JP2008293356A - Information processing device, information processing method, program, and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To readily select a desired printer from a plurality of printers connected via a network. <P>SOLUTION: The information processing device is provided with an extraction means for extracting feature information on a printer contained in image taken by a camera, an identification means for identifying the printer photographed by the camera, by referring the extracted feature information of the printer to that of the printer stored in a database, and an output destination designation means for displaying information about the printer identified by the identification means on a display screen of a display device as a candidate for printer of a printing data output destination. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus used for selecting a printing apparatus.

  Conventionally, when a user of a printing apparatus performs a printing operation on a personal computer (PC), the printer name and location are input by using a user interface displayed on the screen in order to make a print setting using a keyboard or a mouse. It was specified on the device.

On the other hand, a method of displaying state information of an apparatus in an image superimposed on an image obtained from a network camera is disclosed (see Patent Document 1).
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-200800

  In recent years, many inexpensive printing apparatuses such as printers and digital multifunction peripherals have been provided, and the number of printing apparatuses that can be used from a single PC is increasing as a network is established in an office or the like. .

  By the way, the user needs to take care not to waste the expensive printed output or to lose the printed material from the viewpoint of security. Therefore, when printing is performed from an application such as a word processor that operates on a PC, the user must correctly specify a printing apparatus such as a desired printer or a digital multi-function peripheral as a printing apparatus to which a printed material is output. In the conventional method, names of printing apparatuses preset by a system administrator or the like are listed in a user interface for designating an output destination printing apparatus.

  In such a case, the user cannot easily know where the output printing apparatus exists. Also, when a printing device is newly added or deleted, it may not be clear which printing device is optimal for the user. That is, when the number of printing devices is large, the installation location is large, the layout of the installation floor is frequently changed, or the installation location of the printing device is difficult to specify, the user can select the desired printing device. It is difficult to specify.

  Therefore, the present invention provides a printing apparatus selection unit and an information processing apparatus that allow a user to grasp the installation status of a printing apparatus, list usable printing apparatuses, and easily specify a printing apparatus that the user wants to use. Have a purpose.

  In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, extraction means for extracting feature information of the printing apparatus included in an image photographed by the camera, feature information of the printing apparatus extracted by the extraction means, and stored in a database Information relating to the printing apparatus identified by the identification means is identified as a candidate for an identification unit for identifying the printing apparatus photographed by the camera and a printing apparatus that is an output destination of print data by collating with the characteristic information of the printing apparatus. There is provided an information processing apparatus comprising output destination designation means for displaying on a display screen of a display apparatus.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to reliably specify a desired printing apparatus for a user.

<First Embodiment>
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a system according to the first embodiment.

  In FIG. 1, the system according to the embodiment of the present invention includes an information processing apparatus 101, a digital multifunction peripheral 102 in which functions of a copying machine and a printer are integrated, a printer 103, and a network camera 104. These are connected to a network 105 such as a LAN.

  Note that the present embodiment is not limited to the illustrated configuration. For example, the information processing apparatus may be configured integrally with another apparatus such as a digital multifunction peripheral, and the connection between the apparatus and the network is wireless. Or may be a mixture of wireless and wired.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the information processing apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.
In FIG. 2, the information processing apparatus 101 includes hardware 201, an OS (operating system) 202 that is basic software executed by the hardware 201, and a print application 203. The information processing apparatus 101 is connected to a display device 212 such as an LCD. The hardware 201 includes a hard disk device that is a computer-readable storage medium that stores software programs such as a CPU (control device) that performs overall control of the information processing apparatus 101, basic software, and a printing application. Further, the hardware 201 detects input information from a mouse and a keyboard that are input devices. The information in the printing apparatus database 208 is stored in the hard disk device. The hardware 201 includes a RAM that expands a program read from the ROM, and a network interface circuit that transmits and receives data to and from an external device via the network 105.

  The print application 203 includes functional modules such as an image reception unit 205, an image feature extraction unit 206, a printing apparatus identification unit 207, an output destination designation unit 209, a network camera driver 204, and printer drivers 210 and 211.

  The information processing apparatus 101 is connected to the network 105 by a network interface of the hardware 201. The information processing apparatus 101 receives an image transmitted from the network camera 104 via a network interface by a network driver (not shown) in the OS 202.

  Then, the network camera driver 204 outputs the image data received by the network driver to the image receiving unit 205. Further, the image data is transferred from the image receiving unit 205 to the image feature extracting unit 206. The image feature extraction unit 206 cuts out an image portion taken by the printing device from the image data, and extracts feature information indicating the feature of the printing device from the image portion. The printing device identification unit 207 collates the feature information passed from the image feature extraction unit 206 with a plurality of feature information in the printing device database 208 in order to identify the printing device in the image taken by the network camera. .

  Then, the printing apparatus identification unit 207 retrieves information regarding the printing apparatus name and the printer driver name associated with the matched feature information from the printing apparatus database 208. In addition to the information related to the printing device name and the printer driver name, the printing device identification unit 207 passes to the output destination designation unit 208 information indicating at which position in the image data the printing device corresponding to the printing device name exists. The output destination designation unit 209 displays a dialog box on the display screen of the display device 212 based on these pieces of information.

  When the output destination designation unit 208 detects information about a desired printing apparatus name selected by the user, the output destination designation unit 208 selects a printer driver (210 or 211) from the corresponding printer driver name. Then, the selected printer driver (210 or 211) transmits print data to be printed by the printing apparatus. The print data output from the printer driver (210 or 211) is transmitted from the hardware network interface to the corresponding printing device via the network driver in the operating system 202.

  FIG. 3 shows an operation process flowchart when the information processing apparatus 101 executes a process of selecting a printing apparatus in response to a user operation in the first embodiment. The processing illustrated in FIG. 3 is achieved by causing the CPU of the hardware 201 to execute the OS 202 and the print application 203.

  Hereinafter, a case where one network camera is installed so that two printing apparatuses can be photographed will be described.

  In S <b> 301 of FIG. 3, the output destination designation unit 208 detects a print request instructed by the user via the input device 212. In step S <b> 302, the output destination designation unit 208 displays a dialog box 401 illustrated in FIG. 4 on the screen of the display device 212 in order to allow the user to designate a printing device as an output destination of the printed material. In step S <b> 303, the output destination designation unit 208 displays the name of the network camera (for example, “network camera 1”) on the screen of the display device 212 in the pull-down list 402 for selecting a printing device.

  In step S <b> 304, the output destination designation unit 208 detects that the user has selected a network camera name (for example, “network camera 1”) via the input device 213. When it detects, it progresses to S305. In step S305, the output destination designation unit 208 requests the network camera driver 204 to transmit an image transmission request command to the network camera (referred to as the network camera 104) corresponding to the selected network camera name. The network camera driver 204 transmits an image transmission request command to the network camera 104.

  In step S <b> 306 in FIG. 3, the network camera driver 204 passes the image received from the network camera 104 to the output destination designation unit 209 via the image reception unit 205. The output destination designation unit 209 displays an image on the screen of the display device 212 as shown in FIG.

  In step S <b> 307, the image reception unit 205 passes the image received from the network camera 104 to the image feature extraction unit 206.

  In step S308, the image feature extraction unit 206 extracts feature information indicating features of the printing apparatus from the image. Note that the feature information may be extracted by using the shape and color of the printing apparatus, which are extracted using a general-purpose technique. Then, the printing apparatus identification unit 207 collates the feature information extracted from the image feature amount extraction unit 206 with each feature information stored in the printing apparatus database 208. Then, the printing apparatus identification unit 207 retrieves information regarding the printing apparatus name and the printer driver name associated with the matched feature information from the printing apparatus database 208. The printing apparatus identification unit 207 passes the extracted printing apparatus name, printer driver name, and information indicating in which position in the image the printing apparatus corresponding to the printing apparatus name exists to the output destination designation unit 209. .

