JPS59161753A - Image file system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To utilize a home video tape recorder as an external storage device for image information and realize the effective utilization with a small-sized device by providing a coordinate input device imaging means, etc. CONSTITUTION:An instruction input mode is made up a table for image information processing. A CPU1 fetches a processing instruction inputted from a tablet device 4 according to this mode and executes the instruction. For example, an image information is obtained from an information (coordinate information) of a handwritten line pattern and inputted to a processor body. Further, when an instruction indicates the storage of the image information, it is written in the VTR7 as the external storage device. When it is retrieved,the image information stored in the VTR7 is retrieved and displayed on a CRT monitor. Thus, the coordinate input device and VTR are used to process the image information effectively by the small-sized device.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an inexpensive and highly practical image file system that allows a small-scale information processing device to easily handle image information consisting of a large amount of data.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

BACKGROUND ART In recent years, with the development of large-scale integrated circuit technology, central processing units (CPUs) and storage devices have become smaller and more dense, and they have also become available at lower prices. Microcomputer systems using these devices have become widespread, and more and more individuals are now owning such systems.

On the other hand, the amount of data processed by the above systems tends to increase, and attempts are being made to handle typical image information as large-capacity data. However, external storage devices, such as magnetic disk devices, required to handle this type of large-capacity data are extremely expensive. In this regard, inexpensive floppy magnetic disk devices and the like have been developed, but their storage capacity is about 100 to IM bytes, which is extremely insufficient for the above-mentioned large-capacity external storage devices.

On the other hand, various image information input devices have been developed, but their configurations are generally large-scale and expensive, so there are problems with their use in the above-mentioned systems.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in consideration of these circumstances, and its purpose is to enable the use of a home video tape recorder as an external storage device for image information7, Another object of the present invention is to provide a simple and highly practical image file system that allows the above-mentioned image information to be effectively handled using a small-scale information processing device.

That is, an object of the present invention is to provide an inexpensive image file system that allows image information to be easily handled in a home information processing system based on a so-called microcomputer.

[Summary of the invention].

The present invention provides a processing device main body, for example, a one-chip microcomputer, for editing given image information, a coordinate input device, for example, a pressure-sensitive tablet device capable of inputting line drawings, and a coordinate input device for inputting the coordinates. An imaging means mainly composed of an image memory, for example, obtains image information of a line figure inputted through the device and supplies it to the main body of the processing device; external storage control means, such as a PCM processor, which writes the image information into a recorder, searches for and reads out the image information, and provides the image information to the processing device main body; This is an image file system equipped with a display device such as a John receiver.

〔Effect of the invention〕

Thus, the present invention provides a method for converting information input via a coordinate input device into an image, effectively filing the image information on a video tape recorder as an external storage device, and retrieving the same. This makes it possible to easily perform desired image processing. Furthermore, this system effectively utilizes video tape recorders, television receivers, etc., and uses inexpensive pressure-sensitive tablet devices, etc., so the system configuration is simple and can be realized at low cost. C-kill. Easily handling image information consisting of a large amount of data becomes ``IT capability''.Incidentally, in the past, when storing an image, for example, character patterns were used to reduce the amount of data. etc. are coded and handled.Also, when inputting the character pattern etc. mentioned above, it is given as code information.For this reason, it is necessary to edit the displayed image (in some cases it is extremely complex). In this respect, according to this system, for items that require image processing, it is possible to handle them as image information from the beginning, making the above image processing extremely easy. , and can be carried out effectively, resulting in great practical effects.

(Embodiment of the Invention) An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the system according to the embodiment.

The central processing unit 1 constitutes the main part of the system, and is composed of, for example, a CPU, RAM, ROM, ALU, etc. as main components. A keyboard input device 2 and a CR'T monitor 3 as a display device consisting of a color television receiver are connected to this central processing unit 1. The keyboard input device 2 inputs predetermined block diagram data, processing data, etc. to the central processing unit 1, and the input data and data processed by the central processing unit 1 are input to the CRT monitor 3. It is displayed as an image. These constitute a basic microcomputer system.

