Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation

1

Digital photography and computer technology :
a promising field of innovation
N. Bennani1, V. Cordonnier2, D. Donsez1, S. Lecomte2, S. Niar1
1

UVHC / LAMIH / ROI , Le Mont Houy BP 311, 59304 Valenciennes Cedex France
Tel: (+33) 327 14 85 20, Fax: (+33) 327 14 11 83
{nbennani, donsez, niar}@univ-valenciennes.fr
2
UST ... See more

/ LIFL / RD2P, Bat. M3, Cité Scientifique, 59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex France
Tel: (+33) 320 43 47 14, Fax: (+33) 320 43 42 56
{vcord,lecomte}@lifl.fr

Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation

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Digital photography and computer technology :
a promising field of innovation

1- Initial purposes
Electronic photography is going gradually to gain parts of chemical photography
market. Current implementation of digital camera are limited by technology
constraints (limited storage capacity, and poor exchange capability). However, some
new components allow to store more than one gigabyte on a single chip ( for example
the PLEDMTM technology from Hitachi [Hita99]). Even if we expect only one gigabyte
of storage capacity, it will be possible to store thousands snapshots on the family
digital camera.
We guess that small digital cameras will replace traditional family photographic
albums since users could take their cameras everywhere and could visualise their
snapshot on their own TV set or on friend’s one. However, a large part of the potential
customers does not have computer to easily organise or process on their thousands
snapshots in this digital photographic album. Moreover, those of the users who have a
computer do not have in general skills to manipulate files of images. In all cases, it is
necessary to offer to the user various services, for example the possibility to :
• to retrieve and select some snapshots from the digital album
• to visualize them on various display devices such as LCD, TV or PC for preserving
the possibilities of image processing for the professionals users (high definition,
large sizes, final improvements etc.).
• to print them on printing (Web) service
• to exchange snapshots with another digital camera or with an archival web server
through a wide area network.
In this paper, we propose, an architecture to manage the concept of album as a
voluminous collection of indexed images on both the digital camera and in the next
electronic home environment including PC and STB (Set Top Box) [Mile98] (figure
1). We prototype this architecture using Java-based technologies to validate its
functionalities and to evaluate code size of the software components to integrate in the
digital camera. This paper is organised as follows: Section 2 describes the architecture
components and connection possibilities. Section 3 shows examples of use of the
proposed architecture and its functionalities. Section 4 describes the creation of the
digital album and introduces the indexing criteria to improve snapshots research and
retrieval and enumerates techniques used for each indexing criteria. Section 5 gives a
brief idea on security problems and solutions. Section 6 describes the architecture
prototype

Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation

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PC

D ig ita l
C a m e ra

H o m e A re a N e tw o rk
B lu e to o th , IrD A , U S B , H a v i ...

TV+STB

Cable, Satellite
G a m e c o n s o le
PD A

GSM

Phone
Power

P rin te r

Figure 1: Home electronic Environment

2- Architecture description
Our architecture is composed of two complementary environments: The home
environment and the remote environment.
• The home environment is composed of wired devices like PCs, Set-Top-Boxes
coupled with a TV screen, game stations, DVD players and printers. Wireless
devices like cellular phones and PDAs are also devices of the Home
environment.
• The remote environment is mainly constituted of remote servers : archival, print,
web servers, Image servers or mail servers.

Communications in the Home Environment
Physical communications between the Home environment devices uses either
wired links like the USB or wireless networks like BlueTooth and IRDA.
• USB (Universal Standard Bus)
Almost recent home electronic devices are equipped with USB connectors.
USB link make more efficient a digital transfer between two devices. USB
links can be used between two cameras for snapshot exchange or between a
camera and a PC for a snapshot transfer or also between a camera to a STB for
visualization. Compared to other link (serial, parallel,…), USB provides a
dynamic recognition of devices and determines software and hardware
features of their peripherals without having to use the Plug and Play

Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation

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reconfiguration. The USB standard supply also electrical power which avoids
multiplying cables. This characteristic is interesting for mobile units such as
notebooks, cellular phones and so on.
• Wireless communication
Our architecture tends also to integrate others wireless forms of connection
giving to the user more flexibility and services. IrDA[MOB99] an infrared
wireless communication protocol and Bluetooth [MOB99] a radio-wavesbased communication protocol are used to enhance communications
possibilities among the home environment devices specially between the
camera and wireless devices.
Communications outside the home environment
In our architecture , digital camera communicates with remote servers using a
home environment device as a proxy. Usually the proxy devices are the STB or the
PC but we can imagine a connection to a web server for example using cellular
phones or Notebooks. Used technologies for this kind of communications are the
WAN(Wide Advanced Network) , the câble or the satellite (figure 2).
TV Set + STB or PC

Web Server

Digital PAL/Secam
Camera NTSC, HDTV

storage sv

WAN
cable,
satellite
ASDL,
...

USB, IrDA
LCD

PLEDM

GPS

printing sv

Delivery Service

Figure 2

3- Architecture functionalities & possible services
In this paragraph we introduce some possible scenarios of use of our architecture:
• Snapshot transmission
The camera owner could send to a professional’s web site via the Internet
network his snapshots for touch up operations, archival or print purposes.
Moreover, the user can send by mail to its friends anywhere in the world all
snapshots where they appeared for example.

Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation

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• Snapshots exchange
Snapshots exchange between two digital cameras or between the camera and
a PC is possible. A user select first a subset of his snapshots in the digital
album according to various criteria or just by enumerate them then make the
transfer.
• Camera as Slide show device
Camera can contribute to a slide show as a snapshot storage unit: The
speaker selects a subset of snapshots, merge them to screen dumps made by a
representation-making software like MS-Powerpoint. Using an appropriate
camera tool he can play the whole representation by connecting the camera
to a video projector or to a TV screen.
• Image server
Snapshots on the camera can be accessible either from a web server or a web
browser for various purposes : snapshots manipulations (for example
cropping), research, duplication, and so on. In this case, a snapshot access
authorization is required.

• Snapshot visualization
Snapshots can be visualised either on the camera’s small LCD screen or on
PC screen or either on the TV screen. For each case an appropriate GUI must
be designed to fit the display features and snapshot display constraints if any.
• Snapshot printing
Snapshots can be printed on a local or a remote professional printer. For the
last case, snapshots must be sent first using network capabilities.

4- The digital album
With the emerging of the new non volatile removable memory generation such as
the PLED proposed by HITACHI[HIT99] which offers a storage capacity of one
gigabyte, several thousands of snapshots can fit simultaneously on the camera’s
memory. The creation of a digital album on the digital camera is from now on
possible.
Current digital cameras organize pictures as a sequential list of files (one JPEG
image per file) in a removable media (CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Floppy) and files
are named by a sequence number (such as IMG001.JPG) or by a time code (such as
IMG991004-103127.JPG). To retrieve a picture, the user can only scan the snapshot
one by one.
This organization is not appropriate to visualize thousands snapshot and the user
needs other means to retrieve a subset of the album.

Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation

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Storage and retrieval criteria
• the snapshot place
Small GPS positioning modules can output spatiotemporal coordinates by an
USB link. A professional user (i.e. architect, news photographer, insurance
expert…) connects a GPS module to his camera. Each snapshot is marked
with GPS position and can be sorted and retrieved by geographic
coordinates. These coordinates can be associated to countries all over the
world (Japan, France…) and to more precise famous places (Grand Canyon,
Eiffel tower, Pompeii…). Information on the user localization may be found
in his electronic agenda since camera and palmtop will cooperate.
• the snapshot date
The user can retrieve snapshots taken within a time interval. Snapshots are
dated either by the camera internal clock or by an additional GPS (Global
Positioning System) connected to a camera IO port (such as USB). The user
can also retrieve snapshots with time concepts such as "In the night" or "At
Sunset". The user can also retrieve snapshots by events (birthday party,
holidays…) founded in the user electronic agenda.
• the snapshot content
Content criteria can be the dominant colors in some areas of the snapshot or
by the presence of specific shapes (portrait, group of standing persons,
building…). But the user can also retrieve snapshots by selecting a similar
snapshot in the album.
• the keywords extracted from a photographer's comment
Some cameras (i.e. Epson PC 800) integrate an audio input to record vocal
comments of a snapshot. The comment is "recognized" with speech
recognition software. The sentences subtitle the snapshot at display time.
Moreover, keywords extracted from the sentences are used to retrieve the
snapshots.
All these criteria can be combined to refine or to broaden the selection in the
album. Several GUI are required to compose criteria in snapshot retrieval in order to
fit the device ergonomic (camera 2 inch LCD screen with a 4-kay pad, HDTV screen
with remote control pad, PC with a full keyboard and mouse…)
Indexing
Retrieve snapshots in the album can be done with criteria such as the date, the
place, and the content of the snapshot but also on keywords extracted from the
photographer's comments. This search can be done in a short time only if all
snapshots are yet indexed. Several extracting and indexing techniques are required.
Main techniques are listed and detailed below.
• The place
Since common people (unless they are master mariners!) are not able
understand GPS polar coordinates, GPS coordinate must be associated with

Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation

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well-known geographic place such as "Eiffel Tower @ Paris @ France". The
association between GPS coordinates and places are stored in a GIS
(Geographical Information System). But current GIS stores gigabits of
geographical information concerning tourist place or urban cadastral register.
We propose to embed a small GIS in the camera to store the shapes (i.e.
polygon of GPS coordinates) of countries and main areas in the world (Los
Angeles area, Sahara desert…). This embedded GIS can be completed with
local maps or thematic maps that are temporary installed. We propose to
externalize GPS-to-Place association: when the user connect his camera to a
network, the association is requested to a global external GIS for each new
GPS coordinates.
• The date
The GPS date gives both the global time (GMT) and a local time (when the
localization is coupled with the time zone) since the internal clock may give
a time difference when the user goes into different time zone and does not
reset the camera clock. The last drawback may false search with time
concept.
• The visual content
Techniques to extract colors and shapes in images are now classical and
industrialized in products such as VIRAGE, IBM QBIC, … We propose to
embed simple techniques in the camera such as color characterization of the
nine areas of the snapshot or shape segmentation. Others heavy techniques
may be applied later when snapshots are upload on a PC or on a server.
• The photographer's comment
Speech recognition can be used to extract keywords from the photographer's
comment; hence snapshots are indexed with these keywords. Some video
retrieval servers already use speech recognition to index videos ([Mina98],
Informedia [Wact96], Tr@nsdoc [Chen97]). Presently, embedded speech
recognition is limited to about a hundred of words: it now widely used in
mobile phones (Philips…) to retrieve phone numbers by voice. For a better
speech recognition and a better keyword extraction, the comment is uploaded
to a PC or a server that extracts keywords. Then the camera downloads the
keyword to complete the internal index. Tools such as IBM Via Voice and
Dragon Natural Speaking are available on PC.
All the information on snapshot (color histograms, segmented shapes,
spatiotemporal positions and extracted keywords from vocal comments) are
stored in a multi-criteria index file for fast searching.
Interchange and synchronization
The former indexing techniques requires an amount of memory (for speech
recognition) or a big amount of memory (for GIS database). It is obvious that all these
indexing techniques could not be embedded in the camera even in the next decade.
The problem will not be the limitation of memory or the power of the processor
embedded in the camera. The main reason may be the energy cost of the extraction
since camera batteries must have a long autonomy.

Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation

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We propose to use the CPU and the memory of the PC (or the server) when the
photographer uploads the new snapshots on it. The PC can extract all indexing
information and then send them back to the camera, which can complete its internal
index. This operation named synchronization is done in background when the user
uploads snapshots to print them or to archive them.

5- Security
Both in private and professional use, security mechanisms and rules must be
provided to protect the pictures and to control access to them. Since the camera can be
stolen, lost or lent, the user needs to protect privacy or copyright of his snapshots. A
snapshot can be signed by watermarking [Cox97] to attest picture authenticity, or
encrypt for storage and transfer. Access lists, display and export modes can be
defined. The camera owner can restrict to other camera users to display low quality
copies of snapshot with a copyright banner. Similarly, the display can be limited to
the LCD or the TV output port.
To reach these secutity specifications, we will re-use works done previously on
smartcards [Alex95] and results from the french-australian project named MIM in
which our labs collaborate.

6- Architecture and Prototype
We actually develop, in our laboratory, a prototype including all the functionality
listed above. We simulate the next generation digital camera, the STB, and the
printing (Web) server with a network of PCs limited by several hardware and
software constraints (such as specific interface, LCD screen, tactile screen or
functional keyboard) in order to obtain realistic results.
All the components of this prototype will be realized by using Java Technology
and APIs. We plan that Java technologies will be adopted by electronic consuming
manufacturers in two or three years. For example camera will support Embedded
Java, or television, JavaTV.
In order to assume the interoperability and the communication between all this
different components, we use the JINI technology, which is also based on Java
[Sun99b]. In fact, JINI technology provides simple mechanisms (which employs the
RMI protocol) which enable devices to form a community. These devices will be able
to communicate together without any planning, installation or human intervention
(figure 3).

Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation
Client
Application

9

Remote Service

Jini interface
(discovery / join)
Jini

Jini
RMI Call

Java
Operating S ystem
network

Java
Operating S ystem
network

figure 3 : Communication with the JINI technology

Moreover, JINI technology does not require any particular network (for
example, TCP/IP, IRDA or wireless network can be used) or operating system (all of
the operating system being proposed in our architecture provide the features necessary
to support Jini).
With this architecture, the client application will be the same on a PC
(running under Windows operating system and using the TCP/IP network protocol)
and a digital camera (running under javaOS operating system and using an IRDA for
the network connection).
The figure 4 describe the communication between the different components
present in our prototype. In this example, a digital camera is linked to a SetTop Box
to display the photography on the TV screen. The Set-Top-Box will also provide an
access to web services, to download, or to export photography on the Internet
network.
Digital Camera

TV and SetTopBox

Image Server
indexed images

Web Server

STB Xlet
or PC applet

Standalone
Java
Application

Servlet ,
ASP,
EJB,
...

WAN
proxy

eJava , pJava
JVM, KJava VM

JINI

eJava , pJava
JVM

HTTP,IIOP
SSL

System and software layers

Fig. 4 : Digital camera in the "home area network"

Digital photography and computer technology : a promising field of innovation

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7- Conclusion
In this paper, we propose to integrate the digital camera in the Home Environment
composed of several wired and wireless devices. The aim of this integration is to
enhance camera’s interoperability and consequently its ability to provide services.
Digital camera will provide not only local but remote services too. In the last case,
local devices serves as proxies to communicate with remote servers. The efficiency
of the services offered will depend on snapshots organisation and retrieval on the
camera and the memories capacity. The recent memory evolution allows to solve the
last problem. To solve the snapshot organisation problem, we have proposed to use
multicriteria indexing techniques.
Our proposed architecture will contribute
consequently to make digital cameras more attractive and more expanding.

References
[Adje97]
[Alex95]
[Chen97]

[Cox97]

[Dela96]

[Der99]
[Hita99]

[Jini99]
[Mile98]
[Mina98]

[MOB99]
[SUN99b]
[SUN99]
[Wact96]

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1997, pp103-110.
I.J.Cox, J.Killian, H.Krawczyk, Y.Mansour; Secure spread spectrum
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see Handy21, Micheal Derzoutos, LCS/MIT, http://www.lcs.mit.edu
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http://semiconductor.hitachi.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?pr_id=pmmxxpt008d1
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The mobinet web site, http://www.mobinet.com
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http://www.sun.com/jini/overview
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