JP3114792B2 - TV conference system - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a TV capable of connecting a distant point by a line, exchanging and displaying images and voices of the other party, and holding a conference as if they were in the same place. Concerning the conference system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional TV conference system, a TV image photographed by a TV camera on a transmitting side is usually displayed as it is on a monitor on a receiving side.

[0003] In this TV conference system, there is no particular problem when only a specific speaker is photographed and displayed, or as long as only a few people are displayed. But,
When more than five or six people gather in one room and hold a meeting, if all members are to be displayed on the screen, zoom out the camera and display at a magnification that allows all members to be seen. There must be.

[0004] In the case described above, the face images of the members are arranged horizontally on the screen. However, when images of more than five or six persons are arranged horizontally on one monitor screen, the image per person is required. Display area is too small. From this,
You will not be able to read facial expressions and gestures at all, and you will be able to see each other's facial expressions and gestures in a remote location, reducing the merit of being able to proceed with the conference as if you were in one conference room.

In addition, since many images of a person are to be displayed horizontally on a monitor screen, an area for displaying wastefully, such as a wall of a conference room, is not necessarily formed in the upper and lower portions of the monitor.

[0006]

In order to solve this problem, a TV image taken by a TV camera on the image transmitting side is compressed in the horizontal direction by a magnification lens in advance, and expanded in the horizontal direction on the image receiving side. A technique has been proposed in which a plurality of screen signals are generated by using the same and displayed on a plurality of monitors (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-64184).
issue). This is a technique of compressing and expanding in the horizontal direction and displaying the data on a plurality of monitors. In this case, both the image transmitting side and the receiving side must use a device adopting this method.
In addition, it is necessary to install a plurality of monitors on the image receiving side, which imposes a heavy burden on installation space and cost.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to display a larger image per person when displaying the same number of people as in the conventional technology, and to display the same size as in the prior art.
It is to provide a TV conference system capable of displaying more people.

[0008]

According to the TV conference system of the present invention, points which are distant from each other are connected by a line, and the image and voice of the other party obtained from the TV camera are exchanged with each other through a communication control device, and are monitored and monitored. 2. Description of the Related Art In a TV conference system in which a conference is performed while displaying a video, a part without a person is deleted from a TV image sent from the other party, and the TV image is re-edited into an image including only a part with a person. comprising an image converting means for outputting the expanded to the size as the image for monitoring, the image converting means, sent from the counterpart TV
Area where the part where the person is shown in the image is long in the horizontal direction
, The area is equally divided into a plurality of horizontally arranged areas.
And rearranging the plurality of regions in the vertical direction,
It is characterized in that it is enlarged and output as a monitor image .

[0009] The image conversion means has predetermined areas to be deleted and areas to be taken out of the TV image sent from the other party.

Further, output switching means for switching between an image from the communication control device and an enlarged image from the image conversion means and outputting the same to a monitor, and operating means for instructing the output switching means to perform switching. It is preferable to provide

[0011]

The image conversion means processes the received image from the other party received by the communication control device and outputs it to the monitor. As a specific processing method, first, only a portion where a person is photographed is cut out from the received image, and then the cut out portion is rearranged and enlarged so as to fit on a monitor. Finally, it is enlarged and output to the monitor. Since the portion where the person is shown can be enlarged by an amount corresponding to the removal of the extra portion, the image of the person can be displayed larger than before.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Referring to FIG. 1, this system includes a communication control device 1, an A / D converter 2, an input frame buffer 3, an image conversion device 4, an output frame buffer 5, a D / A converter 6, an output switching device 7, a monitor 8, operation console 9, and a TV camera 10.

The communication control device 1 is connected to a similar communication control device of the other party via a line, and transmits a video taken by the TV camera 10 to the other party and also takes a picture taken by the other party's TV camera. The video is received from the communication control device of the other party.

The video received by the communication control device 1 is sent to the A / D converter 2 and the output switching device 7. The A / D converter 2 converts the input analog signal into a digital signal and stores the digital signal in the input frame buffer 3. The input frame buffer 3 will be updated 30 times per second,
Each time, the image converter 4 edits the image from the input frame buffer 3 and stores it in the output frame buffer 5. As a result, the content of the output frame buffer 5 updated 30 times per second is converted into an analog signal by the D / A converter 6 and sent to the output switching device 7.

In the initial state, the output switching device 7 outputs the image input from the communication control device 1 to the monitor 8 as it is, but when the operator sends an instruction from the console 9 to the output switching device 7, the D / A By outputting the signal input from the converter 6 to the monitor 8, a larger human image is displayed as compared with the related art.

Next, the operation will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2A shows an image stored in the input frame buffer 3. When there are more than five or six persons in the other party's conference room, if the zoom of the other party's TV camera is operated so that all the members are displayed, the area A in FIG.
The members' images are displayed in the areas A1 and A2, and meaningless images such as the background of the room are displayed in the areas A3 and A4.

According to the present invention, when the number of participants in the conference is large, the image obtained by the TV camera is substantially the same as that shown in FIG.
It is assumed that the configuration is as follows. Then, the image conversion device 4 is provided with a function of deleting the areas A3 and A4 in the input image and extracting only the areas A1 and A2 in the input image in advance by a program.

The image conversion device 4 extracts only the areas A1 and A2 in FIG. 2A and edits them as shown in FIG. 2B. The number of members displayed in FIG. 2B is the same as in FIG. 2A, and the appearance of each member is also displayed in the same size as in FIG. However, the entire size of FIG. 2B is a quarter of the size of FIG. 2A.

FIG. 2 (c) is an enlarged view of FIG. 2 (b) simply doubled in length and width. The entire size of FIG. 2C is the same as that of FIG. 2A, and is just a size that can be displayed on a monitor. A1 'and A2' in FIG.
Is a size that is exactly four times the size of the portions A1 and A2 in FIG. Therefore, the person image displayed there is also displayed in four times the size.

As described above, the image conversion device 4 has a horizontally aligned area A defined in advance by a program.
1 and A2, a program for executing an operation of rearranging them in the vertical direction as shown in FIG. 2B and an operation of further expanding them as shown in FIG. It is rare.

In the image conversion device 4, finally, FIG.
The image of (c) is stored in the output frame buffer 5 and D /
The signal is sent to the output switching device 7 through the A converter 6. That is, by passing through the image conversion device 4, the person portion of the image sent from the other party is enlarged four times and displayed on the monitor 8, so that the expression and the gesture of the person can be understood better than before. That is. Of course, when the number of members in the conference is small, such as a few, only the image from the communication control device 1 may be displayed on the monitor 8 by the output switching device 7 as it is. On the other hand, when the number of members in the conference further increases, the area in the middle part is smaller than the upper and lower areas, so the area in the middle part is divided into three equal parts, and these are rearranged in three columns and enlarged. The effect can be expected even if it is displayed.

As is apparent from the above description, since the image conversion device 4 has a predetermined area to be extracted from the input image, the member image is protruded from the areas A1 and A2 or the areas A1 and A2 In the case where the members are located at the boundary between the above and all the members, the TV camera is operated so that all the members fall within the areas A1 and A2.

[0023]

The first effect of the present invention is to display a larger image of the same number of participating members on the monitor of the TV conference system so that the expression and behavior of the other party can be understood better than before. That is, smoother communication becomes possible. The reason is that the other party's T
The image sent from the V camera is converted by the image conversion device.
By removing the part where the person is not shown, reconstructing only the part where the person is shown, and enlarging it,
This is because an image larger than before can be displayed.

The second effect is that if the image size is the same as the conventional one, more members can participate in the conference than the conventional available members. The reason is that, as described above, by converting the image sent from the other party's TV camera, the portion where the person is conventionally shown is deleted. This is because by using this part, it becomes possible to display more images of persons.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram for realizing the method of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of an operation of the image conversion device of the present invention;
(A) is an image stored in the input frame buffer,
(B) is an intermediate processed image in the image conversion device, and (c) is an image stored in the output frame buffer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 communication control device 2 A / D converter 3 input frame buffer 4 image conversion device 5 output frame buffer 6 D / A converter 7 output switching device 8 monitor 9 console 10 TV camera

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04N 7/15 G09G 5/00 H04M 3/56

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A system in which points distant from each other are connected by a line,
In a TV conference system that exchanges images and voices of the other party obtained from the camera through a communication control device and performs a conference while displaying them on a monitor, the part where no person is shown in the TV image sent from the other party is deleted. and re-edited in the image consisting of only the portion that is reflected a person to which was expanded to its original size with the image converting means for outputting as an image for monitoring, the image converting means, transmission from the counterpart TV images that have been
The part where the person is shown is the area that is long in the horizontal direction
In this case, the area is equally divided into a plurality of horizontally arranged areas,
Also rearrange the multiple areas vertically and enlarge to the original size
Output as a monitor image
V conference system. 2. The image conversion device according to claim 1, wherein the image conversion unit has a region to be deleted and a region to be taken out from the TV image sent from the other party. TV conference system. 3. An output switching means for switching between an image from the communication control device and an enlarged image from the image conversion means and outputting the same to a monitor, and an operation means for instructing the output switching means to perform switching. The TV conference system according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: