JPH06233033A - Communication conference device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Object] The present invention relates to a communication conference device, and when a plurality of conference participants attend at the same conference point, it is possible to individually display and input conference information at the hands of each conference participant. The purpose is to do so. [Structure] The communication conference device body 40 inquires about the presence or absence of a command from each of the display / input devices 41 to 45, and as a response, each display / input device repeats an appropriate response only when it has its own device number. If there is an input request in the response from the display / input device that is not inputable, the communication conference device body 40 immediately sends control data that disables the display / input device that is currently inputable. Send to each display / input device. In response to a command inquiry from the communication conference device body 40, the displayable / input device capable of inputting, if there is input information, sends that information as well. Since the control data from the communication conference device main body 40 is sent with a device number if necessary, the responses from the display / input devices do not collide on the input data line.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication conference device, and more particularly to a communication conference device to which a plurality of information input devices corresponding to a plurality of conference participants can be connected at a predetermined conference point.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a communication conference apparatus can connect a plurality of remote places to communicate voice information, moving image information, document information, telewriting information, etc., and hold a conference while staying in different places. It is convenient. An example of this type of communication conference device is AGC.
(Audio / Graphics Conference) There are terminal devices, telewriting devices, TV conference devices, and the like.

Therefore, as a way to improve the convenience,
Various types of communication conferences have been proposed in which document data such as conference materials can be handled, and a communication conference is promoted while viewing the same document in different places and adding or the like. As a further development of the communication conference of this type, when there are a plurality of participants in the conference at the same conference point, an information display device and an information input device are installed for each individual participant. By doing so, all participants can view the same document and add to the document.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of a connection form of display / input terminals in the conventional communication conference apparatus described above.
As shown in FIG. 11, a plurality of conference participants (participants 1 to 1 are included in the communication conference device body 39 at another point and the other communication conference device body 40 connected via ISDN.
5), there is a display / input device (1 to 1) equipped with an information display device for displaying information for each participant and an information input device.
5) 41 to 45 are respectively connected to the same cable.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional communication conference device, when a plurality of information input devices are installed at the same conference point as shown in FIG. It is necessary to control whether the information input from can be enabled or disabled. If the participants 1 to 5 shown in FIG. 11 arbitrarily add, scroll, or break pages without performing such control, there is a problem that it becomes difficult to synchronize the display screens. It was

Therefore, in order to solve this problem, it is conceivable to adopt a connection form as shown in FIG. FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of a connection form of display / input terminals in another conventional communication conference device, in which the communication conference terminal main body 40 and individual display / input devices (1 to 5) 41 to 45 are individually provided. The above problem can be solved by connecting with an interface cable. However, the connection form shown in FIG. 12 has a problem that it is not realistic because it requires hardware for an interface on the side of the communication conference device main body as many as the information input devices connected at the same conference point.

The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional problems, and when a plurality of conference participants attend at the same conference point, the conference information is individually displayed or input at the hands of each conference participant. It is an object of the present invention to provide a communication conferencing device that can be used.

[0008]

The invention according to claim 1 is
A plurality of communication conference terminals are connected to each other via a communication line in a connection form between two points or multiple points to mutually provide an audiographic conference based on voice information and document information, and a plurality of communication conference terminals are provided at any of the conference points. In a communication conferencing apparatus that connects information display means and information input means to display information to a plurality of conference participants and enables information input, the information input from the plurality of information input means is communicated by polling. The present invention is characterized in that a polling accepting means for accepting the conference terminals sequentially is provided.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the communication conference apparatus according to the first aspect, the polling reception means controls whether or not information can be input from each information input means by performing a polling operation. It is characterized by According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the communication conference apparatus according to the second aspect, the number of times of assigning the polling operation to the information input means that enables the information input by performing the polling operation is another input The feature is that the number is set to be larger than the means.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the communication conference apparatus according to the second aspect, when an information input request is received from the information input means that cannot input information by performing the polling operation, at that time, It is characterized in that the information input permission state of each information input means is changed with the permission of the information input means capable of inputting information.

[0011]

According to the invention as set forth in claim 1, since the communication conference terminal polls the plurality of information inputting means by the polling receiving means, the information inputted from the information inputting means is sequentially accepted. It is not necessary to connect the terminal and the plurality of information inputting means with separate interface cables, and even if the number of information inputting means is increased, it is only necessary to sequentially connect to the same cable, and the display screens can be synchronized.

In the invention described in claim 2, since the polling operation is performed by the polling acceptance means according to claim 1, whether or not the information can be input from each information input means is controlled. Whether or not information can be input is known, and since a plurality of information input means can be connected with the same cable, it is not necessary to provide a plurality of interfaces on the communication conference terminal, and the display screens can be synchronized.

