JPH04280140A - Message communication processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a message communication processing system, and more particularly to a message communication processing system comprising a communication terminal that processes at least one media information of multimedia, and a center device that has a function of storing and exchanging messages as media information. It relates to a communication processing system.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, one of the basic functions of a message communication system (e-mail system) consisting of a communication terminal that processes multimedia information and a center device that has a function of storing and exchanging communication messages made of media information is as follows. Mailbox services are known. This service prepares a mailbox for each email recipient in the system, and when the email sender sends a message,
It is registered in the mailbox of the other party (destination).

[0003] On the other hand, a mail recipient can receive mail from a mail sender by accessing his or her own mailbox and retrieving a message that corresponds to him/her.

[0004] By using the above-mentioned system, the sender can send an e-mail without worrying about the recipient's situation, and the receiver can receive e-mail addressed to him or her at a time convenient for him/her. There are advantages to being able to do this.

[0005] However, since the storage capacity of a mailbox prepared for each recipient is limited, the maximum length of a communication message is determined in advance within the system, and if a communication message exceeding the specified length is sent by a mail sender, , they are often not registered in the mailbox, and a notification indicating that the communication message exceeds the specified length is sent back to the sender.

[0006] Furthermore, in an electronic mail system that handles multimedia information, the amount of information contained in messages becomes miscellaneous. For example, the amount of information in a message consisting of image information is generally ten times larger than that of a message consisting of text information.

[0007]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, when the maximum length of a message that can be registered in a mailbox is fixed within the system as in the conventional system, there are the following drawbacks. (1) If the maximum length of a message is set short, a message with a large amount of information, such as image information, will exceed the maximum message length when sending an email, increasing the probability that it will not be registered in the mailbox. (2) If the maximum message length is set long, the probability that messages with a large amount of information such as image information can be registered in the mailbox increases, but conversely, messages with a relatively small amount of information such as text information will be registered in the mailbox. Even in the case of a large number of memory cells, more memory than necessary will be reserved in the system, resulting in a decrease in memory usage efficiency. This ultimately leads to a reduction in the number of messages that can be handled in the entire system.

[0008] Therefore, in conventional electronic mail systems that handle a single medium, such as text mail systems that handle only character information and facsimile mail systems that handle only image information, the maximum message length is fixed. Although this is not a big problem, e-mail systems that handle multimedia are required to be able to handle the maximum message length more flexibly.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and even when a communication message consisting of media information sent from a communication terminal is longer than a predetermined message length, storage and exchange is performed. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a message communication processing system that improves the utilization efficiency of the entire system.

0010

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above object, the message communication processing system of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, in a message communication processing system that includes a communication terminal that processes media information and a center device that has a storage and exchange function for communication messages made of media information sent from the communication terminal,
The center device includes a determining means for determining whether the message length of the communication message sent from the terminal device is equal to or greater than a predetermined length, and if the result of the determining means is equal to or greater than the predetermined length, the message length is included in the media information. and a distribution means for distributing messages according to media types.

A message communication processing system according to another invention has the following configuration.

[0012] In a message communication processing system comprising a communication terminal that processes media information and a center device having a storage and exchange function for communication messages made of media information sent from the communication terminal, the center device includes: a determining means for determining whether a message length of a communication message sent from the terminal device is equal to or greater than a predetermined length; and a conversion for performing media conversion based on media information when a result of the determining means is equal to or greater than a predetermined length. and storage means for storing messages converted by the conversion means.

Furthermore, a message communication processing system according to another invention has the following configuration.

[0014] In a message communication processing system comprising a communication terminal that processes media information and a center device having a storage and exchange function for communication messages made of media information sent from the communication terminal, the center device includes: a determining means for determining whether a message length of a communication message sent from the terminal device is equal to or greater than a predetermined length; and a conversion for performing media conversion based on media information when the result of the discriminating means is equal to or greater than a predetermined length. and a distribution means for distributing a message converted by the conversion means or a message consisting of predetermined media information.

A message communication processing system according to another invention has the following configuration.

[0016] In a message communication processing system comprising a communication terminal that processes media information and a center device having a storage and exchange function for communication messages made of media information sent from the communication terminal, the center device includes: A determination means for determining whether a message length of a communication message sent from the terminal device is equal to or greater than a predetermined length, and a storage means for storing the message when the result of the determination means is equal to or greater than the predetermined length. .

[0017]

[Operation] In the above configuration, when a communication message consisting of media information sent from a communication terminal is longer than a predetermined message length, the communication message is operated to be delivered to the destination terminal according to the media type. .

