JPH11355705A - Digital camera with image processing unit - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve portability and operability of a digital camera having functions of editing image data recorded in the digital camera, image processing and direct connection to a printer without using a personal computer. SOLUTION: The digital camera stores image data from a disk drive A to a memory 6 once, expands the data and displays them on a display device 15 via a VRAM(video random access memory) 13, reads the compressed image data stored in the memory 6, allows a disk drive discrimination changeover circuit 11 to activate a disk drive B, which copies the data on a disk B. In the composite mode, an image compression/expansion circuit 10 expands the image data on disks A, B, restore the image data and inputs them to an image composite circuit 5 to composite them. In this processing, an area of the image can be extracted and a touch panel is used to select a part designating the area on a menu displayed on a display device and images to be composited next are designated and image data segmented earlier are composited in the designated area.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic still camera, and more particularly, to an electronic still camera capable of storing captured image data in a large capacity.
The present invention relates to a digital camera capable of recording on a low-cost recording medium, for example, a magnetic medium including a magneto-optical recording disk, and having an image processing means.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventional digital cameras use a semiconductor memory or I / O as a main means for recording a captured video signal.
The image data stored in a recording medium such as a C card or a hard disk is stored and transferred to a personal computer as needed for image processing or the like, and the image is edited on the personal computer. I was

[0003]

As described above, image data of a digital camera is mainly taken into a personal computer in order to perform editing including processing such as screen composition and image area designation of an image taken by a digital camera. Image processing software on a personal computer was used. In addition, it is necessary to print a photographed image via a personal computer. Therefore, there is a problem that a user who does not have a personal computer cannot edit and print an image. In addition, when editing cannot be performed immediately after shooting at the place where the shot image was shot, or when performing an operation such as processing the image, the operation is performed while holding the main body.
There was a problem that it lacked portability and was difficult to use in narrow places.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems in the prior art, and does not use a personal computer to edit image data recorded in a digital camera, process images, and directly output image data to a printer. An object of the present invention is to provide a digital camera having such a function, which is capable of printing by improving the portability and operability of the digital camera.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recording / reproducing drive for recording data of an input image on a recording medium and reproducing the data recorded thereon, and recording on the recording medium. A digital camera with an image processing device having a monitor for displaying the displayed image data, comprising two or more recording / reproducing drives, and further displaying a reproduced image from one recording medium by the recording / reproducing drive displayed on the monitor. Copying means for copying onto another recording medium, synthesizing means for synthesizing an image reproduced from one recording medium by the recording and reproducing drive displayed on the monitor with an image recorded on another recording medium, and the monitor An input means for inputting an operation for operating the copying means and the synthesizing means is provided.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the combining means designates a region in the image displayed on the monitor and combines the designated region portion. It was done.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the digital camera with the image processing apparatus according to the first or second aspect, the input means is a transparent touch panel provided on the surface of the monitor, and the display image information on the monitor and An input instruction is performed in cooperation with a touch operation.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in any one of the first to third aspects, an interface means for outputting an image held in a recording medium in the camera to an external printer is provided. It is.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the monitor can be used separately from the main body of the camera together with the input means.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in any one of the first to fifth aspects of the present invention, at least a part of the recording / reproducing drive corresponds to using a magnetic disk as a recording medium. It is assumed that.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, in any one of the first to sixth aspects of the present invention, at least a part of the recording / reproducing drive corresponds to using an IC card as a recording medium. It is assumed that.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a digital camera with an image processing device according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a key input unit for operating the camera, 2 is a CPU for controlling each circuit of the camera body and a memory, and 3 is an imaging device including a lens system and a video signal processing unit for the entire camera circuit. 4 is an image area designation (division) processing circuit, 5 is an image synthesis processing (editing) circuit, 6 is a memory, 7 is a disk drive A, 8 is a disk drive B, 9 is a disk interface drive circuit, 1
0 is an image compression / expansion processing circuit, 11 is a disk drive discrimination / switching circuit, 12 is a data bus which is a path for signals such as video data and control data, and 14 is a D / A which converts digital video data into an analog video signal. A D / A conversion / display image signal processing circuit 13 including a conversion; VRAM as a memory preceding the D / A conversion / display image signal processing circuit 14 for displaying video data on a display device system
(Video random access memory) 15 is a display device for displaying a video signal on a display.

Hereinafter, the operation of the digital camera according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to the block diagram shown in FIG. Here, the image editing will be described using image synthesis as an example. In FIG. 1, an imaging device 3 forms an optical image of a subject on an imaging device using an imaging lens (not shown),
The photoelectric conversion and scanning are performed on the image pickup device, and the signals are extracted as electric signals. The electric signals are further subjected to A / D conversion and converted into digital signals. The digital image signal obtained by converting the captured image in this way is further processed by a camera signal processing circuit that performs signal processing such as gamma correction and white balance, and the video signal data is output to the data bus line 12. .

The image data is once written in the memory 6, and the written data is input to the image expansion / compression circuit 10 under the control of the CPU 2 to perform a compression process. The data of the compressed video signal is written into the memory 6 again,
Next, in order to be recorded on the disk, it is input to the disk interface drive circuit 9 under the control of the CPU 2 and is recorded on the disk mounted on the disk drive A7 in accordance with the disk format and the image recording format. In this case, the drive A to be recorded is designated by the CPU 2 to the disc drive discrimination / switching circuit 11, but the user may select and designate the recording drive from the key input 1 as the input means. Absent.

On the other hand, an operation of displaying an image to be photographed on an attached monitor will be described. The video data signal-processed by the imaging device 3 is written into the memory 6 and simultaneously
The data is written to the VRAM 13 for image display by the PU 2. The image data from the VRAM 13 is converted from a digital signal to an analog signal by a D / A conversion circuit in a D / A conversion / display image signal processing circuit 14 and subjected to processing such as gamma correction. Then, a synchronizing signal (not shown) is added thereto, input to the display device 15 as an analog video signal, and displayed as an image there.

At the time of reproduction, when the mode is set to reproduction by the key input unit 1 while the recorded disk is mounted on the disk drive, the video data recorded on the disk is transmitted to the disk interface drive circuit 9. The data is written to the memory 6 through the memory. Since the image data written in the memory 6 is compressed, it is expanded by the image compression / expansion circuit 10 to the original image data. The image data thus restored is written to the VRAM 13. The following operation is the same as the display operation at the time of recording, and a description thereof will be omitted. The above is the outline of the basic operation.

Next, a description will be given of an embodiment of a component for executing a function characterizing the present invention and its operation. One of them is related to copying (moving), and is executed by means for copying (moving) an image recorded on one disk to the other disk. The image data from the disk drive A is temporarily taken into the memory 6, the image data is decompressed, and the image read through the VRAM memory 13 is displayed on the display device 15. Disk B on which the copied image is recorded
The compressed image data written in the memory 6 is read out as described above, and the disk drive B is operated by the disk drive discrimination / switching circuit 11 to copy the image data to the disk B.

Next, a description will be given of image synthesis. In the case of image synthesis, the image data recorded on the disk A and the image data previously recorded on the recording disk B are once decompressed by the image compression / decompression circuit 10 so that the image data is restored. Synthesis processing circuit 5
And perform synthesis. Here, the combined signal is input to the recording medium A again and recorded after performing processing such as correction. Further, in this processing, an area of an image can be extracted by changing the address information of one image data, and includes processing using this. To specify an image area, first, an image is displayed on a monitor, which is the display device 15, and a portion to be area-designated on the screen is selected. Next, the image to be combined is displayed on the monitor, and the image of the portion where the image for which the region has been previously specified is to be inserted is specified on the touch panel, so that the cut image data is combined with the specified region. The same applies to a case where images constituting a screen are directly synthesized without specifying an area.

All of a series of image data movement (copying), image division (area designation), and compositing command (operation) can be performed by a touch panel monitor provided on a monitor screen. . this is,
Provide a transparent touch panel on the surface of the monitor, input the area specified by the correlation between the display image projected on the monitor and the touch position, display the operation buttons for input on the monitor screen as a symbol, and operate it A command or the like is input in such a manner that an input operation is performed by touching a button.

An embodiment that embodies the above-described synthesis mode will be described below. This exemplifies a case where the user wants to change the background of an image in which he or she is taken. First, the user takes a picture of himself and inputs it to the recording medium A. Next, recording medium B
Is selected and projected on the monitor, and the background image previously recorded on the recording medium B is selected on the touch panel monitor. Next, in order to cut out the selected background from the recording medium A as an image to be synthesized, the image is displayed on a monitor,
Select the image part on the touch panel monitor, cut out according to the command displayed on the monitor, perform the synthesis process,
The combined image is stored in A.

FIG. 2 shows an example in which the background is changed from an office to a bullet train as an example. FIG. 2 shows a state in which the image is changed in the course of the synthesizing process. First, the captured image 1 is input to the recording medium A. Further, the recording medium B contains software having many backgrounds as shown in the image 2. The background of the bullet train is selected from the recording medium B like the image 2 to the image 3 and cut out by indexing the person from the screen of the recording medium A like the image 4, and the image 3 is combined with the image 4 to obtain the image 5. .

The clothing, face, etc. of the person image can be changed in the same manner as in the above embodiment. Since two drives are provided, one of the drives can be used for shooting, the other disk can be used for software of the synthetic part data set, or an image of another person shot at another place Can be combined in recording media A and B, respectively. When the other disk is used completely for software for composite images, if the drive is used for an IC card drive having a large capacity, various types of composite images can be used at once.

In the above example, two drives are used. However, if three or more disc insertion ports and drives are provided, copying to three or more discs and processing of three or more kinds of photographed images are possible. The composite photograph thus created can be directly connected to a printer and printed without using a personal computer by using a printer cable via a disk interface drive circuit. Furthermore, by enabling the touch panel to be used separately from the main body, the user can hold only the touch panel in his hand and perform image processing operations.

[0024]

According to the present invention, there is no need to use a personal computer for processing such as synthesis and processing of photographs as in the prior art, and a user who does not own a personal computer or a user who cannot use a personal computer can perform image processing. By providing two or more drives, you can not only copy the image data to another disk on the spot where you shot it, but also combine the shot image and the shot image with the image created by yourself and the image created by the computer etc. (Image software) can be easily synthesized.

Since a touch panel monitor having an instruction function is added, operation is easy. Further, since the touch panel monitor can be used separately from the main body, the touch panel monitor can be operated with the main body in a bag or the like, and image processing can be easily performed even in a narrow space such as a train. With such a function, digital cameras, which have been used mainly as personal computer peripherals in the past, have a general entertainment property,
It can have versatility.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a digital camera with an image processing device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining an operation process in a screen composition mode of the digital camera according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Key input part, 2 ... CPU, 3 ... Imaging device, 4 ... Image area designation (division) processing circuit, 5 ... Image synthesis processing (editing)
Circuit 6 Memory Memory 7 Disk Drive A 8 Disk Drive B 9 Disk Interface Drive Circuit 10 Image Compression / Expansion Processing Circuit 11 Disk Drive Discrimination / Switching Circuit 12 Data Bus 13
... VRAM (Video Random Access Memory), 14 ...
D / A conversion / display image signal processing circuit, 15 ... display device.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code FI H04N 5/91 H04N 5/91 J

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. An input image data is recorded on a recording medium,
And a digital camera with an image processing device having a recording / reproduction drive for reproducing data recorded thereon and a monitor for displaying image data recorded on the recording medium, wherein two or more recording / reproduction drives are provided. Further comprising: copying means for copying an image reproduced from one recording medium by the recording / reproduction drive displayed on the monitor to another recording medium; and from one recording medium by the recording / reproduction drive displayed on the monitor. Image processing comprising: synthesizing means for synthesizing the reproduced image of the above with an image recorded on another recording medium; and input means for performing an operation input for operating the copying means and the synthesizing means on the monitor. Digital camera with device. 2. The digital camera with an image processing device according to claim 1, wherein the combining means designates an area in the image displayed on the monitor and combines the designated area portion. Digital camera with an image processing device. 3. The digital camera with an image processing device according to claim 1, wherein said input means is a transparent touch panel provided on a surface of said monitor, and said input means is formed by cooperation of display image information on said monitor and a touch operation. A digital camera with an image processing device, wherein an input instruction is given. 4. The digital camera with an image processing device according to claim 1, further comprising an interface unit for outputting an image held in a recording medium in the camera to an external printer. Digital camera with image processing device. 5. The digital camera with an image processing device according to claim 1, wherein said monitor is used together with said input means separately from a main body of said camera. . 6. The digital camera with an image processing device according to claim 1, wherein at least a part of said recording / reproducing drive corresponds to using a magnetic disk as a recording medium. Digital camera with image processing device. 7. The digital camera with an image processing device according to claim 1, wherein at least a part of said recording / reproducing drive corresponds to using an IC card as a recording medium. Digital camera with image processing device.