JPH0937356A - Picture input system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To inform a user of having an access to a user's picture input system by an opposite party by providing the picture input system with a means for informing the user of having an access to a video camera picture to be controlled by a computer through a network. SOLUTION: The picture input system is provided with a video camera 103 for inputting a picture, a network I/F 107 to be a picture distributing means tor distributing the picture to the netowrk, a bit map display 106 for displaying the picture sent by the means 107, and an informing means for informing a user of the display of the picture when the display of the picture is started by the picture display means 106. The informing means is an icon indicating that video transmission is not executed and indicates that there is neither person observing a picture taken by the camera 103 annexed to its own picture input system 1 nor person controlling the camera 103.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technique for accessing images and controls of a computer-controllable video camera via a network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, an image input system has been increasing in which a video camera is connected to a computer to capture a camera image. There is a video conference system and the like as an application for transmitting a camera image (image) captured in this computer on a network. In a video conference system that uses a computer, the video from the video camera is captured in the computer and transmitted over the network, but during the conference, the other party to whom the image is transmitted is decided, and usually, a conference is called to hold the conference. To start. On the other hand, there is an image input system that attempts to convey the state of a remote place by mutually transmitting camera images from multiple points.

In such a system, a specific camera is selected from a plurality of cameras, an image is acquired via a network, and the image is accessed from a remote place. At that time, the person who accesses the image is not necessarily decided, and the method of use is to select the image (the other party) that he or she wants to see, and to switch and watch.

[0004]

As a problem in the above-mentioned system, there is a problem of privacy. That is, since it is possible to look into the image of the camera connected to the computer of the user, it often happens that a problem occurs when the camera at the user's place is arbitrarily accessed. In many cases, it is difficult to notice that the camera is zoomed or panned in the case of a camera with a pan head control function, not just being seen.

The present invention is intended to solve such a problem.

[0006]

An image input system as a first means for solving the problems delivers an image input means for inputting an image and an image input by the image input means on a network. Image delivery means, image display means for displaying the image sent by the delivery means, and notification for notifying that the image is being displayed when the image display means starts displaying the image. And means.

The image input system as the second means is
In the configuration of the first means, the notification means is arranged in the vicinity of the image input means.

The image input system as the third means is
In the configuration of the first or second means, the notification means is characterized by making a notification by sound.

The image input system as the fourth means is
In the configuration of the first or second means, the notification means is characterized in that the notification is made by an image.

An image input system as a fifth means is
In the configuration of the first or second means, the notification means is characterized in that the notification is made by sound and image.

The image input system as the sixth means is
In the configuration of the first means, a plurality of the image display means are provided on the network.

The image input system as the seventh means is
The configuration of the first or sixth means has a delivery command means for instructing delivery of the image input to the image input means, and the image delivery means delivers the image on the network according to the delivery instruction. It is characterized by

An image input system as an eighth means is
In the configuration of the sixth or seventh means, the notifying means is capable of identifying which image display means the delivered image is displayed.

An image input system as a ninth means is
In the structure of the eighth means, the notifying means makes different notifications according to the number of image transmission destinations.

An image input system as a tenth means is characterized in that, in the configuration of the ninth means, the notification by the notifying means is performed by sound and the frequency is changed according to the number of image transmission destinations.

An image input system as an eleventh means is the same as the first means, except that the image input means is
It is possible to control panning, tilting, zooming, focusing operation, and the like, and when the image input means is controlled from the image display means side, the notification means is a notification different from the image display notification. It is characterized by performing.

An image input system as a twelfth means is characterized in that, in the configuration of the eleventh means, the notifying means makes different notifications according to the control contents of the image input means.

An image input system as a thirteenth means is characterized in that, in the configuration of the twelfth means, the notifying means makes different notifications according to the zoom magnification.

An image input system as a fourteenth means is characterized in that, in the configuration of the thirteenth means, the notification by the notifying means is performed by sound and the volume is increased as the zoom magnification increases.

