method is selected, the process proceeds to step S303, and when the image-based browsing method is selected, the process proceeds to step S308.

In step S303, a URL is requested to the Web server 201. Then, the next step S3
At 04, the main storage device 102 stores the HTML file F1 acquired from the Web server 201 and the image data files (PICT1.GIF, PICT1) described therein.
2. GIF, PICT3. GIF, COUNT. GI
F) (see FIG. 2), and outputs the contents to the output device 104.
To the voice synthesizer 105 and the Braille display device 106 in accordance with the settings in step S301.

The details of the output processing in step S304 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

When a URL is requested to the Web server 201 in step S303 in FIG. 3, it is determined in step S401 in FIG. 4 whether or not the voice flag has been set in step S301. If the voice flag is set, the voice is output in step S404, and the process proceeds to step S402. If the voice flag has not been set in step S401, the process proceeds directly to step S402. In this step S402, it is determined whether or not the Braille flag has been set in step S301 of FIG. If the braille flag is set, the process proceeds to step S403 after outputting braille in step S405. If the Braille flag has not been set in step S402, the process proceeds directly to step S403. In step S403, the output contents are output and displayed on the output device 104, and then the process proceeds to step S305 in FIG.

Simultaneously with the display on the screen of the output device 104,
According to the setting of the flag in step S301,
The display content can be confirmed by the output from the voice synthesizer 105 or the output from the braille display device 106. Furthermore, even after the display is completed (after the output by the speech synthesizer 105), the display content on the screen can be confirmed again by the key operation of the input device 103. The same applies to the case of the braille display device 106.

By the output processing in step S304 in FIG. 3, a display based on the text-based browsing method as shown in FIG. 5 is obtained.

FIG. 6 shows a display example of the image-based browsing method.

When the HTML file F1 held in the main storage device 102 is displayed on the screen, as shown in FIG. 5, the character information is displayed as it is, and as for the image data, [N
o. ] [Filename] (filename is the file name of the image data file), and only its existence is displayed. The link destination is the voice synthesizing device 105.
Both the output by the Braille display device 106 and the output by the Braille display device 106 indicate that the link destination is [No. ] (The numbers are assigned sequentially from 1 through both the image data file and the link destination).

Returning to FIG. 3, in step S305, it is determined whether the user's instruction is to select a link destination, switch the browsing method, or select an image data file.

From the input device 103, [No. ] Can be moved in order by inputting a number in [] with numeric keys or by operating the up and down arrow keys, and the link destination can be selected by an enter operation with the ENTER key.
Similarly, an image data file can be selected.

When the link destination is selected by the above-described method, the process returns to step S303. When the switching of the browsing mode is selected, step S309 described later is selected.
The process proceeds to step S306 if an image data file is further selected.

In step S306, the program P1 of the present invention activates the OCR program P2 and transfers the selected image data file to the OCR program P2 at the same time. The OCR program P2 analyzes the image data file passed from the program P1 of the present invention, and passes the analysis result to the program P1 of the present invention. Next, step S30
In step 7, the program P1 of the present invention outputs and displays the text data received from the OCR program P2 on the output device 104, and at the same time, outputs the text data according to the setting of the flag in step S301 by the speech synthesizer 105 or the Braille display device 106 to display the screen. You can check the display contents above.

FIG. 7 shows [3] [PICT2. GI
FIG. 7B is a diagram showing a display example of a selection result when [F] (PICT2.GIF in FIG. 6) is selected. In FIG. 7, “#%” immediately before “Watching a movie” is PICT2. GIF
The image immediately before the “Movie Appreciation” of the image portion is misidentified as a character. Such a misconception is caused by the OCR program P
2 depends on the recognition rate.

After displaying the text data extracted from the image data file on the screen in step S307,
By the key operation, it is possible to return to the previous screen display.

After the process of step S307 is completed,
The process returns to step S304.

On the other hand, if the image-based browsing method is selected in step S302, the process proceeds to step S30.
Regardless of the setting of the flag in 1, the output display to the speech synthesizer 105 or the braille display device 106 is not performed, and only the output display to the output device 104 is performed.

That is, when the image-based browsing method is selected in step S302, a URL is requested to the Web server 201 in step S308, and output and displayed on the output device 104 in step S309. By the output display processing in step S309, a display of the image-based browsing method as shown in FIG. 6 is obtained.

Next, in step S310, it is determined whether the user's instruction is to select a link destination or to switch the browsing method.
Then, in the case of selecting a link destination, the aforementioned step S308
If the browsing method is selected, the process proceeds to step S304.

The present invention can be realized by supplying a processing program as software to another computer. In this case, the processing program for realizing the present invention is stored on a floppy disk or CD-ROM.
(Compact disk read only memory) or other storage medium and supply to other computers.

The present invention can be applied not only to information on a homepage on the Internet, but also to a file format in which character information and image information are mixed.

[0063]

As described in detail above, according to the information browsing method and apparatus of the present invention, for example, image information in addition to character information can be extracted by, for example, OCR from information on an Internet homepage. With regard to the information that includes the character information, the visually impaired person has the effect of being able to recognize the content by output by speech synthesis or output by a braille display device.

According to the information browsing method and apparatus of the present invention, by switching between text-based display and image-based display, a visually impaired person can use a text-based display. Can be used by image-based display, can respond to the needs of both, and have the effect that they can share information by using the information browsing device together.

Further, according to the storage medium of the present invention, the information browsing apparatus of the present invention as described above can be controlled smoothly.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an information browsing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a flow of programs and data in the information browsing device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of a processing operation of the information browsing device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing details of a process in step S304 in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display example by a text-based browsing method in the information browsing apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a display example by an image-based browsing method in the information browsing device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a display example after the character extraction processing by the OCR program in the information browsing device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 100 Information browsing device 101 Central processing unit 102 Main storage device 103 Input device 104 Output device 105 Speech synthesis device 106 Braille display device 107 External storage device 200 Network 201 Web server F1 HTMLLL file P1 Present program P2 OCR program

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Claims (27)

[Claims] 1. A display step of displaying text data obtained by analyzing information by an analysis means on a display means, and outputting display contents displayed by the display step to a recognition means recognizable by a visually impaired person. An information browsing method comprising an output step. 2. The information browsing method according to claim 1, wherein said information is image information. 3. The information browsing method according to claim 1, wherein said information is information in which character information and image information are mixed. 4. The information browsing method according to claim 1, wherein the information is information on a homepage on the Internet. 5. The information browsing method according to claim 1, wherein the information is information in a file format in which character information and image information are mixed. 6. The information browsing device according to claim 1, wherein the recognition means is configured to convert the display content displayed in the display step into voice so that a visually impaired person can recognize the information. Method. 7. The information browsing device according to claim 1, wherein the recognizing means is configured to convert display contents displayed in the display step into Braille so that a visually impaired person can recognize the information. Method. 8. The information browsing method according to claim 1, wherein said analyzing means is an optical character recognition device. 9. The information browsing method according to claim 1, further comprising a switching step of switching between text-based display and image-based display. 10. A display device comprising: display means for displaying text data obtained by analyzing information by an analysis means; and recognition means for allowing a visually impaired person to recognize the display content displayed by the display means. Information browsing device. 11. The information browsing method according to claim 10, wherein said information is image information. 12. The information browsing method according to claim 10, wherein the information is information in which character information and image information are mixed. 13. The information browsing method according to claim 10, wherein the information is information on a homepage on the Internet. 14. The information browsing method according to claim 10, wherein the information is information in a file format in which character information and image information are mixed. 15. The information browsing device according to claim 10, wherein the recognition means is configured to convert the display content displayed by the display means into a voice so that a visually impaired person can recognize the information. apparatus. 16. The information browsing device according to claim 10, wherein the recognizing unit is configured to convert the display content displayed by the display unit into Braille so that a visually impaired person can recognize the information. apparatus. 17. An information browsing apparatus according to claim 10, wherein said analysis means is an optical character recognition device. 18. The information browsing apparatus according to claim 10, further comprising a switching unit for switching between text-based display and image-based display. 19. A storage medium for storing a control program for controlling an information browsing device for browsing information, comprising:
A control module for displaying text data obtained by analyzing the information by the analysis means on the display means, and controlling the display content displayed by the display means to be output to the recognition means recognizable by the visually impaired person; A storage medium storing a control program having the following. 20. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein said information is image information. 21. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein said information is information in which character information and image information are mixed. 22. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein the information is information on a homepage on the Internet. 23. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein said information is information in a file format in which character information and image information are mixed. 24. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein said recognizing means is configured to be able to recognize a visually impaired person by converting display contents displayed by said display means into voice. 25. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein said recognizing means is configured to convert a display content displayed by said display means into Braille so that a visually handicapped person can recognize the content. 26. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein said analyzing means is an optical character recognition device. 27. The storage medium according to claim 19, wherein said control program has a control module for controlling to switch between text-based display and image-based display.