[0018] In another configuration, if a communication message consisting of media information sent from a communication terminal is longer than a predetermined message length, media conversion is performed based on the media type, and the converted message is stored. It works like that.

Furthermore, in another configuration, if a communication message consisting of media information sent from a communication terminal has a length longer than a predetermined message length, a message converted to a medium based on the media information or a message based on the predetermined media information It operates to deliver messages.

[0020] In another configuration, if a communication message consisting of media information sent from a communication terminal is longer than a predetermined message length, the communication terminal operates to store the message.

[0021]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. <First Embodiment> First, as a first embodiment, a message communication processing system that can automatically transmit a message according to the function of the destination communication terminal when the transmitted message is longer than a predetermined message length will be described in detail. .

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a multimedia message communication processing system in a first embodiment. In the figure, 1 to 7 are mail terminal groups (A to G) as communication terminal devices that can communicate messages with the mail processing device 9 via the network 8, and each of the terminal devices 1 to 7
has terminal attributes A to G as shown in FIG. That is, these mail terminal groups (A to G) include telematic terminals such as teletex and facsimile, voice terminals with voice input/output functions, and composite terminals thereof. 8 is a network that connects the mail processing device 9 and each mail terminal 1 to 7, and includes a public network (e.g., digital data network, private line, telephone network, ISDN) and a private network (e.g., LAN, PBX), etc. . Reference numeral 9 denotes a mail processing device which is a center device of a message communication processing system that stores and exchanges messages.

As shown in the figure, the mail processing device 9 executes processing procedures (programs) stored in a main storage unit 12, which will be described later.
The main control unit 1 controls the entire mail processing device 9 according to the
0 and the communication control unit 1 that controls the connection between the network 8 and the network 8.
1, and in addition to the above-mentioned mail processing program, communication data,
A main storage unit 12 that stores a processable table etc. that holds processable media of each mail terminal group A to G, and, for example,
Consists of magnetic disk devices, etc., and each mail terminal group A to G
The mailbox storage section 13 stores mailboxes assigned to each mailbox.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a message format used in the multimedia message communication processing system according to the embodiment, and is composed of a header section consisting of fields 21 to 25, and a main body section 26. The message header sections 21 to 25 include a service type field 21 for specifying mailbox service, confidential service, etc., a sender name field 22 for writing the sender's name, and a recipient name field 23 for writing the recipient's name. , a media type field 24 in which a media type such as text, image, audio, etc. is written, and an other field 25 in which other information such as a comment is written. Furthermore, the information written in the message body field 26 is applicable to all media that can be treated as digital data.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing details of a processable media table showing the correspondence between types of terminals connectable to this system and processable media, and this table is created in the main storage unit 13. In the figure, circles indicate media that can be processed by the terminal. For example, in the example in Figure 3, terminal A corresponds to a teletex, terminal B corresponds to a facsimile, terminal C corresponds to a mixed mode terminal, and terminal D corresponds to a telephone. , terminal E~
G corresponds to those composite terminals.

Details of the mail exchange processing in the mail processing device 9 having the above configuration will be explained below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

As described above, the mail processing device 9 executes the following processes in accordance with the mail processing program stored in the main storage section 12 under the control of the main control section 10. In the following description, a case will be explained in detail using an example in which terminal B2 sends an email to terminal C3 using a mailbox service.

First, a mailbox addressed to terminal C3 (hereinafter referred to as M
When a registration request message (referred to as B) is received through the communication control unit 11, the main control unit 10 advances the process to step S1 and checks the service type field 21 of the received message shown in FIG. Here, if there is a received message and the service type is mailbox service, the process advances to step S2 and MB registration process is started. In this step S2, it is checked whether the received message exceeds a predetermined maximum message length, and if the received message is smaller than the predetermined maximum message length, step S2 is performed.
The process advances to step 6 and normal MB registration processing is executed.

Note that a mailbox area is allocated in advance to the mailbox storage unit 13 for each terminal, and in this case, since the content of the recipient field 23 of the received message indicates terminal C3, terminal B2 The message from is stored in the mailbox for terminal C3 in the mailbox storage section 13.

On the other hand, on the terminal C3 side, the mail processing device 9
Make a request to withdraw MB from , and check whether there is a message addressed to you. In this example, since a received message is detected and the service type field 21 indicates an MB withdrawal request, the process advances from step S8 to step S9 and normal MB withdrawal processing is executed. In this process, the mailbox for terminal C3 in the mailbox storage section 13 is checked and the corresponding message is read out. Then, in the following step S10, the terminal C3 which is the MB withdrawal request terminal
Deliver messages to.