According to the third aspect of the invention, the number of times of allocation of the polling operation to the information inputting means that allows the information to be input by the polling operation according to the second aspect of the invention is more than that of other information inputing means that does not allow the input. Because I tried to do more,
By appropriately controlling the input information from the plurality of information inputting means, it is possible to capture the additional information and the like in real time and display it on the display screen without delay.

According to the invention described in claim 4, when the information input request is received from the information input means for which the information input is disabled in the polling operation according to claim 2, the information input means which can input information is permitted. Since the information input permission / prohibition state is changed, the correction information is fetched from each information input means according to the meeting situation.

[0015]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. First, the configuration will be described. FIG. 1 is an external view showing a connection example of a communication conference apparatus and its peripheral devices according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a communication conference apparatus, which is a conference terminal used by conference attendees. Reference numeral 2 denotes an LCD (Liquid Cristal Device) that displays documents and drawings of conference materials and plays the role of a system monitor. 3 is LCD
It is a transparent touch panel (TP) installed on the screen of No. 2 for inputting handwriting for adding / correcting to the image displayed on the LCD 2.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a touch pen for inputting a drawing on the touch panel 3. Reference numeral 5 is a handset for exchanging voice data. Reference numeral 6 is a microphone for voice input for transmitting conversation contents during the conference. Reference numeral 7 is a voice output speaker for playing a voice or the like during the conference transmitted from another conference terminal.

Reference numeral 8 is an interface connector for connecting to peripheral equipment and connecting to a communication line. 9
Is an ISDN for connecting to the ISDN network 10.
It is a line. 11a and 11b are ISDN networks 1
It is another conference terminal connected to 0.

A scanner 12 is connected to the conference terminal 1 through the interface connector 8 and reads image information from a document such as conference material. A printer 13 is connected to the conference terminal 1 via the interface connector 8 and prints out image data stored in the memory or received image data.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration example of the conference terminal shown in FIG. As shown in FIG.
The PU (Central Processing Unit) 14 is a ROM (Re
The entire system of the communication conference device is controlled according to the program written in the ad only memory) 15. DMA
(Direct Memory Access) Controller 16 is DMA
The transfer operation of image information in the transfer mode is controlled.

A RAM (Random Access Memory) 17 is
A work area and data required for the operation of the CPU 14 are stored. The voice codec (CODEC) 18 is ISDN.
The digital voice signal received through the line is decoded and converted into an analog voice signal, or the analog voice signal is encoded and transmitted as a digital voice signal. The audio codec 18 is connected to the handset 5 in FIG. 2, but is also switchably connected to the hands-free microphone 6 and speaker 7 in FIG.

The printer interface 19 connects the printer 13 and the system bus 30 and prints and records based on the input print data. The scanner interface 20 includes the scanner 12 and the system bus 30.
And are connected to each other, and the document data read by the scanner 12 is sent to the system bus 30. Hard disk 21
Stores document data and the like in a writable / readable manner.

The timer 22 manages the current time. The interrupt controller 23 controls the interrupt of the CPU 14. The communication control unit 24 executes transmission of image data including telewriting data via an NCU (network control unit) 25 having an S interface with an ISDN line according to a predetermined transmission control procedure. It should be noted that this communication control unit 24 uses at least the B channel (6
It is configured so that simultaneous communication using two 4 Kbit / sec) is possible.

The codec (CODEC) 26 encodes image information to be transmitted by a predetermined method and compresses the amount of the information, and also decodes the image information encoded at the time of reception to restore the original image information. . Graphic controller 2
Reference numeral 7 controls the graphic data accumulated in the video RAM (VIDEO RAM) 28.

Liquid crystal display / touch panel (LCD / T
P) The controller 29 is connected to the LCD 2 and the touch panel 3, and with respect to the image data displayed on the LCD 2,
The terminal having the operation token controls the change of the image data when the touch panel 3 and the touch pen 4 are used for addition / correction. The system bus 30 is a signal line for data exchanged between the above units.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a connection form example of a communication conference apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. (A) is a point-to-point connection example connecting two points, and (b) is a multipoint connection. It is an example of connection by multipoint via MCU (Multipoint Control Unit). Then, the control of the ISDN line in such a communication conference apparatus is performed by CCITT.
(International Telegraph and Telephone Advisory Committee) H. 221 and a multi-frame structure according to H.221. It is realized by the communication setting method according to 242.

FIG. 4 shows H.264 in the ISDN line. 22 is a frame configuration diagram of a 64K network conforming to 221. As shown in FIG. 4, the transmission capacity of 64 Kbit / sec is divided into 8 sub-channels, and 56 Kbit / sec, which is the sub-channel # 1 to 7 among them, is 6.4 Kbit / sec for voice communication.
Is used for conference control. And this 6.4bit /
The sec capability is used to transfer documents and drawing information such as telewriting as needed. Also,
The FAS / BAS signal is an H.264 signal. 221 is a frame synchronization signal (Frame Allignment Signal) and a bit rate assignment signal (Bitrate Assignment Signal).

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a connection form of display / input terminals of a communication conference apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
As shown in FIG. 5, the communication conference device main body 40 and the display / input devices (1 to 5) 41 to 45 provided for each participant are commonly connected by one connection interface. The connection interface is composed of a display data line 46, a control data line 47 and an input data line 48, and each display / input device 41.
To 45, respectively.

Here, the display data and the control data sent from the communication conference device body 40 to the individual display / input devices are sent in common using the display data line 46 and the control data line 47. However, since the input data such as the editing information from the display / input devices 41 to 45 are arbitrarily generated in the individual display / input devices 41 to 45, they collide on the same input data line 48, Normal operation can no longer be expected. Therefore, in this embodiment, the input data input from each of the display / input devices 41 to 45 is
Since the polling is performed from the main body of the communication conference apparatus and the polling is sequentially received, the input data does not collide with each other on the same input data line 48, and the input data is normally processed.

FIG. 6 is an external perspective view showing an example of the display / input device shown in FIG. 5, and FIG. 7 is an external perspective view showing an example of the communication conference device main body shown in FIG. 6 and 7, the communication conferencing device is not in a form in which all are integrated as in the communication conferencing device in FIG. 1, but the communication conferencing device main body 40 and the display / input devices 41 to 45 as shown in FIG. It assumes a separate form. The display / input device 41 shown in FIG. 6 and an I / O such as a scanner or printer (not shown)
The device is connected to the connector section 38 of FIG. And
The power of the communication conference device body 40 is turned on / off by the power switch 37.

The communication conference apparatus according to this embodiment is configured as described above, and its operation will be described below with reference to FIGS. 8 to 10. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing control data sent from the communication conference unit body of the present embodiment to the display / input device and input data as a response from the display / input device, and FIG. 9 shows claims 1, 2, and 4. 10 is a sequence chart of the communication conference apparatus according to the invention of FIG. 10, and FIG. 10 is a sequence chart of the communication conference apparatus according to the invention of claim 3.

First, as shown in FIG. 8, the communication conference device body 40 inquires about the presence or absence of a command from each of the display / input devices 41 to 45, and in response, each display / input device has its own device number. Appropriate response is repeated only when. Also, the response from the display / input device that is not input is only with / without input request. If there is input request, the communication conference device body 40 immediately determines that input is possible. Send control data to each display / input device to disable the display / input device.

In addition, the inputable display / input device responds to a command inquiry from the communication conference device body 40 with or without input information, and if there is input information, sends the information together. In this case, the input information is, for example, correction / correction information for the conference material. Since the control data from the communication conference device main body 40 is sent with a device number as necessary, the responses from the display / input devices do not collide on the input data line.

In the above case, when there is an input request, determination of state change possibility, or input of correction / correction information is normally performed by a conference participant in front of the display / input device. This operation is performed by, for example, the LCD of FIG.
The writing request button and the like (not shown) displayed on the screen 2 are pointed by the touch pen 4 via the touch panel 3 on the screen.

Therefore, a series of sequence examples described above will be described with reference to FIG. Here, the display / input devices (1 to 3) 41 to 43 in FIG. 5 are used, and the display / input device (1) 41 is allowed to input at first. In addition, "*" in the figure is
Since the signal line is common to the display / input devices 1, 2 and 3, the same command is displayed not only on the display / input device 1.
Although it is also sent to the input devices 2 and 3, it is indicated that the device numbers are ignored because they do not match. The same applies to the following cases of FIG.

First, the portion (a) of FIG. 9 shows a case where there is no particular response to a command inquiry by polling from the communication conference device body 40. Further, (b) is a case where the input information (for example, the correction information) from the display / input device (1) 41 which is ready for input is sent, and the correction information is transmitted from the communication conference apparatus main body 40 to FIG. As the display data of each display / input device (1
~ 3) distributed to 41-43.

