JPH0120748B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] The present invention relates to a data display device, and particularly to a CRT display device.
Suitable for managing display information such as displaying screens on (cathode ray tube) and updating the currently displayed screen.
Regarding CRT display devices.

When displaying a CRT screen, it has conventionally been necessary to output one-to-one information with the refresh memory, that is, display data for the display screen. Therefore, even when a figure composed of a plurality of pieces of display data is used repeatedly, it is necessary to align all the display data. Recently, there has been a rapid increase in the number of systems that monitor plants by displaying a simulated display of the target plant, and CRT display screens have become increasingly complex, and the number of display screens has also increased significantly. However, there are many cases where the same figure is displayed in large numbers not only between display screens but also within the same screen.In fact, as display screens become more complex and the number of screens increases, standardization of figures becomes essential, and the same figure is displayed repeatedly. The number of cases being displayed is increasing. On the other hand, the display response time of CRTs has long been a problem, and due to the increase in the amount of displayed information and the complexity of display formats, the display response time is becoming slower than ever. In order to deal with this, recently a method has been adopted in which a buffer memory for one screen is provided, the same display data as the refresh memory is edited in advance on this memory, and the entire refresh memory is rewritten at once. However, this method only reduces the overhead caused by inputting and outputting piecemeal information, and there is no change in the amount of input and output information. Therefore, even if there are many identical figures, it is necessary to prepare all the display data, which requires more buffer memory than necessary.
The amount of input/output information is large, and the CRT processing time is still long. There are problems such as CRT display response time,
Fundamental improvement measures for computer-side software in terms of performance, such as required memory capacity, have reached their limits.

The present invention solves the conventional problems and displays not only screens in which many identical figures are distributed, but also all screens that can be treated as a combination of figures even if they are not the same, and partially updates the display. In order to greatly reduce the amount of input/output information, and use logical figure codes (for figures with multiple display data) instead of physical refresh memory display data, An object of the present invention is to provide a CRT display device that can be handled in units of recognition codes (recognition codes) and that has dramatically improved performance such as CRT display response time and required memory capacity.

The gist of the present invention is to pre-store text and graphics (characters and graphics composed of multiple pieces of display data (hereinafter simply referred to as "figures") of any size as one unit). This is due to the addition of a graphic library memory (code memory) that can be stored.

By adding figure library memory,
On the computer side, figure data (multiple display data)
There is no need to memorize the figure; instead, the figure can be displayed by memorizing a simple code (macro code) that recognizes the figure and outputting this figure code to a CRT display device. However, the microcomputer in the CRT display device must be configured to extract the corresponding graphic data stored in the graphic library memory from a given graphic code and transfer it to the refresh memory.

Therefore, the amount of information that the computer transfers to the CRT display device will be greatly reduced, and the screen storage memory, display buffer memory, etc. on the computer side will also be extremely small, and the processing on the computer side will also become very logical. , since the burden on the computer side is greatly reduced, the problems of the conventional method are solved all at once.

Specific embodiments of the present invention are shown in FIGS. 1, 2, and 3.
This will be explained with reference to FIGS. 4, 5, and 6.

FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of a conventional CRT display device, and FIG. 2 shows an example of the configuration of a conventional CRT display device, and FIG.
This is an example showing the configuration of a CRT display device. Next, the operation of an embodiment of the CRT display device according to the present invention will be explained with reference to FIG. The basic operations of data transfer between the central processing unit CPU of the computer and the refresh memory 5 and the visual display of the contents of the refresh memory 5 on the viewer 8 are exactly the same in structure and operation as in the prior art. That is, the microcomputer 2,
The microprogram memory 3 and interface circuit 1 transfer display data transferred from the central processing unit CPU to the data bus DB and buffer 6.
The contents of the refresh memory 5 are stored in the refresh memory 5 via the buffer 6, the data bus DB, and the interface circuit 1 according to a command from the central processing unit CPU. I do things. The refresh memory address for reading and writing at this time is specified by address bus AB. The refresh memory 5 stores display data (display status and character code) for each pixel in correspondence with the display position of the viewer 8. Next, the contents of the refresh memory 5 are controlled by the timing control circuit 4.
The signals are periodically read out to the buffer 6 and sequentially visually displayed on the viewer 8 via the video signal forming circuit 7.

Next, the figure library memory 9 according to the present invention is preliminarily stored in the figure library memory 9 by the central processing by the microcomputer 2.
A group of graphic display data transferred from the CPU is stored via the interface circuit 1. When displaying a figure, the microcomputer 2 takes in the figure recognition code given from the central processing unit CPU via the interface circuit, and uses the figure recognition code to display the corresponding figure data (multiple display data) in the figure library memory 9. ) and stores it in the refresh memory 5 via the data bus DB and buffer 6. AB is an address bus, 4 is a timing control circuit, and 7 is a video signal forming circuit.

Next, the data structure of the graphic library memory 9 will be explained with reference to FIG. In FIG. 3, figures 1, 2, etc. are macro codes corresponding to display data.
First, there is a figure index table 91 that stores the storage location, figure size, and data length of figure data for each figure, and a figure data table 92 that stores figure data (multiple display data) of individual figures.
There is. The graphic data table 92 stores image information that is the same as the contents of the refresh memory 5 for each graphic. The data pointer of the figure index table 91 indicates the storage position of the corresponding figure data in the figure data table 92.
ΔH and ΔV represent the horizontal and vertical sizes of the corresponding figure. Further, the data length indicates the size of the corresponding graphic data stored in the graphic data table 92.

Next, according to Figure 4 A and B, when displaying the figure
The flow of processing on the CPU side and the microcomputer 2 side of the CRT display device will be explained.

On the CPU side, the coordinates of the display starting point of the figure (FIG. 4A) and the figure number (or figure recognition code) may be instructed to the CRT display device.

On the microcomputer 2 side (Figure 4B)
The index information of the target figure is retrieved from the figure library memory 9 according to the given figure number (step 410), and the given display starting point coordinates and the values of ΔH and ΔV of the index information are stored (step 412). In step 414, the figure data of the target figure is fetched from the figure library memory 9,
Find the address of the corresponding refresh memory 5 from the display starting point coordinates, ΔH, and ΔV that were previously memorized,
The contents of the refresh memory 5 are rewritten (step 416). By performing the above processing, it becomes possible to display graphics according to the method of the present invention.

FIG. 5 shows a concrete image of the graphical display according to the present invention. In other words, figure 1 is a valve figure in which ΔH is "2" and ΔV is "2", and figure 2 is a valve figure in which ΔH is "4".
The shape is a "kanji" with ΔV of "2", and both are stored in the shape library memory. Therefore, in order to display the information on viewer 8 in Figure 5, the computer only needs to instruct the information of (H ₁ , V ₁ ) and figure 1, and (H ₂ , V ₂ ) and figure 2. That's a good thing.

In other words, the horizontal position of the display starting point coordinates of figure 1
It is sufficient to specify the information of H ₁ and the vertical position V ₁ , and the horizontal position H ₂ and vertical position V ₂ of the coordinates of the display starting point of the figure 2.

FIG. 6 is a drawing for explaining a comparison with a conventional example. FIG. 6a shows computer output information of a conventional example, and FIG. 6b shows computer output information according to the present invention. Further, H indicates a horizontal address, and V indicates a vertical address.

When displaying the case of a valve on the viewer 8 from the computer side as shown in the figure, in the conventional method, it is necessary to arrange the display data for each pixel as shown in (a), but in the present invention, it is necessary to arrange the display data for each pixel as shown in (b). All you need to do is specify the figure recognition code (figure 1 code and figure 2 code). Also, the 6th
In the figure, it can be seen that if Figure 1 and Figure 2 are combined and stored in the figure library memory 9 as one figure, the amount of output information will be further reduced.

According to this embodiment, the following effects can be expected when there is a group of screens in which many identical figures are distributed, or when there is a screen that can be configured by a combination of figures even if they are not identical, that is, for any screen. (All screens can be constructed from a combination of figures.) The amount of information output from the computer side when displayed on the screen is greatly reduced. The memory required on the computer side to memorize the screen is extremely small.
On the computer side, it is sufficient to manage it in logical units of figures. The above-described steps greatly reduce the burden on the computer and shorten the display response time of the CRT.

Therefore, according to the present invention, a dramatic improvement in memory capacity and performance can be expected.

In addition, the present invention uses a vector generator to express input parameters (starting point, direction, , length, color, etc.) or dot patterns themselves, or dot patterns themselves, and can be realized using the same method using software.

As a result, it is possible to easily realize a CRT display system in which different character and graphic representation systems can be selected depending on the required degree of display performance such as display speed and display accuracy.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiment, but includes, for example, a CRT display device in which a graphic library memory is shared with a microprogram memory, and the graphic library memory is not specially prepared.

It has various configurations, such as preparing multiple refresh memories and adding an overlapping function.
A CRT display device in which a graphic library memory of the present invention is added to a CRT display device.

It can be easily assumed that effects equivalent to or greater than those of the present invention can be obtained.

Furthermore, if the method of the present invention is entirely processed on the computer side, for example by preparing a graphic library memory on the computer side, the amount of information exchanged between the CPU and the CRT display device will not decrease. Both methods can be expected to have the effect of making it easier to manage screens and standardizing software.

Also, the information stored in the figure library memory,
Similar effects can be expected even if only the graphic data is used and the index information (pointer, ΔH, ΔV, data length) is configured as another memory.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of a conventional CRT display device, and FIG. 2 shows an example of the configuration of a CRT display device according to the present invention. FIG. 3 shows the data structure of the graphic library memory according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing on the microcomputer side and instructions on the CPU side to realize the present invention, and FIG. 5 shows a concrete image of the present invention. The upper part shows the image displayed on the viewer, and the lower part shows the image in the figure library memory. Figure 6 shows the screen, in order to display the figures.
An example comparing the conventional method and the method of the present invention with respect to information output from the computer side will be shown. 1...Interface circuit, 2...Microcomputer, 3...Micro program memory,
4...Timing control circuit, 5...Refresh memory, 8...Viewer.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a CRT display device that displays characters, graphics, etc., multiple characters and graphics display data are stored in a library memory along with corresponding character and graphics display code strings, and the library memory also stores a graphics index table and , a graphic data table, and when displaying, by specifying the stored display code, the characters and graphic display data of the specified code are read from the library memory and displayed. The figure index table contains the horizontal and vertical display sizes ΔH and ΔV of each figure, a pointer indicating the data storage position in the figure data table, and the data length of the figure data. 1. A CRT display device, wherein a pixel code is stored in the graphic data table.