JPH0998417A - Picture communication equipment and picture communication method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide image communication equipment with improved image characteristics and versatility for improving the image quality of an important area and the movement of pictures by providing a shading processing part for performing a blurring processing to image data of an area specified in an area selection part. SOLUTION: The image data inputted from an image input device 10 are converted into digital signals by an analog/digital converter 11 and then, converted into a standard color expression form in a color expression converter 12. Then, in the blurring processing part inside a picture blurring processor 1, the blurring processing for removing the high band component of the images is performed by using a low-pass filter or the like. Also, in the area selection part inside the image blurring processor 1, the area of the images for performing the blurring processing is arbitrarily set. By the data of the area selection part, a switch is switched and the blurring of the image data is processed for a specified area range. Then, the image data are compressed in an encoder 13, and at the time, since the blurring processing is performed in the specified area, the image data are compressed large.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image communication apparatus and an image communication method which are connected to a communication line to transmit an image.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the development of image compression technology, the number of image communication devices for converting a moving image or a still image into digital data, encoding and compressing information, and transmitting it using a communication line has increased. are doing.

A conventional image communication apparatus will be described below. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a conventional image communication device. Reference numeral 10 is an image input device such as an image pickup camera for inputting a moving image or a still image, 11 is an analog / digital converter for converting an analog image signal obtained from the image input device 10 into a digital signal, and 12 is image data or the like. , A color expression converter for converting the color expression format of, an encoder for compressing and encoding data by an image compression algorithm,
Reference numeral 15 is a communication device for transmitting and receiving encoded image data via a communication network 16 described later, 16 is a communication network capable of high-speed digital transmission such as ISDN, LAN, and 17 is data compression by an image compression algorithm. A decoder for decompressing and decoding the encoded data, a color expression converter 18 for restoring the data converted to the color expression format into image data, and a digital numeral 19 for displaying on a display device 20 described later. / Analog converter, 20 is a display device for displaying an image.

The operation of the image communication apparatus configured as described above will be described below. First, the image input device 1
An image consisting of a moving image or a still image input from 0 is converted into a digital signal by the analog / digital converter 11,
After being converted into a standard color expression format such as CCIR601 (CCIR: International Committee for Radio Communications) by the color expression converter 12, the encoder 13 is entered. In the encoder 13, the ITU-T
H. 261 (ITU-T: International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector) and MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Gro
Data compression is performed using an image compression algorithm such as up). The compressed data is sent to the communication network 16 by the communication device 14.
It is transmitted to the communication device 15 on the receiving side via (network such as ISDN, LAN). In the decoder 17, the compressed data is decompressed, and the received image is displayed on the display device 20 from the color representation converter 18 through the digital / analog converter 19.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional configuration, since the amount of image information has not reached a sufficient compression rate for communication with a low-rate communication network such as an analog line or INS64 net, the image quality and There was a problem that the movement of the image was not smooth. Therefore, in the encoder of the image communication device, it is necessary to compress the data so that it will fall within the communication capacity when it is compressed. However, if the image with a large amount of information or the communication capacity of the communication network is not sufficient, a compression algorithm is used. By changing the resolution of the image to reduce the resolution, reducing the detailed part and extracting only the rough part, or thinning out the frames of the moving image to perform compression, encoding is performed to fit the communication capacity. However, a large motion image or a complicated image naturally has a large amount of information, and when compressed, the motion of the image is intermittent, which causes a problem that the image quality is significantly deteriorated. Similarly, when transmitting image data and the like using a high-speed digital network, the amount of information in the image becomes large and the frame period of the image needs to be long when the movement of the image data is large. However, there is a problem that the image quality is deteriorated due to the intermittent movement of the image.

