JP2006146591A - Image display apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image display apparatus having high convenience of image management. <P>SOLUTION: The image display apparatus is provided with: a storage part for storing reference images expressing reference faces, an image judgment part for judging whether the same person as the person of the reference image appears on a person image or not; an image sorting part for sorting a plurality of person images into image groups on which the same person appears; a thumbnail image generation part for generating a thumbnail image on which the face of the person corresponding to the image group appears; an index image display part for displaying index images consisting of a table of thumbnail images in each image group generated by the thumbnail image generation part; and a reference image adding part for segmenting the face of the person in the person image at the time of judging that a new person who does not coincide with any reference images appears on an inputted person image, storing the segmented face image in a storage part as a new reference image and allowing the image sorting part to sort the person image as a person image included in the image group on which the person appears. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image display apparatus that organizes images and displays an image visualized on a display screen.

  2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the development of photographing apparatuses centering on digital cameras and peripheral technologies thereof, techniques related to apparatuses and programs for processing image data obtained using the photographing apparatus have been greatly developed. If images are stored as electronic data, they can be managed easily without taking up space. However, as the number of such image data increases, it is necessary to classify and manage the image data. Arise.

As a management method for classifying and organizing such image data, when an image composed of a person photograph is input, the image of the input person photograph is compared with a reference face image prepared in advance. An image management apparatus has been proposed that extracts an image in which a person corresponding to a face for reference appears from among the images, and classifies and manages images of a person photograph input for each person (see, for example, Patent Document 1). ).
JP 2002-169809 A

  However, in the image management apparatus described in Patent Document 1, when a face that appears in the input portrait image does not exist in a reference face image prepared in advance, Needs to be manually added to the reference face image as a reference face. When the number of images such as family photos assumed in the image management apparatus described in Patent Document 1 is relatively small, it is not much trouble to manually add the face as a reference face. In a situation where the number of images to be processed is on the order of several hundreds, and a considerable number of these images do not have human faces appearing in those images in the reference images prepared in advance, Therefore, the task of adding an image of the face as a reference face becomes very troublesome, and the convenience in managing images is poor.

  In view of the above circumstances, an object of the present invention is to provide an image display apparatus that is highly convenient for managing images.

In order to achieve the above object, an image display device of the present invention comprises:
In an image display device that organizes images on data and displays images visualized on a display screen,
A storage unit for storing a reference image representing a reference face;
An image determination unit that receives a human image input and compares the face appearing on the input human image with a reference image to determine whether the same person as the person of the reference image appears on the human image When,
Based on the determination result by the image determination unit, a plurality of person images are classified into an image group in which the same person appears, allowing one person image to be classified into a plurality of image groups. An image classification unit;
For each image group classified by the image classification unit, a thumbnail image generation unit that generates a thumbnail image in which a human face corresponding to the image group appears;
An index image display unit configured to display an index image generated by the thumbnail image generation unit and including a list of thumbnail images for each image group on the display screen;
When the image determining unit determines that a new person that does not match any reference image appears on the input person image, the face of the person on the new person image is cut out and newly A reference image adding unit that stores the image as a reference image in the storage unit, and further causes the image classification unit to classify the person image as a person image included in an image group in which the new person appears. To do.

  When a person image in which a new person who does not match any reference image appears is input to the image display device of the present invention, the person's face is cut out from the person image as a new reference image. In order to classify images into image groups corresponding to the person, each time a person image in which a new person that does not match any reference image appears is input manually, as in the image management apparatus described in Patent Document 1. There is no need to add the person's face as a new reference image and further classify the person image into an image group corresponding to the person. For this reason, even in situations where the number of images to be processed is very large, and the face of a person appearing in those images does not exist in a reference image prepared in advance in a considerable number of images. Therefore, the classification work can be performed efficiently, and the convenience in managing images is high.

  In the image display device of the present invention, the index image display unit may display an index image in which thumbnail images are arranged in the order of an image group having a large number of images.

  The image group with the larger number of images is more likely to be used, and it is convenient to identify the image group when displayed as a face thumbnail image. Therefore, the thumbnail images are arranged in the order of the image group with the larger number of images. By using the display method, the convenience of the image display apparatus of the present embodiment can be enhanced.

The image display device of the present invention includes a thumbnail image designating unit for designating an arbitrary thumbnail image among the index images displayed on the display screen,
An original image display unit that displays at least one image of an image group corresponding to the thumbnail image designated by the thumbnail image designation unit may be provided on the display screen.