Further, in the latter half of (b), the input request from the display / input device (3) 43 is accepted, and whether or not the display / input device (1) 41 may be changed by (c) is displayed. After making an inquiry, notification of status change is given. At this point, the display / input device (3) 43 is ready for input. Further, the part (d) is the display / input device (3) 43.
This is the case of input information from. And part (e) is
This is the case where the display / input device (3) 43 rejects the input request from the display / input device (2) 42.

By the way, one problem may occur in the control sequence of FIG. That is, the input information generated from the display / input device that is ready for input has a higher occurrence frequency than the information with / without the input request from the other display / input devices that are not available, and the amount of information. Since it is considered that a large amount of data (coordinate data, etc.) is included, the uniform polling operation may cause a delay in capturing the correction information.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, this problem is avoided based on the invention described in claim 3. That is, FIG.
As shown in 0, a large number of command inquiry operations are assigned to the input-capable device (display / input device 1 in this figure) to prevent a delay in inputting input information.
As described above, according to the communication conference apparatus of the present embodiment, in the communication conference apparatus at one point, a plurality of display / input devices are connected, and a plurality of conference participants use this to proceed with the conference. However, it has become possible to properly control a plurality of input information by a polling operation from the communication conference device body and to display while delaying information transmission is prevented as much as possible.

[0040]

According to the invention described in claim 1, the communication conference terminal polls the plurality of information input means by the polling acceptance means, so that the information inputted from the information input means is sequentially accepted. Therefore, it is not necessary to connect the teleconferencing terminal and multiple information input means with separate interface cables, and even if the number of information input means is increased, it is only necessary to connect them to the same cable sequentially and the display screens are synchronized. be able to.

According to the second aspect of the invention, the polling operation is performed by the polling accepting means according to the first aspect to control whether or not the information can be input from the individual information inputting means. In addition to the fact that a participant can input information, a plurality of information input means can be connected with the same cable, so that it is not necessary to provide a plurality of interfaces on the communication conference terminal, and the display screens can be synchronized.

According to the third aspect of the invention, the information input means for which the information input is enabled by the polling operation according to the second aspect is the information input means for which the number of times of allocation of the polling operation is not allowed to be input. Since the input information from the plurality of information input means is appropriately controlled, the additional information and the like can be captured in real time and displayed on the display screen without delay.

According to the invention described in claim 4, when the information input request is received from the information input means which cannot input information in the polling operation according to claim 2, the information input means which can input information is permitted. Then, since the information input permission / prohibition state is changed, the correction information from each information input means can be taken in according to the meeting situation.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external view showing a connection example of a communication conference device and its peripheral devices according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration example of the conference terminal shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a connection form example of a communication conference apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, in which (a) is a point-point connection example and (b) is a multipoint connection example.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating H.264 in ISDN line. 6 according to 221
It is a frame block diagram of a 4K network.

FIG. 5 shows a display of a communication conference device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
It is a figure which shows an example of the connection form of an input terminal.

6 is an external perspective view showing an example of the display / input device shown in FIG.

FIG. 7 is an external perspective view showing an example of the main body of the teleconference device shown in FIG.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing control data sent from the communication conference apparatus body of the present embodiment to the display / input device and input data as a response from the display / input device.

FIG. 9 is a sequence chart of the communication conference device according to the inventions of claims 1, 2 and 4.

FIG. 10 is a sequence chart of the communication conference apparatus according to the invention of claim 3;

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of a connection form of display / input terminals in a conventional communication conference apparatus.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of a connection form of display / input terminals in another conventional communication conference apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 LCD 3 Touch panel 4 Touch pen 6 Microphone 14 CPU 15 ROM 17 RAM 24 Communication control unit 25 NCU 40 Communication conference unit body 41-45 Display / input device (1-5) 46 Display data line 47 Control data line 48 Input data Line for

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of communication conference terminals are connected via a communication line in a connection form between two points or between multiple points to mutually provide an audio graphic conference based on voice information and document information, In a communication conferencing apparatus that connects a plurality of information display means and an information input means at a conference point to display information to a plurality of conference participants, and enables information input, the information is input from the plurality of information input means. A teleconference device comprising polling receiving means for sequentially receiving information by a teleconference terminal by polling. 2. The communication conference apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the polling acceptance unit controls whether or not information can be input from each information input unit by performing a polling operation. Conference equipment. 3. The communication conferencing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the number of allocations of the polling operation to the information inputting means that enables the information inputting by performing the polling operation is higher than that of the other information inputting means that cannot input the information. A teleconferencing device characterized by increasing the number. 4. The communication conferencing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein when an information input request is received from an information input means that makes the information input impossible by performing the polling operation,
A communication conferencing apparatus, characterized in that the information input permission status of each information input means is changed with the permission of the information input means capable of inputting information at that time.