JP2008193469A - Image processing system, and card used in the system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the rarity value of a template and a picture of a star by inhibiting a third person from illegally using the template and a user from using the template a plurality of times. <P>SOLUTION: In this image processing system having a communication processing means for compositing a person image imaged by a portable terminal device with a camera with image data of particular person image data or the like registered in advance so as to display the both images side by side and returning the composited composition image to the portable terminal device, image identification information for specifying image data such as the person image data to be composited and each different permission information prepared only for a number corresponding to the number of the images permitted to be copied as well as person image data transmitted from the portable terminal device are collectively transmitted as a composition request, and composition is rejected to a composition request based on the same permission information according to the received permission information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a communication processing function that restricts the number of times allowed to synthesize when synthesizing image data transmitted from a mobile terminal device.

In recent years, camera-equipped mobile terminal devices have become widespread, and it is a common practice to send a person image captured using the camera attached to an e-mail. Along with this, a service that incorporates a photo frame, template, etc. in the mobile terminal device to synthesize the person image and make the image more gorgeous, and a service that provides a photo frame, template, etc. via the Internet etc. Various services are provided.
JP 2004-140590 A

  However, when a template is built into a mobile terminal device or downloaded through the Internet, etc., the template obtained by the user can be used by a third party by attaching it to an e-mail and sending it to others. And reduce the rarity value of the template. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent such unauthorized use by a third party.

  In addition, if the template is an image of a famous person such as a baseball player, and the template image is combined with the user's person image as part of a service associated with the famous person's bromide, the above-mentioned image composition is performed regardless of the number of bromides distributed. As a result, the incidentalness of the image composition service to bromide is cut off, and the added value of bromide is significantly reduced.

  Therefore, it is necessary to provide the image composition service only to the bromide holder only for the number of cards held by restricting the image composition to the number of times permitted for composition according to the number of bromides. As a result, it is possible to prevent multiple use without the grounds of the user (cardholder).

  Furthermore, if the number of uses is not limited as described above, but only the period is limited, the number of users or third parties used within the period can be counted, and then the template and thus a person such as a celebrity depicted in the template Character popularity and customer needs can be analyzed, which enables effective marketing.

  The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and is intended to limit the unauthorized use of a template by a third party and the multiple use of a user to improve the rare value of the template and bromide, and to meet customer needs. The purpose is to conduct effective marketing through analysis.

  In order to solve the above problems, the image processing system of the present invention employs the following means.

  That is, in the present invention, when a self-portrait is taken with a mobile terminal device such as a camera-equipped mobile phone and the image is transmitted to a system for image composition, the image is aligned with a predetermined image, that is, a so-called two-shot image. The number of uses of the predetermined image is limited in terms of the number of times or a time limit.

  That is, in the present invention, a storage unit that receives a human image captured by a camera-equipped mobile terminal device and at least temporarily stores the received human image, an image database in which specific human image data is registered in advance, Combining means for combining the person image data stored in the storage means and the specific person image data recorded in the image database so that both persons are displayed side by side; and a composite image synthesized by the combining means This is a system having communication processing means for returning to the terminal device.

  Here, together with the human image data transmitted from the portable terminal device, image identification information for specifying the human image data to be combined, and a different permission prepared for each number corresponding to the permitted number of copies of the image The information is transmitted together as a composition request, and has a composition permission determination means for rejecting composition for a composition request based on the same permission information according to the received permission information.

  Here, as the composition permission determination means, permission information for the permitted number of copies is recorded together with the image identification information corresponding to a specific person image in the image database, and the composition means specifies the image data. The specific person image data is read out from the image database with reference to the image identification information to be synthesized, combined with the person image data received from the mobile terminal device, and the permission recorded on the database corresponding to the received permission information When the same permission information is sent from the mobile terminal device by setting a used flag corresponding to the information, the composition request based on the permission information can be rejected.

  Further, as the composition permission determination means, an image included in the request is received on the condition that the composition request is received, the image composition by the composition means is completed, and the portable terminal device has received the composition image. The identification information and permission information may be recorded in the storage device as combined information, and when the same image identification information and permission information are sent from the mobile terminal device, the combination request may be rejected.

Further, as described below, a mail address may be registered in advance to limit the number of uses. That is, a storage unit that receives a human image captured by a camera-equipped mobile terminal device and stores the received human image at least temporarily; a mail address database in which a user's mail address is registered in advance; An image database in which person image data is registered, and combining means for combining the person image data stored in the storage means and specific person image data recorded in the image database so that both persons are displayed side by side. , A system having communication processing means for returning the synthesized image synthesized by the synthesizing means to the portable terminal device, and an image for specifying the person image data to be synthesized together with the person image data transmitted from the portable terminal device The identification information and e-mail address shall be sent together as a composition request and received. In response to the first compositing request based on the email address, the image composition is executed on the condition that the email address is a registered email address, and the execution of the image composition is recorded, and the same email address is recorded. An image processing system comprising: a composition permission determination unit that rejects a composition request for the second and subsequent times based on the composition request.

  As a card used for the service according to the present invention, it is accessible from a mobile phone with a camera via a communication network, and a database storing predetermined person image data and access information to a system having image composition means, and the database A person photograph corresponding to the registered person image data, image identification information for identifying the person image data corresponding to the person photograph, distribution permission information for the person image data, and permission information different for each sheet, You can use a card with. This can use bromides such as actors.

Here, the access information is human image data taken with the camera-equipped mobile phone,
It is information to be sent to the system together with the image identification information and permission information, and the image identification information is information necessary for reading out human image data corresponding to a human image on a card notation from the database.

  The read person image data corresponding to the person image in bromide is combined with the person image data received by the system from the mobile phone by the image synthesizing unit provided on the system side, and is then sent to the camera-equipped mobile phone. It is supposed to be returned.

  The permission information, when the image composition is completed by the image composition means and returned to the camera-equipped mobile phone, leaves a used record indicating that the image composition has been performed based on the permission information, and thereafter This is information for refusing an image composition request based on the same permission information.

  Note that the image to be subject to two-shot is not limited to a person image, and may be an anime character or the like. Therefore, in that case, in the above configuration, the image data of the anime character is used instead of the person image data.

Further, in the above system or a card used therefor, the image identification information and the permission information are handled as different information. However, these may be integrated into a single password. That is, for example, when 100 copies are permitted, a password in which both are integrated is prepared in association with image data registered in the database.

Furthermore, a mail address consisting of “user name @ domain name” may be included as access information to the system included in the composition request. Then, the user name of the email address is registered on the system side as different for each password, and when the image composition request is received, the user name of the address information included in the request signal It is determined whether or not the password combination is already registered. If it is already registered, image composition is executed, and if it is not registered, the composition request is rejected.

  According to the present invention, since a two-shot state with a predetermined image can be performed with a mobile terminal, and the number of times the predetermined image is used can be limited, the image provider can also avoid duplication more than necessary. .

  In addition, by distributing the above card, the user who has obtained this card can enjoy two-shots with the image displayed on the card on the mobile terminal device. Can be increased.

An example in which the system of the present invention is realized in a server will be described.
As shown in FIG. 1, a camera-equipped mobile phone as a camera-equipped mobile terminal device and a server for providing this service (hereinafter referred to as an image processing server) can be bidirectionally communicated through a mobile phone communication network. It is connected.

  Specifically, a mobile phone is connected to a mobile mail server of a mobile phone company via a mobile phone communication network, and a mobile mail is transmitted and received by accessing a mailbox provided in the mobile mail server from the mobile phone. It is possible. In addition, an image processing server is separately connected to the mobile phone communication network, and bidirectional communication with the mobile mail server is possible.

  The image processing server is provided with a communication processing unit that performs transmission / reception, a storage device connected to the communication processing unit, an image database, a user database, and a composition processing unit.

  Person image data (person image data) provided in advance is registered in the image database. FIG. 2 shows a registration format of the image database. Corresponding to the person photo data (image data), image identification information for specifying the image and different permission information prepared for each number corresponding to the permitted number of copies of the image are registered. . In this embodiment, the image data is actress1.jpg, and the image identification information is actress A.

The permission information is a number 0001 following the actress A. When 100 copies are permitted, serial numbers from 0001 to 0100 are assigned, for example. The permission information does not need to be a number, and may of course use alphabets or other symbols. In short, it is only necessary to identify individual copies. An item for setting a flag corresponding to the permission information is set in the format. By setting this flag, it is possible to determine how much preset permission information has been used, that is, how many pieces of image data have been used.
Further, the image data actress1.jpg of this embodiment is an image obtained by bringing the image of actress A to the right of the frame.

FIG. 3 shows a card used for this service. This card is a bromide displaying a picture of the actress A, which is the same as that registered in the image database.

In addition, the bromide corresponds to a predetermined address (yg@ishonan.com), a person photograph corresponding to the person image data registered in the image database, and the person photograph as access information to the image processing server. The image identification information for specifying the person image data and the distribution permission information for the person image data and different permission information for each sheet are described. Here, the image identification information and the permission information are described in series as “actress A_0001”. Further, a two-dimensional bar code in which the access information, image identification information, and permission information are coded together is printed. This is yg@ishonan.com; encoding actress A_0001.

  On the back side of this bromide, usage explanation of this service is described as follows.

<How to use>
(1) Take a photo (* left the person) and save it.
(2) Read 2D barcode. Then, HYPERLINK "mailto: destination yg@ishonan.com" yg@ishonan.com is displayed as the destination, and permission information is displayed, so create an email to the destination with this permission information To do.
(3) Attach the photo taken to the email and send it.
(4) Wait for 1 or 2 seconds and you will receive an email.

Next, image composition according to this method of use will be described.
First, as shown in Fig. 5, take a picture of yourself with the camera of the mobile phone (* Make the person the left side)
Save it in the phone's memory. Next, the two-dimensional bar code is read to obtain destination information HYPERLINK “mailto: destination yg@ishonan.com” yg@ishonan.com , image identification information, and permission information. Then, an e-mail addressed to the destination is created based on the destination information.

In this mail, the image identification information and the permission information are placed, and the saved photograph is attached and transmitted to the transmission destination. Then, mail from the mobile phone is transmitted to the image processing server via the mobile mail server. In the image processing server, the contents of the mail, the attached image, and the transmission source address are stored in the storage device, and these are registered in the user database. Also, image identification information and permission information are read from the mail contents.

  First, it is checked whether the permission information of the corresponding image in the image database is flagged. If the flag is 0, it means that the permission information is not used. Therefore, the image data corresponding to the image identification information is stored in the image database. The attached image stored in the storage device and the read image are combined (FIG. 6).

Here, the attached image that is the left-justified person image and the actress1.jpg that is the right-justified person image are superimposed and combined, so that the two people are arranged as shown in FIG. In addition, you may combine according to a frame so that the data which copied the person image in the center may be arranged. Then, the synthesized image is transmitted to the transmission source mobile phone. If reception at the transmission source is successful, a flag is set in correspondence with the permission information. That is, 1 is set to the flag corresponding to 0001 in FIG.

  When the flag is raised, it means that image composition with permission information of 0001 has already been performed. Accordingly, since the flag 1 is read for an image composition request mail that includes the same information as the permission information, in this case, a message “This bromide service has been used” is returned to the transmission source.

  Promides are distributed by the number of permission information, and when all the services based on the permission information are used, all the flags from 0001 to 0100 are set, 100 images have been used, and further copying is impossible. (Fig. 4).

The above service can also be performed via the Internet. That is, as shown in FIG. 7, a camera-equipped mobile phone as a camera-equipped mobile terminal device and a server for providing this service (hereinafter referred to as an image processing server) are connected to be capable of bidirectional communication via the Internet. Yes.

  Specifically, a mobile phone is connected to a mobile mail server of a mobile phone company via a mobile phone communication network, and the mobile phone accesses a mailbox provided in the mobile mail server from the mobile phone, Mail can be sent and received. The portable mail server is connected to the Internet via a mail gateway, and is capable of bidirectional communication with an image processing server that is separately connected to the Internet.

  Mail from a mobile phone is sent to the mailbox of the mobile mail server using a unique protocol. The mail gateway receives the mail from the mobile mail server according to a unique protocol, converts the mail format into the Internet mail format (MIME), and delivers it to the destination image processing server on the Internet using the SMTP protocol.

  A reply from the image processing server to the mobile phone is once received by the mail gateway, converted into a mail format, and transferred to the mobile mail server using a unique protocol. Then, the mail is stored in the mailbox of the mobile mail server, and the mail is acquired. The rest is the same as when only through the mobile phone communication network.

The following technique is also possible as a technique for determining the composition permission by the composition permission determining means. That is, the storage device of FIG. 1 is provided with a combined information registration unit, which receives a mail from the user as a combining request, completes and transmits the image combining by the combining means, When the reception is completed, the image database is not flagged as described above, but the request, that is, the image identification information and permission information (actress A_0) included in the mail
001) is recorded as synthesized information in the synthesized information registration unit of the storage device.

  When image identification information and permission information are sent from the mobile terminal device by e-mail, the synthesized information registration unit of the storage device is referred to. When the sent image identification information and permission information have already been registered, the composition request based on the information is rejected as being used.

Next, an example where the period and the number of times of image composition are limited will be described.
In this example, although not shown, it has a clock means for calculating the period, and the above-mentioned flags are set all at once when the clock means counts the passage of a predetermined period.

When image identification information (Actress A) and permission information are sent to the image processing server along with the person image data from the camera-equipped mobile phone, first, the server-side composition permission determination means determines whether the flag is set. If the flag is not set, the image composition of the image of the actress A and the sent person image is executed, and the composite image is returned to the transmission source mail address. A flag is set when reception at the transmission source is successful. When the flag is set, the re-request based on the same identification information is rejected. Thereby, the number of synthesis can be limited.

  In this example, management is performed using identification information and permission information. Therefore, if a flag is set all at once when a predetermined period has elapsed, an image after the predetermined period has elapsed. It becomes impossible to receive synthesis services. Thereby, the period during which the service can be received is limited, and the composition period can be limited.

  As a method for limiting the period and number of times of image composition, a method of limiting by managing with an e-mail address is possible as shown below. In this example, in the image processing server, a reception processing unit that transmits and receives data, a storage device, a mail address database in which a user's mail address is registered in advance, an image database in which specific person image data is registered in advance, An image composition unit for compositing the person image data stored in the storage device and the specific person image data recorded in the image database so that both persons are displayed side by side, and a composition permission determination unit. .

When image identification information (actress A) and email address are sent to the server along with the person image data from the camera-equipped mobile phone, first, the server side compositing permission judging means checks whether the email address is already registered. If it is already registered, image synthesis of the image of actress A and the sent person image is executed, and the synthesized image is returned to the sender mail address. If reception at the transmission source is successful, the fact that image composition has been executed in correspondence with the mail address is recorded in the storage device (used recording). Therefore, when a second or subsequent composition request based on the same mail address is received, the request can be rejected.

  In this example, management is performed using an email address, and it is impossible to reuse the mobile phone once using the service. Therefore, if the used record is reset and cleared within a predetermined period, the same mail address can be used. In this way, it is possible to provide an image composition service for a limited use period (for example, three months).