The present invention solves the above-mentioned problems of the prior art by lowering the gradation or resolution of image data in unimportant areas, increasing the gradation or resolution of image data in important areas, and increasing the communication capacity. It is an object of the present invention to provide an image communication apparatus excellent in image characteristics and versatility, which improves image quality and image movement in an important area by controlling the image area, and an image communication method excellent in image characteristics and high speed. And

[0007]

In order to achieve this object, an image communication apparatus according to a first aspect of the present invention is an image communication apparatus which digitizes image data, encodes and compresses the image data for communication. Then, the position of the image data to be digitized is divided into a plurality of areas in advance, and an area selection unit that selects and specifies any one or more of the areas, and a blurring process is performed on the image data of the area specified by the area selection unit. And a processing unit.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the image communication apparatus according to the first aspect, the area selecting section displays a selectable circular, elliptical, triangular or quadrangular basic shape on the display section. A basic shape generation part that selects and displays the selected image data and specifies an area, and an area change part that can change the area by changing the shape and size of the basic shape specified by the basic shape generation part and moving the position. , Is provided.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the image communication apparatus according to the first or second aspect, the area selection unit expresses the position of each pixel of the image data as coordinates and blurs the coordinates corresponding to each pixel of the image data. A coordinate table storage unit that stores an ON / OFF signal indicating whether or not to perform processing, and an ON / OFF signal that indicates whether or not to perform blur processing for each pixel of image data in which coordinates in the coordinate table storage unit are designated. Whether the blurring processing unit includes an output coordinate table determination unit and performs blurring processing for each pixel of image data sequentially from the ON / OFF signal output from the coordinate table determination unit corresponding to each pixel of image data. And a switching unit for switching between the two.

An image communication method according to a fourth aspect is an image communication method in which image data is digitized, encoded and compressed for communication, and the position of the digitized image data is set in advance in a plurality of areas. It has a configuration including an area selection step of selectively specifying any one or more of the divided areas, and a blurring processing step of performing blurring processing on the image data of the area designated by the area selection step.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the image communication method according to the fourth aspect, the area selecting step includes a selectable circular shape,
A basic shape generation step of selecting and displaying a basic shape consisting of an elliptical shape, a triangular shape, or a polygonal shape such as a quadrangle on the image data displayed on the display unit, and a shape of the basic shape specified in the basic shape generation step Area change step that can change the area by changing the size and moving the position,
It has a configuration including.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the image communication method according to the fourth or fifth aspect, the area selecting step expresses the position of each pixel of the image data as coordinates and blurs the coordinates corresponding to each pixel of the image data. A coordinate table storage step for storing ON / OFF data indicating whether or not to perform processing, and ON / OFF data indicating whether or not to perform blur processing for each pixel of image data in which coordinates in the coordinate table storage step are designated. A coordinate table determination step of outputting, and whether the blurring processing step sequentially performs blurring processing for each pixel of the image data from the on / off data output from the coordinate table determination step corresponding to each pixel of the image data. A switching step for outputting a switching signal for switching
It has a configuration including.

Here, the blurring process is a process of changing the gradation or the resolution, and is an averaging process of a plurality of pixels whose resolution is lowered, a smoothing process which smoothes an image whose gradation is lowered, and a high band is removed. A low-pass filter process, an averaging process that extremely averages only color information, and the like are used.
As the blurring process, a digital signal processing device (DS
P) can be used to achieve extremely high speed.

[0014]

With this configuration, the position of the image data to be digitized is divided into a plurality of areas in advance, and an area selecting section for selecting and specifying any one or more of the areas and an image data of the area specified by the area selecting section are provided. By providing a blurring processing unit that performs blurring processing, it is relatively unimportant when encoding an image, for example, by reducing the information amount of image data in the peripheral portion, the communication capacity of a limited communication network is reduced. Thus, it becomes possible to allocate more communication capacity to a more important image, for example, the central portion of the image, improve the image quality of the important region, and smoothly transmit the movement of the image.

The area selecting section selects and displays a basic shape consisting of selectable circular, elliptical, triangular or quadrangular shapes on the image data displayed on the display section, and specifies a basic shape generating section. And an area changing unit that can change the area by changing the shape and size of the basic shape specified by the basic shape generating unit and moving the position, and blur the area according to the communication capacity of the communication network. Since the range of processing or the resolution of image data can be changed and the communication capacity of image data can be controlled extremely flexibly, versatility can be improved.

A coordinate table storage unit in which the area selection unit expresses the position of each pixel of the image data as coordinates and stores an on / off signal as to whether or not to perform blurring processing on each coordinate corresponding to each pixel of the image data. And a coordinate table determination unit that outputs an ON / OFF signal indicating whether or not to perform blurring processing for each pixel of the image data for which coordinates in the coordinate table storage unit are designated, and the blurring processing unit The address of the image data is specified by including a switching unit that sequentially switches whether to perform the blurring process for each pixel of the image data from the ON / OFF signal output from the coordinate table determination unit corresponding to each pixel. Since it is possible to select whether or not to perform blurring processing for each pixel, it is possible to arbitrarily perform blurring processing on a plurality of areas, improve flexibility, and facilitate processing and blurring processing of image data. It can be realized at a very high speed.