The above is an outline of normal mailbox service processing.

[0032] Next, a detailed description will be given below of the process in this embodiment when a characteristic received message length exceeds a predetermined maximum message length.

[0033] In step S2 described above, if the received message length exceeds the predetermined maximum message length,
The process advances to step S3, and it is checked whether the media type 24 is an image. If the result is an image, the process advances to step S4, and the processable media table shown in FIG. 3 is checked to see if the destination terminal of the message can receive the image. Here, if the destination terminal is a terminal capable of processing images, the process advances to step S5, mail distribution processing is performed, and the image message is distributed to the destination terminal. For example, if the destination terminal is capable of processing images, such as terminal C3, F6, or G3, mail delivery processing can be performed.

However, if the destination terminal is a terminal A1, D4, or E5 that cannot process image information, the mail distribution process in step S5 is not performed. This is because, in general, with text mail and voice mail, the recipient naturally accesses the mailbox to receive the mail, whereas with image mail such as facsimile mail, the system receives the mail. This method focuses on the fact that forcibly sending data to user terminals is a natural form.

[0035] Furthermore, if the media type is not an image in step S3, or if the destination terminal is a terminal that cannot process images in step S4, the process advances to step S7 and a message is sent to the sender as usual. It notifies that the length exceeds the predetermined length and interrupts the MB registration process.

According to the first embodiment described above, even if the message sent from the sender is longer than the predetermined message length, if the media type of the communication message is image information, the message is sent to the destination communication terminal. Messages can be sent automatically.

Furthermore, since it is not necessary to reserve more memory than necessary in the system, memory usage efficiency is improved and more messages can be stored in the entire system. <Second Embodiment> Next, a second embodiment according to the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

[0038] In this embodiment, when a transmitted message is longer than a predetermined message length, the media type of the communication message is compressed and converted into a media information type that can be processed by the destination communication terminal, so that the message is stored in the mailbox. This allows for registration.

FIG. 5 is a system configuration diagram of a multimedia message communication processing system in the second embodiment. As shown in the figure, in this embodiment, the mail processing device 9 includes a converter 14 that converts the media type of the message into a media type that can be processed by the destination terminal, and the other configurations are the same as those in FIG. 1 described above.

Details of the mail exchange process in the mail processing device 9 having the above configuration will be explained below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

[0041] In the following explanation, terminal D4 is referred to as terminal G.
7 will be explained in detail using an example of sending an email using the mailbox service. As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 6, the normal MB registration process and MB withdrawal process are the same as those shown in FIG. 4 described above, and the description thereof will be omitted here.

[0042] In step S2 shown in FIG. 6, if the received message length exceeds the predetermined maximum message length, the process proceeds to step S11, where the converter 14 converts the media type of the message, and the message capacity can be compressed. Find out whether or not. For example, if the originating terminal is D4 and the media type of the message is voice, the message capacity can be compressed by converting the voice into text using voice recognition processing.

[0043] Furthermore, when the sending terminal is B2 and inputs a printed text manuscript using a scanner and sends it, the message capacity can be compressed by converting the image into text through character recognition processing.

In the second embodiment, in the above case, the process proceeds from step S11 to step S12, and the converter 14 is activated to compress the message capacity. When the media conversion process by the conversion unit 14 is completed, the process advances to step S13, and it is checked whether the compressed message length has become smaller than a predetermined maximum message length. If it has become smaller, the process advances to step S6, and the e-mail Store messages in boxes.

[0045] Also, the source is terminal B2 and the destination is terminal D4.
In such a case, media conversion from image to audio is required according to the processable media table of FIG. 3, but it is almost impossible to convert all image information to audio. Therefore, if it is determined in step S11 that media conversion is not possible, or if the message length subjected to media conversion processing does not become smaller than the predetermined maximum message length in step S13, the process proceeds to step S7 as in the conventional method, and the sender The MB registration process is interrupted by notifying the user that the message length exceeds a predetermined length.

According to the second embodiment described above, even if the message sent from the sender is longer than the predetermined message length, the media type of the communication message is set to a media information type that can be processed by the destination communication terminal. By compressing and converting the file into , it can be registered in the mailbox. <Third Embodiment> Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

The third embodiment is a system that can automatically transmit a message depending on the function of the destination communication terminal even if the message is longer than a predetermined message length.