In this case, for example, in the bromide as described above, the usage period of the image compositing service with the actress A is described in the form of once per registered user from January to March. Then, when the period has elapsed, the used records of all users can be reset, and the plan can be changed to the provision of an image compositing service with the baseball player B of the next promide.

  In the above example, both the image composition period and the number of times are limited, but it is also possible to limit only the period by not limiting the number of times within the period.

When image identification information (actress A) and permission information are transmitted to the image processing server together with the person image data from the camera-equipped mobile phone, first, if the combining permission determination means on the server side is within the combining period, Regardless of whether the flag is set or not, the image synthesis of the image of the actress A and the sent person image is executed, and the synthesized image is returned to the sender mail address. Then, when a predetermined period has elapsed, a flag is set all at once. This makes it impossible to receive the image composition service after a predetermined period has elapsed, and thus the period during which the service can be received is limited.

In addition, when the image composition period is limited by managing with an email address, image identification information (actress A) and an email address are transmitted from the mobile phone with camera together with the person image data to the server. First, the server-side compositing permission judging means judges whether or not the mail address is already registered, and if so, executes image compositing of the image of actress A and the sent person image, The composite image is returned to the mail address. When the predetermined period has elapsed, the used records are stored in the storage device all at once. This makes it impossible to receive the image composition service after a predetermined period has elapsed, and thus the period during which the service can be received is limited.

  When only the image composition period is limited, if a counter that displays the number of image composition is attached to each image data such as a person and a character recorded in the image database, the person, character, and the like within the period The number of image compositing for each is found. This makes it possible to analyze the popularity of people and customer needs and to enable effective marketing.

Finally, an example in which image identification information and permission information are integrated will be described. In the above example, the actress A # 0001 to the actress A # 0100 are used, but may be formed and used as 100 random passwords. For example, 100 types of passwords composed of character strings such as ABE01DX, EDF24GS,..., FGS34TE are created, and all these passwords are registered in association with the image data of actress A. When an image is sent from a mobile phone together with this password, if there is a password that is the same as this password, composition for Actress A is permitted, and a flag is set corresponding to the password, and subsequent composition requests with the same password are rejected. To do. Of course, refusing even when there is no password.

  In addition to the above, except for free duplication during the period, the number limit is managed by the flag, but the number limit can be set freely instead of only once. For example, when limiting to 3 times, a counter is provided so that a composite request with the same permission information or password is counted by the counter, a flag is set when the counter reaches 3, and subsequent composite requests are rejected. To do.

In the above example, the email address of the destination is fixed with alphanumeric characters (user name) before the “@” symbol, but this is changed one by one with the password (image identification information and permission information). If the two do not match, the server that receives the request may refuse access or refuse the image composition service.

Since the domain name for identifying the organization (server) follows the “@” sign, it is fixed. In other words, the user name and password of the address information are associated and registered in the server-side database, and when the image composition request is received, the combination of the user name and password of the address information included in the request signal is It is determined whether or not it is registered. If it is already registered, image composition is executed, and if it is not registered, a composition request is rejected. Thereby, it is possible to more strictly prevent unauthorized access. Here, by making the user name variable, it can be said that this part is used as permission information.

In addition, corresponding to the image to be synthesized (actress A), the scheduled end date and time of the synthesis service is registered in advance, and the service is stopped when the clock means of the server reaches the scheduled date and time. You may determine a provision time limit.

1 is a system configuration diagram showing a basic configuration of a system of the present invention. It is a figure which shows the registration format of an image database. It is a figure which shows the card | curd used for the system of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows an example of the flow of a basic process of this invention. It is a figure which shows the image which the portable terminal device user imaged. It is a figure which shows what combined the image imaged by the portable terminal device user, and the image registered into the image database. 1 is a system configuration diagram showing a basic configuration of a system of the present invention when it is via the Internet.

Claims (8)

Storage means for receiving a human image captured by a mobile terminal device with a camera, and at least temporarily storing the received human image;
An image database in which specific person image data or animation character image data is registered in advance;
Synthesizing means for synthesizing the person image data stored in the storage means and the specific person image data recorded in the image database or the image data of the anime character so that both images are displayed side by side;
A system having communication processing means for returning a composite image synthesized by the synthesis means to the mobile terminal device;
Along with the person image data transmitted from the portable terminal device, image identification information for specifying the person image data to be synthesized or the image data of the anime character, and the number corresponding to the permitted number of copies of the image are prepared one by one. Suppose that different permission information is sent together as a composition request,
An image processing system comprising: a composition permission determination unit that rejects composition for a composition request based on the same permission information in accordance with received permission information. As the composition permission determination means, the image database records permission information for the permitted number of copies, together with the image identification information, corresponding to an image of a specific person image or animation character,
The synthesizing unit reads the specific person image data or the image data of the anime character from the image database with reference to the image identification information for identifying the image data, and synthesizes it with the person image data received from the mobile terminal device. When the same permission information is sent from the portable terminal device in correspondence with the permission information recorded on the database corresponding to the permission information, a composition request based on the permission information is issued. The image processing system according to claim 1, wherein the image processing system is rejected.   The image identification information included in the request on the condition that the composition request is received as the composition permission determination means, the image composition by the composition means is completed, and the portable terminal device has received the composition image. And the permission information are recorded in the storage device as combined information, and when the same image identification information and permission information are sent from the portable terminal device, the combination request is rejected. Image processing system. Storage means for receiving a human image captured by a mobile terminal device with a camera, and at least temporarily storing the received human image;
An email address database in which user email addresses are registered in advance,
An image database in which specific person image data or animation character image data is registered in advance;
Synthesizing means for synthesizing the person image data stored in the storage means and the specific person image data recorded in the image database or the image data of the anime character so that both images are displayed side by side;
A system having communication processing means for returning a composite image synthesized by the synthesis means to the mobile terminal device;
Along with the person image data transmitted from the mobile terminal device, the image identification information for specifying the person image data to be combined or the image data of the anime character, and the mail address are also transmitted together as a combining request,
For the first compositing request based on the received mail address, on the condition that the mail address is a registered mail address, record the fact that the image compositing was executed and record the same mail. What is claimed is: 1. An image processing system comprising: a composition permission judging means for rejecting a second and subsequent composition requests based on an address. The image processing system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the image identification information and the permission information comprise one password integrated with each other. The composition request includes an e-mail address consisting of “user name @ domain name” as access information to the system, and the user name of the e-mail address is different for each password. When the image composition request is received, it is determined whether or not the combination of the user name and password of the address information included in the request signal is already registered. 6. The image processing system according to claim 5, wherein the image processing system is executed and rejects the composition request if it is unregistered. Access information from a camera-equipped mobile phone via a communication network, access information to a system having a database storing predetermined person image data and an image composition means,
A person picture or character corresponding to the person image data or animation character image data registered in the database;
Image identification information for identifying person image data corresponding to the person photograph;
Distribution permission information of the person image data, and permission information different for one sheet,
Card with
The access information is information for sending person image data taken with the camera-equipped mobile phone to the server together with the image identification information and permission information,
The image identification information is information necessary for reading out the person image data corresponding to the card notation image or the image data of the animation character from the database, and the read person image corresponding to the card notation person image The data is combined with the person image data received from the mobile phone by the image combining means provided on the system side, and is returned to the mobile phone with camera,
The permission information, when the image composition is completed by the image composition means and returned to the camera-equipped mobile phone, leaves a used record indicating that the image composition has been performed based on the permission information, and thereafter the same information Information for rejecting an image composition request based on permission information.
card. The card according to claim 7, wherein the image identification information and the permission information are composed of one password integrated with each other.

Images