IMAGE-DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reliably identify a monitoring camera even if camera names at different management locations coincide, and at the same time to reduce com plexity when adding an upper-level name. SOLUTION: When an image-distribution server (ENC) 13 receives a distribution request from image-distribution servers (DEC) 17 and 27, an address identification section 14 determines whether the network address matches its own network address. A character synthesizer 11 reads a camera name when it is determined that the network address of a request source matches with the own network address, or reads the upper-level name and a camera name from a memory 12 when it is determined that they do not match each other for synthesizing to a photograph image of a specified monitoring camera 10. The image-distribution server (ENC) 13 encodes an image that is synthesized by the character synthesizer 11 for distributing to the image-distribution server (DEC) 17 or 27 of the distribution request source and for displaying the image on a monitor apparatus 18 or 28. COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO