PURPOSE: To freely display a picture corresponding to the request of a user by coding and storing the combination of a main picture and plural sub pictures to be allocated to this main picture.
CONSTITUTION: The display areas of sub pictures A and B are allocated under the main picture, and these sub pictures complement the main picture. qi pieces of sub pictures A and ri pieces of sub pictures B are respectively provided as the candidates of pictures optimum to (p) pieces of main pictures provided as candidates, the combination of these pictures is stored in the form of a table inside an information storage means 5, and series of code numbers are added to each of combination. When this combination is selected by a keyboard 1 or the like, the layout information of sub pictures is extracted from a cub picture information storage means 4 according to the contents information of the selected combination, synthesized with the main picture from a main picture information storage means 3 and displayed on the screen of a display means 6.
MATSUMOTO TOMOO
KURITA NAOKI