The system configuration in the third embodiment is the same as that in the second embodiment described above, and here, the processing when the received message length exceeds the predetermined maximum message length is explained. This will be explained below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

In step S2 shown in FIG. 7, if the received message length exceeds the predetermined message length, the process advances to step S14, the media table shown in FIG. 3 is checked, and it is determined whether the destination terminal of the message can receive the message. Determine whether or not. Here, for example, if the message is an image and the destination terminal is a terminal capable of processing images, the process advances to step S17 and mail delivery processing is performed. However, if the destination terminal is not capable of receiving data, the process advances to step S15, and it is checked whether media conversion is possible, as in the second embodiment described above. Here, if possible, the conversion unit 14 is activated to perform media conversion and compress the message capacity. Then, in step S17, mail delivery processing is performed to send the converted message to the destination.

According to the third embodiment described above, even if the message sent from the sender is longer than a predetermined message length, it can be automatically sent according to the function of the destination terminal of the message. . <Fourth Embodiment> Next, a fourth embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

In the fourth embodiment, as shown in FIG. 8, the mail processing device 9 is provided with a secondary storage section 15, which is a large capacity storage device such as an optical disk device, for storing received messages. This system allows even received messages of a predetermined message length or longer to be registered in the mailbox without interruption.

In the system according to the fourth embodiment having the above configuration, the processing when the received message length exceeds the predetermined maximum message length will be described below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

[0053] In step S2, if the length of the received message exceeds the predetermined maximum message length, the process advances to step S18, and the message body 26 is transferred to the secondary storage unit 15 and stored therein. And step S
At step 19, the header section of the message is stored in the main storage section 12 together with the storage location information in the secondary storage section 15 in which the message is stored.

[0054] Note that the header portion only needs to be searchable later, and may be stored in the mailbox storage unit 13, or a flag may be set to indicate that there is a message stored in the secondary storage unit 15. , and the others may be stored in the secondary storage unit 15.

According to the fourth embodiment described above, messages within a predetermined length are stored in the mailbox storage section 13 that can be accessed relatively quickly, and messages exceeding the predetermined length are stored in the large-capacity secondary storage section. 15, messages with various amounts of information can be stored in the mailbox.

[0056]

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention,
Even when a communication message consisting of media information sent from a communication terminal is longer than a predetermined message length, storage and exchange can be performed, thereby improving the utilization efficiency of the entire system. It becomes possible to provide

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a multimedia message communication processing system in a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a message format used in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing details of a processable media table showing the correspondence between terminal types and processable media in the main memory in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of mailbox service processing in the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a system configuration diagram of a multimedia message communication processing system in second and third embodiments.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of mailbox service processing in the second embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of mailbox service processing in a third embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a system configuration diagram of a multimedia message communication processing system in a fourth embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of mailbox service processing in the fourth embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1-7 Communication terminal 8. Network 9 Mail processing device 10 Main control section 11 Communication control section 12 Main memory section 13 Mailbox storage section 14 Conversion section

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A message communication processing system comprising a communication terminal that processes media information and a center device having a storage and exchange function for communication messages made of media information sent from the communication terminal, wherein the center device a determining means for determining whether the message length of the communication message sent from the terminal device is equal to or greater than a predetermined length; 1. A message communication processing system comprising: a delivery means for delivering a message in response to a message. 2. A message communication processing system comprising a communication terminal that processes media information and a center device having a storage and exchange function for communication messages made of media information sent from the communication terminal, wherein the center device a determining means for determining whether a message length of a communication message sent from the terminal device is greater than or equal to a predetermined length; and if a result of the determining means is greater than or equal to the predetermined length, media conversion is performed based on media information. 1. A message communication processing system comprising: conversion means for converting messages; and storage means for storing messages converted by the conversion means. 3. A message communication processing system comprising a communication terminal that processes media information and a center device having a storage and exchange function for communication messages made of media information sent from the communication terminal, wherein the center device a determining means for determining whether a message length of a communication message sent from the terminal device is greater than or equal to a predetermined length; and if a result of the determining means is greater than or equal to the predetermined length, media conversion is performed based on media information. 1. A message communication processing system comprising: a converting means for performing the conversion; and a distributing means for distributing a message converted by the converting means or a message consisting of predetermined media information. 4. A message communication processing system comprising a communication terminal that processes media information and a center device having a storage and exchange function for communication messages made of media information sent from the communication terminal, wherein the center device a determining means for determining whether a message length of a communication message sent from the terminal device is equal to or greater than a predetermined length; and a storage means for storing the message when the result of the discriminating means is equal to or greater than the predetermined length. A message communication processing system comprising: