JPH1184520A - Decorative portrait forming device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a decorative portrait forming device which is made popular by executing special advertisement with respect to a specified decorative design. SOLUTION: This device is basically constituted of a video camera 16, a video display 14, a video printer 22 and a computer 24 wholly governing and controlling them. A decorative portrait forming process is allowed to progress on an interactive basis with a user through a man machine interface. The number of times of selecting the respective decorative designs by the user is counted. Based on the counted result, the specified decorative design is selected as a special advertisement item. In a process to allow the user to select an optional decorative design, the device performs the special advertisement with respect to the decorative design selected as the special advertisement item through the man machine interface, which becomes a topic.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a decoration for taking a portrait photograph of a user, printing out a decoration portrait obtained by combining the photograph with a decoration pattern selected by the user, and providing the user with the decoration portrait. Regarding the portrait creation device,
In particular, the present invention relates to a technique for increasing the topicality by performing a special advertisement for a specific decorative pattern when exchanging decorative patterns.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A decorative portrait creating apparatus that captures a portrait of a user and combines it with a decorative design to create a seal has gained popularity in the streets. This device captures the portrait of the user who inserted the coin, creates a decorative portrait that combines this photo with the decorative pattern chosen by the user, and peels it off one by one to create a sticker that can be enjoyed Entertainment device provided to the user.

[0003] The degree of popularity of this device largely depends on the contents of the decoration design provided. For this reason, the operating company of the device is constantly trying to gain popularity by introducing new decorative designs one after another in accordance with the tastes of users and expanding the genre of the decorative designs to be provided.

[0004]

By the way, in order to improve the sales of products, advertisements that limit the sales period and the number of units sold, such as "Limited sale at a limited time" and "Slightly remaining this product", are often used. Is being done. And it is well known that such advertisements can easily increase sales.

Therefore, the present inventors have paid attention to this fact,
In the decorative portrait creation device as well, for example, for a specific decorative design, the topicality will increase by performing special advertisements such as "This design will be replaced with a new design soon.""This design has only X remaining." I thought it could lead to an increase in popularity.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a decorative portrait creating apparatus which selects a specific decorative design and executes a special advertisement on the design to increase the popularity of the device. .

[0007]

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above object, an invention according to claim 1 of the present invention is a decorative portrait creating apparatus, which has the following requirements (1) to (7). It shall be.

(1) It comprises a video camera, a video display, a video printer, and a computer which controls the whole of them.

(2) A decorative design designed to be decoratively combined with a portrait is stored in a computer database in the form of a digital image.

(3) The decoration portrait creation process proceeds with the user in an interactive manner using a man-machine interface. The man-machine interface includes a means for inputting a user's operation, a means for outputting voice of various operation guidance, and a means for displaying an image of various operation guidance on a video display.

(4) In the decoration portrait creation process, a decoration design is displayed on a video display and a user selects an arbitrary decoration design from the decoration design, and the decoration design and the video camera selected by the user are used. A process of displaying a composite moving image on which a real-time moving image of a photographed subject is superimposed; a process of displaying a decoration portrait of a still image obtained by sampling the displayed composite moving image in a timely manner on a video display; Printing the decorative portrait of the picture with a video printer.

(5) The number of selected decoration designs provided to the user is counted, and a specific decoration design is selected as a special advertisement item based on the counted result. In the process of allowing the user to select an arbitrary decorative design, a special advertisement for recommending the decorative design selected as a special advertisement item to the user through the man-machine interface is performed.

(6) The period during which a special advertisement is performed for one special advertisement item is limited based on time or the number of times the item is selected. The content of the special advertisement includes a notice that the period during which the item can be used is limited.

(7) Items whose execution period of the special advertisement has expired are to be deleted when a new decorative design is registered in the database.

[0015] In the invention according to claim 2 of the present invention, in the decorative portrait creating apparatus according to claim 1,
A means for performing data communication with the host device via a communication network is provided, and the processing of “selecting a specific decorative design as a special advertisement item based on the counting result” in the requirement (5) is entrusted to the host device.

[0016] Thus, the processing load on the decoration portrait creation device can be reduced. In addition, the host device can easily grasp the number of times each decorative pattern is selected in each decorative portrait creating device scattered in the wide area, and can perform a statistical analysis using this.

Further, in the invention according to claim 3 of the present invention, the decoration portrait creation device according to claim 2 has a function of storing a decoration design distributed from the host device by the data communication means in the database. I decided to have it.

[0018]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

=== Overall Configuration of Apparatus === FIG. 1 is an overall perspective view of a decorative portrait creating apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The system elements are housed in a vertically long main body box approximately 2 meters in height.

FIG. 2 is a side sectional view of the decorative portrait creating apparatus. The use window 10 is hollow, and a half mirror 12 is installed obliquely behind the window. Half mirror 12
The video display 14 is installed under the video display 14.

A video camera 16 is provided behind the half mirror 12. The video camera 16 photographs the face of the user facing the use window 10 from the front, with the photographing optical axis passing through the half mirror 12. The video camera 16 is installed upward, and the imaging optical axis is bent at a right angle by a mirror 17 provided immediately before the lens.

A switch panel 18 as an operation input means which can be operated while the user is taking a picture is incorporated in a panel below the use window 10, and a speaker for outputting an operation guide or the like by voice is incorporated. ing.

Inside the lower part of the main body box, a coin receiving machine 20 for accepting a usage fee, a video printer 22 for sampling and printing an image displayed on the video display 14, and a computer which is the center of the system 24 are accommodated. A coin slot of the coin receiving machine 20 and an outlet of a decorative portrait printed by the video printer 22 are arranged in a front part below the use window 10.

The video printer 22 prints a decorative portrait on a print sheet adhered to a backing paper to which an adhesive material is applied and which can be easily peeled off. The print area of the print paper is divided in advance into a total of 16 small stickers of a 4 × 4 matrix, and the divided stickers can be used by peeling them off from the backing sheet one by one. Divided 1
The same image is printed on the six stickers.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the present apparatus. The computer 24 includes a CPU 30, a RAM 32, a ROM 34, a video RAM 36, a hard disk drive 38, and a CD-RO.
An M device 40, a superimposer 42, and a video signal generation circuit (VSG) 44 are included. A switch panel 18 for a user interface including operation buttons is connected to the computer 24 via an operation control device 46, and further, a speaker 50 is connected via an audio processing device 48.
Connect.

A signal from the video camera 16 is input to a computer 24, and a video signal output from the computer 24 is input to a video printer 22. Then, the video of the signal output from the video printer 22 is input to the video display 14 and displayed.

=== Flow from Insertion of Coins by This Apparatus to Creation of Seal === When a user inserts a designated coin into a coin insertion slot, the computer 24 interacts with the user in the form of a dialogue through a man-machine interface. Starts a series of processes for creating a. The man-machine interface includes a switch panel 18, means for outputting various operation guidance sounds from the speaker 50, and means for displaying various operation guidance images on the video display 14.

First, an operation guide is displayed on the video display 14, and a process of selecting a decorative design is executed. The user is guided by the operation guide and the switch panel 1
When the desired decorative design is selected by operating 8, the decorative design and the image (real-time moving image) of the user being photographed by the video camera 16 are combined by the superimposer 42 and displayed on the video display 14. .

Next, the user looks at his / her face (real-time moving image) displayed in the transparent area of the decorative pattern and changes his / her position or devises the facial expression. Then, a predetermined button on the switch panel 18 is pressed at a timing when it is determined that this is all right. Then, the video output of the video camera 16 is sampled at that timing, and the displayed video becomes a still image. If the user does not like the still image, the user can operate the switch panel 18 to switch to the real-time moving image mode again and take a pause again.

The user presses a print button on the switch panel 18 on the screen of the video display 14 when the user can combine his / her own image of a still image with a favorite pose with the decoration pattern selected by the user. .
Then, the image data being displayed on the video display 14 is processed by the video printer 22, and a decorative portrait composed of a composite image obtained by combining the decorative image with the user's portrait is printed on the above-described print paper and discharged to the take-out port. Will be.

=== Management of Decorative Designs === Decorative designs are stored in the database on the hard disk device 38 as decorative design data in digital image format (or may be in compressed format). The decorative designs are managed separately with the open decorative designs currently being provided to the user and the undisclosed decorative designs that will be provided to the user in the future.

The new decorative design data is created by a company that provides the device, and is provided by a storage medium such as a CD-ROM. In the case of a communication type decorative portrait creating apparatus equipped with a communication line control device such as a modem or an ISDN board, new decorative design data is supplied from a host device through a communication line network. The supplied decorative design data is first stored in a database as an undisclosed decorative design.

=== Selection of Special Advertisement Item === For each decorative design, the computer 24 records in the storage device such as a hard disk how many times the decorative design has been selected by the user. The computer 24 checks the number of times of selection in a timely manner, and selects a design having a smaller number of selections than other decoration designs as a special promotion item (a plurality of decoration designs may be selected).

With respect to the special advertisement item selected, the computer 24 makes an advertising phrase stating that the number of remaining sales is limited, for example, "This pattern is limited to X copies and the remaining is Y copies." Creation and management of the remaining number of sheets are started.

=== Execution of Special Advertising === When the user selects a decorative design, the computer 24
Recommends that the user select a special advertisement item by displaying the advertisement phrase created on the video display 14 or streaming the advertisement phrase from the speaker 50. If the user selects this design, the number of remaining special advertisement items recorded in the management area is changed to Y-1. Therefore, the advertising phrase for the next user will be "This pattern is limited to X and the remaining Y-1 will be completed", and will remain every time this special promotional item is selected until the remaining number Y becomes 0 The number Y is subtracted one after another.

=== Exchange of Decorative Designs === When the number of remaining prints becomes 0, the computer 24 deletes the special advertisement item from the database and replaces it with an unpublished design stored in the database. Change one of them to a public design.

=== Other Applications === (1) Advertising Phrase by Date Limitation The advertising phrase is limited to a date limit such as "This decoration pattern can only be used until x month x day". It may be. If the date is limited, there is an advantage that a new decorative design can be reliably introduced on this date.

(2) Communication-type decoration portrait creation device In the case of a communication-type decoration portrait creation device connected to a host device via a communication network, the above-described processing for selecting a special advertisement item is performed by the host device. It can also be left to. In this way, the processing load on the decorative portrait creating device can be reduced.

Also, the degree of popularity of each decorative pattern in each decorative portrait creation device scattered in a wide area,
An application is also conceivable in which the frequency of use of each device is statistically grasped and, for example, the type of decorative design to be supplied is changed for each region.

[0039]

According to the present invention, by performing a special advertisement for recommending a special advertisement item to a user, the topicality can be easily raised and the popularity of the apparatus can be improved.

Further, since the special advertisement is performed as part of the process of replacing the decorative design, the special advertisement can be easily implemented without particularly requiring new hardware resources.

Further, the decoration design distributed from the host device by the data communication means is stored in the database, and the data communication means is "selecting a specific decoration design as a special advertisement item based on the counting result" processing. It is reasonable if they are also used.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall perspective view of a decorative portrait creating apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side sectional view of a decorative portrait creating apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an apparatus for creating a decorative portrait according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[Explanation of symbols]

 24 computer 38 hard disk device 40 CD-ROM device

Claims (3)

[Claims] An apparatus for creating a decorative portrait, which has the following requirements (1) to (7). (1) It is configured to include a video camera, a video display, a video printer, and a computer that integrally controls these components. (2) Decorative designs designed to be decoratively combined with portraits are stored in a computer database in the form of digital images. (3) The decoration portrait creation process proceeds with the user in an interactive manner using a man-machine interface. The man-machine interface includes a means for inputting a user's operation, a means for outputting voice of various operation guidance, and a means for displaying an image of various operation guidance on a video display. (4) In the decoration portrait creation process, a decoration pattern is displayed on a video display and a user selects an arbitrary decoration pattern from the decoration pattern, and the decoration pattern selected by the user and an object photographed by a video camera. A process of displaying a composite moving image on which a real-time moving image of the subject is superimposed, a process of displaying a still image decoration portrait obtained by sampling the displayed composite moving image in a timely manner, and a process of decorating the still image Printing the portrait with a video printer. (5) The number of times the decoration pattern provided to the user is selected is counted, and a specific decoration pattern is selected as a special advertisement item based on the counting result.
In the process of allowing the user to select an arbitrary decorative design, a special advertisement for recommending the decorative design selected as a special advertisement item to the user through the man-machine interface is performed. (6) The period during which a special advertisement is performed for one special advertisement item is limited based on time or the number of times the item is selected. The content of the special advertisement includes a notice that the period during which the item can be used is limited. (7) Items for which the execution period of the special advertisement has expired are to be deleted when a new decorative design is registered in the database. 2. The decoration portrait creation device according to claim 1, further comprising means for performing data communication with the host device via a communication network, wherein the special decoration item is designated based on the counting result in the requirement (5). Elected as
A decoration portrait creation device, wherein processing is entrusted to a host device. 3. The decoration portrait creating apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a function of storing the decoration design distributed from the host device by the data communication means in the database.