JP2558254B2 - Pattern generation method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial application] The present invention generates a high-quality pattern of a desired size after scaling by selecting a dot pattern to be scaled from a plurality of types. The present invention relates to a pattern generation method capable of performing.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, as an application of a pattern generation method, for example, in a document processing apparatus that incorporates a font pattern such as a character or a symbol (hereinafter, simply referred to as a character), the character font pattern is enlarged (or the dot density is reduced). The process of increasing) and reducing (or decreasing the dot density) is based on one type of character font pattern built in beforehand
It was processed by simple scaling processing such as 4,1 / 2,2,4 times.

However, recently, based on a font pattern of an existing character pattern size, by enlarging or reducing the number of consecutive points in a certain range (for example, 6 points to 16 points), a character having a desired dot density can be obtained. There has been a demand to generate patterns.

[Problems to be solved by the invention] For that purpose, a scaling process such as complicated scaling (for example, 15/16 or 7/6 times) for the reference character font pattern is required, and after the scaling process, In order to maintain the character quality of the generated character font pattern, the problem was how to perform the scaling with a small error and the scaling process.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional technique, and selects an optimum pattern from a plurality of types of different size pattern groups, and based on the selected pattern, a high-quality pattern of a specified size. It is intended to provide a pattern generation method for generating

[Means for Solving the Problem] In order to solve this problem, the pattern generating method of the present invention includes the following steps.

In other words, if the size of the pattern to be output is specified, and there is no pattern that matches the specified size of the pattern to be output from among several types of pattern groups stored in the storage unit that differ in the number of dots In the pattern group, with scaling processing, a pattern with a small number of thinned-out or inserted dot rows is selected, and for the selected pattern, scaling processing including the thinning-out or insertion processing is performed, Stored to output the pattern after scaling processing.

[Operation] In the configuration of the present invention, when there is no pattern of a desired size, a pattern having a small number of thinned-out dot rows or a small number of inserted dot rows in the scaling process is selected from the pattern group stored in the storage unit. Then, the pattern of the size to be output is stored by performing thinning-out or insertion processing based on the pattern.

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

Further, in this embodiment, an example applied to a document processing device will be described.

FIG. 1 is an overall block diagram of the document processing apparatus of this embodiment.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 is a CPU that controls the entire apparatus, and includes a ROM 1a in which a program relating to the flow chart of FIG. 3 to be described later is stored, and a RAM 1b used as a work area of the CPU 1. A keyboard 2 is used when editing a document, and is also used when inputting various parameters for determining the character size. A video RAM 3 (hereinafter, simply referred to as VRAM) stores data to be displayed on the display device. Reference numeral 5 is a document RAM for storing document data during document editing. 6 is a character symbol pattern storage unit,
Character font 6a of 32 × 32 dot pattern as shown in Fig. 2 and character fonts 6b to 6f of 44 × 44, 48 × 48, 56 × 56, 64 × 64, 88 × 88 dot pattern Has been done. Reference numeral 7 designates a value of a thinning number or an insertion number for scaling processing of a character pattern output from the character / symbol pattern storage unit 6 according to an instruction parameter from the CPU 1 to generate and output a new dot size character pattern. This is a pattern generation unit.

The size of the character pattern output from the character / symbol pattern storage unit is the character pattern from the character font selected by the CPU 1. An output image buffer memory 8 stores an image to be output to the printer 9. In this embodiment, the printer 9 is a laser beam printer.

In the present embodiment, the character size to be created will be described with respect to the number of 6 points to 16 points. The following table shows a function indicating the number of dots of the character pattern for each number of points.

As you can see from this table, since the character font already exists for the number of points for which "Moped" has been entered, it is not necessary to newly generate it, but "Occurred" is entered. Some of the existing characters will be newly generated from the existing fonts.

In the configuration of the present embodiment as described above, the process of outputting the document data in which the document is edited to the printer 9 will be described according to the flow chart of FIG.

In step S1, it is determined whether the input key is a printout key (not shown). If the key is other than the printout key, it is considered that a key related to the normal document editing work is input, and various document editing processes are performed in step S2. The character code relating to document editing and the parameters relating to various editing are sequentially stored in the document RAM 5.

When the printout key is inserted at step S1, the process proceeds to step S3, and the number of points for determining the output character size is input from the keyboard 2.

Next, it is determined whether or not the character font pattern corresponding to the input point number is in the character / symbol pattern storage unit 6. If there is, the corresponding character pattern is selected from the character fonts 6a to 6f in step S5, written in the output image buffer memory, and output to the printer 9 in step S6 to finish the processing.

If it is determined that there is no character font corresponding to the number of points specified in step S4, the process proceeds to step S7, and the character font that is the reference for generating the character pattern corresponding to the number of points specified is set to the character font. 6a
Select from ~ 6f and decide the scaling ratio.

Next, in step S8, the pattern from the pattern generating unit 7 is expanded or reduced to be developed in the output image buffer memory 8, and in step S6 the printer 9 outputs the pattern to complete the process.

By the way, in the above processing procedure, if there is no character font corresponding to the specified number of points, the corresponding character font will be generated, but the newly generated pattern is based on which character font, And the problem is how to set the scaling factor.

The contents of the scaling processing (enlargement and reduction processing) in this embodiment will be described below, and the operation description in steps S6 and S7 will be similarly described.

[Enlargement processing] Enlargement (Increase the dot density of character font patterns)
Regarding the processing, for example, in the present embodiment, the character font pattern is enlarged by (n + 1) / n times. That is, the CPU 1 extracts one reference character font in the character / symbol pattern storage unit 6, that is, a character pattern corresponding to the character code stored in the document RAM 5, and first extracts it in the horizontal direction (main scanning direction).
Insert the column pattern immediately before (or immediately after) every n columns of, then similarly insert the row pattern immediately before (or immediately after) every n rows in the vertical direction (sub-scanning direction) as well. The expansion process is achieved by going.

More specifically, if the character pattern extracted from the character font of 32 × 32 dots is enlarged 6/5 (n = 5) times (38 × 38 dots), the dot number of the reference character (in this case, Calculates the quotient and the remainder of n (n = 5) of the denominator divided by 32 dots. At this time, the quotient is 6 and the remainder is 2
Becomes

That is, the row pattern immediately before (or immediately after) every 5 rows in the horizontal direction of the character font pattern of 32 × 32 dots is inserted (6 rows in total), and similarly in the vertical direction. By inserting the line pattern immediately before (or immediately after) every 5 lines (that is, inserting 6 lines in total), a character pattern of 36 + 6 = 38 dots is generated, but the remaining 2 dots are used. Is not inserted into.

[Reduction Processing] Next, for the reduction processing (reducing the dot density of the character font pattern), for example, the character font pattern is reduced to n / (n + 1) times in this embodiment. That is, CP
U1 extracts one reference character font in the character / symbol pattern storage unit 6, that is, a character pattern corresponding to the character code stored in the document RAM, and first extracts every n columns in the horizontal direction (main scanning direction). This is achieved by thinning out every n rows in the vertical direction (sub-scanning direction).

More specifically, if the character font pattern of 64 × 64 dots is reduced to 12/13 (n = 12) times (60 × 60 dots), the dot number of the reference character (64 in this case) is divided. Find the quotient and remainder of n + 1 (12 + 1 = 13) of the denominator. At this time, the quotient becomes 4 and the remainder becomes 12.

That is, thinning out every 13 (= 12 + 1) columns in the horizontal direction of a 64 × 64 dot character font pattern (totally thinning out four columns), and similarly thinning out every 13 lines in the vertical direction (totally). By thinning out four lines), a character pattern of 64-4 = 60 dots is generated, but the remaining 12
Dot thinning is not done for dots.

By the processing described above, an existing character font pattern and a pattern having a different dot density are newly generated.

The enlargement ratio (n + 1) / n and the reduction ratio n /
FIG. 6A to FIG. 6F show the relationship between the number of dots of a newly generated character pattern for each character font at (n + 1). (N = 1 to 15) Incidentally, FIG. 6 (a) shows the reference character font 6a (32
FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a scaling process of (× 32 dots) and a relationship with the dot number of a character pattern generated with the scaling process.
Below, FIG. 6 (b) is the character font 6b (44 × 44 dots).
Fig. 6 (c) shows the font font 6c (48 x 48 dots).
Fig. 6 (d) shows the font font 6d (56 x 56 dots).
Fig. 6 (e) shows the font font 6e (64 x 64 dots).
FIG. 6 (f) shows the relationship between the dot numbers of the character patterns generated in the scaling process of the character font 6f (88 × 88 dots).

As is apparent from FIGS. 6 (a) to 6 (f), for example, in order to generate a character pattern of 60 × 60 dots, the reference character font is the 64 × 64 dots described above. Limited to the font font 6e, and the scaling factor is 12 × 13
You can see that it is not specified in. Because 60x
Based on the character font 6c of 48 × 48 dots, which is one candidate for newly generating a 60-dot character pattern,
This is because it is possible to generate a character pattern of 60 × 60 dots in the same manner even when the scaling factor is set to 5/4.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, according to the table shown above, the number of dots of the character patterns newly generated (horizontal and vertical dots) 38, 60, 72, 77, 82 for each of the five character patterns 4 (a) to 4 (e) were prepared to list and show candidates.

FIG. 4 (a) shows candidates for generating a 38 × 38 dot character pattern. For example, the reference character font is
It is shown that this can be achieved by 6/5 times processing of the character font 6a of 32 × 32 dots, and it can be seen that there are two other candidates.

Hereinafter, there are a total of eight candidates for generating the 60 × 60 dot character pattern in FIG. 4 (b), and 72 × in FIG. 4 (c).
There are two candidates for generating 72-dot character patterns, the fourth.
It can be seen that there is one candidate for generating the 77 × 77 dot character pattern in FIG. 4D and two candidates for generating the 82 × 82 dot character pattern in FIG. 4E.

Therefore, when newly generating a character pattern, which candidate should be selected becomes a problem.