However, the central processing unit 1 has a tablet device 4 as a coordinate input device that can input handwritten graphic information as a line figure by connecting coordinates, and a three-dimensional image input device that cannot be input with the tablet device 4. a television camera device (TV camera) 5, and a facsimile device 6 as a highly accurate image information input device.
is connected. Furthermore, the central processing unit 1 includes a home video tape recorder (as an external storage device).
VTR) 7 is connected. This V'1TR7 is originally intended for recording and reproducing television signals, but
Here, the operation is controlled by the central processing unit 1 via a control line, and as described later, digitized image information, programs of the central processing unit 1, etc. are recorded and reproduced as a pseudo television signal instead of a video signal. It has become something to do. The tablet device 4 capable of inputting line drawings is of a pressure-sensitive type, for example, having a structure in which a pressure-sensitive rubber is sandwiched between two electrodes, and the tablet device 4 is of a pressure-sensitive type having a structure in which a pressure-sensitive rubber is sandwiched between two electrodes. It is now possible to obtain information on the marks. Therefore, if you draw letters and figures using the box marking tool mentioned above,
The writing trajectory is input as coordinate information that is continuously connected.F
It will be L.

Now, in this system configured as described in section 2, the central processing unit 1 acts on image information as follows. It goes without saying that the processing of image information by the central processing unit 1 is performed according to a predetermined program.

FIG. 2 shows the basic processing mode. First, it is determined whether the command input mode is a keyboard or a tablet. Depending on this mode, the central processing unit 1 takes in a processing command input from the keyboard input device 2 or takes a processing command input from the tablet device 4, and executes processing according to the command. The commands for image information processing input from the keyboard input device 2 or tablet device 4 are 1. J8
Basically (+) Inputting image information (II) Saving (memory) image information (iii)
Image information inspection (reading) (IV) Consists of image information editing (image processing). When ordering to input the image information described in 1-1, image information 4- is obtained from the information (coordinate information) of a line figure input by hand using the tablet device 4, and this is stored in the main body of the processing device. It's crowded.

Further, when the command instructs storage of image information, the image information held in the main body of the 3qp apparatus is written to the VTR 7 of the external storage device 7, which will be described later. Furthermore, if the command is to search for image 1 notification, 1) "lJ
The target image information corresponding to the search item is searched from among the image information stored in the VTR 7, read out from the VTR 7, and displayed on the CRT monitor 3.
Display using. Further, when the above-mentioned command is to edit image information, the image information given to the main body of the processing device is displayed using the CRT monitor 3, and the image information given from the key/Zade input device 2 or the tablet device 4 is displayed. In accordance with the image editing command issued by J, image editing is performed by performing all the so-called cutting and pasting of the image information. The central processing unit 1 executes processing for such images according to a predetermined program 4. By the way, the tablet device 4 has its tablet surface set to the command area 1 as shown in FIG. 'ra'l
The command area A is divided into a handwriting input area B, and small areas CIt to Cn, which are obtained by dividing the command area A into smaller areas, are associated with predetermined commands.

These commands consist of commands for rotation, movement, enlargement, reduction, etc. for image processing of image information, and the small areas C1 to Cn are selectively 1 (by instructing, -L description is performed from the information of the indicated position coordinates). Commands can be input immediately.

Furthermore, when position coordinates are input using the handwriting input area B of the tablet device 4, the points of the designated coordinates are plotted in order on the image memory of the processing device main body. C.

I drew letters, figures, etc. on the tablet surface using a writing utensil such as Ben's ``Shimadai'', its position B'! = mark (X
, Y) are plotted in sequence on the image memory,
Gland figure 11, 1:, 6 image information is obtained as the movement locus of the writing instrument on the image memory.

FIG. 4 shows the process for inputting information using the tablet device 4: the processing flow of the main body of the 14. When (x, Y) coordinates are input to the machine shown in this figure, it is determined whether the coordinates (X, Y) are sent to the command area IA. And the coordinates (X,
When y,) is a command area, 1.m, interprets the command command corresponding to the 1 vote, and executes this Jt. Also, the rX, y) coordinates are entered in the handwriting input section ■3, (1T
When the coordinate points on the image memory corresponding to the locus α are plotted in order, the image information is obtained.

The processing device main body edits the image information provided from the tablet device 4 or the like as described above in the following manner. FIG. 5 schematically shows the operation. Image information input via the tablet device 4 and image information retrieved and read from the VTR, 7 as described later are stored in the image memory 11°. 1
2. Further, image information input via the TV camera 5 is stored in an image memory 14 via an A/D converter 13. In addition, image information input via the facsimile device 6 or the like is also stored in the image memory.

These image information are handled as, for example, digital data, and the editing processing unit 15 of the processing device body performs movements, rotations, enlargements, reductions, etc. on these image information, and also edits between multiple pieces of image information. 'C is creating new image information. Although such editing processing may be performed by hardware, it is preferable to perform it by software according to a predetermined editing program from the viewpoint of greater flexibility. Thus, the image information newly created by editing is stored in another image memory 16 and subjected to the next processing. Incidentally, if the image memory is basically provided with two for input and one for output, it is possible to effectively perform the above-mentioned editing process. Through this image editing, it is possible to create a document image in which, for example, text consisting of character strings and graphic tables are mixed together.