  By providing such a mechanism, when a user wants to see only an image in which a specific person appears, the user can display such an image simply by selecting a thumbnail image corresponding to the specific person. it can.

  The image display device of the present invention may include a folder creation unit that creates each folder in which each image group classified by the image classification unit is recorded.

  By using such a mechanism, only an image in which a specific person appears can be stored separately from other images.

  The image display device of the present invention may include an image output unit that outputs an image group corresponding to the thumbnail image specified by the thumbnail image specifying unit to the outside.

  By providing such a mechanism, when the user wants to print only an image in which a specific person appears, it is not necessary to select and print each image in which the specific person appears. Such images can be printed together simply by selecting thumbnail images corresponding to the person.

  In the image display device of the present invention, the image classification unit receives a new person image and recognizes a person's face appearing on the new person image by comparison with a reference image. The image may be classified into an image group corresponding to the recognized person.

  By using such a mechanism, even when a user wants to reclassify a human image once classified by adding a new human image, the user can automatically input such a new human image. Reclassification can be performed.

  According to the image display device of the present invention, it is possible to manage images conveniently.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of an image display device of the present invention will be described. The image display apparatus according to the present embodiment is a computer system that displays an image on a display screen.

  FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of a computer system that operates as an embodiment of the image display apparatus of the present invention.

  The computer system 100 includes a main body 110 incorporating a CPU, a RAM memory, a hard disk, and the like, which will be described later, an image display device 120 that displays a screen on the display screen 121 according to an instruction from the main body 110, and a user's A keyboard 130 for inputting instructions and character information and a mouse 140 for inputting an instruction corresponding to the position by designating an arbitrary position on the display screen 121 are provided.

  The main body 110 further has an FD loading slot 111 into which a flexible disk (hereinafter abbreviated as FD) is loaded, and a CD-ROM loading slot 112 into which a CD-ROM is loaded. An FD drive and a CD-ROM drive (to be described later) for driving an FD and a CD-ROM are also incorporated.

  In the computer system system shown in FIG. 1, the image display apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention is characterized by the processing content executed inside the computer system 100. Hereinafter, the computer system 100 that performs the processing will be described. The internal hardware configuration will be described.

  FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration diagram of the computer system whose perspective view is shown in FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the main body 110 includes a CPU 211 that executes various programs, a main memory 212 that is read for execution by the CPU 211 and programs stored in the hard disk device 213, and various programs. And a hard disk device 213 and FD 2140 in which data and the like are stored are loaded, an FD drive 214 and a CD-ROM 2150 that access the loaded FD 2140 are loaded, and a CD-ROM drive 215 that accesses the loaded CD-ROM 2150 Are connected to an external device (not shown) such as a color scanner, an input interface 216 for receiving image data from the external device, and a color printer 2170, and an output interface 217 for transmitting image data to the color printer 2170 is built in. And, with these various elements, further, the image display device 120 shown in FIG. 1, a keyboard 130, a mouse 140 are connected to each other via a bus 1200.

  In the computer system 100 of the present embodiment, a user of the computer system 100 can input a person image to be processed from the input interface 216 and save it in the hard disk device 213, and the FD 2140 in which the person image is recorded. Or from the CD-ROM 2150 to the hard disk device 213 via the FD drive 214 and the CD-ROM 215, respectively. In the computer system 100 of the present embodiment, the person image to be processed may be a person image stored in the hard disk device 213 in this way, or may be loaded into the FD drive 214 and the CD-ROM 2150, respectively. The person image stored in the FD 2140 or the CD-ROM 2150 may also be used.

  The computer system 100 according to the present embodiment performs processing on the human image stored in this manner based on a human image processing program recorded in the hard disk device 213, so that the image display device according to the present invention can be used. Operates as one embodiment. Hereinafter, a flow of processing performed on such a person image will be described.

  First, when the user of the computer system 100 operates these person images, when the keyboard 130 or the mouse 140 is operated, information indicating that the operation is performed is transmitted to the CPU 211 via the bus 1200. Then, based on the person image processing program read from the hard disk device 213 and developed in the main memory 212, the CPU 211 is necessary for executing processing such as classification and extraction described later on these person images. The processing unit is constructed on the computer system 100, and the processing of the person image is performed by these processing units.

  In this embodiment, the storage medium for storing such a person image processing program is the hard disk device 213, but not only such a hard disk device but also a CD-ROM, FD, DVD, MO, etc. Various storage media can be employed.

  Next, a processing unit that performs processing of a person image will be described.