An image communication method in which image data is digitized, coded, and compressed for communication, and the position of the digitized image data is divided into a plurality of areas in advance, and one or more of the areas is selected and designated. By providing a region selection step to perform, and a blurring process step of performing a blurring process on the image data of the region specified in the region selection step,
By lowering the amount of information of relatively unimportant image data when encoding an image, it becomes possible to allocate more communication capacity to more important image data with respect to the communication capacity of a limited communication network. It is possible to improve the image quality of a more important area and smoothly transmit the movement of the image.

The area selection step includes a selectable circular shape,
A basic shape generation step of selecting and displaying a basic shape consisting of an elliptical shape, a triangular shape, or a polygonal shape such as a quadrangle on the image data displayed on the display unit, and a shape of the basic shape specified in the basic shape generation step Area change step that can change the area by changing the size and moving the position,
Since the range of performing blurring processing or the resolution of image data can be changed according to the communication capacity of the communication network and the communication amount of image data can be controlled extremely flexibly, versatility can be improved.

In the area selecting step, the position of each pixel of the image data is represented by coordinates, and a coordinate table storing step of storing on / off data indicating whether or not to perform the blurring processing on each coordinate corresponding to each pixel of the image data. And a coordinate table determination step of outputting on / off data indicating whether or not to perform blurring processing for each pixel of the image data for which the coordinates of the coordinate table storage step are designated, the blurring processing step comprising: Switching step for outputting a switching signal for sequentially switching whether to perform blur processing for each pixel of image data from on / off data output from the coordinate table determination step corresponding to each pixel of Since it is possible to perform blurring processing on the area of, the flexibility is improved and the processing flow is extremely simple, Treatment with (DSP) or the like, it is possible to perform a blurring process of the image data at a very high speed.

[0020]

【Example】

(Embodiment 1) An image communication apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an image communication apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an image blurring processor of the image communication apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention. .
In FIG. 1, 10 is an image input device, 11 is an analog /
A digital converter, 12 is a color expression converter, 13 is an encoder,
14, 15 are communication devices, 16 are communication networks, 17 is a decoder, 1
8 is a color expression converter, 19 is a digital / analog converter,
20 is a display device. Since these are the same as those in FIG. 4 of the conventional example, the same reference numerals are given and description thereof is omitted. The difference from the conventional example is the configuration of an image blurring processor 1 for performing blurring processing of image data, which includes a blurring processing unit 2 and a region selection unit 3 shown in FIG. 2, and is further output by the region selection unit 3. That is, the switch 4 is provided to switch whether to select the image data that has been subjected to the blurring process according to the signal.

The operation of the image communication apparatus configured as described above will be described below. First, the image input device 1
Image data (moving image or still image) input from 0 is
It is converted into a digital signal by the analog / digital converter 11. Next, it is converted into a standard color expression format such as CCIR601 by the color expression converter 12 and input to the image blurring processor 1. In the blurring processing unit 2 in the image blurring processor 1, as a blurring processing step, blurring processing for removing high frequency components of the image using a low-pass filter or the like is performed. Further, in the area selection unit 3 in the image blurring processor 1, as an area selection step, the area of the image to be subjected to the blurring processing (for example, the peripheral area of the image which seems to be relatively unimportant) is arbitrarily set. . The switch 4 is switched by the data of the area selection unit 3, and the blurring process of the image data is performed on the designated area range. Next, the encoder 13
Then, H. Image data is compressed according to an image compression algorithm such as H.261 or MPEG, but at this time, since the designated area (peripheral portion, etc.) has been subjected to blurring processing,
Image data is largely compressed. As a result, as compared with the case where the blurring process is not performed, it is possible to increase the allocation of the communication capacity to the important part (for example, the central part) of the image data other than the designated area. A large amount of information can be allocated and compressed and transmitted. In particular, when the communication capacity of the communication network 16 is low, the blurring process is performed to perform the blurring process on a region other than the important region of the image data, thereby improving the frame period of the image and the like and smoothly transmitting the image data. You can The compressed data is sent to the communication network 16 (ISDN, L
It is transmitted to the communication device 15 on the partner side via a network such as AN. The decoder 17 decompresses the compressed data, and the color representation converter 18 converts the compressed data into the digital / analog converter 1
The received image is displayed on the display device 20, which is a display unit, through 9.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the image blurring processor 1 using a low-pass filter or the like blurs the image data to the range specified by the area selection unit 3 before entering the encoder 13. By performing the processing, the amount of information of image data in a relatively unimportant area can be reduced. As a result, as compared with the case where the blurring process is not performed, it is possible to allocate a large part of the communication capacity to a more important area, and to reduce the deterioration of a small part of the important area of the image data and the thinning of the moving image frame. Can be reduced. in this way,
Since the size of the image information amount can be flexibly changed according to the communication capacity, the image quality characteristics can be improved and the movement of the image can be made smoother.

(Second Embodiment) An image forming apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention will be described below. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the arrangement of an image blurring processor of the image communication apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 2 is a blurring processing unit, and 4 is a switch. Since this is the same as FIG. 2 of the first embodiment,
The same reference numerals are given and the description is omitted. The difference from the first embodiment is that in the image blurring processor 1, the area selecting unit 3
A basic shape generating section 5 for selecting and displaying a basic shape consisting of a selectable circular shape, an elliptical shape, a polygonal shape such as a triangular shape or a quadrangle on the image data displayed on the display section and designating an area;
An area changing unit 6 that can change the area by changing the shape and size of the basic shape specified by the basic shape generating unit 5 and moving the position, and the position of each pixel of the image data are expressed as coordinates to generate the basic shape. A coordinate table storage unit 7 that stores an on / off signal indicating whether or not to perform blurring processing on each coordinate corresponding to each pixel of image data based on the information obtained from the unit 5 or the region changing unit 6, ON / OFF indicating whether or not the blurring process is performed for each pixel of the image data in which the coordinates of the table storage unit 7 are designated
The point is that a coordinate table determination unit 8 that outputs an OFF signal and a clock count coordinate generation unit 9 that generates the coordinates of image data corresponding to sequentially input image data are provided.

The operation of the image blurring processor 1 of the image communication apparatus configured as described above will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 and 3. First, as a basic shape generation step, a region for performing blurring processing using a basic shape that is displayed on the display unit by the basic shape generation unit 5 and has a polygonal shape such as a circular shape, an elliptical shape, a triangular shape, or a quadrangle shape. Is specified in advance. Next, as a region changing step, the region changing unit 6 changes the shape and size of the basic shape designated by the basic shape generating unit 5 and moves the position to change the region to be blurred. Next, as a coordinate table storage step, the coordinate table storage unit 7 causes each coordinate corresponding to each pixel of the image data to be based on the region to be subjected to the blurring process designated by the basic shape generation unit 5 or the region changing unit 6. An ON / OFF signal indicating whether or not to perform the blurring process is stored in a memory or the like. Image data input from the image input device 10, converted into a digital signal by the analog / digital converter 11 and converted into a color expression format by the color expression converter 12 enters the image blurring processor 1. At this time, the clock count coordinate generation unit 9 counts the sequentially input image data and generates the coordinates of the image data for each pixel. The blur processing unit 2 of the image blur processor 1 removes the high frequency component of the image from the input image data by using a low-pass filter. Here, in the coordinate table determination step, the coordinate table determination unit 8 specifies the coordinates of the coordinate table storage unit 7 by the clock count coordinate generation unit 9, and the data stored in the coordinate table storage unit 7 causes each pixel of the image data to be displayed. It is determined whether or not the blurring process is performed for each. Next, as a switching step, an on / off signal output from the coordinate table determination unit 8 corresponding to each pixel of the image data is sequentially subjected to blurring processing for each pixel of the image data by the switch 4 which is a switching unit. Either data or data that is not subjected to blurring processing is selected.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the communication network 1
According to the communication capacity of 6, depending on the range in which the blurring process is performed,
Since the resolution of image data can be changed and the communication amount of image data can be controlled extremely flexibly, versatility can be improved. In particular, since it is possible to select whether or not to perform the blurring process for each coordinate that specifies the address of the image data, it is possible to arbitrarily perform the blurring process on a plurality of areas, which improves flexibility and makes the blurring process easy and extremely easy. It can be realized at high speed. Further, when the image is encoded, the amount of information of relatively unimportant image data is reduced, so that the limited communication network 1
With respect to the communication capacity of 6, more communication capacity can be allocated to more important image data, the image quality can be improved, and the movement of the image can be smoothly transmitted.