The above is an overview of the image information input and editing process in this system.

By the way, in this system, image information is written to the VTR 7 as an external storage device in the following manner, and
The desired information is searched and read out of the 11 image information stored in R7. The aπ6 diagram shows an example of its implementation, in which a PCM processor 21 or the like is used as an interface. This PCM processor 21'' is
It was developed to digitally encode a radio signal and record it on a VTR 7, and is widely used. Then, a control header CCo-I() is added to each vertical period of the video signal, and the remaining portion is allocated to the data area to record the digital data, and the average transfer rate is 14. Mbits (sec).

Therefore, in this system, 21 such J]CM processors are effectively used to record image information in place of the above-mentioned digitized audio recordings. Thus, the ink face has a control header memory 22, a header memory 23, a data memory 24, and a machine control section 25, all of which are constructed as 4'II. Now, if one unit of image information recorded on the VTR 7 is one page P, this P 7
．． The image information to be stored is divided into, for example, 32 records DItD2-D32 of 4 bytes each. As shown in Figure 7, these records D+, D2-=D32 each have 6-byte headers H,, H2 to H32.
are added and these are recorded data. This data is divided into 1. This is to cope with high-speed downloading in the VTR 7, and the above headers H, , H2 to H82 are written with respect to the same page PK. This allows V
The high-speed search operation of the TR7 ensures that search information (header information) related to the image information is detected and reproduced even if interlaced tracing of the video track is not performed. Note that it is useful for image saving if image information such as a characteristic pattern related to the image information is used as the header information. In addition, the motion IR recorded normally on the VTR7
! 'ii(・) Add the control header (CQH) shown in the 8th figure, and convert the redundant searched video to this control header (co-H). The 112th video is also subject to processing by converting it into an image and reading it out.
I can do that.

In this way, by adding a header to the image information and also adding a control header to encode the image information in a pseudo-decoding manner, the VTR 7 becomes effective as an external storage device for storing image information. It becomes possible to use it for

Moreover, since the above header information can be easily checked by ↓-), it is possible to effectively process image information in a system with a simple configuration.

As explained above, according to the present system, line drawing information input by hand from a tablet device, that is, coordinate information, is converted into image information, and predetermined editing processing is performed on such image information, and then VTR, (/(This is a system that records images.In other words, it handles image information, which is a large amount of data, as it is, even though it is a small-scale system.Therefore, it is possible to directly handle image information to be processed. Since the control format is very simple, it is possible to perform accurate image information processing.In other words, in conventional systems, since the data capacity of image information is large, it is necessary to encode this information. However, with this system, there is no need to perform code conversion processing each time, so image information processing can be performed easily and efficiently.Furthermore, the system configuration is simple and easy to use. , and because it is inexpensive C, its practical advantages are enormous.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the second embodiment.

For example, the input/output devices for image information and the number of devices to be used may be determined as appropriate. Further, specifications such as the processing unit of image information may be determined as appropriate, and in short, the present invention can be implemented with various modifications without departing from the gist thereof.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The figures show one embodiment of the present invention, in which Fig. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of the system, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing a schematic processing flow,
Figure 3 is a diagram showing the configuration of the tablet, Figure 4 is a diagram showing the flow of image information processing, Figure 5 is a diagram showing the processing concept of image editing, and Figure 6 is a diagram showing the processing of recording and reproducing image information on a VTR. For the purpose of explanation, FIGS. 7 and 8 are diagrams showing examples of recording formats of image information on a VTR. 1.Central processing unit, 2.Keyboard input device, 3.
CRT monitor, 4...tablet device, 5...1゛V
Camera, 6" facsimile device, 7-V rR (external storage), 11.12, 14.16 image memory, 21 PCM processor. 1 representative Patent attorney Takehiko Suzue Continued from page 1 0 Inventor Yasuko Nakayama Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd. Research Institute, 1 Komukai Toshiba-cho, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki City

Claims (1)

[Claims] (]) A processing device main body that edits image information obtained from JEj, a coordinate input device capable of inputting line figures,
A means for converting a line figure input through the coordinate input device into image information and providing it to the processing device main body; and a means for writing the image information processed by the processing device main body into a video tape recorder, - An image characterized by comprising means for searching and reading image information stored in a tape recorder and providing it to the main body of the processing device, and a display device for converting and displaying the image information handled by the processing device. -File System 0 (2) The image file system according to claim 1, wherein the image information written to the video tape recorder is digitized.