[0020]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

<First Embodiment> FIG. 1 shows a first embodiment of the present invention.
It is a block diagram showing an embodiment. 1 (1-1)
Is a video communication device for video (image) input, delivery, and display. 1-2, 1-3, ... are video communication devices 1
-It is a video communication device similar to the one in the network I / F
High-speed network 1 capable of transmitting video through 107
Connected at 50. In FIG. 1, the video communication device 1
-Only 1 will be described in detail, but other video communication devices 1-2, 1-
The same applies to 3, ... Reference numeral 112 denotes an internal bus of the video communication device 1-1. Reference numeral 102 denotes a voice control device, which converts digital voice data into an analog voice signal when sent, and reproduces a sound corresponding to the voice data from the speaker 101. 103 is a video camera (image input means),
Reference numeral 104 is a camera control device,
2C) controls panning and tilting of a pan head (not shown) of the video camera 103, and zooming and focusing of the optical system. This camera control device 103 has a CPU 108.
From the RS232C controller 113.
Further, the video output of the camera 103 is A / D converted, compressed and captured by the video capture device 105, and sent out on the network 150 through the network I / F (image delivery means) 107. At this time, multicast or broadcast communication is used so that video can be simultaneously delivered to multiple points. In addition, the camera control device 1
04 can be controlled from a remote place via a network.

In this embodiment, the audio data format and the video compression format are not limited to particular formats. In addition, RS is used to control the camera control device 104.
Although it is described that 232C is used, the present invention is not limited to this.
It is only necessary to be able to control the pan and tilt operations of the pan head (not shown) and the zoom and focus operations of the optical system. In this embodiment, it is assumed that a general-purpose workstation is used as the base of the video communication device.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a display screen in this embodiment displayed on the bit map display (image display means) 106. Bitmap display 1
On 06, a window system capable of displaying a plurality of windows is operating.

On the display screen 200 of the bitmap display 106, an icon (notifying means) 201, a multipoint video display window 202, and an operation panel window 203 for operating the camera are displayed.

The icon 201a is an icon indicating that the image transmission process, which will be described later, is not performing image transmission, and controls the person watching the image of the camera 103 attached to the own device 1-1 on the network 150. Indicates that no one is doing it. The icons 201 of the same type are set as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B. When the icon 201b is displayed, the camera image is being transmitted, that is, the network 10
5 indicates that there is a person watching the image of the camera 103, and when the icon 201c is displayed, it indicates that the camera is further controlled.

On the other hand, the multipoint video display window 202
Are other designated video communication devices 1-2, 1-3 ,.
One or more camera images of are displayed. Of course, the camera image of the device 1-1 may be displayed in this window 202. Screen 2 is used as a means for selecting the video communication device.
This is achieved by displaying a menu window (not shown) on 00 and specifying the network addresses, host names, etc. of the other video communication devices 1-2, 1-3 ,.
Other selection methods may be used. In addition, video delivery,
Regarding display, full motion video (30 frame / sec
), Or still images that are updated about once every 10 seconds,
Images that are updated at a rate according to the purpose can be delivered and displayed. Also, the number of remote images displayed is not important here.

In the operation panel window 203, left and right (pan operation), up and down (tilt operation) operation of the camera 103 by a carriage (not shown), and zoom operation of the optical system are set on the screen 200, respectively. Button 231,
Or, it can be operated by pressing and dragging the scroll bar 232 with the mouse 109 (FIG. 1). The camera to be controlled is designated by setting the device name (host name) in the input window 233. The access button 234 is pressed to start the camera control, and the release button 235 is pressed to end the control. From pressing the access button 234 to pressing the release button 235, the corresponding camera control process 411 (FIG. 4: this will be described later) is in camera control. At this time, even if the access button 234 is pressed in the same manner from the other video communication devices 1-2, 1-3, ..., From the camera control process 411, a message "Nac
“K” is returned and the corresponding camera control process 411 does not receive access and cannot start camera control. At this time, the indicator 237 is set to be displayed in red so as to indicate that the camera control access is busy. It should be noted that it is set to be displayed in green during control access in which access is accepted. As described above, in the present embodiment, the access state can be identified by the color, but it may be identified by the character information.

