JP2002318680A - Image processor and image processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image processor to enable gradation plotting without depending on use of application and an OS when gradation graphics are plotted and to enable suppression of PDL size to be increased in the case of plotting in advanced expression technique. SOLUTION: Whether or not plotting commands to be transferred from a PDL interpretation module are commands to constitute gradation is judged by judgment processing part 21 of possibility of synthesis of graphic plotting instruction, when they are the commands to constitute the gradation, the graphic plotting commands are stored in a temporary buffer in time series. Then, when the graphic plotting commands can be synthesized in time series, the synthetic graphic plotting instruction is generated by a synthetic processing part 22 of graphic plotting instruction, transferred to a plotting processing part 24 of synthetic graphic and a plotting processing optimized to the synthetic graphic is performed to a page buffer here.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method, and more particularly to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method for executing a received graphic drawing instruction to draw a gradation graphic.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, documents such as texts and images are created electronically by a computer device such as a personal computer or a workstation, and the documents are printed out by a printer device connected to the computer device via a network. And so on are widely practiced.

In an image forming system including such a computer device and a printer device, generally, when a document is printed out, a page description language (Page Description) is sent from the computer device side.
(Language; hereinafter abbreviated as “PDL”). Then, when a drawing command is sent, the printer device draws a figure such as a font or graphics based on the drawing command.

[0004] Furthermore, as the above-mentioned documents have become more sophisticated, the expression technology used in graphics rendering has also become more sophisticated. In particular, a technique called gradation, which gradually changes the color of a drawing area, tends to be frequently used for purposes such as effective presentation and three-dimensional shape expression. As a result, the size of the PDL output from the computer device is increased and complicated, and the speed of transferring the PDL to the printer and the gradation generation processing on the printer side are increased because there is no instruction dedicated to gradation in the ordinary PDL. I was

In order to solve such a problem, a method of realizing gradation on the printer side is disclosed in, for example,
No. 72317. In the prior art disclosed in this publication, as shown in FIG. 14, a gradation drawing command specified in PDL is detected, and a drawing process dedicated to gradation is performed, thereby improving the printing throughput at the time of gradation drawing and improving the image quality. We are improving.

[0006]

However, FIG.
As shown in the figure, in the actual processing in the host computer, the OS (Operation System)
Since PDL is generated through I / F processing and driver processing in m), depending on the application and OS specifications,
There has been a problem that a PDL using a gradation drawing command is not necessarily generated at the time of drawing a gradation.

FIG. 16 shows an example of a gradation drawing figure as an example. In the related art, when drawing the figure shown in FIG. 16A, it is expected that the figure is drawn as a pair of gradation drawing area information and gradation information as shown in FIG. 16B. However, in the case of normal gradation drawing, as shown in FIG. 16C, a graphic drawing command is divided into rectangles at color boundaries and issued from the application.

The same applies to gradation in an oblique direction. FIG. 17 shows an example of a gradation drawing figure in an oblique direction. Also in this case, as shown in FIG. 17C, a graphic drawing command is issued from the application as a set of graphics (parallelograms in this example) divided by color boundaries. As a result, with gradients,
A large number of drawing commands and color designation commands are generated, resulting in a decrease in print throughput.

[0009] In addition, as the document becomes more sophisticated, the expression technology used in graphics rendering also becomes more sophisticated, and the sophistication requires rendering commands not supported by PDL. It is known to give.

In order to realize a drawing command not supported by the PDL, the printer driver replaces and outputs a drawing command not supported by a basic drawing command (for example, a straight line or a rectangle) provided in the PDL. At this time, the unsupported drawing command is usually decomposed into minute basic drawing commands (1 pixel × 1 pixel rectangle, horizontal line segment, etc.), which causes an increase in PDL size, and the drawing process on the printer side. Had increased the load. For example, a simple rectangular drawing as shown in FIG.
Drawing by a plurality of rectangles as shown in FIG.
Since it is specified in the DL, the print throughput is reduced.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to enable gradation drawing independent of the use of an application or an OS when drawing a gradation figure. An object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus capable of suppressing a PDL size that increases at the time of advanced drawing.

[0012]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention recognizes that a graphic drawing instruction is a gradation graphic drawing based on an attribute of the received graphic drawing instruction, and recognizes the result of the recognition. At the time of drawing a gradation graphic, a gradation graphic drawing command is generated based on the graphic drawing command. Here, when recognizing the gradation figure drawing, it is assumed that the repetition figures whose dimensions of one side are regularly changed are continuous and that the pixel values of these continuous repetition figures are gradually increasing or decreasing. .

When executing the received graphic drawing command to draw a gradation graphic, the gradation graphic drawing command is recognized by recognizing that the graphic drawing command is a gradation graphic drawing based on the attribute of the received graphic drawing command. Even if is not attached, it can be automatically recognized that the drawing is a gradation figure. Then, by generating a gradation figure drawing command based on the recognition result, it is possible to draw a gradation figure without depending on the application or the OS, and as a result, the calculation speed of an image output device such as a printer can be improved. .

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

[First Embodiment] FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of an image processing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention. Here, an example in which the present invention is applied to an image processing apparatus mounted on a printer apparatus that prints out a document and an image processing method executed by the image processing apparatus will be described.

Referring to FIG. 1, when an image processing apparatus 10 according to the present embodiment receives a PDL generated by a host computer (not shown) from the computer via a network 20, the PDL described by the received PDL is described. It interprets drawing commands (drawing commands such as straight lines, curves, fonts, raster images, fills, etc.) and performs figure drawing processing. The drawn figures are stored in a page buffer, which will be described later. Is sent to the printer engine 30 that performs the image forming process.

In order to execute the image processing, the image processing apparatus 10 includes an input interface (hereinafter, the interface is abbreviated as “I / F”) 11 and a CPU (Central).
Processing Unit) 12 and ROM (Read Only Memory)
13, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 14, a printer engine I / F 15, and an internal bus 16 connecting these components to each other.

The input I / F 11 is for receiving the PDL transmitted from the host computer via the network 20. It is assumed that the PDL received by the input I / F 11 includes a graphic drawing command. When drawing a figure based on the figure drawing command, the outline data of the figure is given to the input I / F 11 as PDL.

The CPU 12 interprets the PDL received via the input I / F 11 and performs a graphic drawing process based on the interpretation result, in addition to the operation control of the image processing apparatus 10 as a whole. In order to perform this drawing process, the CP
U12 has a function as a graphic drawing instruction synthesizing possibility determining unit, a graphic drawing instruction synthesizing processing unit, and a graphic drawing processing unit. Details of these functions will be described later.

The ROM 13 stores a drawing program necessary for the CPU 12 to perform a drawing process in advance. By executing the drawing program in the ROM 13, the CPU 12 realizes the functions of the above-described units. The RAM 14 is used as a work memory when the CPU 12 performs a drawing process. More specifically, in order to output a drawing result by the CPU 12 to the printer engine 20 by drawing a drawing area by the CPU 12 and a storage area as a graphic drawing command holding buffer for storing a drawing command described later in a drawing process by the CPU 12. And a storage area as a page buffer for storing the graphic data.

The printer engine I / F 15 includes a CPU 1
The raster data developed in the page buffer in the RAM 14 and developed from the graphic data is sent to the printer engine 20 as an image output device under the control by the control unit 2. The printer engine 2
Numeral 0 may be for printing and outputting raster data using a well-known electrophotographic technique, or for printing and printing raster data using a well-known inkjet printing technique. The image output device is not limited to the printer engine 20, but may be a display device such as a CRT.

Next, an outline of a processing operation in the image processing apparatus 10 according to the first embodiment having the above configuration, that is, an outline of a processing procedure of the image processing method according to the present invention will be briefly described. FIG. 2 is a data flow diagram showing an example of the overall processing operation flow in the image processing apparatus 10 according to the present embodiment. Here, in order to simplify the description, a detailed description of the path graphic / image / character will be omitted.

As shown in FIG. 2, a graphic drawing process performed by the image processing apparatus 10 according to the present embodiment includes a graphic drawing instruction synthesizing possibility determination processing section 21, a graphic drawing instruction synthesizing section 22,
It comprises a graphic drawing processing section 23 and a gradation graphic drawing processing section 24. The PDL interpretation module is
Interpret the PDL sent from the host computer via the network. The interpreted PDL is converted into a simpler drawing command, and is passed to the graphic drawing command synthesizing possibility determination processing unit 21. At this time, a simple figure drawing command (drawing of a straight line, drawing of a rectangle, drawing of a convex polygon, etc.) in the PDL is directly converted into a drawing command.
The processing for replacing the complicated drawing command in the middle with a simple graphic command is performed.

In the PDL, a complex figure is represented by an outline of the figure, that is, a set of linear or curved paths.
It is common to represent that figure. Therefore, PDL
In the interpretation module, a path filling process and a stroke (stroke) process, that is, a line drawing process with a width drawn along the path, and a process of replacing the filled result with a simple graphic drawing command are performed.

The drawing command generated by the PDL interpretation module is passed to the graphic drawing command synthesizing possibility determination processing section 21, where it is determined whether there is a possibility of graphic synthesizing. At this time, the graphic drawing command determined to have the possibility of combination is stored in the temporary buffer in the chronological order in which the drawing command is issued. When it is determined that there is no possibility of combining, the graphic drawing command combining processing unit 22 is notified, and the combining processing of the figure drawing command stored in the temporary buffer is performed. After completion of the synthesizing process of all the graphic drawing commands stored in the temporary buffer, the graphic drawing command determined to have no possibility of synthesizing is passed to the graphic drawing processing unit 23 to perform the drawing process. The details of the graphic drawing command synthesizing possibility determination process will be described later.

The graphic drawing command synthesizing processing unit 22 determines whether or not the graphic drawing commands in the temporary buffer can be synthesized in chronological order. Hand over to 24. If synthesis is impossible, a graphic drawing command that cannot be synthesized is passed to the graphic drawing processing unit 23. The details of the processing in the graphic drawing instruction synthesis processing unit 22 will be described later. The composite graphic drawing processing unit 24 performs a drawing process optimized for the composite graphic on the page buffer. The details of the composite graphic drawing process will be described later.

The graphic drawing processing section 23 performs graphic drawing processing on the page buffer. It should be noted that, besides performing the drawing process of the graphic in the page buffer, a buffer of an intermediate code format for generating a compressed raster image, a band buffer divided into bands, or the like may be used. In addition, since a general process can be used as a normal graphic drawing process, a detailed description thereof is omitted.

FIG. 3 shows an image processing apparatus 1 according to this embodiment.
9 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a procedure of a processing operation at 0.

First, the graphic drawing command synthesizing possibility determination processing section 21 determines whether or not a drawing command passed from the PDL interpretation module is a command constituting gradation (step S11). Then, the result of the determination is determined (step S12). If it is determined that the command forms a gradation, the figure drawing command is stored in a temporary buffer (step S13).
Next, it is determined whether or not rendering of all commands has been completed (step S16).
Return to 11.

If it is determined in step S12 that the command is not a gradation-constituting command, a gradation-constituting command is detected from the temporary buffer to generate a gradation drawing command (step S14), and then a triggering command is output. Then (step S15), the process proceeds to step S16, and it is determined whether the drawing of all the commands is completed. The above processing is repeatedly executed for all the drawing commands. If it is determined in step S16 that the drawing of all the drawing commands has been completed, the drawing commands remaining in the temporary buffer are output (step S17), and the page is drawn. The process ends.

<Graphic Drawing Command Synthesizing Possibility Determination Processing> Here, the processing in the graphic drawing instruction synthesizing possibility determination processing section 21 will be described in detail. FIG. 4 shows an example of a drawing command passed from the PDL interpretation unit.

As shown in FIG. 4A, the drawing command is composed of a uniquely determined drawing command type and a parameter string for the drawing command. By interpreting the PDL from the PDL interpretation module, the drawing command shown in FIG. 4B is processed in units of pages and the graphic drawing command synthesizing possibility determination processing unit 2 is maintained while maintaining the time series in the PDL.
Passed to 1. Here, for complicated figures, FIG.
6, as shown in FIGS. 17 and 18, the image is divided and drawn into convex polygons and rectangles.

Therefore, the graphic drawing command synthesizing possibility determination processing section 21 determines that there is a possibility of graphic synthesizing when the drawing command passed from the PDL interpretation module is a rectangular drawing command or a polygon drawing command. Further, in gradation drawing or the like, a drawing color is also specified, and therefore, in the case of a color specification command, it is determined that there is a possibility of graphic synthesis. Also, in some cases, surface drawing is expressed using horizontal and vertical line segments in a line segment drawing command for drawing one pixel width, so that horizontal and vertical line segments in a straight line drawing command are also used. It is determined that there is a possibility of graphic synthesis.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an example of a processing procedure in the graphic drawing instruction synthesizing possibility determination processing section 21. This process is also the process of step S11 in the flowchart of FIG.

First, it is determined whether or not the drawing command passed from the PDL interpretation module is a color designation command (step S21), and then whether or not it is a convex polygon drawing command (step S22). Finally, it is determined whether or not the command is a horizontal / vertical line drawing command (step S23). The order of determination here is an example, and is not limited to this order.

In the determination processing in steps S21 to S23, if it is determined that the drawing command passed from the PDL interpretation module is a color designation command, a convex polygon drawing command, or a horizontal / vertical line drawing command, a graphic synthesis is performed. It is determined that there is a possibility (step S2
4), the process of determining the possibility of synthesizing the graphic drawing command is completed. On the other hand, if it is determined that neither command is a command, it is determined that there is no possibility of graphic composition (step S2).
5), the possibility determination processing of the present graphic drawing command combination is ended.

Horizontal / Vertical Line Segment Determination Process The determination of the horizontal / vertical line segment in the graphic command synthesizing possibility determination processing section 21 is performed as follows. That is, as shown in FIG. 4B, the straight line drawing command in the present embodiment is configured by a start point coordinate value and an end point coordinate value.
Therefore, when the start point coordinate value = (Xs, Ys) and the end point coordinate value = (Xe, Ye), Xs! = Xe and Ys =
When Ye, horizontal line segment, Xs = Xe and Ys! When = Ye, it is determined to be a vertical line segment.

Convex polygon combining possibility determination processing The determination of a convex polygon in the graphic command combining possibility determination processing unit 21 is performed as follows. However, determination of a convex polygon having an arbitrary number of vertices requires a processing cost and a cost in the case of combining. Therefore, in the present embodiment, a rectangle is determined as a convex polygon. The convex polygon filling command in the present embodiment is composed of the number of vertices and the vertex sequence, as shown in FIG.

First, if the number of vertices is not four, it is not a rectangle, so in the present embodiment, it is determined that synthesis is impossible. When the number of vertices is 4, it is determined whether or not each vertex forms a horizontal line segment or a vertical line segment. If any one of them is not a horizontal or vertical line segment, it is determined that composition is impossible. If all are vertical or horizontal segments, it is determined that combining is possible. The horizontal / vertical determination here is the same as in the above-described horizontal / vertical line segment determination processing.

<Graphic Command Combining Processing> Next, the processing in the graphic drawing command combining processing section 22 will be described in detail. Generally, it is known that the synthesis processing of an arbitrary figure requires a processing cost. Therefore, in the present embodiment, attention is paid to the order in which the divided graphic drawing commands are issued. FIG. 16 (C), FIG.
As shown in FIG. 18C and FIG. 18B, it is known that the divided figures are usually drawn in numerical order as shown in the figure.

That is, in order to combine figures, it is determined whether or not two figures can be combined in the drawing order. If the two figures can be combined, they are combined. It can be seen that synthesis is possible. FIG. 6 shows a processing procedure in the graphic drawing instruction synthesizing processing unit 22 in the present embodiment using this mechanism. In this graphic synthesis drawing process, the graphic drawing commands determined to have the possibility of synthesis in the processing of the graphic drawing command synthesizability determination processing section 21 are temporarily stored in the same order as the time series appearing as the drawing commands in the PDL. It operates on the assumption that it is stored in the buffer.

First, one drawing command is taken out from the temporary buffer (step S31), and the type of the drawing command is determined (steps S32 and S33). If it is determined in step S32 that the command is a color designation command, the color designation command is registered as the current drawing color (step S34). If it is determined in step S33 that this is the first figure drawing command, that is, if there is no drawing figure being combined, it is registered as a reference figure for starting combination (step S35).

If it is determined in steps S32 and S33 that the drawing command is neither the color designation command nor the first figure drawing command, it is strictly determined whether or not the extracted figure is in contact with the reference figure (step S3).
6). Details of the processing procedure in the adjacent graphic determination processing will be described later. Subsequent processing branches according to this processing result (step S37). That is, if the drawing figures are adjacent, the combining processing is performed on the reference figure,
If they are not adjacent, output processing of the reference graphic is performed.
These processes will be described more specifically.

First, when drawing figures are adjacent to each other,
The drawing color is checked for the adjacent figure (step S38). Here, if the current drawing color is the same as the reference figure, it is constructed as a convex polygon (step S39). On the other hand, if the current drawing color is different from the reference figure, it is constructed as a gradation figure (step S40). Here, in order to express a gradation figure, it is necessary to specify a color value constituting the gradation and an area to be filled with the color value.

FIG. 7 shows the structure of the gradation drawing command and the structure of the relative color designation information used in this embodiment. The gradation drawing command is composed of a first rectangular shape and a drawing color, and relative position designation information and relative color designation information from the rectangle. However,
In the gradation rectangle fill drawing field, there is information for specifying in which direction the gradation is drawn in the up, down, left, and right directions.

In step S40, a rectangle is constructed for the reference graphic stored in the structure shown in FIG. First, a relative color value is calculated. The relative color value is specified by a relative value from the drawing color of the last rectangle of the rectangle forming the gradation. Therefore, first, the last drawing color is calculated. Color C (cyan), M (magenta), Y
(Yellow) and K (black) are sequentially added with up to n pieces of relative color designation information for gradation primes, thereby obtaining a drawing color in the relative color designation information n. Actually, the drawing color is held up to the previous one.

Subsequently, the current color value and relative color designation information n
, And the difference between the color values is calculated.
Normally, a change in color value at the time of gradation drawing is very small. Therefore, a relative color value is encoded using a variable-length color designation code as shown in FIG. The encoding of the relative color values in the present embodiment is performed as follows.

1. Change color is one color, change is +3
1. If it is 1 to -32, 1 byte long relative color designation code 2. If the changing color is two colors and the change is +31 to -32, a 2-byte long relative color designation code is used. The changing color is three or more colors, or the change is +127 to
If -128, 3-byte relative color designation code

Here, if there is no change in color, FIG.
The value of the relative coordinate designation information n shown in (A) is changed and processed as a rectangle in one gradation.

Subsequently, relative coordinate designation information is calculated.
In the present embodiment, the relative coordinate designation information is designated by the height of the rectangle to be drawn if the gradation direction is the up and down direction, and is designated by the width if the gradation direction is the left and right direction. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 8, a case is considered in which one new rectangle is added to a gradation figure having six rectangles in the right direction. As can be seen from FIG. 8, when the gradation graphic is limited to only the rectangle as in the present embodiment, the gradation is added by only the value of the width of the added graphic in the gradation drawing direction (the width of the rectangle in FIG. 8). It is possible to save the boundary information of the constituent colors.

Referring again to FIG. 6, the processing performed in step S39 when the drawing color is equal to the reference graphic will be described. When the drawing colors are the same, since the boundary information of the colors constituting the gradation is not required, they are synthesized as ordinary convex polygons. However, in the present embodiment, processing when the convex polygon is, for example, a rectangle will be described.

In the present embodiment, the rectangular information is represented by vertex coordinates (Xs, Ys), width (w), and height (h) having the minimum value among the four vertices. Here, when the rectangle shape to be combined is Xsl, Ysl, w1, h1 and the rectangle shape to be combined is Xs2, Ys2, w2, h2, the rectangle shape Xs3, Ys3, w3, h3 after combination is as follows. Required by the procedure.

1. The smaller value of both Xs1 and Xs2 is defined as Xs3. 2. The smaller value of Ys1 and Ys2 is Ys3. 3. If Xs1 and Xs2 are equal, w1 is set to w3 and h3
Becomes h1 + h2. 4. If Ysl and Ys2 are equal, hl is set to h3, w3
Becomes wl + w2.

If it is determined in step S37 that the drawing figures are not adjacent to each other, it means that the drawing command extracted from the temporary buffer cannot be combined with the figure under construction. Assuming that the figure has been completed, the figure is output as a composite figure (step S41).

Subsequently, the drawing command determined to be unsynthesizable is registered as a reference graphic (step S42). This is because there is a possibility of combining with a drawing command acquired after this drawing command, and thereafter, a figure combining process is performed. Then, it is determined whether or not the processing of all the drawing commands has been completed (step S43). If the processing has been completed, the drawing command that has just been registered as the reference graphic is output, and all the graphic combining processing ends.

[Adjacent Figure Determination Processing] Next, step S3
The procedure of the adjacent figure determination process in 6 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Here, for simplicity of description, the determination of the adjacency of a rectangle will be described.

First, the figure currently constructed is determined (step S51). This processing does not need to be performed if only the adjacent determination is performed. However, in this embodiment, in order to speed up the adjacent determination, the subsequent adjacent determination is performed depending on whether the graphic being constructed is a rectangle or a gradation graphic. Processing has been changed.

First, the adjacency determination processing for a gradation figure will be described. First, the construction direction of the gradation figure under construction is acquired (step S52). As shown in FIG. 16C, when drawing a gradation, the figure is drawn in the direction in which the sides of the figure (rectangle in FIG. 16C) forming the gradation exist. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the processing direction is improved and the performance is simplified by storing the construction direction of the gradation figure being constructed. Further, the graphic constructing the gradation is narrowed down to a rectangle, and the direction of the gradation is limited to four directions of up, down, left and right, thereby further simplifying the processing and improving the performance.

Then, based on the construction direction, it is checked whether or not the outer shell of the gradation figure being constructed overlaps the side of the drawing figure (step S53). In the present embodiment, since the graphic to be constructed is limited to a rectangle, the original gradation graphic is rectangular, and its outer shell has four sides Ug, D
g, Lg, and Rg. Here, the four sides of the rectangle whose overlap is to be checked are Ur, Dr, Lr, and Rr.

At this time, if the upper side of the rectangle is Ug, Ur, the lower side is Dg, Dr, the left side is Lg, Lr, and the right side is Rg, Rr, the sides to be examined according to the gradation drawing direction are as shown in FIG. Become. Based on FIG. 10, the sides to be examined are compared, and if the lines overlap, it is determined that they are adjacent. From this determination result, step S
At 54, step S55, and step S56, the adjacent determination is performed.

Next, a description will be given of the adjacency determination processing when the figure under construction is a rectangle. First, it is checked whether or not the outer shell of the rectangle being combined overlaps the side of the drawing figure (step S57). In the present embodiment, since the figure to be constructed is limited to a rectangle, it is sufficient to check whether only one of the four sides overlaps each other. If there are two sides, they overlap, and the rectangle to be drawn is excluded.

Based on the result, adjacent determination is made in steps S58, S59 and S60. However, in actual adjacency determination, it is necessary to perform adjacency determination adapted to the behavior of drawing pixels (picture elements) on the boundary when a figure is drawn. For example, as shown in FIG. 11A, when a pixel on the boundary of a rectangle is drawn, an adjacent rectangle is drawn on the premise of drawing a pixel on the boundary when the rectangle is output. ), The end X coordinate value Xae of the rectangle A does not match the start X coordinate value Xbs of the rectangle B. Therefore, at the time of the adjacency determination, it is necessary to make one of the coordinates equal to the direction in which the rectangles are continuous and add +1.

In this embodiment, when drawing a rectangle,
As shown in FIG. 11B, it is assumed that only pixels inside the rectangle are drawn. As a result, there is no need to perform the above-described correction in accordance with the pixel drawing position when determining the adjacency. The process branches in step S37 based on the result of the adjacent graphic determination process, that is, the process in step S36 in the flowchart of FIG. If the drawing figures are adjacent, the combining processing is performed on the reference figure. If they are not adjacent, output processing of the reference graphic is performed.

[Graphic Command Drawing Process] When the above-described graphic command synthesizing process is completed, based on each drawing command,
Perform drawing to the page buffer. It should be noted that, besides performing the drawing process of the graphic in the page buffer, a buffer of an intermediate code format for generating a compressed raster image, a band buffer divided into bands, or the like may be used. In addition, since a general process can be used for a normal graphic drawing process, a detailed description thereof is omitted.

In the image processing apparatus and its processing method according to the first embodiment described above, the temporary buffer graphic drawing instruction is stored according to the result of the determination as to whether or not the received graphic drawing instruction has a possibility of combination. By combining a plurality of graphic drawing commands in the buffer, the application or the OS normally outputs the composable graphic drawing continuously, so that there is a possibility of combining temporarily stored in the buffer. A certain graphic drawing command can be synthesized, and effective drawing of a gradation graphic can be performed without depending on an application or an OS. Therefore, print throughput can be improved.

[Second Embodiment] FIG. 12 shows a second embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an outline of a configuration of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment. Here, an example in which the present invention is applied to a host computer that generates and outputs PDL to a printer device that prints out a document and an image processing method that is executed by the computer will be described.

In FIG. 12, the host computer 50 according to the present embodiment is based on a print operation instructed by the application 51 on the host computer 50 and based on a drawing instruction instructed by the application 51 via the OS 52. , PD on the printer driver 53
L is generated and transmitted to the network 60 via the hardware 54 on the host computer 50.

The PDL transmitted to the network 60 is
It is received by the printer 70 as an image output device. The printer 70 interprets the PDL to generate and output raster data. The printer 70 prints out raster data using a well-known electrophotographic technique, or prints out raster data using a well-known inkjet printing technique. Is also good. Further, the image output device is not limited to the printer 70, and may be a display device such as a CRT.

Next, an outline of a processing operation in the host computer 50 according to the second embodiment having the above configuration, that is, an outline of an image processing method according to the present invention will be briefly described.
FIG. 13 is a data flow diagram showing a flow of the entire processing operation in the host computer 50 according to the present embodiment.
It should be noted that here, in order to simplify the explanation,
Detailed description of images and characters is omitted.

As shown in FIG. 13, the graphic drawing processing executed by the host computer 50 according to the present embodiment includes a graphic drawing command synthesizing possibility determination processing section 81, a graphic drawing instruction synthesizing section 82, and a graphic PDL generation processing section 83. And composite figure PD
An L generation processing unit 84 is provided.

The application 51 passes a drawing command to the graphic drawing command synthesizing possibility determination processing section 81 in the printer driver 53 via the OS 52. At this time, a simple figure drawing command (drawing of a straight line, drawing of a rectangle, drawing of a convex polygon, etc.) in the drawing command is directly converted into PDL, but a complicated drawing command in the drawing command is a simple figure drawing command. A process for replacing the instruction is performed.

In a drawing command, a complicated figure is generally represented by an outline of the figure, that is, a set of linear or curved paths. Therefore, in the PDL interpretation module, a process of filling a path and a process of a stroke are performed, and a process of replacing a painted result with a simple graphic drawing command is performed.

The drawing command passed from the OS (I / F) 52 is passed to the figure drawing command combining possibility determination processing section 81, where it is determined whether there is a possibility of combining figures.
The graphic drawing commands determined to have the possibility of combination are stored in a temporary buffer in the time series in which the drawing commands are issued. When it is determined that there is no possibility of combining, the graphic drawing command combining processing unit 82 is notified, and the combining processing of the figure drawing command stored in the temporary buffer is performed. After completion of the synthesizing process of all the graphic drawing commands stored in the temporary buffer, the graphic drawing command determined to have no possibility of synthesizing is passed to the graphic drawing processing unit 82 to perform the drawing process. The details of the processing in the graphic drawing instruction synthesizing possibility determination processing section 81 are the same as those in the first embodiment.

The graphic drawing command synthesizing unit 82 determines whether or not the graphic drawing commands in the temporary buffer can be synthesized in chronological order, and if they can be synthesized, generates a synthesized graphic drawing command to generate a synthesized graphic PDL. It is passed to the processing unit 84. If synthesis is not possible, a graphic rendering command that cannot be synthesized is passed to the graphic PDL generation processing unit 83. It should be noted that the graphic drawing instruction synthesis processing unit 8
Details of the processing in 2 are the same as those in the first embodiment.

The composite graphic PDL generation processing section 84 performs PDL generation processing optimized for the composite graphic. The graphic PDL generation processing unit 83 converts the generated drawing command into PDL according to the corresponding printer. Since the PDL conversion process is usually a simple replacement process, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

The above processing is repeatedly executed for all the drawing commands. When the conversion of all the drawing commands to the PDL is completed, the PDL generation processing for the page is completed.

In the image processing apparatus and its processing method according to the second embodiment described above, it is possible to detect a drawing divided into simple figures such as a gradation figure drawing without depending on an application. PDL
Since the size is reduced and the gradation drawing can be effectively drawn on the printer side, the print throughput can be improved.

In each of the above embodiments, when recognizing that the received graphic drawing instruction is a gradation graphic drawing based on the attribute of the received graphic drawing instruction, a repeated graphic whose one side dimension regularly changes is continuously changed. In addition, it is assumed that the pixel value of the continuous repeated figure is gradually increased or decreased, and the rectangle is used as an example of the repeated figure, but the present invention is not limited to this. Similarly, the present invention can be applied to a graphic such as a parallelogram or a parallelogram.

[0079]

As described above, according to the present invention,
When executing a received graphic drawing instruction to draw a gradation graphic, when it recognizes that the graphic drawing instruction is a gradation graphic drawing based on the attribute of the received graphic drawing instruction, and when the recognition result is a gradation graphic drawing By generating a gradation figure drawing command based on the figure drawing command, it becomes possible to draw a gradation figure without depending on an application or an OS, thereby improving the calculation speed of an image output device such as a printer. it can.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a schematic configuration of an image processing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a data flow diagram illustrating an example of an overall processing operation flow in the image processing apparatus according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a procedure of a processing operation in the image processing apparatus according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a drawing command according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a procedure of a graphic drawing instruction synthesizing possibility determining process according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a procedure of a graphic drawing instruction synthesizing process according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a gradation drawing command according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a gradation graphic drawing command according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a procedure of an adjacent graphic determination process according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a relationship between sides to be examined according to a gradation drawing direction.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a drawing example of pixels on a boundary when drawing a rectangle according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a schematic configuration of an image processing apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a data flow diagram illustrating an example of an overall flow of a processing operation in the image processing apparatus according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a data flow diagram showing a flow of an image processing operation according to the related art.

FIG. 15 is a conceptual diagram of processing on a host computer.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing a gradation drawing example.

FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating an example of drawing a gradation in an oblique direction.

FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating a drawing example divided into a plurality of drawing commands.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 image processing device, 11 input I / F, 12 CP
U, 13 ROM, 14 RAM, 15 printer engine I / F, 16 internal bus, 20, 60 network, 30 printer engine, 50 host computer, 51 application program, 52 OS,
53: Printer driver, 54: Hardware, 70:
Printer

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A recognizing means for recognizing that a graphic drawing command is a gradation graphic drawing based on an attribute of the received graphic drawing command. An image processing apparatus, comprising: a drawing command generating unit that generates a gradation figure drawing command based on the drawing command. 2. The recognizing means according to claim 1, wherein said repetitive graphic whose size on one side changes regularly is continuous, and said pixel drawing command is issued when the pixel value of said repetitive repetitive graphic gradually increases or decreases. 2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing apparatus recognizes the image as a gradation figure drawing. 3. The drawing command generating means includes: a storage means for storing the graphic drawing command when the recognition means recognizes the gradation graphic drawing; and a storage means for storing the gradation graphic drawing when the recognition means ends the recognition of the gradation graphic drawing. 2. An image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a graphic command synthesizing means for synthesizing a plurality of graphic drawing commands stored in said storage means as said gradation graphic drawing command. 4. The image according to claim 1, wherein the recognizing unit recognizes the graphic drawing command as gradation graphic drawing when the graphic drawing command is a filling or drawing color specification of a convex polygon. Processing equipment. 5. The gradation graphic includes one of graphics constituting the gradation, a plurality of graphics specified by relative coordinates from the graphics, one of the color values of the graphics constituting the gradation, and a value corresponding to the color value. 5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 4, comprising a plurality of color values designated by relative color values. 6. Recognizing that the graphic drawing command is a gradation graphic drawing based on the attribute of the received graphic drawing command, and when the recognition result is a gradation graphic drawing, the gradation drawing is performed based on the graphic drawing command. An image processing method comprising generating an instruction. 7. In the recognition, when a repeated figure whose dimension of one side changes regularly is continuous and the pixel value of the continuous repeated figure is gradually increased or decreased, the figure drawing is performed. 7. The image processing method according to claim 6, wherein the instruction is recognized as a gradation graphic drawing.