To explain this, the character font 6e (64 × 64 dots) is used as the reference for generating the 60 × 60 dots character pattern in the above-mentioned [enlargement processing], and the magnification is 12/1.
Consider again the case of setting 3.

In this case, by multiplying by 12/13 as already mentioned, 6
A character pattern of 0x60 dots was achieved, but 64 /
At 13, the remainder becomes 12, which means that thinning is not performed for this part, which is insufficient from the viewpoint of balance.

From this, the smaller the remainder in the division in each scaling process, the smaller the candidate (the best is the number of remainders is “0”).

Therefore, when there are a plurality of candidates, the conditions that serve as the basis for selection are set as follows.

Among the processes described in the [enlargement process] and the [reduction process], the one having a small residual dot number is prioritized.

In the [reduction processing], the one having a smaller thinning dot number is given priority.

If the quotient and the remainder in the process of [enlargement processing] are the same as the quotient and the remainder in [reduction processing], the character quality is naturally kept in the reduction processing, so Give priority to one.

FIG. 5 shows the optimum candidates for newly generated character patterns extracted from each of the above conditions and arranged.

That is, when a character pattern of 38 × 38 dots is generated,
A reduction of 6/7 times the font font 6b of 44 × 44 dots will be selected.

Below, when a 60 × 60 dot character pattern is generated,
A 64x64 dot character font 6e is reduced by 15/16 times to 72
When a character pattern of × 72 dots is generated, the character font of 64 × 64 dots is enlarged 9/8 times that of the font 6e, and when a character pattern of 77 × 77 dots is generated, a character font of 88 × 88 dots is generated.
Reduction of 7/8 times of 6f is performed when a character pattern of 82 × 82 dots is generated, and a character font of 88 × 88 dots is 13/1 of 6f.
By reducing the number of times by 4 times, it is possible to minimize the error and to cover the character size in the range of 6 to 16 points.

For example, to generate a 60x60 dot character pattern, select the 64x64 dot font 6e and change the scaling factor.
Since the thinning-out number for 15/16 is 4, and the remainder is also 0, the “error” is smaller than that of the above-described reduction processing of 12/13 times the font 6e of 64 × 64 dots.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, by preparing several kinds of character fonts, it becomes possible to generate a pattern having a continuous character pattern size, and the error when generating the pattern is minimized. Will be able to.

In this embodiment, the number of points is set to 6 to 16 and the number of installed character fonts is set to 6. However, the number of character fonts is not limited to this, and the number of dots of each character font as a reference is also limited to this. It is not something that will be done. Further, although there are five types of newly generated character patterns in the present embodiment, in reality, character patterns of the sizes shown in FIGS. 6A to 6F can be generated and serve as a reference. It is clear that more character patterns can be generated by adding character fonts.

Furthermore, in the present embodiment, an example of applying to a document processing device and outputting to a printer has been described, but it goes without saying that it can also be applied to, for example, a display device.

Further, by incorporating a table as shown in FIG. 5 of the present embodiment, the scaling factor is determined by referring to this table when a pattern having a specified dot density from the outside is generated, By selecting the best font, it is possible to omit the calculation related to the generation of the desired dot density pattern, and it is possible to increase the processing speed.

Furthermore, although the present embodiment has been described with respect to a character pattern, it is clear that a pattern having a desired dot density can be obtained also for a graphic pattern.

As described above, according to the present invention, an optimum pattern is selected from a plurality of types of pattern groups having different sizes,
Based on the selection pattern, it becomes possible to generate a high-quality pattern having a designated size.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram of this embodiment, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing contents of a character / symbol pattern storage unit, FIG. 3 is a flow chart relating to document processing, and FIG. 4 shows (a) to (e). FIG. 5 is a diagram showing candidates for generating a character pattern, FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a reference character font for each point number and its scaling process, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing (a) to (f) being changed for each character font. It is the figure which showed the character pattern which can be generated by the double processing. In the figure, 1 ... CPU, 1a ... ROM, 1b ... RAM, 2 ... Keyboard,
3 ... VRAM, 4 ... Display device, 5 ... Document RAM, 6 ... Character / symbol pattern storage section, 6a-6f ... Character font, 7 ... Pattern generating section, 8 ... Output image buffer memory, 9 ... Printer.

Front page continued (72) Inventor Hiroshi Takakura 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc. (72) Inventor Kikuo Takise 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc. (56) References JP-A-60-80895 (JP, A)

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A size of a pattern to be output is designated, and from among several kinds of pattern groups stored in the storage unit, which have different dot configurations, there is no match with the designated size of the pattern to be output. In this case, in the pattern group, a pattern with a small number of thinned-out dots or the number of inserted dots is selected along with the scaling process, and a scaling process including the thinning-out or insertion process is performed on the selected pattern. And a pattern generating method for storing the pattern after the scaling process to output the pattern. 2. The pattern selecting method according to claim 1, wherein the reduction processing is selected prior to the enlargement processing in order to obtain the size of the designated pattern to be output. Pattern generation method.