[0026]

As described above, according to the present invention, when an image is encoded, the information amount of relatively unimportant image data is reduced, so that a more important image can be obtained for a limited communication capacity of a communication network. It becomes possible to allocate a larger communication capacity to the data, improve the image quality, and smoothly transmit the movement of the image. Furthermore, the range of image blurring or the resolution of image data can be changed according to the communication capacity of the communication network, and the communication amount of image data can be controlled extremely flexibly, so that an image communication method with excellent versatility can be realized. You can

Further, the range of performing the blurring process or the resolution of the image data can be changed according to the communication capacity of the communication network, and the communication amount of the image data can be controlled extremely flexibly, so that the blurring process is performed on a plurality of areas. It is possible to improve the flexibility, and the processing flow is extremely simple. Therefore, it is possible to execute the blurring processing of the image data at an extremely high speed by using a digital signal processing (DSP), etc. An image communication method having excellent characteristics can be realized.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an image communication device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an image blurring processor of the image communication apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an image blurring processor of an image communication apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional image communication device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Image Blur Processor 2 Blur Processor 3 Area Selector 4 Switch (Switcher) 5 Basic Shape Generator 6 Area Changer 7 Coordinate Table Storage 8 Coordinate Table Judge 9 Clock Count Coordinate Generator 10 Image Input Device 11 Analog / Digital converter 12,18 Color representation converter 13 Encoder 14,15 Communication device 16 Communication network 17 Decoder 19 Digital / analog converter 20 Display device

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An image communication device for digitizing image data, encoding and compressing the image data for communication, wherein the position of the image data to be digitized is divided into a plurality of regions in advance, and any one of the regions is formed. An image communication apparatus comprising: an area selection unit that selectively specifies the above; and a blurring processing unit that performs blurring processing on the image data of the area designated by the area selection unit. 2. The area selecting section selects and displays a selectable basic shape consisting of a polygonal shape such as a circular shape, an elliptical shape, a triangular shape or a quadrangle on the image data displayed on the display section and specifies the area. A basic shape generating unit, and a region changing unit capable of changing the region by changing the shape and size of the basic shape designated by the basic shape generating unit and moving the position,
The image communication apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: 3. On / off of whether or not the area selection unit expresses the position of each pixel of the image data as coordinates, and performs the blurring process on each of the coordinates corresponding to each pixel of the image data.
A coordinate table storage unit that stores an OFF signal, and a coordinate table determination unit that outputs the ON / OFF signal indicating whether or not the blurring process is performed for each pixel of the image data, in which the coordinates of the coordinate table storage unit are designated. And whether the blur processing unit sequentially performs blur processing for each pixel of the image data from the ON / OFF signal output from the coordinate table determination unit corresponding to each pixel of the image data. The image communication apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a switching unit that switches. 4. An image communication method for digitizing image data, encoding and compressing the image data for communication, wherein the position of the image data to be digitized is divided into a plurality of regions in advance and any one of the regions is formed. A region selection step of selectively designating the above, a blurring process step of performing a blurring process on the image data of the region designated in the region selection step,
An image compression method comprising: 5. The area selecting step selects and displays a selectable basic shape consisting of a polygonal shape such as a circular shape, an elliptical shape, a triangular shape or a quadrangle on the image data displayed on a display unit to specify the area. And a region changing step capable of changing the region by changing the shape and size of the basic shape designated in the basic shape generating step and moving the position. The image communication method according to claim 4. 6. On / off data indicating whether or not the blurring process is performed on each of the coordinates corresponding to each pixel of the image data in the region selecting step, by expressing the position of each pixel of the image data by coordinates. And a coordinate table determination step of outputting the on / off data indicating whether or not the blurring process is performed for each pixel of the image data, the coordinates of which are stored in the coordinate table storage step. And a switch for switching whether or not the blurring process is sequentially performed for each pixel of the image data from the ON / OFF data output from the coordinate table determination step corresponding to each pixel of the image data. The image communication method according to claim 4, further comprising a switching step of outputting a signal.