JPH08287225A - Image simulation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide the image simulation device which is free from trouble and low in cost and can accurately obtain an image of an article having its partial appearance altered. CONSTITUTION: Material data are deformed in conformity with the shape of an insertion area as an area that an image of material which can be altered occupies in an original image to be processed to generate deformed material data and data to be processed which represents the original image in the insertion area are updated based on the deformed material data; and the updated data to be processed are shaded on the basis of mask data for shading and the image represented with the shaded data to be processed is displayed. Thus, the image having altered material in the desired area R is obtained.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image simulation apparatus for displaying an external appearance image which may be obtained by changing the material or color of a part or all of a desired article.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Various proposal methods have hitherto been devised for proposing to a customer an article whose material, color, etc. can be changed. As one of such proposed methods, catalogs using "samples" are widely produced. FIG.
1 is a diagram for explaining an example of a catalog for selling a house, and in this diagram, only a page of the catalog 1 is drawn.

In the catalog 1, a photograph 2 of a house (model house) to be sold and samples 3a to 3c of outer wall materials prepared for the house are associated and printed. When this catalog 1 is used, the customer looks at the photograph 2 and the samples 3a to 3c, imagines the appearance of the house when the desired sample is applied to the house of the photograph 2, and determines the material and color pattern of the outer wall material. It will be decided.

[0004]

By the way, the catalog 1
The proposed method using does not have a photograph of the house that actually uses the desired outer wall material, and therefore has the drawback that it is difficult for the customer to grasp a sufficiently clear image. In order to overcome this drawback, it is possible to construct a house by the number of exterior wall materials and shoot them to create a catalog, but generally, the number of exterior wall materials applicable to the same type of house is large. Also, the cost of building a house is extremely high. Therefore, the method of constructing a house for each outer wall material is unrealistic.

By the way, it is also conceivable to create a mask for cutting out only the image portion of the outer wall material and use this mask to create an image (photograph) in which the outer wall material portion of Photo 2 is replaced with another outer wall material. . However, it is often the case that a house is not the only replaceable outer wall material, so it is necessary to make various types of masks. Further, the lightness distribution on the outer wall material, the direction and size of the pattern, and the like change depending on the position where the outer wall material is attached. Therefore, it is not possible to obtain a sufficiently accurate image by simply applying a mask and changing the material and the color pattern.

Although a house may be represented by three-dimensional image data and a desired material (texture) may be mapped to obtain a desired image, it is enormous to create sufficiently high-precision three-dimensional image data. It is laborious and costly, which is also impractical. The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and provides an image simulation apparatus that is low in cost and low in cost, and that can accurately obtain an image of an article whose appearance is partially changed. The purpose is to do.

[0007]

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image simulation apparatus which is processing target data representing an original image to be processed and image data of a material which can form an article represented by the original image. A storage unit that stores material data and inset mask data that represents an inset area that is an area occupied by a changeable material image in the original image; and deforms the material data according to the shape of the inset area. Deformation means for generating transformation material data, fitting means for updating the processing target data in the fitting area based on the transformation material data, and an image represented by the processing target data updated by the fitting means And display means for displaying.

According to a second aspect of the image simulation device, processing target data representing an original image which is a processing target, material data which is image data of a material which can form an article represented by the original image, and the original data. Storage means for storing inset mask data representing an inset area which is an area occupied by an image of a changeable material in the image, and shadow mask data representing lightness or luminance of each pixel in the original image, and the material data Deformation means for deforming according to the shape of the fitting area to generate deformation material data, fitting means for updating the processing target data in the fitting area based on the deformation material data, and the fitting means. Shadowing means for performing a shadowing process based on the shadow mask data for the updated processing target data;
And a display unit for displaying an image represented by the processing target data that has been subjected to the shadowing process by the shadowing unit.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the image simulation apparatus according to the first or second aspect, the fitting mask data is gradation data, and each gradation value represents the fitting area. .
The image simulation device according to claim 4 is the image simulation device according to claim 1.
Alternatively, in the second aspect, the fitting means performs an unsharpness process on the material data to smooth the contour of an image to be fitted in the fitting area.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the image simulation apparatus according to the first or second aspect, the material data represents a polygonal image, and the deforming means includes a vertex of the polygonal image and the fitting region. It is characterized in that the deformable material data is generated by substantially matching the apexes. The image simulation apparatus according to claim 6 is the apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising tiling means for creating the material data by repeatedly arranging unit material data having a predetermined shape and resolution so as to fit in the fitting region. The storage means stores the unit material data. The image simulation apparatus according to claim 7 is the image simulation apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the brightness or luminance of each pixel in the original image is extracted to create gradation data, and the gradation data is unsharpened. It is characterized by comprising a shadowing mask creating means for creating the shadow mask data.

[0011]

According to the image simulation apparatus of the present invention, the transforming means can change the material data stored in the storage means into an inset area which is an area occupied by an image of a changeable material in the original image to be processed. Deformation material data is generated by deforming according to the shape. Further, the fitting means updates the processing target data representing the original image in the fitting area based on the transformation material data, and the display means is represented by the processing target data updated by the fitting means. Display an image. According to the image simulation device of claim 2, the shadowing unit performs the shadowing process on the processing target data updated by the fitting unit based on the shadow mask data stored in the storage unit. The display means displays the image represented by the processing target data that has been subjected to the shadowing process.

According to the image simulation apparatus of the third aspect, the fitting area is represented by each gradation value of the fitting mask data. According to the image simulation device of claim 4, the fitting means includes:
The material data is subjected to unsharpness processing for smoothing the contour of the image to be fitted into the fitting area.

According to the fifth aspect of the image simulation device, the deforming means substantially matches the apex of the polygonal image represented by the material data with the apex of the fitting area to obtain the deformable material data. To generate. According to the image simulation device of claim 6, the storage means stores unit material data of a predetermined shape and resolution,
The tiling means repeatedly arranges the unit material data so as to fit the fitting area to create the material data. According to the image simulation apparatus of claim 7, the shadow-casting mask creating means extracts the brightness or the brightness of each pixel in the original image to create gradation data, and performs the unsharpness process on the gradation data. Then, the shadow mask data is created.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining the outline of the “fitting process” performed by the image simulation apparatus according to the present embodiment. In this figure, α is an image before the fitting process, and β is an image after the fitting process. . In other words, the image simulation apparatus according to the present embodiment performs a process of fitting different outer wall materials into the portion to be changed, that is, the regions R of the outer wall material in this embodiment, to obtain the image β. The image simulation apparatus according to this embodiment will be described in detail below.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the arrangement of an image simulation apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In this figure, 4 is an instruction input device (display means) such as a keyboard, mouse, tablet, etc., and 5 are RGB colors. About 25
A display device such as a CRT capable of expressing colors of 6 gradations or more, 6 is an external storage device (storage means) such as a hard disk having a storage capacity sufficient to store color image data, and 7 is a sufficient resolution such as a color printer. And 8 is an image data input device, such as an image scanner capable of reading a negative or a positive of a color photograph with a sufficient resolution, a CD-R storing color image data obtained by the image scanner, or the like. A drive or the like that reads the data from a magneto-optical disk, a floppy disk, or the like corresponds to this.

Reference numeral 9 denotes a CPU, ROM, RAM, various I / O
A processing device such as a computer having an interface (deformation means, fitting means, shadowing means, tiling means,
Shadowing mask creating means), and the processing device 9
The above-mentioned constituent elements 4 to 8 are connected. Processor 9
Operates based on the program stored in the ROM and the instruction input from the instruction input device 4, stores the color image data input from the image data input device 8 in the external storage device 6, and causes the external storage device 6 to store the color image data. The stored color image data is subjected to the processing described later, and the resulting image is output from the display device 5 and the printing device 7.

A fitting process for creating an image in which another material is fitted into the outer wall material portion of a photograph obtained by photographing a house with such a configuration will be described with reference to FIG.
However, it is assumed that the processing device 9 is executing the program stored in the ROM, and the target color image data (color image data of a house in which a certain outer wall material is used (hereinafter referred to as processing target data) and the outer wall material) The color image data of the sample (hereinafter referred to as unit material data) is processed by the processing device 9 to which a predetermined instruction is input from the instruction input device 4.
It is assumed that the image data is input from the image data input device 8 and already stored in the external storage device 6.

In such a state, the instruction input device 4
When a predetermined instruction is input to the processor 9 from, the process proceeds to step S1. In step S1, first, the processing device 9 reads the processing target data stored in the external storage device 6, and the image represented by this data, that is,
The image of the house is displayed on the display device 8 (see FIG. 4). After that, the processing device 9 that operates in response to the instruction input from the instruction input device 4 causes the image displayed on the display device 5 to have a plurality of gradations (for example, 256 gradations) of the embedding mask data and shadows. Mask data is created.

Here, the mask data for fitting will be described. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an image represented by fitting mask data for the processing target data shown in FIG. 4, and in practice, the fitting mask data represents a grayscale image of a plurality of gradations. The embedding mask data represented by the image of FIG. 5 is actually a gradation value other than “0 (minimum level)” for each surface of the part whose material can be changed in the image represented by the processing target data. The other parts are represented by "0".

However, the gradation value of each surface whose material can be changed is approximated to the gradation value of the corresponding portion in the processing object data, so that the correspondence relationship between the fitting mask data and the processing object data is intuitively obtained. To facilitate understanding, for example, a method in which the processing target data is converted into grayscale image data having 256 gradations and the average value of each pixel forming a surface in the grayscale image is used as the gradation value of the surface is proposed. It is suitable.

On the other hand, the shadow mask data is basically data obtained by extracting only brightness (or brightness) from the data to be processed. An example of the process of creating shadow mask data will be described below. First, the processing target data is converted into grayscale image data having 256 gradations. The grayscale image data obtained here is different from the embedding mask data, and the brightness of each pixel is not influenced by other pixels.

Next, the grayscale image data is
Classify the members into groups such as roofs and walls, and match the maximum brightness (or maximum brightness) in each group. This is because the brightness of each part in the image represented by the data to be processed is
This is because the material may vary greatly depending on the material used, and if such lightness is applied to the material after the modification as it is, an unnatural image may be generated.

An example of the brightness (luminance) correction of each group will be described. In this embodiment, the minimum value of brightness is “0” and the maximum value is “255”.
For example, the first group with the highest brightness (for example,
The brightness of each pixel on the roof is 100-200,
When the brightness of each pixel in the second group (for example, the wall) is 50 to 100, the brightness of all the pixels in the second group is increased by the difference between the maximum brightness of both pixels, that is, “100”.

Strong unsharpness is applied to each group after such brightness correction,
Make the pattern components in each group inconspicuous. Since this unsharpness processing is performed for each group,
The outline of each group is not blurred. of course,
Unsharpness processing excluding the contour part is possible,
If the number of groups that require unsharpness is large, the unsharpness processing may be performed on all the image data collectively. The fitting mask data and the shadow mask data created through the above process are stored in the external storage device 6.

When the above process is completed, the process proceeds to step S2 in FIG. In step S2, a process of selecting the unit material data to be fitted is performed. In the actual selection process, first, the operator inputs a predetermined instruction via the instruction input device 4, whereby a unit image represented by various material data is displayed in a predetermined area on the display surface of the display device 5. . When an operator who refers to these unit images inputs an instruction for selecting desired unit material data via the instruction input device 4, the processing device 9 selects the unit material data.

Next, in step S3, the processing device 9
First, as shown in FIG. 6, an image (unit image) indicated by the selected unit material data is displayed in a region R2 having a preset size. The area R2 is an area on a plane different from the image represented by the processing target data, and is represented by the processing target data even if the area R2 is moved according to the instruction input from the instruction input device 4. It has no effect on the image.

In step S3, the unit image displayed in the area R2 can be enlarged or reduced. Actually, when the operator inputs the enlargement ratio or reduction ratio of the unit image via the instruction input device 4, the processing device 9 enlarges or reduces the unit image at the ratio. At this time, the region R2 is also enlarged or reduced at the same enlargement / reduction ratio as the unit image. Note that the unit material data is image data of sufficiently high resolution, and deterioration of the image quality due to enlargement is such that it cannot be perceived by humans. Further, when the resolution of the unit material data to be used is set in accordance with the resolution of the processing target data, the enlarging / reducing process is unnecessary.

Next, in step S4, a tiling process for the unit image is performed if necessary. This process is a process of repeatedly spreading an arbitrary number of unit images and enlarging the region R2. That is, the resolution of the unit image does not change and the size of the region R2 changes. This processing is performed when the surface for changing the material (specified later) is larger than the unit image. The image data created through the above process will be referred to as material data hereinafter.

Next, in step S5, the deformation processing is performed on the area R2 and the image in the area R2 to create deformation material data. Specifically, the operator operates the instruction input device 4, and the vertices of the region R2 are dragged with the mouse (the instruction input device 4) or the like to a desired position (for example, substantially coincide with the vertices of the target surface). It is done by moving to the position) and applying affine transformation. FIG. 7 shows the region R2 ′ transformed by this transformation process. As is apparent from FIG. 7, the deformation process in this step is performed based on the orientation of the surface on which the material is to be changed. The “face” mentioned here is a face forming an image (house) represented by the processing target data, and is determined by the operator based on the material, the color pattern, the shape of the end portion, and the like.

The affine transformation performed in the above modification process will be described with reference to FIGS. 8 (a) and 8 (b). FIG. 8A is a diagram showing the image A (X, Y) before transformation, where Hi is the height of the image (length in the vertical direction in the figure), and Wi is
Is the width of the image (horizontal length in the figure). Also, FIG.
(B) is a diagram showing the image B (X ′, Y ′) after deformation, and Ho and Wo are the image height (vertical length in the figure) and the image width (horizontal direction in the figure), respectively. Length).

Further, in FIG. 8B, (x0, y
0) to (x3, y3) indicate the coordinates of each vertex of the image,
(X1 ', y1') are the coordinates (x0, y0) and the coordinates (x
1, y1) and the coordinates of the intersection of one side in the height direction of the image A (X, Y) with (x2 ′, y
2 ') indicates the coordinates of the intersection of a straight line passing through the coordinates (x2, y2) and the coordinates (x3, y3) and the extension line of the other side of the image A (X, Y) in the height direction. The affine transformation shown in these figures is performed based on the following equations (1) and (2). X = a ₀ (X '+ a ₁ ) ... (1) Y = a ₂ (x' + a ₃ ) ... (2)

However, a in the above equations (1) and (2)
0 to a3 are values obtained by the expressions (3) to (12) shown below. _{a 0 = dx · Y '+} dx1 ...... (3) a 1 = x0 + ((x0-x2') / Ho) · Y '...... (4) a 2 = dy · X' + dy1 ...... (5) a 3 = Y0 + ((y0-y1 ') / Wo) * X' (6) dx = (dx2-dx1) / Ho (7) dy = (dy2-dy1) / Wo (8) dx1 = (X1'-x0) / Wi (9) dx2 = (x3-x2 ') / Wi (10) dy1 = (y2'-y0) / Hi (11) dy2 = (y3-y1') ) / Hi …… (12)

When the above-described transformation process is completed and a predetermined instruction is input from the instruction input device 4, the process proceeds to step S6.
Go to. In step S6, a surface designation process for designating a portion in the processing target data to be changed, that is, a surface to be changed in the material represented by the processing target data in the image is performed. This surface designation processing is performed by the operator operating the instruction input device 4 to designate a desired portion in the image represented by the processing target data or the image represented by the fitting mask data. The number of surfaces specified here is not limited to one, and it is also possible to specify a plurality of surfaces that are not adjacent to each other.

When the instruction input from the instruction input device 4 is an instruction indicating the end of the surface designation processing, the processing proceeds to step S7, where the material data is fitted only to the surface designated in step S6. Be done. At this time, among the pixels in the area represented by the fitting mask data, the pixels adjacent to the pixels outside the area do not simply replace the color, but also the outline of the area and the surrounding area. The color is changed according to the color of the surrounding pixels so that it becomes smooth (shaggy disappears).

In this embodiment, the three primary color values of the pixel in the original image represented by the data to be processed are (R ₁ , G ₁ , B ₁ )
And the three primary color values of the corresponding pixels in the deformable material image represented by the deformable material data are (R ₃ , G ₃ , B ₃ ),
After the fitting, the three primary color values (R ₂ , G ₂ , B ₂ ) of each pixel in the area represented by the fitting mask data are given by the following equations (13) to (15). _{R 2 = R 1 (255-} R 4) / 255 + R 3 R 4/255 ...... (13) G 2 = G 1 (255-G 4) / 255 + G 3 G 4/255 ...... (14) B 2 = B _{1 (255-B 4) /} 255 + B 3 B 4/255 ...... (15)

However, in the above equation (13), R ₄ is given by the following equation (16). In addition, G ₄ , B ₄
Is also obtained by a similar equation. R ₄ = 255− (number of unchanged pixels in 3 × 3 mask area) / 9 × 255 (16) Here, “3 × 3 mask area” in the above equation (16)
The "number of unchanged pixels" will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 9 is an enlarged view of a part of the original image. In this figure, 10 is an area where material data is to be fitted, 11 is an area where other material data is fitted, and 12 is material. Areas where data will not fit (for example,
Areas where the gradation value is “0” in the fitting mask data), M1 and M2 are 3 × 3 mask areas of 3 pixels × 3 pixels, respectively. The 3 × 3 mask area M1 is set corresponding to the pixel P5 in the area 10, and includes the pixel P1 and each pixel adjacent to the pixel P1. Similarly, the 3 × 3 mask region M2 is set corresponding to the pixel 10, and includes the pixel P10 and each pixel adjacent to the pixel P10.

Here, for example, when the color of the pixel M1 is determined, R ₄ is first obtained by the equation (16). The 3 × 3 mask M1 corresponding to the pixel P1 includes pixels P2 to P6 outside the area 10. Of these pixels, the pixels P5 and P6 are pixels in the area (unmodified area) 12 in which the material data is not fitted. Therefore, the number of unchanged pixels in this case is “2”, and R ₄ is about 199.
It becomes 4. From this result and the expression (13), R of the pixel P5 is
The color of the component is a color obtained by combining R ₁ and R ₃ at a ratio of about 556: 1994. The above-described processing is performed for the G and B components, and the color (RGB value) of the pixel P5 is determined. For the pixel P10, R ₄ is 170, and the component ratio of R ₁ : R ₄ in the color of the pixel P10 is 85: 170.
Becomes

Next, in step S8, a shadowing process is performed on the fitted image. Here, assuming that the RGB value of the shadow mask is (R ₅ , G ₅ , B ₅ ), the RGB value (R ₆ , G ₆ , B ₆ ) of the image obtained by the shadowing process.
Is obtained by the following equations (17) to (19). _{R 6 = R 4 · (255} -R 5) / 255 ...... (17) G 6 = G 4 · (255-G 5) / 255 ...... (18) B 6 = B 4 · (255-B 5) / 255 (19) By this shadowing process, the brightness (luminance) distribution of the original image is reflected in the fitted image, and the viewer (customer)
It gives the impression that the material has actually been replaced. The image thus created is presented to the viewer by the display device and the printing device 7. The processes of steps S2 to S9 described above are repeated as necessary to realize the replacement of the material for one or more surfaces.

As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, the material data is transformed according to the fitting area by the processing device 9 which operates based on the instruction input from the instruction input device 4, After that, it is fitted. Therefore, there is an advantage that the viewer can accurately grasp the image of the house in which some materials are changed. Further, it is not necessary to actually build a house in which the materials are exchanged, and it is not necessary to create three-dimensional image data of the house. Therefore,
The above-mentioned advantages can be obtained at low cost without trouble.

Further, since the shadowing processing is performed on the processing target data based on the shadow mask data, it is possible to accurately simulate the lightness (luminance) component that can be sensitively recognized by humans. Furthermore, since the maximum brightness (luminance) of each set group was matched when creating the mask data for shadows, even if a material with different visible light reflectance or refractive index was fitted, the resulting image would have a natural brightness (luminance). A luminance distribution can be given.

In addition, when the shadow mask data is created, strong unsharpness is applied to reduce the influence of the pattern on the brightness (luminance) distribution. Therefore, even if a material having a different pattern is fitted, the original pattern of the material is used. The influence can be reduced. Furthermore, the mask data for fitting is set to 25
Since the grayscale image data has 6 gradations and the surface is represented by the gradation values, the fitting mask data can be treated as one image data. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the labor required for using the mask and the labor required to manage the mask data, it is possible to obtain the mask data for fitting by converting the processing target data into a grayscale image and performing a slight processing, and There is an advantage that it is not necessary to separately create mask data for removing the influence of the material change on these, by setting the brightness of a material that is not related to the material change, such as a tree or a grove, to a predetermined value.

Further, since the material data located at the contour portion of the fitting area is subjected to the blurring (unsharpness) processing based on the 3 × 3 mask data,
It can prevent the generation of shaggy. Further, since the deformed material data can be generated by substantially matching the vertices of the image represented by the material data with the respective vertices of the fitting area, it is possible to significantly reduce the time and effort required for the deformation process. Further, since the material data can be created by tiling the unit material data, it is possible to correspond to the fitting area of any size and shape.

In the above-described embodiment, an example of applying strong unsharpness is shown, but the present invention is not limited to this, and for example, a filter that can reduce the influence on the lightness due to patterns such as "diffusion" may be applied. Similar effects can be obtained. Although 3 × 3 mask data is used in order to prevent the generation of shaggy, it does not have to be 3 × 3. Furthermore, any method may be used as long as the boundary with the area where the material is not changed can be blurred.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, step S
Although the processing of 2 to step S9 is repeated to fit a plurality of material data, for example, a plurality of material data may be selected in step S2 and the subsequent processing may be performed in parallel for each material data. . Of course, at this time, a plurality of surfaces can be designated in step S6. When a plurality of faces can be designated in step S6, for example, as shown in FIG. 10, the material data to be fitted to the adjacent faces are simultaneously displayed so that the operator can determine the enlargement / reduction ratio of the two faces. It is possible to easily recognize the difference and the shift of the joint of the bricks and the like. That is, a more accurate image can be obtained. Furthermore, although the fitting mask data is grayscale image data of 256 gradations, it may be data capable of expressing a large number of areas such as RGB data of 256 colors.

[0046]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The deforming unit deforms the material data stored in the storage unit according to the shape of the fitting area, which is an area occupied by the image of the changeable material in the original image to be processed, to generate deformed material data. In addition, the fitting means processes the processing target data representing the original image in the fitting area,
Updating is performed based on the deformable material data, and the display unit displays the image represented by the processing target data updated by the fitting unit. Therefore, it is not necessary to actually manufacture an article whose material is changed, and it is not necessary to create three-dimensional image data of the article. In addition to this, since the material data is transformed according to the shape of the inset area, it is both time-consuming and low-cost, and the viewer can accurately see the image of the part of the product whose appearance has been changed. The effect of being able to grasp is obtained (Claim 1). The shadowing means performs a shadowing process based on the shadow mask data stored in the storage means with respect to the processing target data updated by the fitting means, and the display means performs a shadowing process. Since the image represented by the processed data is displayed, there is an effect that the finally displayed image can be a more accurate image (claim 2).

Further, since each of the gradation values of the fitting mask data represents the fitting area, there is an effect that the fitting mask data can be treated as one image data (claim 3). Further, since the fitting means performs the unsharpness processing for smoothing the contour of the image to be fitted into the fitting area on the material data, it is possible to prevent the generation of shaggy (claim 4).

Further, since the deforming means generates the deformed material data by causing the vertices of the polygonal image represented by the material data to substantially coincide with the vertices of the fitting area, the labor required for processing is reduced. There is an effect that it can be largely omitted (Claim 5). Further, since the storage means stores unit material data of a predetermined shape and resolution, and the tiling means repeatedly arranges the unit material data so as to fit the fitting area to create the material data, an arbitrary size and shape can be obtained. There is an effect that it is possible to correspond to the fitting area of (6). The shadow-casting mask creating means extracts the brightness or the brightness of each pixel in the original image to create gradation data, and performs the unsharpness process on the gradation data to create the shadow mask data, There is an effect that an accurate image can be obtained even if materials having different patterns are fitted (claim 7).

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining an outline of “fitting processing” performed by an image simulation apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the device.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing performed by the device.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an original image.

5A and 5B are views for explaining a fitting mask for the original image shown in FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining a process performed on the original image shown in FIG.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a process performed on the original image shown in FIG.

8A and 8B are diagrams for explaining affine transformation performed in the image simulation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention, where FIG. 8A schematically shows an image before transformation and FIG. 8B schematically shows an image after transformation. .

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an enlarged part of an original image.

FIG. 10 is a diagram for explaining the function of the image simulation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining an example of a catalog by a conventional device or method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 4 instruction input device 5 display device 6 external storage device 7 printing device 8 image data input device 9 processing device R area of outer wall material

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. Processing target data representing an original image to be processed, material data that is image data of material that can form an article represented by the original image, and an image of material that can be changed in the original image. Storage means for storing inlaying mask data representing an inlaying area which is an area occupied by, deformation means for deforming the material data according to the shape of the inlaying area to generate deformed material data, and in the inlaying area And a display unit for displaying the image represented by the processing target data updated by the fitting unit, the processing target data being updated based on the transformation material data. Image simulation device. 2. Processing target data representing an original image to be processed, material data that is image data of material that can form an article represented by the original image, and an image of material that can be changed in the original image. Storage means for storing inset mask data that represents an inset area that is an area occupied by, and shadow mask data that represents the brightness or luminance of each pixel in the original image, and the material data that matches the shape of the inset area. Deforming means for deforming to generate deformation material data, fitting means for updating the processing target data in the fitting area based on the deformation material data, and the processing target data updated by the fitting means. On the other hand, shadowing means for performing shadowing processing based on the shadow mask data, and the processing target data subjected to the shadowing processing by the shadowing means. Image simulation apparatus characterized by comprising a display means for displaying an in represented images are. 3. The image simulation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fitting mask data is gradation data, and each fitting value represents the fitting area. 4. The image simulation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fitting means performs an unsharpness process on the material data to smooth an outline of an image to be fitted in the fitting area. . 5. The material data represents a polygonal image, and the deforming means generates the deformed material data by causing the vertices of the polygonal image and the vertices of the fitting area to substantially coincide with each other. The image simulation device according to claim 1 or 2. 6. A tiling means for repeatedly arranging unit material data of a predetermined shape and resolution so as to fit in the fitting area to create the material data, and the storage means stores the unit material data. The image simulation device according to claim 1 or 2. 7. A shadowing mask creation for creating tone data by extracting lightness or luminance of each pixel in the original image and performing unsharpness processing on the tone data to create the shadow mask data. The image simulation apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising means.