Patent ID: 6215492
Filing Date: 2001-04-10
Classification: G06F,G06T

Abstract:
An apparatus for supporting retrieval of articles which comprises an article substance storage for storing the substance of an article, an article attribution storage for storing attribution data of the article, and a processing data storage for storing data for processing the article substance, and the apparatus which supports retrieval of articles by generating a miniature image of an image of the article through processing the article substance and by displaying the miniature image on the screen, said apparatus comprising:averaged image generation means for calculating an average value of pixel values in each image portion which is divided from an image of an article depending on a miniaturizing rate of the image and for generating a miniature image which is composed of a gathering of pixels of the averaged values,a sharpening operation part detecting an edge of the miniature image and emphasizing the edge,gray level transform operation means for transforming a gray level value of each pixel of the miniature image into a gray level value which emphasizes a contrast of the miniature image,OR operation means for generating a miniature image by performing OR operation of pixel values of neighboring pixels of the miniature image; andminiaturizing method decision means for determining, according to the type of the image of the article, whether to make the averaged image generation means or the OR operation means operate for generating a miniature image, and in case the averaged image generation means is made to operate to generate a miniature image, whether to make the sharpening operation means operate or to make the sharpening operation means and the gray level transform operation means operate for processing the miniature image.