FIG. 4 shows a process configuration diagram in this embodiment. Note that these processes mean processes in a multi-process OS such as UNIX,
The video communication device has a software-like mechanism for operating the multi-process. This multi-process OS is RO
Stored in the M130 and the secondary storage device 111,
When the system is activated, it is transferred to the main storage device (RAM) 110 and operated by the CPU 108. Of course, RO
It is also possible to operate in the state stored in M130. In the following description, a set of processes (hereinafter, processing process) 4-1, 4-2, 4-3 ,.
..., but video communication devices 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, ...
It is assumed that the process corresponds to the above, and will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 4.

Video communication device 1-1 (processing process 4-
The camera control process 411 in 1) is a camera control client process 424 on another video communication device 1-2 (processing process 4-2) via the network 105.
A camera control command from the camera control device 10
The camera 103 is actually controlled by issuing a camera control signal to RS4 via RS232C. Further, the camera control process 411 receives a video request command from the video display process 423 on the other video communication device 1-2, and the own device 1
A video transmission destination addition command is issued to the -1 video transmission process 412. Further, as will be described later, the voice control device 10
The appropriate data is sent to 2 and controlled to generate a sound effect at a specific timing. Further, a symbol (for example, 201a) representing the state of access (video, control) to the camera 103 of the device 1-1 is displayed on the screen 200 (FIG. 2).

The video transmission process 412 controls the video capture device 105 to capture and compress the video of the video camera 103 at a predetermined frame rate and deliver it to the network 105. Also, the camera control process 4
The same video is delivered to a plurality of other video communication devices 1-2, 1-3, ..., Which are requesting video, by multicasting or unicasting a plurality of times based on an instruction from 11. .

The video display process 413 issues a video transmission request to a video transmission process on another video communication device, receives video data via the network 105, decompresses the video data, and forms the multipoint video display window 202. Display the image. In the example shown in FIG. 4, the video display processes 423 and 433 of the video communication devices 1-2 and 1-3 (processing processes 4-2 and 4-3) are the camera control processes 41.
A video transmission request is issued to the video transmission process 412 via 1 and video data is received via the network 105.

The camera control client 414 displays the operation window 203 (FIG. 2) on the screen 200, and when there is an operation instruction for the other camera 103 on the operation window 203, the camera control of another video communication apparatus is performed. A camera control command corresponding to the camera operation instructed via the network 150 is issued to the process.

Each process 411, 412, 41
3, 414 are properly combined and incorporated on other video communication devices, and each is operating.

Reference numeral 450 denotes an access management process, which is the whole device 1-1, 1-2, on the network 150.
It is connected to all camera control processes 1-3, ..., and manages access to all camera images and operations. Therefore, it need only be provided in any video communication device on the network 150. In this example, it is provided and activated on the video communication device 1-1 (processing process 4-1).

FIG. 5 shows an access state display window (notifying means) 5 for displaying who is watching the image of the camera 103 connected to the device 1-1 and who is operating it.
0 is shown. In FIG. 5, 51 is an observer list, and if there is a person watching the camera image, its name is displayed. The name used here is acquired by, for example, a login name or by designating the name at system startup. If there are multiple people watching, list the names of all. Reference numeral 52 denotes an operator list, which is the camera 1
If there is a person who is performing remote control of 03 (pan / tilt, etc.), the login name of the operator is displayed. The access state display window 50 is displayed by clicking the icon 201 (201a, 201b or 201c) in FIG. 2 with the mouse 109 (FIG. 1). More specifically, the display operation is such that the CPU 108 decodes the click instruction from the mouse 109, the data of the video access table 120 and the camera access register 121 of the main storage device 110 is accessed by the decoding, and the CPU 108 is based on the data. Causes the list to be displayed on the screen 200 on the bitmap display 106.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 6 shows the camera control process 41.
3 is a flowchart of the operation in 1. 7 shows the video access table 120 managed by the camera control process 411, which is secured in the main storage device 110 as shown in FIG. Similarly, as shown in FIG. 1, the camera access register 121 that holds the user name for the camera control access described later is also secured in the main storage device 110.

The camera control process 411 is activated (S
601), the state of the camera control device 104, the video access table 120, and the camera access register 121.
Is initialized, the icon 201 and the windows 202 and 203 are displayed (S602), and an event is waited for (S603). Here, there are so-called window system keyboard and mouse events and communication events such as data packet reception from the network as events, but here, only the events necessary for explanation are described in the flowchart.

The data transmitted via the network 150 includes a video transmission start request and a video transmission stop request issued from the video display process 423 of another device (for example, device 1-2 = processing process 4-2). , A camera control command issued from the camera control client process 424. The format of these request (command) packets is shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 8, each packet 8-
The first field of 1, 8-2, 8-3, 8-4, 8-5 indicates the type of request (video transmission / camera control).
Note that the fields 814 and 843 are such that the user name that started the process that issued the packet is inserted.

When the event (request packet) is the video transmission start request 8-1 (S604), the voice control device 1
02 so that the sound effect (beep sound B) sounds
A speaker (notifying means) 101 is provided by sending sound data stored in a secondary storage device 111 such as (hard disk device).
(S605), the address of the transmission source of the video transmission request (device requesting video) (this is assumed to be address2) is acquired from the third field 813 of the packet (S606), and Video transmission process 4
A destination addition instruction (instructing to send to address2) is issued to 12 (S607). At this time, when the video transmission process 412 receives the destination addition command, the address 2 is added as the destination of the captured video. Next, the camera control process 411 additionally registers the user name (obtained from the fourth field 814) and the address of the access host (obtained from the third field 813) in the video access table 120 (S608). At this time, if at least one entry is added from the empty table, the camera icon display changes from the icon 201a to the icon 201b. At this time, if an image has already been sent, the data of the beep sound B will be sent again from the secondary storage device 111 to the audio control device 102.
In this case, the sound generation state does not change.

Next, when there is a video transmission end request 8-2 as an event (request packet) (S609), the address of the access host to be deleted from the video access table 120 (this is assumed to be address3) is packet 8-.
2 is acquired from the third field 823 (S610), and a destination deletion command (instruction to stop transmission to address3) is issued to the video transmission process 412 (S).
611). At this time, when the video transmission process 412 receives the destination deletion command, the capture video is transmitted from the transmission destination.
Delete adress3. Next, the camera control process 411
Is an entry corresponding to address3 from the video access table 120 (access host: host3, user name: person
3) is deleted (S612). Further, by checking whether the video access table 120 is empty (S613), if it is not empty, the state up to now is continued, and if it is empty, the beep sound B is stopped and the camera icon is displayed as the icon 201a. return.

By doing so, if the video transmission process 412 is transmitting video even at one place, the beep sound and the camera icon are displayed, so that it is easy to notice that the camera 103 is watching. .

On the other hand, when there is a camera control start request 8-4 as an event (S615), it is checked whether the camera access register 121 (FIG. 1) is empty (S61).
6) If it is not empty, camera control is in progress, and the fact that camera control cannot be performed is returned to the request source as a message "Nack" (S620). If it is empty, the fact that camera control can be executed is returned to the request source as a message "Ack" (S617), and the sound control device 102 is controlled to sound a sound effect (beep sound A) (S61).
8), the access user is acquired from the third field 843 of the packet 8-4 and registered in the camera access register 121 (S619).

When there is a camera control request 8-3 as an event (S621), the control type and its control parameter are acquired from the second field 832 and the third field 833 of the packet 8-3, and this control type is acquired. The RS control device 113 is controlled according to the control parameters, and the RS232C signal is sent to the camera control device 104 to control the camera (S622). Here, the control parameter represents, for example, a pan angle and a zoom magnification. On the other hand, the types of control include pan, tilt, zoom, etc.
There is no particular focus on the type.

