JP2007166099A - Image processing device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a technique which can distinguish whether it is a desired image or not by a simple operation of a user when the image is displayed. <P>SOLUTION: A control unit 10 of an image forming device 1 separates a text region and an image region from an image represented by input image data, and specifies sizes (areas) of respective regions (afterward, part image regions). The control unit 10 determines priority orders of each part image region in order of larger size of the part image region. If a display instruction is input, the control unit 10 displays images included in each part image region in order of high priority order in a display unit 40 one by one. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for previewing an image.

Some image forming apparatuses such as printers and scanners have a function of displaying a preview of an image to be processed. For example, in the system described in Patent Document 1, when the user touches the touch panel with a finger, the image is enlarged / reduced and displayed around the part touched by the finger, so that the print image can be enlarged / reduced in a limited display area. Operations such as reduction can be easily performed, and the print state of a print image can be confirmed before printing.
JP 2003-8886 A

By the way, a technique for optically reading and digitizing an image printed and stored on paper and managing it as electronic data has attracted attention. In such a case, the preview display as described above is used as a method for extracting an image desired by the user from a huge number of managed image groups.
However, the display unit of the image forming apparatus often has a small display area, and even if the image is simply displayed as a preview, the image is displayed small, and it may not be possible to determine whether the image is desired by the user. Many. In such a case, in order to determine whether or not the image is a desired image, the user must perform an operation such as searching for a noticeable portion (point of interest) from the preview-displayed image and displaying the enlarged preview. did not become.
Also in the technique described in Patent Document 1, the user must perform an operation of finding and selecting a point of interest from the displayed image, and such an operation is performed for each of a huge image group. This was cumbersome and required a lot of time to work.

  Furthermore, there are many cases where a desired image cannot be specified unless a plurality of points of interest are confirmed in addition to a single point of interest. In such a case, the user scrolls the image displayed on the enlarged preview or displays the image again on the full screen, and then searches for another point of interest from the displayed image and enlarges it again. There is a problem that operations such as preview display must be executed, and the work becomes complicated.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-described background, and an object of the present invention is to provide a technique by which a user can determine whether a desired image is a simple operation.

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides at least one of a text region including a character image and an image region including an image other than a character image as a partial image region from an image represented by input image data. Extracting means for extracting; priority order determining means for determining a priority order for each of the partial image areas extracted by the extracting means; and determining the priority order for images included in the partial image area extracted by the extracting means. There is provided an image processing apparatus comprising display control means for displaying on a display means in ascending or descending order of priority determined by the means.

In a preferred aspect of the present invention, there is provided instruction information receiving means for inputting instruction information, and the display control means determines an image included in the partial image area extracted by the extracting means by the priority order determining means. Each time the instruction information is input to the instruction information receiving means, it is switched and displayed on the display means in ascending order or descending order of the priorities.
In another preferred aspect of the present invention, the image processing apparatus further comprises size specifying means for specifying a size of the partial image area extracted by the extracting means, and the priority order determining means is configured to prioritize the partial image areas extracted by the extracting means. The rank is determined according to the rank in ascending or descending order of the size specified by the size specifying means.
In another preferred aspect of the present invention, storage means for storing the type information indicating one of the text region and the image region and the priority information indicating the priority in association with each other; An area specifying means for specifying the type of the partial image area, and the priority determining means determines the priority of the partial image area extracted by the extracting means by using the type specified by the area specifying means. It is determined according to the priority information stored in the storage means in association with the type information shown.
In another preferred aspect of the present invention, the storage unit stores the type information indicating the color type and the priority information indicating the priority in association with each other, and the partial image area extracted by the extraction unit Color specifying means for specifying the color of the image included in the image, and the priority order determining means indicates the priority order of the partial image areas extracted by the extracting means, and indicates the type specified by the color specifying means. It is determined according to priority order information stored in the storage means in association with information.

  In a preferred aspect of the present invention, it is specified whether the partial image area is the text area or the image area, and any one of the text area and the image area is specified for the specified area. The area specifying means for assigning type information indicating, the type information given by the area specifying means, and the priority order information indicating the priority order are stored in association with each other, and the color type information for identifying the color and the Storage means for associating and storing priority information, color specifying means for specifying the color of an image included in the partial image area extracted by the extracting means, the size, the color type information, and the type information Selecting means for selecting at least one of them as condition information, and the priority determining means is extracted by the extracting means When the size is selected by the selection unit, the priority order of the selected partial image region is determined according to the ascending order or descending order of the size of the partial image region specified by the size specifying unit. In addition, when the color type information or the type information is selected as condition information by the selection unit, it is determined according to the priority information stored in the storage unit in association with the selected condition information. It is characterized by that.

Further, in a preferred aspect of the present invention, the display control unit is configured to display the images included in the partial image area extracted by the extraction unit in ascending or descending order of priority determined by the priority determination unit. The display unit is characterized in that the entire image is enlarged and displayed in the display area of the display means.
In another preferable aspect of the present invention, the display control unit is configured to display the images included in the partial image area extracted by the extraction unit in ascending or descending order of priority determined by the priority determination unit. The vertical width of the partial image area is the same size as the vertical width of the display area in the display means, or the horizontal width of the partial image area is the same size as the horizontal width of the display area. An image is enlarged and displayed.
In a further preferred aspect of the present invention, the display control means outputs the images included in the partial image area extracted by the extraction means in the ascending or descending order of priority determined by the priority determination means. The image included in the image area and the display area are displayed on the display unit in such a positional relationship that at least one of the upper end, the lower end, the left end, and the right end of the image matches. Scrolling means for scrolling the partial image in at least one of the vertical direction and the horizontal direction is provided.

  According to the present invention, it is possible for a user to determine whether or not an image is desired by a simple operation.

<A: First Embodiment>
<A-1: Configuration>
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an image forming apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 10 denotes a control unit including an arithmetic device such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit). A storage unit 20 includes a storage device such as a RAM (Random Access Memory), a ROM (Read Only Memory), or a hard disk, and stores various programs for operating each unit of the image forming apparatus 1. The control unit 10 reads out and executes a program stored in the storage unit 20 to control each unit of the image forming apparatus 1 via the bus.

  Reference numeral 30 denotes an image reading unit that optically reads a document and generates image data representing an image of the document. The image reading unit 30 includes an optical system member (not shown) constituted by a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) or the like, and reads an image of a document placed on a document placement table (not shown) by the optical system member. Then, image data representing the read image is generated. The control unit 10 converts the image data generated by the image reading unit 30 into, for example, image data in a TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) format and stores the image data in the storage unit 20.

  Reference numeral 40 denotes a display unit including a display device such as a liquid crystal display. The display unit 40 displays a message prompting the user to perform an operation, information indicating the processing status, an image preview display screen, or the like under the control of the control unit 10. Reference numeral 50 denotes an input unit for the user to perform various operations. The input unit 50 includes a liquid crystal display that functions as a touch panel, and the user can perform various operations by touching the liquid crystal display.

  A communication unit 60 includes various communication devices and the like, and exchanges data with other devices via a communication network under the control of the control unit 10. Reference numeral 70 denotes an image forming unit that forms a toner image based on image data stored in the storage unit 20 or data received via a communication network, and transfers the toner image onto a sheet to form an image.

As shown in FIG. 1, the storage unit 20 includes an image data group storage area 20a. A plurality of image data generated by the image reading unit 30 and image data received via the communication unit 60 are stored in the image data group storage area 20a.
Here, the image data stored in the storage unit 20 will be described below with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of an image indicated by the image data stored in the storage unit 20. The image D includes text regions t1 and t2 including character images and image regions i1 and i2 including images other than the character images. The dotted lines surrounding the text areas t1 and t2 are for indicating the position and range of the text area, and such dotted lines are not included in the actual image D.

In FIG. 2, a text region t1 is a region including a black and white character image, and a text region t2 is a region including a color character image. The image area i1 is an area including a black and white image, and the image area i2 is an area including a color image.
In the following description, for convenience of description, when there is no need to distinguish between a text area and an image area, these will be referred to as “partial image areas”. An image included in the partial image area (text area or image area) will be described as an “object”.

Further, the storage unit 20 stores an object management table TBL1 as shown in FIG. This table is a table for managing the types of objects included in each of the image data stored in the storage unit 20. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a data structure of the object management table TBL1. As shown in the figure, items of “image data ID”, “object ID”, “type”, “size”, “color”, and “priority” are stored in association with each other in this table. Has been. Among these items, “image data ID” stores identification information for identifying image data such as a path name of image data stored in the storage unit 20. In the “object ID” item, identification information for identifying an object included in each image data is stored. In the “type” item, identification information for identifying whether a region including the object is a text region or an image region is stored. In the “size” item, the area of the region including the object is stored. In the “color” item, information indicating whether the object is a color image or a monochrome image is stored. In the “priority order” item, information indicating the priority order of objects is stored. In the example shown in FIG. 3, “1” has the highest priority, and the priority decreases as the numerical value increases.
When storing the image data in the storage unit 20, the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 specifies the size, type, and the like for each object included in the image data and stores them in this table.

<A-2: Operation>
Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described.
<A-2-1: Image data storage process>
First, a process in which the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 specifies the type of an object included in the input image data will be described.
Note that the input image data may be, for example, image data generated by the image reading unit 30 reading a document placed on the document placing table, or another device via the communication unit 60. It may be image data received from. Image data is input to the control unit 10 via the image reading unit 30 or the communication unit 60.

  When detecting that image data has been input (step SA1; YES), the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 first stores the input image data in the image data group storage area 20a of the storage unit 20 (step S1). SA2). Subsequently, the control unit 10 performs so-called T (text) / I (image) separation on the image represented by the input image data to separate the text region and the image region, and each region is an image. It recognizes where it is located above (step SA3). For example, when the image indicated by the image data is the image shown in FIG. 2, the areas t1 and t2 are recognized as text areas, and i3 and i4 are recognized as image areas. The control unit 10 generates an object ID for each recognized area. By these processes, a partial image area (text area or image area) in the image is extracted.

  For each of the extracted partial image areas, the control unit 10 specifies whether the image included in the area is a monochrome image or a color image (step SA4). Further, the control unit 10 calculates the area of each extracted partial image region and specifies the calculated area as a size (step SA5). In the text area, the area of the area where the circumscribed rectangle surrounding the character image is cut is specified as the size. For example, in the example shown in FIG. 2, the area of the dotted line area surrounding the text areas t1 and t2 is specified.

When the size and the color of each partial image area included in the image indicated by the input image data are specified, the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 displays ““ of the image (object) included in each partial image area. The “object ID”, “size”, “color”, and “type” are associated with each other and stored in the object management table TBL1 (step SA6).
The control unit 10 determines whether there are other objects included in the input image data (step SA7). If another object is included (step SA7; YES), step SA4 is performed. Returning to the process, the processes in steps SA4 to SA6 are executed for the object, and the color and size of the object are specified. That is, the process of step SA4 to step SA6 is executed for each of all partial image areas included in the image indicated by the input image data, and the size and color of each object are stored in the object management table TBL1.

When the color and size are specified for all objects included in the image indicated by the input image data (step SA7; NO), the control unit 10 determines the priority of each object included in the image. Are specified in descending order of size, and the priority order of each object is stored in the storage unit (step SA8). For example, in the example shown in FIG. 2, the image area i1 having the largest size has the highest priority, and conversely, the text area t2 having the smallest size has the lowest priority.
Thus, in the present embodiment, the priority of a partial image region is increased as the size (area) of the partial image region is increased. This is because, generally, the larger the area of the partial image region, the more symbolically the content of the document is represented.

  The control unit 10 executes the process shown in FIG. 4 on each of the input image data, whereby the object management table TBL1 of the storage unit 20 stores the image data in the image data group storage area 20a of the storage unit 20. The priority order of the objects included in each of the image data is stored in the object management table TBL1.

<A-2-2: Display processing>
Next, processing for displaying an image represented by image data stored in the storage unit 20 on the display unit 40 will be described. FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing performed by the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1. First, the user of the image forming apparatus 1 operates the input unit 50 to select one of the image data stored in the image data group storage area 20a of the storage unit 20, and displays the image on the display unit 40. Enter the instruction information to display the preview. In this operation, for example, a file name or path name of image data stored in the storage unit 20 may be input, or a list of file names of image data stored in the storage unit 20 is displayed on the display unit. 40, and the user may select any one from the list.

  When the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 detects that the instruction information is input (step SB1; YES), the selected image data is read from the storage unit 20, and the image data read by controlling the display unit 40 is read. Is displayed (step SB2). For example, when the image represented by the selected image data is the one shown in FIG. 2, the entire image D shown in FIG. 2 is displayed on the display unit 40.

With the image displayed on the display unit 40, the user can input instruction information for displaying an enlarged preview of the object included in the image indicated by the selected image data. When it is detected that the instruction information has been input (step SB3; YES), the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 searches the object management table TBL1 for an image data ID indicating the selected image data. The control unit 10 selects the object ID having the highest priority among the object IDs stored in association with the searched image data ID, and displays the object indicated by the selected object ID. (Step SB4). At this time, the control unit 10 displays the object in the display area of the display unit 40 by enlarging (or reducing) the object to the maximum size that can display the entire object.
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen displayed on the display unit 40 of the image forming apparatus 1. For example, when the image data of the image illustrated in FIG. 2 is selected and the partial image area with the highest priority is the image area i1, the image included in the image area i1 is displayed on the display unit 40. The display area 40a is enlarged and displayed.

  When the process of step SB4 is completed, the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 returns to the process of step SB3 and waits for input of instruction information (step SB3; NO).

  Here, the user can input instruction information for displaying the next object by performing an operation of pressing the button B1 on the liquid crystal panel shown in FIG. When it is detected that the instruction information has been input (step SB3; YES), the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 follows the object that is included in the selected image data and is displayed on the display unit 40. An object with a high priority is selected, and the selected object is displayed on the display unit 40 (step SB4). Then, the control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 returns to the process of step SB3 and waits for input of instruction information (step SB3; NO).

  In other words, by repeating the processing of step SB3 to step SB4, the control unit 10 displays the objects included in the image represented by the selected image data in the order of high priority stored in the object management table TBL1. Is switched and displayed on the display unit 40 each time. Specifically, for example, when the selected image is the one shown in FIG. 2, four parts included in each of the four partial areas of the text area t1, the text area t2, the image area i1, and the image area i2. The images (objects) are switched and displayed on the display unit 40 every time the button B1 is pressed in the order of size.

  As described above, in this embodiment, the object included in the selected image is displayed in an enlarged preview only by performing a simple operation in which the user presses the button B1. In other words, the user of the image forming apparatus 1 does not need to perform a complicated operation such as searching for a spot (a point of interest) to be noticed from the preview displayed image and displaying the enlarged preview, and the image forming apparatus 1 includes the image in a simple operation. The displayed object can be enlarged.

  By the way, by simply enlarging an image and performing a preview display, it is not always possible to reliably display the most notable point for discriminating the image. On the other hand, in the present embodiment, the object included in the image is extracted and the extracted object is enlarged and displayed on the display unit 40, so that it is not necessary for the user to select a portion to be enlarged.

  In addition, since the object displayed on the display unit 40 is switched every time the user presses the button B1, the user scrolls the image displayed in the enlarged preview or displays the full screen again. There is no need to perform a complicated operation such as searching for another point of interest and displaying the enlarged preview again, and the object displayed on the display unit 40 can be switched simply by pressing the button B1. Can do.

  Thus, by confirming the object displayed on the display unit 40, the user can determine whether or not the selected image is the user's desired image. If the image is desired by the user, the user operates the input unit 50 to input an instruction for processing such as printout of the image. The control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 executes various processes such as controlling the image forming unit 70 to print out on a sheet according to the input instruction content.

  As described above, in the present embodiment, a partial image area is extracted from an image represented by image data, a priority order is determined for each image (object) included in the extracted partial image area, and a higher priority order is determined. Therefore, the user of the image forming apparatus 1 does not need to select (or input) a portion to be enlarged, and can determine whether the image is a user's desired image with a simple operation. It becomes possible.

  Further, in the present embodiment, the object is enlarged (or reduced) at the enlargement ratio at which all objects are displayed and displayed on the display unit 40, so that the user can grasp the entire object at a glance.

  In the above-described embodiment, the size of the text area is the area where the circumscribed rectangle surrounding the character image is cut out, and the priority order is determined according to the size of the area. Alternatively, the priority order may be determined according to the font size of characters or the line width of text. When using the font size of the character, the control unit 10 performs character recognition processing on each of the images included in the text area to specify the character size (font size), and the priority order according to the size of the character size. To decide. For example, if the priority is set higher as the character size is larger, in the case of image data including only a character image, the priority of an image included in a text area having a large character size such as a title portion becomes higher. In such a case, a title character is first displayed on the display unit, and then an image of a text area other than the title is displayed.

  In the above-described embodiment, the area of the partial image area is used as the size of the partial image area. However, the size of the partial image area is not limited to the area. The width may be used as the size.

<B: Second Embodiment>
Next explained is the second embodiment of the invention. The configuration of this embodiment is different from that of the first embodiment shown in FIG. 1 described above in that a priority table TBL2 (shown by a chain line in FIG. 1) is stored in the storage unit 20, and other configurations. Is the same as that of the first embodiment described above. Therefore, in the following description, the description of the same components as those in the first embodiment is omitted.

The priority order table TBL2 is a table that stores object types (monochrome / color, image / text, etc.) and priorities in association with each other. Here, this table will be described below with reference to FIG.
FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a data structure of the priority order table TBL2. In this table, as shown in the figure, items of “object type” and “priority order” are stored in association with each other. In the item “object type”, for example, information indicating the type of the object such as “monochrome character”, “color character”, “monochrome image”, “color image”, and the like is stored. In the “priority order” item, information indicating the priority order of the corresponding object is stored. For example, in the example shown in FIG. 7, “black and white characters” have the highest priority, and “color characters”, “black and white images”, and “color photos” have lower priorities.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. In the first embodiment described above, the priority order is determined according to the size of the object (step SA8 in FIG. 4). Instead, in this embodiment, the priority order of objects is determined with reference to the priority order table TBL2.
The control unit 10 of the image forming apparatus 1 specifies the priority order of the objects with reference to the priority order table TBL2 in the priority order determination process in step SA8 shown in FIG. For example, when the image represented by the input image data is the image shown in FIG. 2 and the contents of the priority order table TBL2 are as shown in FIG. 7, the priority order of the text area t1 including the black and white character image is the highest. Next, the priority order of the text region t2 including the color character image is second.

  Also in the present embodiment, as in the first embodiment described above, the objects included in the image are displayed in order from the highest priority, so that the user of the image forming apparatus 1 selects a location to be enlarged. It is not necessary to perform each operation, and it is possible to determine whether or not the image is a user-desired image with a simple operation.

  The priority table TBL2 in the present embodiment may be configured such that the user can change the setting contents by operating the input unit 50. By changing the setting contents so that the priority of the object of the type (black / white / color, image / text, etc.) that the user wants to check becomes higher, the object of the type that the user wants to check is displayed before other objects. Thus, the user's work efficiency can be improved.

<C: Modification>
As mentioned above, although embodiment of this invention was described, this invention is not limited to embodiment mentioned above, It can implement with another various form. An example is shown below.
(1) In the embodiment described above, the priority order is determined according to the size or type (color / monochrome, text / image, etc.) of the image (object) included in the partial image area. The method for determining the priority order of the objects is not limited to this. For example, the priority order may be determined according to the color of the object. Specifically, for example, the priority order of objects may be specified in the order of “red”, “blue”, and “yellow”. In this case, red characters are displayed first, and then blue and yellow characters are sequentially displayed on the display unit.

  Alternatively, as another example of the priority order determination method, it may be recognized where each partial image area included in the image is located on the image, and the priority order may be determined according to the position. . For example, the priority order is set higher in the partial image region whose position is above the image.

Note that the priority order of objects may be determined by combining a plurality of conditions such as the size and type (color / monochrome, text / image, etc.) of the object.
When determining the priority order of an object by combining a plurality of conditions, the user may be able to select which condition is used to determine the priority order. In this case, the user selects one or more conditions from a plurality of conditions such as size, type, color, and position using the input unit, and the control unit of the image forming apparatus uses the selected conditions. To determine priority.

(2) In the above-described embodiment, the object is enlarged (or reduced) at the enlargement ratio at which the entire object is displayed and displayed on the display unit. Instead of this, the object may be enlarged (or reduced) and displayed on the display unit at an enlargement ratio at which all the horizontal portions are displayed or at an enlargement rate at which all the vertical portions are displayed. In other words, the object is enlarged (or reduced) so that the vertical width of the object matches the vertical width of the display area of the display section or the horizontal width of the object matches the horizontal width of the display area. ) May be displayed. In this case, when the vertical part protrudes, as illustrated in FIG. 8A, the object O is displayed in any of the top, center, and bottom positions with respect to the display area 40a of the display unit. To do. Alternatively, when the side protrudes, as illustrated in FIG. 8B, the object O may be displayed in any of left-justification, center-justification, and right-justification with respect to the display area 40a of the display unit. .

  Note that, when an object is displayed at an enlargement ratio at which all horizontal and vertical are displayed, the displayed object O may be scrolled up and down or left and right as shown in FIG. . In this case, the control unit of the image forming apparatus 1 may automatically scroll the object, or the control unit may scroll and display the object according to the scroll operation of the user. Good.

(3) In the above-described embodiment, an image forming apparatus such as a printer or a scanner is used as the image processing apparatus. However, the image processing apparatus is not limited to this, for example, a personal computer including a display device, It may be a device such as a document management server device, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistance), or a mobile phone terminal.
In the above-described embodiment, the image data is image data such as the TIFF format. However, the format of the image data is not limited to this. For example, image data in a format such as JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is used. It may be. Alternatively, for example, data in PDF (Portable Document Format) format may be used.

(4) In the above-described embodiment, the objects are displayed in the descending order of priority. In addition to this, for example, as shown by a chain line in FIG. 6, the button B2 is displayed on the screen displayed on the display unit. It may be provided to return to an object with a low priority.
In this case, in the process of step SB4 in the flowchart shown in FIG. 5, when the button B1 is pressed, that is, when the next object is designated, the control unit 10 controls the object management table TBL1. Then, the object having the next highest priority after the displayed object is selected and displayed on the display unit. On the contrary, when the button B2 is pressed, that is, when the previous object is designated, the control unit 10 selects the object with the next lowest priority from the object management table TBL1 and displays it on the display unit. Like that.

  Further, buttons B3 and B4 may be provided on the display screen as shown by a chain line in FIG. 6 so that the image data can be switched in order. In this case, when the button B3 or B4 is pressed, the control unit of the image processing apparatus selects the image data stored in the storage unit next (or before) the image data being displayed, and selects the selected image data. The included objects are displayed on the display unit.

(5) In the embodiment described above, the priority order of the extracted objects is determined by extracting the objects included in the image data at the timing of saving the input image data. The timing for determining the priority order is not limited to this. For example, the object extraction process or the priority order determination process may be performed at the timing when the instruction information for preview display is input.

1 is a block diagram illustrating an overall configuration of an image forming apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure which shows an example of image data. It is a figure which shows the data structure of the table which concerns on the same embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process of the embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of the process of the embodiment. It is a figure which shows an example of the screen displayed on a display part. It is a figure which shows the data structure of the priority table based on 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the screen which concerns on the modification of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Image forming apparatus, 10 ... Control part, 20 ... Memory | storage part, 30 ... Image reading part, 40 ... Display part, 50 ... Input part, 60 ... Communication part, 70 ... Image forming part.

Claims (9)

Extraction means for extracting, from the image represented by the input image data, at least one of a text region including a character image and an image region including an image other than the character image as a partial image region;
Priority order determining means for determining a priority order for each of the partial image regions extracted by the extracting means;
Display control means for causing the display means to display the images included in the partial image area extracted by the extraction means in ascending or descending order of priority determined by the priority determining means. Processing equipment. Comprising instruction information receiving means for inputting instruction information;
The display control means inputs the instruction information to the instruction information receiving means for the images included in the partial image area extracted by the extracting means in ascending or descending order of priority determined by the priority determining means. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing apparatus is switched every time the display is performed and displayed on the display unit. Size specifying means for specifying the size of the partial image area extracted by the extracting means,
The priority order determining means determines the priority order of the partial image areas extracted by the extracting means according to the ascending or descending order of the size specified by the size specifying means. An image processing apparatus according to 1. Storage means for storing type information indicating one type of the text area and the image area in association with priority information indicating the priority;
An area specifying means for specifying the type of the partial image area;
The priority order determination means associates the priority order of the partial image areas extracted by the extraction means with the priority order information stored in the storage means in association with the type information indicating the type specified by the area specifying means. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing apparatus is determined according to the determination. Storage means for storing the type information indicating the color type and the priority information indicating the priority in association with each other;
Color specifying means for specifying the color of an image included in the partial image area extracted by the extracting means,
The priority order determination means associates the priority order of the partial image areas extracted by the extraction means with the priority order information stored in the storage means in association with the type information indicating the color specified by the color specifying means. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing apparatus is determined according to the determination. Area specifying means for specifying whether the partial image area is the text area or the image area, and adding type information indicating one of the text area and the image area to the specified area When,
Storage means for storing the type information given by the area specifying unit and the priority information indicating the priority in association with each other, and storing the color type information for identifying the color and the priority information in association with each other When,
Color specifying means for specifying the color of an image included in the partial image area extracted by the extracting means;
Selecting means for selecting at least one of the size, the color type information and the type information as condition information;
The priority order determination means determines the priority order of the partial image areas extracted by the extraction means, and when the size is selected by the selection means, the priority order determination means determines the priority of the partial image areas specified by the size specification means. In accordance with the ascending or descending order of the sizes, and when the color type information or the type information is selected as condition information by the selection unit, the storage unit is associated with the selected condition information The image processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the image processing apparatus is determined according to priority order information stored in the information processing apparatus. The display control means displays the image included in the partial image area extracted by the extraction means in the display area of the display means in the ascending or descending order of priority determined by the priority determining means. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing apparatus enlarges and displays the maximum displayable size. The display control means displays the images included in the partial image area extracted by the extraction means in the ascending order or descending order of the priority order determined by the priority order determination means, and the vertical width of the partial image area is the display means. The image is enlarged and displayed in one of a size that matches the vertical width of the display area in FIG. 5 or a horizontal width of the partial image area that matches the horizontal width of the display area. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1. The display control unit is configured to display an image included in the partial image region extracted by the extraction unit, an image included in the partial image region, and the display in ascending or descending order of priority determined by the priority determining unit. Displaying the image on the display means in a positional relationship in which at least one of the upper end, the lower end, the left end, and the right end of each region matches,
The image processing apparatus according to claim 8, further comprising: a scroll unit that scrolls the partial image displayed on the display unit in at least one of a vertical direction and a horizontal direction.

Images