Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for providing a comics-animation, and in particular to an improved method for providing a comics-animation which can give the feeling of movement to comics, by implementing compositely static comics images and dynamic animation, and a computer-readable medium storing data of the comics- animation.

Background of the Invention The comics are pictures for comically and briefly satirizing or criticizing the life or society by exaggerating or omitting characters of an object. Especially, comics and realistic narrative comics composed of at least four illustrations have been popularized for a long time.

Firstly, original pictures are drawn by a comic artist with a pen or the like, copied and printed on printing paper, and bound as a comic book. Accordingly, the comics have a static property. A reader reading the comics connects the whole

story through dialogs by the static images in his/her mind, and infers dynamic actions of the characters.

Recently, a plurality of sites for providing comics have been produced due to remarkable increase and distribution of an internet medium. However, the sites also simply scan comic books in a plane and provide images.

An animation where characters realistically move is compared with the comics. The animation is produced by using a principle of a movie. In every scene, original pictures are photographed and made as a film, and the scenes are connected at least 24 cuts per second, thereby lively expressing the characters.

The animations provided or sold through an internet or CD-ROM are static animations or dynamic animations. A production process of the comics is simplified, and the comics are easily recorded and stored due to a small data capacity. However, the comics do not give the feeling of movement to the characters. Conversely, the animation realistically express the characters with the movement, but expenses, efforts and time for producing the animation are considerably consumed. In addition, it takes a long time to download the animation through the internet due to a large data capacity. It is thus difficult to provide the animation through a network or recording medium. Especially, the comics have gradually occupied an important portion of

mobile contents due to development and distribution of mobile telecommunication. Nevertheless, it is a heavy burden for animation providers and users to transmit such large capacity animation data through a mobile telecommunication network.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a method for providing a comics- animation which enables a user to enjoy comics and animation by adding a dynamic animation function to a static comics function.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for providing a comics-animation which can obtain animation image effects without transmitting large capacity image data at a time, by providing relatively small capacity static comics images to a client in a server and client system, and transmitting corresponding motion pictures upon the user's request.

In order to achieve the above-described object of the invention, there is provided a method for providing comics- animation by computers, which includes a memory for recording and storing image data composed by static frame data having image information and dynamic frame data having

image information continued to the static frame data by play units and audio data corresponding to the dynamic frame data, comprising the steps of: (a) extracting the static frame data; (b) composing a comic unit page by arranging the extracted frame data as a frame and outputting it; (c) extracting the dynamic data frame data corresponding to a frame of the comic unit page by play units; (d) extracting the audio data corresponding to the dynamic frame data; and (e) outputting the extracted dynamic frame data consecutively and providing the audio data simultaneously.

Preferably, the step (cc) is executed when there is a signal input of a user.

Also, preferably, the signal input is achieved by clicking the one frame of the comic unit page.

More preferably, the steps is executed automatically from the first frame of the comic unit pages and then it is determined whether the execution is completed until the last frame, if not, a routine goes to the step (a) and then the same steps are executed repeatedly.

More preferably, the static frame data includes frame arrangement information to locations and sizes of frames and composes the comic unit pages according to the frame arrangement information.

According to an another aspect of the present

invention, a computer-readable medium recording execution data of comics-animation is characterized in that the comics-animation execution data is recorded to the computer- readable medium as static frame data having image information and dynamic frame data having image information continued to the static frame data by play units, and the static frame data is extracted and arranged as framed and so formed the comic unit page, the dynamic frame data corresponding to a frame of the comic unit page is extracted and outputted by play units and simultaneously the audio data corresponding to the dynamic frame data is extracted and outputted.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The present invention will become better understood with reference to the accompanying drawings which are given only by way of illustration and thus are not limitative of the present invention, wherein: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a hardware resource structure for implementing a method for providing a comics-animation in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention; Figure 2 is an example of a structure diagram illustrating data of the comics-animation in accordance with

the preferred embodiment of the present invention; Figure 3 is an example illustrating comics unit page implemented by static frame data in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention; Figure 4 is an example illustrating animation implemented by dynamic frame data in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention; Figure 5 is a flowchart showing sequential steps of the method for providing the comics-animation in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention; and Figure 6 is a flowchart showing sequential steps of a method for providing a comics-animation in accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION A method for providing a comics-animation by computers and a computer-readable medium storing data of the comics- animation in accordance with preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. As the present invention may be embodied in several forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof, it should also be understood that the embodiments discussed later are not limited by any of the details of the

description, unless otherwise specified, but rather should be construed broadly within its spirit and scope as defined in the appended claims, and therefore all changes and modifications that fall within the metes and bounds of the claims, or equivalences of such metes and bounds are therefore intended to be embraced by the appended claims.

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a hardware resource structure for executing the method for providing the comics-animation in accordance with the present invention. The hardware is a personal computer or general-purpose computer such as a server system. For example, when a user embodies a comics-animation through a recording medium recording and storing comics-animation data such as a CD-ROM, the personal computer where an Intel Pentium processor is loaded can be used as the hardware resource. In addition, when the user is a client terminal accessing through a network such as a LAN or internet, the Unix, Linux and NT-based server can be used as the hardware resource.

Referring to Figure 1, a main control unit 10 controls the whole units of the hardware, and provides the comics- animation through a program, which is not shown. For instance, the main control unit 10 is linked to an input device 30 such as a mouse and keyboard, a display device 40 such as an LCD or CRT, and an audio output device 50 such as

a speaker through an I/O interface 20.

In addition, a memory 60 linked to the main control unit 10 may be not only the ROM, DRAM, SDRAM and EPROM but also the recording medium such as the CD-ROM. The memory 60 stores data of the comics-animation. The data of the comics- animation are classified into image data 100 and audio data 200. The image data 100 are image data of the comics- animation in accordance with the present invention, and the audio data 200 are voice or effective sound data corresponding to the comics-animation.

Figure 2 shows an example of the image data 100. As illustrated in Figure 2, the image data 100 are composed of a plurality of page data 110. Each page corresponds to one page of a comic book (abbreviated as comics unit page'), and also corresponds to a unit screen provided to the user through the display device 40 such as the monitor.

The respective page data 110 are composed of a plurality of frame data 120. The frame data 120 corresponds to one cut of the comics. Each of the frame data 120 includes different comics image data. Preferably, although the frame data 120 have different images like a movie film, the frame data 120 can produce motion pictures such as the animation by consecutive processing.

The frame data 120 are classified into static frame data 130 and dynamic frame data 140. The static frame data

130 are data composing the comics unit page outputted through the display device 40. That is, the static frame data 130 are combined to compose, for example, one page of the comic book.

For instance, the static frame data 130 includes a page location information region 131, a frame arrangement information region 132 and an image information region 133.

The page location information region 131 contains comics unit page information to which the frame belongs, and the frame arrangement information region 132 relates to frame location and size information to determine a location and size of the static frame in order to compose the comics unit page.

Each of the static frame data 130 includes dynamic frame data 140 composed of images connected thereto. The dynamic frame data 140 are provided to the user in play units, not frame units. For example, 1.1 to 1.3 (playl) of dynamic frame is provided to static framel, 2.1 to 2.3 (play2) of dynamic frame is provided to static frame2,3. 1 to 3.3 (play3) of dynamic frame is provided to static frame3, and 4.1 to 4.3 (play4) of dynamic frame is provided to static frame4.

The dynamic frame data 140 includes a frame location information region 141 containing information on the static frame to which the dynamic frame data 140 belongs, and a

frame execution order, and an image information region 142 containing comics images.

The page data, frame data, static frame data and dynamic frame data defined above are used in the specifications and claims of the invention without additional definitions.

In this embodiment, the static frame data 130 and the dynamic frame data 140 are individually explained. However, classifications of the data are not intended to be limiting.

Alternatively, the frame data are data having a series of consecutive image, the static frame data are randomly selected from the frame data, and the other frames connected to the selected static frame data are used as the dynamic frame data.

A method for forming a comics-animation screen by using the frame data in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be explained.

Embodiment of Comics Unit Page by Static Frame Figure 3 is an example illustrating comics screen provided by the static frame data in accordance with the present invention. As depicted in Figure 3, reference numeral 300 denotes a comics unit page outputted to the display device 40 of the user, for example one page of a comic book. The comics unit page 300 is divided into a few

frames. Four frames are exemplified in Figure 3 (indicated by Arabic figures 1 to 4). The respective frames correspond to one cut of the comics, and are filled with the corresponding static frame data.

In detail, the static frame data 1,2, 3 and 4 of the frame data column 120 correspond respectively to frames 1,2, 3 and 4 of the comics unit page. That is, images 130a, 130b, 130c and 130d of the static frame data 130 are extracted and combined to correspond to the frames 1,2, 3 and 4, thereby composing one unit page. Here, location and arrangement of the images 130a, 130b, 130c and 130d are determined according to the frame arrangement information 132.

Embodiment of Animation by Dynamic Frame Figure 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating processes for embodying an animation by the dynamic frame data in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention. The dynamic frame data 140 are provided according to input of a predetermined execution signal. For example, when the user accessing the comics unit page of Figure 3 through the display device 40 clicks the frame 1, the dynamic frame data playl connected to the static frame data 1 are continuously outputted through a program, which is not shown. That is, images 140a, 140b and 140c of the dynamic frame data 140 shown in Figure 4 are sequentially outputted

to compose comics unit pages 300a, 300b and 300c, and the audio data 200 corresponding to the images are extracted and outputted at the same time. As a result, the user can enjoy the animation where the comics and characters lively move.

On the basis of the aforementioned constitution and operation, the method for providing the comics-animation in accordance with the present invention will now be explained in more detail.

In accordance with the present invention, the comics- animation can be provided individually through the personal computer or client terminal connected to the network by the server.

Embodiment of Animation by User Input Figure 5 is a flowchart showing sequential steps of the method for providing the comics-animation by using the personal computer. As illustrated in Figure 5, the main control unit 10 provides an initial screen of the comics- animation to the user through the display device 40 by the program in accordance with the present invention. The initial screen provides introduction of the comics-animation and a search menu for searching and displaying a wanted page.

Therefore, the user can watch the comics-animation from the first page or search and watch a wanted page.

When the user selects a wanted page (S400), the main

control unit 10 searches the corresponding page data (110 of Figure 2) of the image data (100 of Figure 1) according to the program of the invention, and extracts the static frame data 130 therefrom (S410).

As described above, the extracted static frame data 130 are arranged in proper locations and sizes according to the frame arrangement information 132, to compose the comics unit page (300 of Figure 3) and output it to the display device 40 (S420). Accordingly, the user can watch the image of one static comics page.

Here, when the user intends to watch a different page, the routine returns to S400 by page selection. If not, the routine goes to S440 (S430).

In step S440, whether the user wants to stop watching the animation is determined and then when the user selects an end, the program is ended. If not, the routine goes to S450.

In step S450, the user accessing the comics unit page 300 selects a wanted frame. For instance, the user can click a wanted frame through the input device 30 such as the mouse.

According to the program, the main control unit 10 extracts the dynamic frame data 140 corresponding to the frame selected by the user (S460), and simultaneously extracts the audio data 200 corresponding to the dynamic frame data (S470). As discussed earlier, the extracted

dynamic frame data 140 are consecutively provided to the display device 40, thereby embodying the motion picture animation. The audio data 200 are outputted through the sound output device 50 such as the speaker (S480). Therefore, the user can enjoy the animation and effective sounds as if he/she watched a cartoon film.

At this time, after the dynamic data frame 140 for the selected frame are provided in play units, the routine returns to S410 to compose the comics unit page with the static frame data, output the comics unit page and maintain a standby mode. In this regard, the user can embody a different animation by clicking a different frame or changing a page.

Automatic Embodiment of Animation In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the animation can be automatically provided, instead of providing the animation whenever the user clicks a wanted frame. The automatic embodiment of the animation is shown in Figure 6.

Referring to Figure 6, when the user selects automatic animation execution in the initial screen, which is not shown, count values Fcount and Pcount are set up as initial values (S500). Preferably, the user can select automatic execution of partial pages, and thus reset the

count values.

When the count values are set up, the main control unit 10 extracts the static frame data 130 of the first page (S510), compose the comics unit page 300, and outputs it to the screen (S520).

Thereafter, the dynamic frame data 140 corresponding to the first frame of the comics unit page 300 are automatically extracted (S530), and the corresponding audio data 200 are also extracted (S540). As discussed earlier, the extracted dynamic frame data 140 are consecutively outputted with the sound effect, to embody the animation (S550).

When execution of one frame animation is finished, the frame count value Fcount is increased by one (S560).

Whether the frame count value is greater than a previously- set frame number is determined. If not, it is considered that the animation of the whole frames of the unit page is not completely executed. Therefore, the routine returns to S510 to perform the animation function for the second frame (S570).

When the animation for the whole frames is ended by repeating the aforementioned procedure, the page count value P-count is increased by one (S580). Whether the page count value is greater than a previously-set page number is determined. If not, it is deemed that the user does not

watch the whole pages. Accordingly, the routine returns to S510 to perform the comics-animation function for the next page (S590).

Industrial Applicability When the comics-animation function for the whole pages is finished by repeating the procedure, the routine is ended.

In accordance with the present invention, the user can obtain the comics effects by providing the comics pages composed of the static frames, and also enjoy the comics- animation with the feeling of movement, by providing the dynamic images and sound corresponding to a wanted comics cut, namely one frame.

Moreover, the comics-animation can be efficiently provided through the network, by firstly providing a small amount of image data including the static frames, and then partially providing the dynamic images according to the input signal of the user.