The present invention relates to an information processing system having motion picture displaying and recording functions.
Applications of computer graphics have become important in various fields in recent years. One application converts and displays a great amount of numerical data computed by information processing devices such as digital computers. The numerical data for physical or engineering analysis is converted into a still picture to be grasped at a glance, so that they may be efficiently recognized. In two- or three dimensional analyses of fluids, for example, the display of motion pictures (i.e., animations) is more effective than the still pictures for grasping the motions of the flow momently so that the grasp of the meaning of phenomena and the clarification of causes can be efficiently accomplished.
The known technique relating to the motion picture displaying and recording system by the digital computer is using the single-frame picture function of the video tape recorder "VTR" in "Nikkei CG (on pp 16, June of 1988)", for example. The structure, as disclosed, is shown here in FIG. 2.
According to this technology, the usual input/output device 12 of the digital computer, provides data to an external frame data memory 14 "frame memory", which stores only the RGB picture data generated in the digital computer for one frame "frame" of a display device 17. The picture data of one frame are read out from memory 14, when stored, at an output rate according to the conversion system of picture signal converter 15 and sent out to the picture signal converter 15 so that they are converted into analog video signals (e.g., NTSC (National Television System Committee) signals) and fed to a recording device (VTR) 1.cent.5. Since the frame memory 14 repeatedly reads out the same frame data until it is rewritten by new frame data (i.e., the picture data of the next frame) inputted from 10P 12, the same frame is held on the display device 17 as a still picture.
In order that the frame data formed by the digital computer in the aforementioned system may be observed as motion pictures, it is instructed from the side of the digital computer to repeatedly feed the frame data of only one frame to the recording device 16, as described above, so that only one frame may be recorded (by a single-frame shot) through the control interface of the recording device 16 for one out of many repetitions. By repeating these operations for subsequent frames, the frame data to be viewed later as motion pictures are sequentially stored in the recording device 16 as plural still pictures, with the recorder being stopped between different frames. At last, the single-frame picture data stored in the recording device 16 are played back or reproduced at an ordinary continuous speed and displayed in the display device 17 so that they are displayed as motion pictures to the human eyes (called the "single-frame motion picture system").