  When this person image processing program is executed in the computer system 100 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a recording unit that stores a reference image representing a reference face, and a person in the reference image that is input An image determining unit that determines whether or not the person is the same person, an image classifying unit that classifies the person image, and if the person corresponding to the person in the person image is not in the reference image, the face of the person A reference image adding unit to be added as a reference image, a thumbnail image generating unit for generating a thumbnail image of a person's face, an index image display unit for displaying a list of the thumbnail images, and a thumbnail image specifying unit for specifying a specific thumbnail image from the list An original image display unit for displaying an original image corresponding to the specified thumbnail image, a folder creation unit for creating a folder for recording the extracted image group, Finely extracted image group total of 10 processing section of the image output section for output to the color printer 2170 shown in FIG. 2 is constructed on the computer system 100. The person image is processed by causing these processing units to function. Hereinafter, the functions of these processing units will be described with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4.

  FIG. 3 is a part of a functional block diagram of a computer system which is the image display apparatus of the present embodiment.

  In the following, the function performed by each of the above-described processing units in the process from when a person image is input until it is classified and displayed by thumbnail images for each character in the person image will be described with reference to FIG.

First, when a person image is input, the image determination unit 1 compares the face of the person appearing in the person image with the face of the person in the reference image recorded in the storage unit 2 to determine whether or not they are the same person. Determine.
If the face determined to be the same person is in the reference image, the image classification unit classifies the person image into an image group for each reference image, and if the face determined to be the same person is not in the reference image, the reference The image adding unit 4 cuts out the face of the person appearing in the person image in the storage unit 2 and adds it as a new reference image, and further classifies the person image into an image group corresponding to the reference image. Let Such an operation is performed for all inputted person images, and all inputted person images are classified into image groups for each reference image. Then, the thumbnail image generation unit 5 generates a thumbnail image of a person's face corresponding to the image group as an icon representing the image group thus classified. Subsequently, the index image display unit 3 displays a list of thumbnail images for each image group generated in this way on the display screen 121 shown in FIG. At this time, the thumbnail images of the faces of the persons with the most appearances among the input person images are displayed in order. As a result of the processing performed by the image determination unit 1, the storage unit 2, the image classification unit 3, the reference image addition unit 4, the thumbnail image generation unit 5, and the index image display unit 6 described above, They are classified and displayed by icons of thumbnail images of the faces of the characters appearing in these person images.

  Next, for processing performed after the person image is input and classified and displayed by the thumbnail image for each character of the person image, the thumbnail image designation unit, the original image display unit, the folder creation unit, and the image output unit The function performed by each unit will be described using a specific example.

FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram of a computer system that is the image display apparatus of the present embodiment.
It is the figure represented using the specific example.

  FIG. 4A is a specific example of a person image to be input.

  In FIG. 4A, four persons appear in any of the four person images, and the faces of these four persons are represented as face A, face B, face C, and face D. ing.

  FIG. 4 (2) shows an icon made up of thumbnail images of the characters' faces, which are displayed by applying the processing described in FIG. 3 to the specific example of the person image shown in FIG. 4 (1). It is a figure showing a list.

  As shown in FIG. 4 (2), in the specific example of the human image shown in FIG. 4 (1), the face A, face B, face C, and face D appear in descending order of appearance frequency. A list of icons consisting of thumbnail images of people's faces is displayed.

  Here, when the user left-clicks the thumbnail image of face A using the mouse 140 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the thumbnail image designating unit 7 receives information indicating that the operation has been performed, A thumbnail image represented by the face A is designated. When the thumbnail image designation unit 7 designates the thumbnail image, the original image display unit 8 displays only the person image in which the face A appears among the four person images shown in FIG. Display above.

  Next, creation of a folder in which three human images in which face A appears will be recorded and printing of these human images will be described.

  FIG. 4 (2a) is a diagram showing a state in which only the person image in which the face A appears is displayed among the four person images shown in FIG.

  Of the four person images shown in FIG. 4A, only three person images in which face A appears by the processing performed by the thumbnail image specifying unit 7 and the original image display unit 8 are displayed on the display screen 121. Is displayed.

  FIG. 4 (2b) is a diagram showing a folder using as an icon the thumbnail image of face A in which a person image in which only the person image in which face A appears is displayed is recorded.

  In FIG. 4B, when the user right-clicks the thumbnail image of face A using the mouse 140 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a selection menu in which two of “Create folder” and “Print” can be selected is displayed. . When “Create Folder” is selected from these, the folder creation unit 9 receives this selection, and among the four human images shown in FIG. 4 (1), as shown in FIG. 4 (2 b) A folder in which three human images in which A appears is recorded, and a thumbnail image of face A is created as a folder icon.

  When “print” is selected from the selection menu, the image output unit 10 outputs only three human images on which the face A appears to the color printer 2170 shown in FIG. The person image is printed.

  Further, in the computer system 100 according to the present embodiment, when a new person image is input in addition to the four person images shown in FIG. 4A, the person appearing in the new image is automatically considered. Has the function to reclassify.

  For example, when a new image 30 in which the face C and the face E shown in FIG. 4 appear is input in addition to the four human images shown in FIG. 3 and the process described in FIG. 4B is automatically performed, and a list of icons including thumbnail images of the faces of the characters is displayed in the order of the number of appearances.

  Next, the flow of processing executed by the computer system 100 of this embodiment will be described using the flowcharts of FIGS.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a process from when a person image is input until it is classified and displayed by an icon based on a face, using a flowchart.

  First, when one person image is input in step S101, the image determination unit 1 shown in FIG. 3 displays the face appearing in this image and the face of the person in the reference image recorded in the storage unit 2. Are compared, and it is determined whether or not the face person appearing in this image and any person in the reference image are the same person (step S102). As a result of this comparison, if it is determined that the person of the face appearing in this image is the same person as any person in the reference image, Yes is selected in step S103, and the image classification unit 3 This person image is classified into an image group corresponding to the reference image (step S105). If a person who is determined to be the same person as the face person appearing in the image does not exist in the reference image, No is selected in step S103, and the reference image adding unit 4 is stored in the storage unit 2. A face of a person appearing in the person image is cut out and added as a new reference image, and the image classification unit 3 is further made to classify the person image as a person image belonging to an image group corresponding to the reference image. If this person image is not the last person image in the person images to be processed, No is selected in step S106, an unclassified person image is input (step S107), and the process returns to step S2, and step The operations from S2 to S5 are performed on this unclassified person image. When such classification is performed for all human images to be processed, Yes is selected in step S106, and the thumbnail image generating unit 5 selects the face of the person corresponding to each image group for each image group. A thumbnail image is generated (step S108). Then, the index image display unit 3 displays a list of thumbnail images for each image group generated in this way, in order from the thumbnail images of the faces of people who appear frequently on the display screen 121 shown in FIG. An image group with a larger number of images is more likely to be used, and it is convenient to identify the image group when displayed as a face thumbnail image. Therefore, by using such a display method, the image of the present embodiment is used. The convenience of the computer system 100 that is a display device can be improved.

  As described above, in the computer system 100 that is the image display apparatus of the present invention, when a person image in which a new person who does not match any reference image appears is input, the person's face is extracted from the person image. Since a new reference image is cut out and the person image is classified into an image group corresponding to the person, a new person that does not match any reference image appears as in the image management apparatus described in Patent Document 1. There is no need to manually add the person's face as a new reference image each time there is a person image and classify the person image into an image group corresponding to the person. For this reason, even in situations where the number of images to be processed is very large, and the face of a person appearing in those images does not exist in a reference image prepared in advance in a considerable number of images. Therefore, the classification work can be performed efficiently, and the convenience in managing images is high.

  Next, a flow of processing performed after a person image is input and classified and displayed by thumbnail images for each character in the person image will be described with reference to flowcharts.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the process after the classification and display by the icon by the face, using a flowchart in the entire process performed in the computer system which is the image display apparatus of the present embodiment.

  First, when a person image is input, the person image is classified for each character by the process described with reference to FIG. 5, and an icon composed of a thumbnail image of the face of the character corresponding to each image group in the order of appearance frequency. Is displayed (step S201). When the thumbnail image of the face of a specific person is left-clicked with the mouse 140 from the list of icons consisting of these thumbnail images, an instruction to display the image of the specific person is given. In step S202, Yes is selected, and as described with reference to FIG. 4 (2a), only the person image in which the specific person appears is displayed by the thumbnail image specifying unit 7 and the original image display unit 8 shown in FIG. Are extracted and displayed (step S203). If there is no instruction to display an image of a specific person from the list of icons made up of thumbnail images, the process moves to step S204 to create a folder that records only images in which the specific person appears. It is determined whether instructions are given. When such an instruction is given, as described in FIG. 4, the folder creation unit 9 creates a folder with the thumbnail image of the face of the particular person as an icon, and the particular creation is in that folder. An image in which a person appears is recorded (step S205). By using such a mechanism, only an image in which a specific person appears can be stored separately from other images. If such an instruction has not been given, the process proceeds to step S206, and it is determined whether or not an instruction to print an image in which a specific person appears is given. If such an instruction is given, as described in FIG. 4, the image output unit 10 shown in FIG. 4 outputs an image in which the specific person appears to the color printer 2170 shown in FIG. (Step S207). By providing such a mechanism, when the user wants to print only an image in which a specific person appears, it is not necessary to select and print each image in which the specific person appears. Such images can be printed together simply by selecting thumbnail images corresponding to the person. If an instruction to print an image in which a specific person appears is not given, the process proceeds to step S208, and it is determined whether a new person image is input. When a new person image is input, the new person image is added to the original plurality of person images (step S209), and the process returns to step S201, and as described in FIG. Reclassification is performed automatically in consideration of the characters appearing, and a list of icons consisting of thumbnail images of the faces of the characters is displayed in the order of the number of appearances. By using such a mechanism, even if a user wants to add a new person image to a once classified human image and reclassify it, the user can automatically input such a new human image. Reclassification can be performed. If a new person image has not been input, the processing executed by the computer system 100 of the present embodiment ends.

  The above is description of the computer system 100 which operate | moves as one Embodiment of the image display apparatus of this invention.

  In this embodiment, a computer system is adopted as an embodiment of the image display device of the present invention. However, the image display device of the present invention may be any device that organizes images and displays them on a display screen. It is not limited. For example, the image display apparatus of the present invention is a digital camera that organizes captured images and displays them on a display screen, and may be provided with a function of performing the processing described in the present embodiment on the captured images.

1 is an external perspective view of a computer system that operates as an embodiment of an image display device of the present invention. It is a hardware block diagram of the computer system which showed the external appearance perspective view in FIG. It is a part of functional block diagram of the computer system which is the image display apparatus of this embodiment. It is the figure showing the functional block diagram of the computer system which is an image display apparatus of this embodiment using a specific example. It is a flowchart showing the flow of the process performed by the computer system 100 of this embodiment. It is the figure which represented the process after carrying out classification display with the icon by the face using the flowchart in the process of the whole process performed in the computer system which is an image display apparatus of this embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Image determination part 2 Memory | storage part 3 Image classification part 4 Reference image addition part 5 Thumbnail image generation part 6 Index image display part 7 Thumbnail image designation part 8 Original image display part 9 Folder creation part 10 Image output part 30 New image 100 Computer System 110 Main body 111 FD loading port 112 CD-ROM loading port 120 Image display device 121 Display screen 130 Keyboard 140 Mouse 1200 Bus 211 CPU
212 Main memory 213 Hard disk device 214 FD drive 2140 FD
215 CD-ROM drive 2150 CD-ROM
216 Input interface 217 Output interface 2170 Color printer

Claims (6)

In an image display device that organizes images on data and displays images visualized on a display screen,
A storage unit for storing a reference image representing a reference face;
An image determination unit that receives an input of a person image and compares the face appearing on the inputted person image with a reference image to determine whether the same person as the person of the reference image appears on the person image When,
Based on the determination result by the image determination unit, a plurality of person images are classified into an image group in which the same person appears and one person image is allowed to be classified into a plurality of image groups. An image classification unit;
For each image group classified by the image classification unit, a thumbnail image generation unit that generates a thumbnail image in which a human face corresponding to the image group appears;
An index image display unit configured to display an index image generated by the thumbnail image generation unit and including a list of thumbnail images for each image group on the display screen;
When the image determination unit determines that a new person that does not match any reference image appears on the input person image, the face of the person on the new person image is cut out and newly A reference image adding unit that stores the image as a reference image in the storage unit and further causes the image classification unit to classify the person image as a person image included in an image group in which the new person appears. An image display device.   2. The image display device according to claim 1, wherein the index image display unit displays an index image in which thumbnail images are arranged in order of an image group having a large number of images. A thumbnail image designating unit for designating an arbitrary thumbnail image among the index images displayed on the display screen;
2. The original image display unit for displaying at least one image in an image group corresponding to a thumbnail image designated by the thumbnail image designation unit on the display screen. Image display device.   The image display device according to claim 1, further comprising a folder creation unit that creates each folder in which each image group classified by the image classification unit is recorded.   4. The image display device according to claim 3, further comprising an image output unit that outputs an image group corresponding to the thumbnail image specified by the thumbnail image specifying unit to the outside.   The image classification unit receives an input of a new person image, recognizes a person's face appearing on the new person image by comparison with a reference image, and detects the person image as an image corresponding to the recognized person 2. The image display device according to claim 1, wherein the image display device is classified into groups.

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