  In S309, as shown in FIG. 6, based on the above three information, the output destination designation unit 209 sets the recognized printing device name and the frame for designation as a printing device output destination candidate of the print data. Display it superimposed on the image.

  In step S <b> 310, the output destination designation unit 209 detects the selection of the multifunction peripheral that is the printing apparatus displayed on the display screen of the display apparatus 212 by the user via the input apparatus 213. In addition, as a selection method of the user, there is a method of selecting by an operation of moving the mouse cursor into a frame on the screen of the display device 212 corresponding to a desired printing device and clicking a mouse button. Further, in order to clearly indicate to the user the selected printing apparatus, the output destination designation unit 209 may display the selected frame in a shaded manner as shown in FIG. The change of the shape and width may be displayed, or the brightness of the image in the frame may be highlighted.

  Also, as shown in FIG. 8, when the dialog box 801 is displayed, the names of the two printing devices already recognized at the time of the previous printing device selection are added to the pull-down menu 802, and the network camera image is viewed. You may make it selectable without. This makes it easy to select the same printing apparatus again after selecting it once. In FIG. 8, “network camera 1 ¥ color multifunction device 1” means the color multifunction device 1 which is a printing apparatus photographed by the network camera 1.

  In addition, an image obtained by enlarging the selected printing device may be displayed on the display device 212. In this case, a network camera operation command is transmitted from the output destination designation unit 209 to the network camera 104 via the network camera driver 204. This network camera operation command is a command for executing zoom, pan, and tilt of the network camera 104 so that only the selected printing apparatus is enlarged.

  In step S <b> 311, when the output destination designation unit 208 detects selection of an OK button on the dialog box shown in FIG. 7 after a desired printing device is selected, the printer driver (210 or 211) corresponding to the selected printing device. ) Is selected. The selected printer driver instructs the network driver of the operating system 202 to transmit print data of a printed matter designated in advance by the user to the selected printing apparatus. The print data is transmitted from the network interface of the hardware 201 together with the print request command.

  In S310, the output destination designating unit 208 may control the display device 212 to close the window displaying the image in response to detection of selection of the OK button. Further, the window may be opened and displayed as it is so that the movable state of the printing apparatus can be monitored.

  In step S310, a print instruction may be issued only by detecting the selection of the printing apparatus, and the OK button process may be omitted.

  Further, in S311, the frame or shaded display for prompting selection so that the image can be clearly seen is terminated and displayed as shown in FIG.

  When a plurality of network cameras are installed, the output destination designation unit 208 may cause the display device 212 to display a plurality of network camera names in a pull-down menu 902 of a dialog 901 as shown in FIG. Thereby, the user can select a desired network camera in accordance with the operation of the input device 213.

<Second Embodiment>
FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an overview of a system according to the second embodiment of this invention.

  In the present embodiment, a description will be given of a second embodiment in which, when two network printing apparatuses are installed on each of four network cameras, the printing apparatus is selected by designating the network camera. To do.

  The four network cameras are referred to as a network camera 1, a network camera 2, a network camera 3, and a network camera 4, respectively. The installation locations are, for example, building A, 1st floor north floor, building A 2nd floor south floor, building B 1st floor south floor, building B 3rd floor north floor.

  Information relating to the installation locations of the network cameras 1 to 4 is stored in the hard disk device of the hardware 201 as table information as shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 11, the network camera name, ridge, floor, and floor information are described in the table.

  The output destination designating unit 208 displays on the screen of the display device 212 a dialog in which the installation location information shown in FIG. 11 is expressed in a tree structure as shown in FIG. The user can select a desired network camera name on the dialog by referring to the building name, floor, and floor name from the display of the dialog.

  FIG. 13 shows a display state when, for example, the user selects “Network Camera 2” installed on the south floor of Building A 2nd floor. The processing after selecting the network camera is the same as that in the first embodiment, and the description thereof is omitted.

<Third Embodiment>
In the third embodiment, when the user instructs printing, the name of the printing apparatus is input to specify the printing apparatus that is the output destination of the printed matter.

  FIG. 14 shows an operation process flowchart when the information processing apparatus 101 executes a process of selecting a printing apparatus in response to a user operation in the third embodiment. The processing illustrated in FIG. 14 is achieved by causing the CPU of the hardware 201 to execute the OS 202 and the print application 203. In addition, the thing of the code | symbol same as the code | symbol shown in FIG.

  In S301 in FIG. 14, the output destination designation unit 208 detects a print request instructed by the user via the input device 212. In response to this detection, the process advances to step S1402, and the output destination designation unit 208 displays a dialog box on the screen of the display device 212. In this dialog box, an area where the user can input the name of the printing apparatus using the input device 213 is displayed.

  In step S <b> 1403, the output destination designation unit 208 determines whether the user has input the name of the printing apparatus using the input device 213. If it is determined that the input has been made, the process proceeds to S1404. In step S <b> 1404, the output destination designation unit 209 searches for a network camera that can shoot the printing apparatus designated by the user based on information in the printing apparatus database 208. In the third embodiment, it is assumed that the name of the printing apparatus is associated with information about a network camera that can photograph the printing apparatus.

  When there is no network camera that can shoot, the output destination designation unit 208 causes the printer driver of the designated printing apparatus to transmit print data to the designated printing apparatus. On the other hand, if there is a network camera capable of shooting, the process proceeds to S305. The subsequent processing is the same as in FIG.

  In the third embodiment, it is possible to confirm an output destination printing apparatus with an image before outputting print data.

System configuration diagram of the first embodiment of the present invention Block diagram of the information processing apparatus of the present invention Flowchart of operation processing of the information processing apparatus according to the first embodiment of this invention. An example of a dialog box in the first embodiment of the present invention Display example of image received from network camera Display example of image received from network camera when printing device recognition is complete Display example of image received from network camera when printing device is selected An example of a dialog box that displays the printing device selected in the past Example of dialog box when multiple network cameras are connected System configuration diagram of the second embodiment of the present invention An example of a table describing the installation location of a network camera An example of a dialog box to let the user select a network camera Example of dialog box displayed after network camera is selected Operation processing flowchart of information processing apparatus according to third embodiment

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 Information processing apparatus 102 Digital multifunction machine 103 Printer 104 Network camera 105 Network 106 Recognition part

Claims (8)

An information processing apparatus for designating a printing apparatus that outputs print data,
Extraction means for extracting feature information of the printing device included in the image taken by the camera;
Identification means for identifying the printing apparatus photographed by the camera by comparing the characteristic information of the printing apparatus extracted by the extraction means with the characteristic information of the printing apparatus stored in the database;
Output destination designation means for displaying information on the printing apparatus identified by the identification means on the display screen of the display apparatus as a printing apparatus output destination candidate for print data;
An information processing apparatus comprising:   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the output destination designation unit displays information related to the printing apparatus identified by the identification unit on an image photographed by the camera.   The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the camera is a camera associated with a name of a printing apparatus input via an input apparatus. An information processing method of an information processing apparatus for designating a printing apparatus that outputs print data,
An extraction step of extracting feature information of the printing device included in the image taken by the camera;
An identification step of identifying the printing device photographed by the camera by comparing the feature information of the printing device extracted in the extraction step with the feature information of the printing device stored in the database;
An output destination designation step for displaying information on the printing device identified in the identification step on the display screen of the display device as a printing device candidate of an output destination of print data;
An information processing method for an information processing apparatus, comprising:   5. The information processing method for an information processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein in the output destination designation step, information related to the printing apparatus identified by the identification unit is superimposed and displayed on an image photographed by the camera.   5. The information processing method according to claim 4, wherein the camera is a camera associated with the name of the printing apparatus input via the input apparatus.   A program for causing a computer to execute the information processing method according to any one of claims 4 to 6.   A computer-readable storage medium storing the program according to claim 7.

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