If there is a camera control end request 8-5 as an event (S623), the beep sound A is stopped (S624) and the camera access register 121 is reset (S625).

By doing this, a beep sounds while the camera is being controlled, and it is easily understood that someone is operating.

By using different beep sounds (sound effects) for camera control and image access,
You can tell which access you have. For example, it is possible to distinguish by the pitch of sound (frequency), the interval of beep interruption, and the like.

On the other hand, when the event is a mouse button click on the camera icon 201 (S626), the contents of the video access table 120 (FIGS. 1 and 7) and the camera access register 121 (FIG. 1) are read. (S627), a window for displaying access information is popped up as a window as shown in FIG. 5 (S62).
8). By doing so, it is possible to know in detail who is watching the image and who is operating the camera 103.

If the event is any other event (S626), the process according to the event is performed (S629), and the process returns to step S603.

In this way, the network 15 can be accessed from a remote location.
When a video is viewed via 0, a sound effect is generated, and a small and easy-to-understand display is provided on the screen 200, so that the video can be viewed even when doing other work. It makes it easier to notice.

In addition, a sound effect is generated when a camera is controlled from a remote location, and a small and easy-to-understand display is made on the screen. Therefore, the problem of privacy, which is a problem when secretly peeping or secretly operating, is alleviated.

Further, by displaying from which host the delivery video is observed and controlled, the problem of stronger privacy is alleviated.

<Second Embodiment> In addition to the above-described first embodiment, the present embodiment is such that the sound effect is changed by operations such as zooming, panning and tilting. In particular, with respect to zooming, privacy is a problem due to zooming up, and therefore a sound effect that gives a more alert feeling is generated. In the case of this embodiment,
Instead of generating a beep sound in step S618 shown in FIG. 6, the type of camera operation (field 83 of camera control command) is executed between steps S621 and S622.
2) and its parameters (camera control command field 8)
33), a different beep sound may be generated. Specifically, for example, when the beep sound is intermittent during zoom-up, the sound generation interval is shortened, and during zoom-down, the sound generation interval is lengthened. Also, different sounds are used for pan and tilt.

Here, if the volume of the beep sound is made large at the time of zooming in (telephoto) and lowered at the time of zooming out (wide angle), an appropriate volume is reached so that it reaches a person at a required distance according to the zoom magnification. With control, attention can be ventilated only to those who need it.

By doing so, the type of operation can be immediately recognized by the sound, and more effective attention can be called. Also, by setting the volume to the required level according to the zoom magnification, it is possible to ventilate attention only to those who need attention according to the distance.

<Third Embodiment> In this embodiment, in addition to the first embodiment, the sound effect is changed according to the number of accessing persons.

The function of changing the frequency of the sound effect from the number of entries in the video access table 120 (FIGS. 1 and 7) and changing the frequency of the sound effect according to the number of people can be added to steps S608 and S612 shown in FIG. Good.
If the frequency of the beep sound is high when the number of people is large and the frequency is lowered when the number of people is small, attention can be ventilated according to the number of people watching.

By adopting such a form, the number of people watching the image can be immediately known, so that more effective attention can be called.

<Fourth Embodiment> This embodiment is different from the first, second and third embodiments in that the video camera 1
02, a camera control device 104, and a speaker 101 are multiplexed, and a video signal line, an audio signal line, and RS232C are switched or selected by a signal line switching device (input selection device 114) so that a plurality of camera units can be controlled. Is. FIG. 9 shows a part of the device 1-1 of the block diagram 1 of the first embodiment, which is described so as to match this embodiment. Hereinafter, the first, second,
Only differences from the third embodiment will be described. It should be noted that the camera and the speaker belonging to the same camera unit are arranged close to each other in distance, for example, so that the sound effect can be heard from a specific camera so that the sound effect and the camera can be easily associated with each other.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 9, the speaker 101, the video camera 103, and the camera control device 104 constitute a camera unit. In this embodiment, three camera units 160, 161, 162 are provided. ing. Of course, the number of camera units is not limited to three. These camera units 160, 161,
A unit number is added to 162 for each unit, and the camera 103 on the network 150 is uniquely designated by “device name + camera unit number”. These video units 160, 161, 1
62 is selected by the input selection device 114, and the corresponding video signal line, audio signal line, and RS232C are selected. The RS232C signal, the video signal, and the audio signal are always switched simultaneously in units of video units. Therefore, when viewed at a certain time, the number of camera units to be controlled is always one. The input selection device 114 itself is also controlled by the RS232C. That is, the camera unit number is given to perform camera control and video switching. The input selection device 114 itself checks the camera unit number and sends a camera control request to the camera control device 104 corresponding to the designated camera unit number, and performs video / audio input switching for the designated camera unit number. With function. Therefore, request packet formats 12-1, 12-2, 12-3, 12-4, 1 relating to camera control and video transmission are provided.
As shown in FIG. 12, 2-5 are fields 121, 122, 123, 124, 125 of the video unit number with respect to the request packet format (FIG. 8) of the first embodiment.
Is used. The remaining fields are exactly the same as the fields shown in FIG.

At this time, not only the host name (device name) but also the camera number is designated for camera operation and image display. For example, the camera operation window 2 of FIG.
As shown in FIG. 11, a camera number designation unit 1138 is added to the camera operation window 1130 with respect to 03.
Further, as shown in FIG. 10, a camera number display unit 1030 is added to the window 1000 for the window 50 (FIG. 5) displaying the access information. This window 1000 is prepared for each camera unit.

The process configuration of the present embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment, except for the operation, as described above, except that the camera unit number is designated in addition to the device name. Are almost the same. However, it is different in that it is not possible to switch to another camera unit during camera control. That is, in the camera control process 411, if any one of the camera units is under control, the other camera units are set to be in use, so that no camera unit can be accessed at the same time. Is used by only one camera unit,
In other words, only one is active. Therefore,
The sound effect may be controlled to be generated only for the active camera.

In this embodiment, since the video and audio can be switched at the same time, the flow of the camera control process may be the same as the flow shown in FIG. 6 in this respect.

As in this embodiment, the input selection device 11
4 is added and the camera units 160, 161, 162 are multiplexed, it is possible to add a plurality of cameras 103 to one video communication device 1-1. Even if the camera 103 and the main body of the video communication device 101 are separated from each other, since the speaker 101 is arranged near the camera 103, the access of the video / control to the camera 103 can be immediately known.

<Fifth Embodiment> The present embodiment is the same as the fourth embodiment, except that the input selection device 1 is used.
Instead of switching the video unit by 14,
In addition to the video unit, the video capture device 105,
The RS232C control device 113 and the voice control device 102 are also multiplexed so that a plurality of camera units can be controlled in parallel at the same time.

FIG. 13 shows a part of the video communication device 1-1 in the block diagram of FIG. 1 showing the first embodiment, which is described so as to match this embodiment. In the fifth embodiment shown in FIG. 13, it is depicted as having three camera units. Of course, the number of camera units is not limited to three. Hereinafter, the first to fourth
Only the differences from the embodiment will be described.

This embodiment is similar to the fourth embodiment in that the camera units are multiplexed. But,
Video capture device 105, RS232C control device 1
13. The audio control device 102 is also multiplexed, and the video capture devices 105A, 15B and 105C, the RS232C control devices 113A, 113B and 113C, the audio control device 1
By including 02A, 102B, and 102C, video capture, camera control, and sound effect generation can be controlled completely in parallel, so there are fewer restrictions as compared with the fourth embodiment. That is, it is possible to remove the restriction that the other camera units 161 and 162 cannot be used even when the camera unit 160 is controlling the camera 103 connected to the same video communication device 1-1. . In the present embodiment, the camera control process 411 and the video transmission process 412 may be activated by the number corresponding to the number of camera units, and each may control each camera unit. The subsequent operation is similar to that of the first to fourth embodiments.

According to the present embodiment, as compared with the fourth embodiment, even if any one camera unit is controlling the cameras connected to the same video communication device, It is possible to remove the constraint that other camera units cannot be used.

<Sixth Embodiment> This embodiment differs from the third embodiment in that not only the sound but also the still image of the face symbolized by the actual person is being accessed according to the number of people. It is possible to intuitively understand who is accessing and how many by displaying the icon on the screen when each user starts access and turning off the icon display when the access ends, using icons such as To do so.

For example, a still image icon (size of about 64 × 64) of a human face is stored in the secondary storage device 111 in advance in association with a user name who uses the system.
(It is called a person icon table), when there is a video access, the person who is accessing the video is obtained from the video access table 120 (FIG. 7), the icon is further obtained from the person icon table, and this is displayed on the screen. Good. Such processing may be added to steps S608 and S612 in FIG.

By doing so, the number of people watching the image and the number of them can be immediately known, so that more effective attention can be called.

[0071]

According to the present invention, when an image is viewed from a remote place via a network, appropriate notification (for example, sound or image) can be given to the user even if he / she is doing other work. This makes it easier to notice that the image is being viewed.

Further, regarding the access for controlling the camera from a remote place, it is made easy to notice by giving an appropriate notification.

Therefore, it is possible to alleviate the privacy problem, which is a problem in the case of secretly peeping or secretly operating, and it is possible to call attention to the operation effectively.

Furthermore, by notifying from which point the delivery image is observed and controlled,
It alleviates stronger privacy issues.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a screen of a display according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an icon symbol representing a camera access state used in the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a process configuration diagram of the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an access information window according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the first embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a camera image access table used in the first embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a request packet format in the first embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an access information window according to the fourth embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of a screen of a display according to the fourth embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a request packet format according to the fourth embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram showing a fifth embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Video Communication Device 101 Speaker 102 Audio Control Device 103 Video Camera 104 Camera Control Device 106 Bitmap Display 108 CPU 110 Main Storage Device 111 Secondary Storage Device

Claims (14)

[Claims] 1. An image input means for inputting an image, an image delivery means for delivering the image input to the image input means on a network, and an image display for displaying the image sent by the delivery means. An image input system comprising: a means and a notification means for notifying that an image is being displayed when the image display means starts displaying the image. 2. The image input system according to claim 1, wherein the notification unit is arranged in the vicinity of the image input unit. 3. The image input system according to claim 1, wherein the notifying unit notifies by sound. 4. The image input system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the notifying means notifies by an image. 5. The image input system according to claim 1, wherein the notifying unit notifies by sound and image. 6. The image input system according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of the image display means are provided on the network. 7. The method according to claim 1 or 6, further comprising delivery command means for instructing delivery of the image input to the image input means, wherein the image delivery means places an image on a network according to the delivery instruction. An image input system characterized by delivery. 8. The image input system according to claim 6 or 7, wherein the notification means is capable of identifying which image display means the delivered image is displayed. 9. The image input system according to claim 8, wherein the notification means makes different notifications according to the number of image transmission destinations. 10. The image input system according to claim 9, wherein the notification by the notification means is performed by sound, and the frequency is changed according to the number of image transmission destinations. 11. The image input means according to claim 1, which is capable of controlling panning, tilting, zooming, focusing, and the like, and when the image inputting means is controlled from the image displaying means side. The image input system is characterized in that the notification means makes a notification different from the notification of the image display. 12. The image input system according to claim 11, wherein the notification unit makes different notifications according to the control contents of the image input unit. 13. The image input system according to claim 12, wherein the notification unit makes different notifications according to zoom magnifications. 14. The image input system according to claim 13, wherein the notification by the notification means is performed by sound, and the volume is increased as the zoom magnification increases.