JP4281809B2 - Image display apparatus and image display method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an image display device and an image display method . More specifically, in a configuration in which a plurality of displays that can operate independently are combined, each display is provided with a four-way interface, and signal recognition via the interface is performed, and image display in various modes is performed. The present invention relates to an image display apparatus and an image display method that can be realized.

  Applying a multi-display composed of a combination of multiple display devices, such as CRTs, liquid crystal display devices, etc., to display images on a large screen, or to display different image data on each display device constituting the multi-display A multi-display system is known as a display system.

  In general, such a multi-display system provides each display data individually to each display included in the multi-display system from, for example, a single image data source or a plurality of image data sources, and each display receives it. The data is displayed.

  The multi-display system is provided with, for example, n displays in the horizontal direction and m displays in the vertical direction, for example, CRTs, liquid crystal display devices, and the like. Display data, divide n × m display into two or three parts, display different image data in each divided area, or display different image data for each n × m display For example, various image data can be displayed.

  However, the conventional multi-display system has a fixed arrangement of a plurality of displays for displaying image data, for example, a fixed arrangement such as n horizontally and m vertically. It was difficult to change freely. When changing the arrangement of the displays, it is necessary to perform a system change process similar to the total replacement of the entire multi-display system, such as a setting change process of a control device that supplies image data.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems of the prior art, and allows a multi-display device configured by a combination of a plurality of display devices to be freely changed in configuration with other display devices. An object of the present invention is to provide an image display device and an image display method capable of executing various types of image display by executing display data generation processing in accordance with control signals based on relative positional relationships on each display.

The first aspect of the present invention is:
An image display device having a display capable of displaying an image,
A four-way interface for data transfer that makes the data input / output direction identifiable in each of the upper, lower, left and right directions;
Address calculating means for executing address calculation processing based on address information input via the four-way interface;
Generation processing of control signals applied to image display in the image display device connected to the device itself and the interface when the right to occupy the bus to which the four-way interface of the image display device is first secured As a master image display device for performing, control means for setting its own device,
The image display apparatus is characterized by comprising:

Furthermore, in an embodiment of the image display device of the present invention, the address calculation means has a configuration for executing a self-address calculation process based on address information input from another image display device via the four-way interface. In the self-address calculation process, the input address information identified based on the four-way interface when the address is data indicated by (H, V) where the horizontal coordinate is H and the vertical coordinate is V. The following arithmetic processing according to the propagation direction,
If address propagation is from left to right, H + 1, V + 0,
If address propagation is from bottom to top, H + 0, V + 1,
If address propagation is from right to left, H-1, V + 0,
If address propagation is from top to bottom, H + 0, V-1,
And the processing for setting the calculation result as a self-address is executed.

  Furthermore, in one embodiment of the image display device of the present invention, the four-way interface is configured to be installed on the top, bottom, left and right surfaces excluding the front surface and the back surface of the image display device housing.

  Furthermore, in an embodiment of the image display device of the present invention, the four-way interface is configured to be installed on the back surface of the image display device housing.

  Furthermore, in an embodiment of the image display device of the present invention, the image display device receives a control signal from the master device, and applies image display area setting data included in the control signal to the display of the device itself. Display area setting means for setting the area of the image data to be displayed, and density conversion processing corresponding to the image data to be displayed on the display of the own apparatus by applying the display image enlargement / reduction processing data included in the control signal And N-times dense conversion processing means for executing the accompanying image enlargement / reduction processing.

  Furthermore, in an embodiment of the image display device of the present invention, the image display device receives a control signal from the master device, and extracts corresponding control information based on an address (ID) assigned to itself. The display data is displayed by executing display control based on image data cut-out, N-fold density conversion, synchronization signal, and the like.

  Other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a more detailed description based on embodiments of the present invention described later and the accompanying drawings. In this specification, the system is a logical set configuration of a plurality of devices, and is not limited to one in which the devices of each configuration are in the same casing.

According to the configuration of one embodiment of the present invention, an image display device having a display capable of displaying an image has a four-way interface for data transfer and a four-way interface in which the data input / output direction can be identified in each of the upper, lower, left and right directions. Address calculating means for executing address calculation processing based on address information input via the interface, and when the setting information is input by the user, or the right to occupy the bus to which the interface is connected was secured first. In this case, a process for setting the own apparatus as a master image display apparatus is executed. With this configuration, various combinations are possible, and an image display device that performs display control with reliable master setting is realized.

  Hereinafter, an image display device of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a view showing an appearance according to an embodiment of an image display device constituting a multi-display device of the present invention. The image display device shown in FIG. 5A is provided with signal transfer interfaces 101 and 102 on the side of the casing. In the figure, only the top interface 101 and the right side interface 102 of the image display device are shown, but interfaces are also provided on the bottom and left sides of the image display device. These four interfaces are interfaces that execute data transfer between adjacent image display devices in a multi-display device configured by combining a plurality of image display devices.

  The image display apparatus in FIG. 1B is an example in which four interfaces are configured on the back surface. Interface 111 is an interface for connection with an image display device arranged adjacent to the upper part, interfaces 112 and 113 are interfaces for connection with an image display device arranged adjacent to each other on the left and right, and an image where interface 114 is arranged adjacent to the lower part Used as an interface for connection with a display device.

  FIG. 1A shows a configuration in which an interface is provided on the four side surfaces of the image display device, and FIG. 1B shows a configuration in which an interface is provided on the back surface of the image display device. As a configuration in which both interfaces are provided, each interface may be selectively used.

  FIG. 2 shows a configuration example when a multi-display device is configured by combining a plurality of image display devices shown in FIG. FIG. 2A shows a configuration example of a multi-display device in which image display devices are stacked in a column. Each image display device has an interface connected between upper and lower adjacent image display devices, and each image display device is connected to each other. Data transfer is possible.

  FIG. 2B is an example of the configuration of a multi-display device in which image display devices are stacked vertically and horizontally, and each image display device has interfaces connected between upper and lower and left and right adjacent image display devices to display each image. Data transfer between devices is possible.

  FIG. 2C is a diagram illustrating an interface connection configuration example on the back surface corresponding to FIG. 1B, and illustrates an example of interface cable connection when the image display devices are vertically stacked. Between the rear interfaces, each interface position, that is, the upper image display device is connected to the image display device adjacent in the lower direction, and therefore, the interface 121 with the lower adjacent image display device is used. These image display devices are connected to the image display device adjacent in the upward direction, and are connected to each other by the cable 123 using the interface 122 with the image display device adjacent in the upward direction.

  The multi-display device of the present invention sets an address for each image display device by an address setting process via the interface of each image display device. Each image display device holds a set address or ID, the master device generates a matrix table based on the address information, and a control signal for applying display image generation processing to each image display device according to the generated matrix table Is sent out. These processes will be described in detail later.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a single image display device constituting the multi-display device of the present invention. The image display device includes a memory 211, a display area setting unit 212, a control unit 220, an N double density conversion processing unit 214, a display control processing unit 215, a four-way interface 216, and a data receiving unit 217 such as an antenna.

  The memory 211 stores image data input from the image data supply source via the receiving unit 217. The image data input from the image data supply source is image data including image area data displayed by the image display device itself that inputs the data, for example, NTSC-decoded image data. The display area setting unit 212 executes a display area setting process as a process for extracting image area data displayed by the image display device itself from the image data stored in the memory 211.

  The display area setting process of the display area setting unit 212 is executed based on a control signal supplied from the control unit 220. The control unit 220 receives a control signal from the image display device set as a master that executes control of the multi-display device via the four-way interface 216, and supplies the received control signal to the display region setting unit 212. When the own apparatus is set as the master, the control unit 220 generates various control signals and synchronization signals, and outputs them to the own apparatus and other image display apparatuses via the four-way interface 216. These configurations will be described in detail later.

  The image data cut out by the display area setting process executed by the display area setting unit 212 is provided to the N double density conversion processing unit 214, and the double density conversion process of the cut image, that is, the enlargement / reduction process of the image data is executed. The double-density conversion process is a process similar to a conversion process between images having different densities, such as a high-density image (HD image) and a low-density image (SD image). Is an image conversion process to be executed in accordance with the number of lines of the. The cut-out image enlargement / reduction processing in the N double density conversion processing unit 214 in this apparatus is executed based on a control signal received by the control unit 220 from the master device and output from the control unit 220 to the N double density conversion processing unit 214. The

  A control signal supplied from the control unit 220, a display area setting process executed by the display area setting unit 212, and a cutout image enlargement / reduction process in the N-times dense conversion processing unit 214 will be described with reference to FIG. The control signal received by the control unit 220 from the master device includes the following data.

Image cutout start position (x1, y1) and image size (x2, y2) data,
Display start position (x3, y3) and display image size (x4, y4) data,

  First, the display area setting unit 212 sets from the image data stored in the memory 211 based on the image cutout start position (x1, y1) and the image size (x2, y2) data provided from the control unit 220. A display area setting process for cutting out image data of the area is executed. The image data 251 is cut out by this display area setting process.

  Next, the N double density conversion processing unit 214 provides the image size (x2, y2) data as the cutout image size provided from the control unit 220, the display start position (x3, y3), and the display image size (x4, y4). ) Based on the data, an N-fold density conversion process is performed as an enlargement / reduction process of the cut-out image data 251. That is, based on the image size (x2, y2) data as the cut-out image size and the display image size (x4, y4) data, the value of N as N double dense image conversion is calculated, and based on the calculated N value. Then, line interpolation or thinning processing is executed. Display image data 252 is generated by this double-density conversion processing.

  A specific processing example of the image cutout processing in the display area setting unit 212 will be described with reference to FIG. For example, as the data to be displayed shown in FIG. 5A, the data shown in FIG. 5A is displayed between the image display devices 1 and 2 in the adjacent image display device, for example, the multi-display device shown in FIG. 5B. Assume that In this case, each image display device has an effective display area 271, an area 272 including an overscan area as an outer peripheral area of the effective display area 271, and an area 273 including a non-display area. Corresponding to the above, there is a mode in which the display image is cut out in each image display device.

  FIG. 5C-1 shows a mode in which the display image data is divided and displayed in the effective display area 271 of each adjacent image display device, and FIG. The display image data is divided into areas 272 including the overscan area, and the image data corresponding to the effective display area is displayed. FIG. 5C-3 shows a non-display area of an adjacent image display device. The display image data is divided into areas 273 including the image data, and the image data corresponding to the effective display area is displayed.

  In the multi-display device of the present invention, the control signal for outputting the image clipping process in each image display device to each image display device, that is, the image clipping start position (x1, y1) as the clipping process control information, and the image size ( x2, y2) Since the configuration is performed based on the data, various display modes can be easily changed only by changing the setting of the control signal.

  Similarly, in the image N double density conversion processing, as shown in FIG. 6, one image data shown in (b) is displayed in the image display devices 1, 2, 4 and 5 in the multi-display device shown in (a). Is divided into four parts for enlarged display, the quarter image 280 of (b) is displayed as an effective display area 291 of the image display device 290, an area 292 including an overscan area as an outer peripheral area of the effective display area 291, and There are a plurality of processing methods for executing the dense conversion corresponding to each of the areas 293 including the non-display area.

  In the multi-display device of the present invention, a control signal for outputting the N double density conversion processing in each image display device to each image display device, that is, cut-out image size (x2, y2) data as N double density conversion processing control information And the display start position (x3, y3) and the display image size (x4, y4) data, so that various display modes can be easily changed by simply changing the setting of the control signal. It becomes possible.

  Returning to the block diagram of FIG. 3, the description of the processing of the image display apparatus will be continued. The display image data 252 generated by the N double density conversion processing unit 214 is provided to the display control processing unit 215. The display control processing unit 215 executes display control based on the control signal and the synchronization signal provided by the control unit 220. The control unit 220 receives a control signal and a synchronization signal from a master device that executes control of the multi-display device, and supplies the received control signal and synchronization signal to the display control processing unit 215.

  The control signal input to the display control processing unit 215 includes a display control signal such as an OSD (on-screen display), a driver control signal, and the like. The synchronization signal is, for example, a horizontal synchronization signal (HSync) or a vertical synchronization signal (YSync).

  With reference to FIG. 7, the display control in the display control processing means 215 based on the horizontal synchronization signal (HSync) and the vertical synchronization signal (YSync) will be described. As shown in FIG. 7, the horizontal synchronization signal (HSync) is data indicating the horizontal position where the effective display data starts, and the vertical synchronization signal (YSync) indicates the vertical position where the effective display data starts. It is the data shown. The display control processing unit 215 performs display control of the image data output from the N double density conversion processing unit 214 based on the horizontal synchronization signal (HSync) and the vertical synchronization signal (YSync) output from the control unit 220. Output to display means such as CRT.

  Next, the detailed configuration and processing of the control means 220 of the image display apparatus shown in FIG. 3 will be described. The control means 220 executes address setting processing as arrangement position correspondence data of the image display device in the multi-display device, and processing of various control signals and synchronization signals described above.

  FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing the detailed configuration of the control means 220. As shown in FIG. The control unit 220 includes an input data analysis unit 221 that executes analysis of input data from the four-way interface, an address calculation unit 222 that executes address calculation processing when the input data from the four-way interface is address data, and an address calculation. An address storage unit for storing the calculated address of the unit 222, a matrix table storage unit 224 for storing a matrix table as a table indicating the arrangement configuration of each image display device of the multi-display device, and when the input data is a control signal and a synchronization signal A control signal generation unit 225 for generating and extracting a control signal and a synchronization signal of the own device, an address data for another image display device of the multi-display device, or an output data generation unit 226 for generating a control signal and a synchronization signal. Have.

  As a process in the control means 220, first, a process for transferring address data between image display apparatuses via a four-way interface and setting an address corresponding to an arrangement position of each image display apparatus constituting the multi-display apparatus is illustrated. This will be described with reference to FIG.

  The arrangement of the image display devices constituting the multi-display device can be indicated as (H, V) coordinate positions as the horizontal direction (H) and the vertical direction (V). For example, assume a 2 × 2 multi-display configuration in which four image display devices are provided in the horizontal (H) direction and two in the vertical (V) direction as shown in FIG. In this case, the image display device 151 located at the position (0, 0) is set as the master image display device. The setting of the master device may be automatic setting processing such as setting by user selection or master setting of the device that initially secures the connection bus occupation right of each image display device.

  The four image display devices 151 to 154 are all set as (0, 0) as shown in (c-1) as the initial address setting. The image display device 151 set as the master device outputs its own address (0, 0) to the adjacent image display devices via the four-way interface. For example, as shown in (c-2), its own address (0, 0) is output to the image display device 154 adjacent in the right direction.

  The address calculation unit 222 of the image display device 154 executes different calculations depending on which interface of the four-way interface is input data. That is, as shown in (c-2), in the case of an input address from the left adjacent device in the horizontal (H) direction, H + 1, V + 0 with respect to the input address (H, V) = (0, 0). The processing is executed, and as shown in (c-3), the address (1, 0) is set as its own address and stored in the address storage unit 223 of its own device.

  The master image display device 151 also outputs its own address (0, 0) to the image display devices that are adjacently connected in the upward direction via the four-way interface. For example, as shown in (c-4), its own address (0, 0) is output to the image display device 152 adjacent in the upward direction.

  The address calculation unit 222 of the image display device 152 determines which interface of the four-way interface is input data and executes the calculation. That is, as shown in (c-4), when the input address is from the lower adjacent device in the vertical (V) direction, the input address (H, V) = (0, 0) with respect to H + 0, V + 1. The processing is executed, and as shown in (c-5), the address (0, 1) is set as its own address and stored in the address storage unit 223 of its own device.

  The image display device 153 inputs the address (0, 1) from the image display device 152 or the address (1, 0) from the image display device 154. When the address (0, 1) is received from the image display device 152 as shown in (c-6), the process of H + 1, V + 0 is executed for the input address (0, 1), and (c-8) ), The address (1, 1) is set as its own address and stored in the address storage unit 223 of its own device. When the address (1, 0) is received from the image display device 154 as shown in (c-7), the processing of H + 0, V + 1 is executed for the input address (1, 0), and (c-8 ), The address (1, 1) is set as its own address and stored in the address storage unit 223 of its own device.

In other words, when address data is propagated to adjacent image display devices via a four-way interface, the address calculation unit 222 of each image display device performs the following for the input address (H, V): A process for calculating the self-address is executed by a simple calculation process.
From left to right: H + 1, V + 0,
From bottom to top: H + 0, V + 1,
Right to left: H-1, V + 0,
Top to bottom: H + 0, V-1,

  By the above-described arithmetic processing, the addresses of all the image display devices constituting the multi display device are set.

  Next, the matrix table will be described with reference to FIGS. The matrix table is a table that stores arrangement information of the image display devices constituting the multi-display device, and is generated based on the set address of each image display device set by the address setting process described above in the master device.

  FIG. 10A shows a matrix table in a reset state in which the setting information of the image display device is not input. The matrix table shown in FIG. 10A has five positions -2, -1, 0, 1, and 2 in the horizontal (H) direction, and is similarly -2, -1, and in the vertical (V) direction. This is an example of a table having five positions of 0, 1, and 2, and an example of a table that enables position identification of 5 × 5 = 25.

  For example, a case is assumed where a multi-display device is configured by five image display devices having an arrangement as shown in FIG. Of the five image display devices shown in FIG. 10B, the image display device 451 is a master image display device (M), and the other image display devices 452 to 455 receive slave signals from the master image display device. It is assumed that the device (S).

  In the case of this multi-display device configuration, the matrix table sets the position of the master image display device (M) 451 at the center (0, 0) of the matrix table, for example, as shown in FIG. Note that (0, 0) indicates the position of (H, V). According to the above address setting process according to the arrangement of the other image display devices, the image display device 452 is (0, 1), the image display device 453 is (1, 1), and the image display device 454 is (1,0). ) When the image display device 455 is set to (1, −1), the master device receives the set address information from each slave device and generates a matrix table.

  The position data (H, V) on the matrix table corresponding to each image display device indicates a relative position with respect to the synchronization master as shown in FIG. Each image display apparatus is set with an ID as an identifier for identifying each image display apparatus. As the ID, position data (H, V) on the matrix table, that is, the above-described address is used. Is possible. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 11 (c), an individual ID different from the position data (H, V) on the matrix table may be set. These identification data are set as additional information for the control signal output from the master image display device to the other slave image display devices, and each image display device is based on an address (or ID) in the additional information. The control signal for the device itself is discriminated and extracted.

  When the matrix table is stored in the matrix table storage unit 224 in the control means 220 of the image display device shown in FIG. 8 and the configuration of the multi-display device is changed and a new address is set, the changed address is set. Based on the above, the matrix table is updated as appropriate.

  Based on the matrix table data input from the matrix table storage unit 224, the control signal generation unit 225 generates a control signal for the own device or, if the own device is a master, a slave image display device, and generates the generated control. The signal is output to each slave display device via the output data generation unit 226. The matrix table can be displayed on the display of the image display device as shown in FIG. 12, for example.

  Each image display device constituting the multi-display device has a connection configuration via a four-way interface. FIG. 13 shows a configuration example of a multi-display device in which four image display devices are connected. Address data, control signals, and synchronization signals are transmitted and received between the control means via the four-way interface of each image display device. The control signal includes image cutout start position (x1, y1) and image size (x2, y2) data, display start position (x3, y3), display image size (x4, y4) data, and OSD (on -Display control signals such as screen display), driver control signals, etc. are included.

  These signals are transmitted and received between the image display apparatuses via a signal transmission path such as an IIC bus (Inter-IC bus) 481. The IIC bus (Inter-IC bus) is a data communication bus capable of bidirectional communication, random access, distributed control, and collision processing. It is a normal asynchronous serial transmission, start / stop bit system, and open collector drive. This is a two-wire serial bus having a collision processing function and the like and an acknowledgment (confirmation response) processing function for each basic transmission unit.

  FIG. 14 shows an example of the data structure transmitted and received between the image display devices. Transmission / reception data is start / stop data indicating the start and end points of the data packet, slave address as the data destination address, R / W indicating the type of data read or write, and data reception confirmation response Various data such as acknowledgment (ACK), control data, and synchronization data.

  Each image display apparatus receives the data shown in FIG. 14 and, when having a slave address assigned to itself, extracts, for example, control information as stored data, cuts out image data, N-times dense conversion, and display The control is executed to display each display data. The synchronization process is also executed based on a synchronization signal input from the master.

  Next, with reference to FIG. 15, signal processing in a multi-display apparatus in which a plurality of image display apparatuses described with reference to FIG. 3 are combined will be described. In FIG. 15, three image display devices 510, 520, and 530 are shown as image display devices constituting the multi-display device. Here, three examples of image display devices are shown, but the number of image display devices can be set to an arbitrary number.

  In FIG. 15, an image display device 510 is an image display device set as a master device, and provides control signals and synchronization signals to other slave image display devices 520 and 530. The control signal includes image cutout start position (x1, y1) and image size (x2, y2) data, display start position (x3, y3), display image size (x4, y4) data, and OSD (on -Display control signals such as screen display), driver control signals, etc.

  These control signals and synchronization signals are generated by the control means 513 of the master image display device and transmitted to each slave device via the four-way interface 516.

  Each of the image display devices 510, 520, and 530 has the same configuration as described above with reference to FIG. The image display device 510 set as the master device generates control signals and synchronization signals in the control means 513 and provides these control signals and synchronization signals to the own device and other slave image display devices 520 and 530. Execute the process.

  For example, the source image data is received from the image data supply source via the antenna 517 in the image display device 510 and stored in the memory 511. The image data stored in the memory 511 is image data including image area data displayed by each image display device itself, for example, NTSC-decoded image data. Similar image data input processing is executed in other devices.

  The image display apparatus 510 serving as a master stores image data input via the antenna 517 in the memory 511, and the display area setting unit 512 first displays FIG. 4 based on the control signal output from the control unit 513. The image cut-out process described with reference to is executed. Further, the N double density conversion processing means 514 executes N double density conversion processing as enlargement / reduction processing based on the control signal output from the control means 513.

  Further, the display image data generated by the N-fold density conversion processing is displayed in the display control processing unit 515, for example, a display control signal such as OSD (on-screen display) included in the control signal output from the control unit 513, Then, display control is performed based on the synchronization signal and output to a CRT or the like.

  Slave image display devices 520 and 530 other than the master device control signals, that is, image cutout start position (x1, y1), image size (x2, y2) data, display start position (x3, y3), and display image Control of the master image display device 510 via the bus 550 and the respective four-way interfaces, display control signals such as size (x4, y4) data, OSD (on-screen display), driver control signals, etc. Based on the received control signal received from the means 513, the display area setting of the source image data received via the antenna and N-fold density conversion are executed. The synchronization signal is also received from the control unit 513 of the image display device 510 as a master, and the display control processing unit executes display control to output image data to a display such as a CRT of each image display device.

  Next, an image display processing procedure to which the multi-display device of the present invention is applied will be described with reference to a flow. The processing is roughly divided into processing with initial setting for confirming the arrangement configuration of the image display devices constituting the multi-display device by address setting, generating or updating the matrix table based on the set address, and executing image display. A comparison between the already generated matrix table and the arrangement configuration of the image display devices constituting the multi-display device is executed, the matrix table is updated as necessary, and the image display is executed. There are two processes: a process involving a process.

  First, with reference to FIG. 16, a procedure of image display processing including initial setting processing for generating or updating a matrix table by address setting processing will be described.

  In step S101, the master device is set. The setting of the master device is performed by a user-selected setting or an automatic setting process such as master setting of a device that initially secures the connection bus occupation right of each image display device. Next, address setting processing is executed in step S102, and matrix table generation processing is executed in step S103.

  Details of the address setting processing in step S102 and the matrix table generation processing in step S103 will be described with reference to the processing flow of FIG.

  In step S151, the master table is initialized in the master device. This corresponds to the state of FIG. Next, the master apparatus selects one address propagation device from its own neighboring device, and outputs its own address, for example, (0, 0) to the selected device in step S153. This process corresponds to the process described above with reference to FIG. In step S161, the slave device that has input an address from the master executes an operation as its own address calculation process in step S162. That is, as described above, when address propagation is from left to right, H + 1, V + 0, when from bottom to top, H + 0, V + 1, when from right to left, H-1, V + 0, from top to bottom Performs the calculation of H + 0, V−1, stores the calculation result as its own address in the memory in step S163, and transmits the registration result to the master in step S164.

  Further, in step S165, the slave device determines whether there is an adjacent device other than the address receiving device. If there is an adjacent device, the slave device outputs a set address to the adjacent device. This process corresponds to (c-6) to (c-8) in FIG. If there is no adjacent device, the process ends.

  On the other hand, when receiving the setting address information from the slave device, the master device executes writing of the matrix table in step S154. In step S155, confirmation of completion of address setting for all devices is performed. If there is an incomplete device, the processing in step S152 and subsequent steps is repeated, and the processing is terminated when address setting for all devices is completed.

  Returning to the display processing flow of FIG. 16, the description will be continued. When the address setting and matrix table generation processing in steps S102 and S103 described above is completed, in step S104, a control signal and a synchronization signal for each image display device are generated based on the matrix table set in step S103. As described above, the control signal includes image cutout start position (x1, y1), image size (x2, y2) data, display start position (x3, y3), and display image size (x4, y4) data. And a display control signal such as an OSD (on-screen display), a driver control signal, and the like, and these signals generate the number of data corresponding to individual IDs of the image display devices constituting the multi-display device.

  In step S105, the generated control signal and synchronization signal are output to the slave image display device constituting the multi-display device via the four-way interface. In step S106, each image display apparatus receives the control signal. In step S107, the image display apparatus extracts corresponding control information based on the address (ID) assigned to the image display apparatus, cuts out image data, and performs N-times dense conversion. Then, display control based on the synchronization signal or the like is executed to display each display data.

  Next, referring to FIG. 18, a comparison process between the already generated matrix table and the arrangement configuration of the image display devices constituting the multi-display device is executed, and the matrix table is updated as necessary. A process involving a comparison process for executing image display will be described.

  In step S201, the operation status in the arrangement configuration of the image display devices constituting the multi-display device on which the user intends to perform image display is confirmed. That is, an image display device that is in the ON state and can be operated is confirmed. In step S202, a comparison process is executed between the active image display device configuration and the multi-display device configuration, that is, the multi-display device configuration corresponding to the matrix table information stored in the master device. If it is determined in step S202 that the operating device (image display apparatus) matches the system configuration (= matrix table information), the process proceeds to step S203.

  If it is determined in step S202 that the operating device does not match the system configuration, the process proceeds to step S211 to determine the operating status of the master device. If it is determined that the master is operating, in step S212, a device ID and system configuration link resetting process using only the operating device is executed. This link resetting process is executed as a matrix table update process, that is, as a new matrix table generation process based on the configuration of the active device.

  If it is determined in step S211 that the master is not operating, the process advances to step S213, and the matrix table update process as the initial setting process described above with reference to FIG. 16 is executed. This processing includes master setting processing and matrix table generation by the set master.

  In step S203, displayable combinations are calculated in the operating device (image display device) configuration based on the matrix table generated in advance or the matrix table updated in step S212 or S213, and the combinations that can be displayed in step S204. In step S205, a displayable combination image is displayed in a toggle format one after another based on the generated control signal.

  For example, when the display processing in the toggle format is a multi-display device composed of 3 × 3 = 9 image display devices, various display modes as shown in FIG. A combination of displaying individual images on each device (image display device), an example of displaying one image data on the four devices (image display devices) at the upper left as in (2), as in (3) There are various combinations such as an example in which one image data is displayed on the four devices (image display devices) in the upper right, and an example in which one image data is displayed on nine devices (image display devices) as shown in (n). These combined images (1) to (n) are displayed one after another at regular time intervals. Corresponding to each combination, the control signal is also different, and the master generates a control signal based on each combination and transmits it to each image display device.

  In step S206, it is determined from the combination of the image data displayed in the toggle format whether or not the user's selection processing input has been made, and the toggle format image display is continued until there is an input. In step S207, the image display according to the selected image data display format is continuously executed. Also in this process, as described above, the control signal includes the image clipping start position (x1, y1), the image size (x2, y2) data, the display start position (x3, y3), and the display image. It includes size (x4, y4) data, OSD (on-screen display) display control signals, driver control signals, etc., and these signals are individually transmitted from the master device to the image display devices constituting the multi-display device. Sent.

  In the image display process with initial settings shown in FIG. 16 described above, when there are combinations of a plurality of images, toggle-format image display and selection processes for each image combination may be executed.

  As described above, in the multi-display device of the present invention, in the multi-display device in various arrangement configurations, an address is set via the four-way interface, and the master device generates and generates a matrix table based on the set address. Based on the matrix table, the master device transmits a control signal for image cutout and N-fold density conversion processing to each slave image display device via a four-way interface. Each slave image display device extracts a control signal corresponding to its own device, executes image data processing, and generates display data. As described above, since the control signal is generated corresponding to the matrix table based on the arrangement configuration of the image display devices constituting the multi-display device, it is possible to display images corresponding to various image display arrangement configurations. .

  FIG. 20 shows an image display example. FIG. 20A illustrates a multi-display device including nine 3 × 3 image display devices. The upper left 2 × 2 image display device region 511 and the upper right 1 × 2 image display device region. 512 is a multi-display display example constituted by three 1 × 1 image display device areas 513, 514, and 515 at the bottom.

  FIG. 20B is an example of a combination of an image display device and an open box. The image display area includes a leftmost 1 × 3 image display device area 521 and an upper right 3 × 2 image display device area 522. And an open box area 531. In the image display device of the present invention, address propagation is executed for each image display device in the operating state to set an address, a matrix table based on the set address is generated, and the master device is entered in the matrix table. It is possible to generate and send individual control signals to each device (slave), and each slave is configured to perform image processing according to the control signal and display it. Even in the case of having an arbitrary arrangement configuration such as having the box region 531, it is possible to execute image data display that is integrated using a plurality of image display devices and has no sense of incongruity.

  The present invention has been described in detail above with reference to specific embodiments. However, it is obvious that those skilled in the art can make modifications and substitutions of the embodiments without departing from the gist of the present invention. In other words, the present invention has been disclosed in the form of exemplification, and should not be interpreted in a limited manner. In order to determine the gist of the present invention, the claims section described at the beginning should be considered.

  The series of processes described in the specification can be executed by hardware, software, or a combined configuration of both. When executing processing by software, the program recording the processing sequence is installed in a memory in a computer incorporated in dedicated hardware and executed, or the program is executed on a general-purpose computer capable of executing various processing. It can be installed and run.

  For example, the program can be recorded in advance on a hard disk or ROM (Read Only Memory) as a recording medium. Alternatively, the program is temporarily or permanently stored on a removable recording medium such as a flexible disk, a CD-ROM (Compact Disc Read Only Memory), an MO (Magneto optical) disk, a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), a magnetic disk, or a semiconductor memory. It can be stored (recorded). Such a removable recording medium can be provided as so-called package software.

  The program is installed on the computer from the removable recording medium as described above, or is wirelessly transferred from the download site to the computer, or is wired to the computer via a network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) or the Internet. However, the computer can receive the program transferred in this way and install it in a recording medium such as a built-in hard disk.

  Note that the various processes described in the specification are not only executed in time series according to the description, but may be executed in parallel or individually according to the processing capability of the apparatus that executes the processes or as necessary.

  As described above, according to the configuration of the embodiment of the present invention, the image display device having a display capable of displaying an image can be used for data transfer in which the data input / output direction can be identified in each of the vertical and horizontal directions. A direction interface and an address calculation means for executing an address calculation process based on the address information input via the four-way interface, and further, when setting information is input by the user or the bus connected to the interface When the occupation right is secured for the first time, the processing for setting the own apparatus as the master image display apparatus is executed. With this configuration, various combinations are possible, and a multi-display device that performs display control with reliable master setting is realized.

It is a figure explaining the outline | summary of the interface structure of the image display apparatus which comprises the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure which shows the structural example of the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the image display apparatus which comprises the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the image clipping process performed in the image display apparatus which comprises the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the aspect of the image cut-out process performed in the image display apparatus which comprises the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the aspect of the N double dense conversion process performed in the image display apparatus which comprises the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the display control process performed in the image display apparatus which comprises the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the control means of the image display apparatus which comprises the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the address setting process in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the matrix table applied in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the matrix table applied in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of a matrix table display applied in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the connection structure in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the transfer data structure in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows a structure using the master device as one Example of the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a flowchart explaining the process sequence in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a flowchart explaining the address setting and matrix table production | generation process as a process sequence in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a flowchart explaining the process sequence in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a flowchart explaining the toggle process procedure in the multi-display apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of a display process in the multi-display apparatus of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

101, 102 interface 111-114 interface 121, 122 interface 123 cable 210 image display device 211 memory 212 display area setting means 220 control means 214 N double density conversion processing means 215 display control processing means 216 four-way interface 217 receiving means 221 input data Analysis unit 222 Address calculation unit 223 Address storage unit 224 Matrix table storage unit 225 Control signal generation unit 226 Output data generation unit 251 Image data 252 Image data 280 Image data 451 to 455 Image display device 481 Bus 510, 520, 530 Image display device 511 Memory 512 Display area setting means 513 System control signal generating means 514 N double-density conversion processing means 515 Display control processing means 516 4 directions Interface 517 antenna

Claims (7)

An image display device having a display capable of displaying an image,
A four-way interface for data transfer that makes the data input / output direction identifiable in each of the upper, lower, left and right directions;
Address calculating means for executing address calculation processing based on address information input via the four-way interface;
Generation processing of control signals applied to image display in the image display device connected to the device itself and the interface when the right to occupy the bus to which the four-way interface of the image display device is first secured Control means for setting the own device as a master image display device for performing
An image display device comprising: The address calculation means includes
A configuration for executing a self-address calculation process based on address information input from another image display device via the four-way interface;
The self-address calculation process includes:
The following calculation processing according to the input address information propagation direction identified based on the four-way interface when the address is horizontal coordinate: H and vertical coordinate: V is the data indicated by (H, V). ,
If address propagation is from left to right, H + 1, V + 0,
If address propagation is from bottom to top, H + 0, V + 1,
If address propagation is from right to left, H-1, V + 0,
If address propagation is from top to bottom, H + 0, V-1,
The image display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image display apparatus is configured to execute a process of setting the calculation result as a self-address.   The image display device according to claim 1, wherein the four-way interface is configured to be installed on upper, lower, left, and right surfaces excluding a front surface and a rear surface of the image display device housing.   The image display device according to claim 1, wherein the four-way interface is configured to be installed on a back surface of the image display device housing. The image display device includes:
Display region setting means for receiving a control signal from the master device, and applying image display region setting data included in the control signal to perform region setting of image data to be displayed on the display of the device;
N double-density conversion processing means for applying display image enlargement / reduction processing data included in the control signal and performing image enlargement / reduction processing with density conversion processing according to image data to be displayed on the display of the device itself;
The image display apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: The image display device includes:
A control signal is received from the master device, and corresponding control information is extracted based on an address (ID) assigned to itself, and image data is cut out, N-times dense conversion, display control based on a synchronization signal, etc. is executed. The image display apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display of each display data is executed. An image display method of an image display device having a display capable of displaying an image,
Making the data input / output direction identifiable in each of the upper, lower, left and right directions by a four-way interface;
Executing an address calculation process based on address information input via the four-way interface by an arithmetic means;
Control applied to image display in the device itself and the image display device connected via the interface when the exclusive right of the bus to which the four-way interface of the image display device is connected is first secured by the control means Setting itself as a master image display device that performs signal generation processing;
An image display method characterized by:

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