JP2000236329A - Electronic conference system and its controlling method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To share information by allowing users who attends a conference to display their own information on a common display device while operating their terminals. SOLUTION: When a user touches the display of a table device with his or her electronic pen first, a pen input detection part 13 provided on the display identifies the electronic pen with the frequency and the ID superposed thereupon, displays an electronic pen registration menu by judging that the electronic pen user is on the side of the table closest to the position coordinates that the electronic pen contacts, and register the correspondence relation between the pen and user in a storage device 12. When a display is made through electronic pen operation, display information is made erect. On the display, writing can be done with the electronic pen and a file stored on another computer can be read and displayed through a LAN 15 by the electronic pen operation. Information inputted with the electronic pen and file information read out of another computer are stored in the storage device 12 and displayed on the display with an instruction of a CPU 11.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic conference system and a control method thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A plurality of electronic pens are connected as input devices of a workstation having a horizontally arranged display device as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H06-59813 as a device for supporting meetings of small people. There has been proposed a conference participant that can change the display direction of a window to a desired viewing direction with his / her electronic pen.

[0003]

However, in the case of the meeting surrounding the table as described above, discussions are performed while viewing the material spread in the center, and notes are taken by the individual. In this case, the personal memo area is written by another person, or
Although it is inconvenient to operate, the above-mentioned prior art does not consider such a difference between the common area and the personal area.

[0004] In addition, in the case of drawing out an idea, an idea created on the spot may be written on a memo sheet and pasted on a large piece of paper for discussion. It must be written in a leaning position, which is difficult to do.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and it is intended that users who attend a conference operate their own terminals and display their own information on a shared display device. Another object of the present invention is to provide an electronic conference system that enables information sharing.

[0006]

In order to solve this problem, for example, an electronic conference system of the present invention has the following configuration. That is.

[0007] An electronic conference system comprising a plurality of terminals that operate independently and a central device that is independent of each terminal and has a shared display device, wherein each terminal communicates with the central device. A first communication unit, and a transmission control unit for transmitting the information to the central device via the first communication unit when a transfer instruction of information owned by the first communication unit is issued, wherein the central device includes: A second communication unit that communicates with the terminal, and a display control unit that displays information received from the terminal via the second communication unit on the display device are provided.

[0008]

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

FIG. 1 is an external configuration diagram of an apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block configuration diagram of the apparatus.

In the figure, reference numeral 6 denotes the present apparatus (hereinafter, table apparatus)
And has a table shape as shown. Reference numerals 1 to 4 are electronic pens, reference numeral 5 is a display, and reference numerals 7 to 10 are pen computers (electronic information processing devices based on pen input). Each of the pen computers 7 to 10 includes a small display and a transparent coordinate input panel provided on the display.

In the internal block configuration of the table device 6, a CPU 11 controls the entire device, and includes a ROM storing a processing procedure (program) to be described later and a RAM used as a work area. 12 is a storage device such as a hard disk, 13 is a pen input detection unit,
14 is a network interface, 15 is a local area network (LAN), and 16 is a communication interface for communicating with each pen computer.

The pen input detector 13 is provided as a transparent coordinate input plate on its display surface so as not to disturb the display on the display 6. The table device 6 can identify each electronic pen. For this purpose, each electronic pen emits a radio wave of a different frequency and carries ID information and pen up / down information on it. For example, an electrode for each pen tip having a different capacitance is used. Or each pen may emit a different frequency as long as coordinates are detected by a delay time due to the propagation of vibration. In any case,
On the table device 6 side, coordinate detection by each pen and pen up / down are detected by time division processing.

On the display 5, a file stored in another computer (not shown) connected to the LAN 15 by operating the electronic pen can be written by operating the electronic pen, and the contents thereof can be displayed. . Information input by the electronic pen and information of a file read from another computer are stored in the storage device 12 and displayed on the display 5 according to an instruction from the CPU 11. The communication interface 16 is for performing communication with the pen computers 7 to 10.

On the other hand, as for the pen computer 7, FIG.
And its configuration is shown in FIG. Note that other pen computers have the same configuration.

In the figure, reference numeral 17 denotes a display, which is not disturbed on the display 17 surface.
A pen input detection unit 20 is provided as a transparent coordinate input plate. The principle of coordinate detection is the same as that of the table device 6. The pen computer communicates with the table device 6 wirelessly or by wire. In this embodiment, it is assumed that communication is performed wirelessly.

Reference numeral 18 denotes a CPU for controlling a pen computer, which is used as a ROM and a work area in which a program for performing pen coordinate detection and various applications, and a communication process with the table device 6 are stored. A RAM is provided. Reference numeral 19 denotes a storage device, such as a memory card or a hard disk, which can store various data and additionally store applications. 20 is a pen input detection unit,
Reference numeral 21 denotes a communication interface (as described above, wirelessly communicates with the communication interface of the table device 6).

Input is made to the pen computer 7 using an electronic pen. The electronic pen used is the same as the one used for input to the table body, and each pen computer accepts only input from the corresponding electronic pen. Therefore, the electronic pen and the pen computer are used as a set. The information input by the electronic pen is stored in the storage device 19.
Is stored. The pen computer can be used as a single independent computer, and can be used alone even in a place where communication with the table body is impossible. When communication with the table body has been established, various data can be transmitted to the table body side via the communication interface 21 according to an instruction.

The data to be transmitted may be strokes (handwritten characters, etc.) input from a pen, or data processed inside a pen computer.

Next, a procedure for inputting / outputting information to / from the display of the table device 6 using each pen computer and holding a conference will be described.

First, prior to the meeting, a table is created which associates which user of the electronic pen is sitting at which position on the table device 6. When the pen computer is connected to the table body by wire, the users of the pen computer and the electronic pen and their sitting positions correspond one-on-one, but in the case of wireless communication, it is necessary to associate the electronic pen with the user. is there.

The association is performed in the following procedure.

First, the user touches the display of the table device 6 with his / her electronic pen. Here, it is assumed that point I in FIG. 5 has been touched. The pen input detection unit 13 provided on the display 5 identifies the electronic pen by the frequency or the ID superimposed on the frequency.

Then, it is checked whether the electronic pen has already been registered. If the electronic pen has not been registered yet, the nearest side is obtained from the coordinates at which the display is touched, and the electronic pen registration menu is displayed as if the user is on that side.

In the case of FIG. 5, the line segments IE, IF, IG, IH
Are compared, and since the IE is the shortest, the menu 22 is displayed on the assumption that the user is sitting on the side AB. The menu 22 includes, for example, a message for prompting the input of the user's name and the like (identification information of the pen computer) and a character input field. Character recognition is performed using a known technique, and the correspondence between the pen and the user is stored. Register in the device 12.

Once the electronic pen is registered, the seating position of the user of the electronic pen is determined. If a window or a menu is displayed by an operation using the electronic pen, the registered seating position (side) is set lower. , Ie, the displayed information is displayed upright.

Since the electronic pen is common to the table main body and the pen computer, in addition to writing in a common place on the table main body, personal memos cannot be seen by other attendees at the user's hand. Can take. However, if necessary, the contents input by the user's own pen computer and the processed results can be transferred to the table device 6 and displayed.

Next, a procedure for transferring the contents input to the pen computer to the table body will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the user gives an instruction to transfer the currently displayed contents to the table device 6 on his / her pen computer. Then, the pen computer transmits a message of waiting for the transfer position instruction to the table body together with information for specifying the pen computer (user identification information registered in the table device 6).

The table device 6 waits for the transfer position to be designated by the electronic pen. When the coordinates are specified, the table device 6 identifies the requesting pen computer and sends a data transfer request message to the pen computer. In response to this, the pen computer transfers the data to the table device 6, and the CPU 11 in the table device 6 displays the received data at the designated position. This sequence is as shown in FIG.

If the transfer instruction is canceled before designating the transfer position on the display of the pen computer, a transfer stop message is sent from the pen computer to the table body, and the data is not transferred. This sequence is as shown in FIG.

Here, the processing of the CPU 11 in the table device 6 of the embodiment will be more clearly shown as in the flowchart of FIG. Although the programs corresponding to FIG. 1 are stored in the ROM of the CPU 11, they are stored in the storage device 12,
May be loaded and executed.

First, in step S1, it is determined whether or not there is transfer position instruction information.

When the transfer position is specified, the process proceeds to step S2, and the user is identified based on the user identification information contained therein. Then, in step S3, a data transfer request is transmitted to the corresponding pen computer, and in step S4, reception is performed from the pen computer. Then, it is determined whether the information received in step S5 is a stop message. If the message is a stop message, the process ends. However, if the information is other than that, the received data is data to be displayed. Is displayed at the designated position.

The processing on the pen computer side will be easily understood by those skilled in the art from the above description, and the description thereof will not be repeated.

According to the above procedure, the data written in the pen computer at hand can be easily displayed at a desired position on the display as if a memo sheet is stuck on paper.

In this method, the position of the display 5 on the table device 6 is specified on the pen computer.
You may input a number specifying the coordinate position and make it recognize characters, but this takes time to input. In the embodiment,
The display 5 of the table device 6 is reduced and displayed on the display 17 of the pen computer (the display direction is set to the direction viewed from the pen computer), and the displayed position is designated by the pen. For that, first,
Data to be transferred is specified (if not specified, data of the entire screen on the display 17 is set as a transfer target), and then a transfer operation is specified by performing a predetermined operation.

If the information to be transferred is handwritten characters, the amount of information increases when the image is transferred. Therefore, if the stroke information or the character code that is the result of character recognition is transmitted, the amount of information is increased. Need less.

When transmitting, for example, if the message is directed to another specific user (tentatively user A), an upright image for that user A may be displayed. desirable. Therefore, when designating the position of the display of the table device 6, the direction may be designated.

In the above embodiment, the number of users of the table device 6 is four. However, as described above, more or less users may be used.

Further, the table device 6 functions as a display device shared by a plurality of users.
As described in the above embodiment, if the number of users is about four, the table shape may be used. However, if the number of users is large, it is more convenient to make the size larger like a blackboard and make it vertical. good. In this case, since an unspecified number of users can display their own messages, the CPU of the table device 6 displays information indicating which user the message is from in the vicinity of the message to be displayed. You may make it. When the display is placed vertically, it would be desirable to display information from any user in the same direction. For this purpose, the CPU in the table device 6 should always display the received data in the same direction as well as displaying it at the designated position.

Conversely, the contents displayed on the display can be transferred to the pen computer. In this case, simple layout information indicating the displayed contents of the table device 6 is requested, an area indicating the layout is displayed on a display on the pen computer based on the layout information, and a desired area is designated. Thus, the information of the corresponding area can be transmitted to the table device 6. After the layout is displayed on the pen computer, information on a specific area can be deleted from the display of the table device.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the pen computer and the table device 6 communicate wirelessly. However, the present invention is not limited by the communication form, but may be wired. However, as described in the above embodiment, the pen computer is characterized by its portability as its greatest feature, so that wireless communication is desirable.

As described above, according to the embodiment, each user can display the contents edited and created by himself / herself on the shared display by operating his / her own pen computer. Accordingly, information of a desired position displayed on the shared display can be captured and stored. Therefore, by using the system of the present embodiment, the electronic conference system can be easily configured.

In the embodiment, the table device is described as a single device having a table shape. However, for example, a display device and an information processing device for processing information to be displayed may be provided separately. In particular, when a general-purpose information processing device such as a personal computer is used as the information processing device, the processing described in the above embodiment can be realized by executing a program supplied from the outside.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a storage medium storing software program codes for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or an apparatus,
Computer (or CP) of the system or device
U and MPU) read out and execute the program code stored in the storage medium.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the function of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM, C
DR, magnetic tape, nonvolatile memory card, ROM
Etc. can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also an OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on instructions of the program code. It goes without saying that a case where the functions of the above-described embodiments are implemented by performing some or all of the actual processing, and the processing performs the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instructions of the program code, It goes without saying that the CPU included in the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

[0050]

As described above, according to the present invention, users who attend a conference can operate their own terminals and display their own information on a shared display device. Information can be shared.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a table device according to the embodiment;

FIG. 3 is an external view of a pen computer according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a pen computer according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an operation of registering an electronic pen according to the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a procedure of data transfer between the pen computer and the table device in the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating a partial processing procedure of an operation of the table device according to the embodiment.

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Yukio Masuda 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo F-term in Canon Inc. (reference) 5E501 AA04 AB20 AC42 BA05 CA02 CB05 CB11 CC04 DA15 EA05 EA13 FA05 FA06 FB04 5K030 GA17 GA18 JT09 LD08 9A001 HH34 JJ22

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An electronic conferencing system comprising a plurality of terminals that operate independently and a central device that is independent of each terminal and has a shared display device, wherein each of the terminals includes the central device. A first communication unit that communicates with the communication device; and a transmission control unit that transmits the information to the central device via the first communication device when a transfer instruction of information owned by the communication device is issued. An electronic conference comprising: a second communication unit that communicates with the terminal; and a display control unit that displays information received from the terminal via the second communication unit on the display device. system. 2. The electronic conference system according to claim 1, wherein the terminal is a pen-input type mobile terminal. 3. The terminal has means for designating a display position of information to be transferred on the display device, and a display control means of the central device displays the received information at a designated display position. The electronic conference system according to claim 1, wherein: 4. The terminal according to claim 1, wherein the terminal notifies the central device of a transmission request for information on a desired position displayed on the display device, and transmits the information received from the central device to the first device.
Receiving means for receiving via the communication means, the central device transmits the displayed information to the requesting terminal based on the positional information included in the request when the transmission request is made 2. The electronic conference system according to claim 1, further comprising means. 5. The display device is placed horizontally, a user of each terminal sets a direction in which the terminal device is located, and the central device sets a direction for performing display for each terminal user. 2. The electronic conference system according to claim 1, wherein information is displayed in accordance with the set direction. 6. A control method for an electronic conference system including a plurality of input terminals that operate independently and a central device that is independent of each input terminal and that has a shared display device, wherein each of the input terminals is A first communication step of communicating with the central apparatus; and a transmission control step of transmitting the information to the central apparatus via the first communication step when a transfer instruction of information owned by the apparatus is issued. The central device comprises: a second communication step of communicating with the terminal; and a display control step of displaying information received from the terminal via the second communication step on the display device. A method for controlling an electronic conference system.