Information searching apparatus, method and memory medium therefor

• US 7,685,521 B1
• Filed: 03/17/2000
• Issued: 03/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Ikeda, Yuji, Ueda, Takaya, Itoh, Fumiaki, Otani, Noriko, Fujii, Kenichi
• Primary Examiner(s): Sax; Steven P
• Application Number:
  US09/527,590
• Time in Patent Office: 3,658 Days
• Field of Search: 345/804, 345/805, 345806-807, 345/802, 345814-816, 345853-855, 345766-767, 345711-714, 345/782, 345716-717, 345723-726, 707/104.1, 707/102, 707/10, 715/968, 715714-726, 715748-749
• US Class Current: 715/722
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 715/968 interface for database querying and retrieval

Abstract

Range of the object of search is specified without specific designation by the user. In case changing of the image is instructed by an image operation portion, an image changing portion changes the image and displays such image on an image display portion, and the displayed image is held in a scope holding portion as the range of the object of search. The operation from a map operation portion also is similarly processed, whereby the range of the document constituting the object of search can be specified without specific designation by the user.

Claims

1. An information searching apparatus comprising:

a search device controlling a search of document information in accordance with a search condition;

a camera control device controlling a field of view of a camera by panning, tilting, and zooming of the camera;

a memory holding object information about an object in a field of view of the camera controlled by the camera control device, as a range of search, wherein the search device uses the object information as a part of the search condition to control the search;

a memory control device controlling the memory to hold the object information in a case of a change being made to the field of view; and

a display control device controlling a display of an image from the camera and a final result of document information of the object in the field of view controlled by the camera control device, selected from the searched document information, wherein the final result that is displayed includes the search results obtained by the search controlled by the search device in accordance with the object information in combination with the rest of the search condition.

2. An information searching method comprising the steps of:

controlling a search, performed by a search device, of document information in accordance with a search condition;

controlling a field of view of a camera by panning, tilting and zooming of the camera;

holding object information, in a memory, about an object in a field of view of the camera controlled by the camera control device, as a range of search, wherein the search device uses the object information as a part of the search condition to control the search, and controlling the memory to hold the object information in a case of a change being made to the field of view, as a range of search; and

controlling a display of an image from the camera and a final result of document information of the object in the field of view controlled by the camera control device, selected from the searched document information, wherein the final result that is displayed includes the search results obtained by the search controlled by the search device in accordance with the object information in combination with the rest of the search condition.