JP2667189B2 - Image processing method and image processing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial applications]

The present invention relates to an image processing (editing) function in a digital copying machine, a digital plate making machine, a copying machine in which a plate making machine and a printing machine are integrated, and the like. The present invention relates to an image processing method capable of eliminating a deviation from a set position on a document image input unit or eliminating an alignment operation thereof, and an image processing apparatus suitable for implementing the method.

[Prior art]

As one aspect of the conventional image processing technology, when performing a part of a document image in an image processing operation such as switching between character / photo and negative / positive modes of an image input signal, and specifying masking or bag characters, A document is once set on a pen input type device generally called a digitizer, the area of each part to be subjected to image processing is designated, and the position of the area on the document is stored in the digitizer. The original is set again on the image reading unit of an image output device such as a digital plate making machine, and the signal from the image reading unit and the signal from the digitizer are output in a superimposed manner, thereby finally processed (edited). An image is obtained. Various image processing functions of a word processor or a personal computer having a printer as an image output unit and further having an image scanner as an image input unit include a dot matrix liquid crystal display unit and a CR.
Some display an image on a T (cathode ray tube) display unit and perform image processing (editing) while monitoring.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

By the way, in the above-described method of performing image processing using a digitizer, a document setting operation is performed in two stages, and the position of the document set on the digitizer and the position of the document set on the image output device are both determined. If there is no equivalent positional relationship from an arbitrary reference point at the same position in the apparatus, the position of the image processing target area stored in the digitizer will cause a “position shift” in the output image. In order to prevent this "position shift", it is necessary to newly provide a positioning mechanism or to operate the mechanism. In a word processor or a personal computer as described above, a high-resolution image data signal which is read by reading a document image is stored as it is and displayed on a display unit, and the image data signal is converted into a high-resolution data as it is. To perform image processing,
In order to store an amount of data that can correspond to the input high-resolution image data signal, a large-capacity memory unit is required. The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and has been devised to effectively solve them. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an image processing method which can eliminate the need for a positioning operation of an image processing target area, prevent a document from being displaced, and reduce the capacity of a memory means for storing image data for designating the image processing target area. And an image processing apparatus for implementing the method.

[Means for Solving the Problems]

An image processing method according to the present invention converts an optical signal obtained by optically reading a document image for the first time into first image data, which is an electric signal, and samples the first image data to obtain a low-resolution second image. The second image data is stored in a first memory means, an output signal from the first memory means is displayed on a display means as a monitor image, and the monitor image of the display means is subjected to image processing. An area is designated, the designated image processing target area and an image non-processing target area other than the processing target area are stored in the second memory means, and an optical signal obtained by optically reading the document image for the second time is stored in the second memory means. The second first image data is converted into the first image data of the second time, and the first image data of the second time is converted into the first image data in the area corresponding to the image processing target area in accordance with the information stored in the second memory means. Partial data And data processing to data conversion in accordance with a desired image processing mode, the third image data subjected to image processing is characterized in that input to the desired image output unit by the data processing. Further, the image processing apparatus according to the present invention, a document input means for converting a document read signal obtained by optically reading a document image into an electric signal, and the first image data converted into an electric signal by the document input means, A data level lowering means for converting the image data into second image data having a lower resolution; a first memory means for storing the second image data; and displaying the second image data outputted from the first memory means as a monitor image Display means, an area signal input means for designating an image processing target area for the monitor image of the second image data, and the image processing target area and the image non-processing target area are input by the area signal input means. A second memory unit and a second first output newly output from the document input unit;
Image data is treated as data to be processed, and the second
Outputting the third image data, which has been processed so as to convert the partial data of the second first image data corresponding to the image processing target area in accordance with the image processing mode, to the image output unit in accordance with the information stored in the memory means And an image data processing unit. In a preferred aspect of the image processing device of the present invention, the image output unit in the image processing device includes:
It may be used as a copying machine having an automatic plate-making function, comprising a plate-making machine having a thermal head and a printing machine for wrapping a plate formed by the plate-making machine around a plate cylinder to perform copy printing.

[Action]

In the image processing method and the image processing apparatus according to the present invention, image processing is performed using image data having two-stage resolution. One is high-resolution first image data and third image data, and the other is low-resolution second image data. The second image data is work-use sub-image data for obtaining a monitor image used when designating an image processing target area with respect to the document image, and at least the resolution of the first image data as the document read data The resolution may be lower than the resolution, preferably the minimum resolution required for effectively specifying the image processing target area on the monitor image. The first image data and the third image data are
Both high-resolution image data for original image input and processed image output before and after image processing are processed, and the image data that is actually processed is the image specified based on the low-resolution monitor image. High-resolution first image data corresponding to the processing area, and image data (document read data) in the area is converted into data according to various image processing modes and output as third image data. Therefore, the first memory means for storing the second image data of the monitor image for specifying the image processing target area can be reduced to a necessary minimum capacity. An original reading operation for taking the first image data for the first time to obtain the second image data for specifying the image processing target area;
Since the second document reading operation for obtaining the first image data for performing the actual image processing is performed by one document input unit, the document once set in the document input unit for obtaining the first image data is Until the image processing (editing) is completed, the original is set as it is, and the set position of the document does not change. Note that storing the image processing target area and the image non-processing target area in the second memory means means that at the same time as specifying the processing area, the area other than that area becomes the non-processing area and the two areas are distinguished from each other. Is stored. Therefore, either the processing area or the non-processing area may be specified as the input operation, but the entire data of the first image data is handled as the processing target data, and the partial data in the processing area is changed according to the image processing mode. A process of data conversion is performed, and at the same time, a process of maintaining partial data in the non-processing area without performing data conversion is performed.

【The invention's effect】

As apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, the following excellent effects are exhibited. In other words, it is not necessary to adjust the position of the original when reading the original image by the actual image processing operation to the initial position of the original once determined when specifying the image processing target area. . Further, there is no displacement between the original read data corresponding to the designated image processing target area and the original read data which is the image data to be actually processed. Further, the capacity of the memory means for storing image data (second image data) for specifying the image processing target area can be reduced as much as possible.

【Example】

Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a copying machine provided with a plate making mechanism as one embodiment according to the image processing apparatus of the present invention. A portion 1 surrounded by a dashed line in the drawing is a document reading section as document input means, which converts an optical signal into an electric signal by the CCD sensor 5 while scanning an image drawn on the document 25. In the figure, 2 is a light source, 3 is a reflecting mirror, and 4 is a lens. A / D converter 6 which is converted into an electric signal by the CCD sensor 5
The original reading signal at the time when the original is input is high-resolution first image data. The first image data converted into a digital signal through the A / D converter 6 further passes through a sampling circuit 7 as a data level lowering means, and has lower resolution than the first image data which is a document reading signal as image data. It is converted to second image data. That is, the second image data is coarser as the image data than the first image data, and is converted into low-resolution image data up to about the number of images sufficient to specify the image processing target area. Then, the low-resolution second image data is input to be stored in the first memory 8 as first memory means. Therefore, the capacity of the first memory 8 is set to a capacity corresponding to the low-resolution second image data. The second image data stored in the first memory 8 is output from the first memory 8,
The image is displayed as a monitor image by a dot matrix liquid crystal display section 10 as a display means via a display section control microcomputer 9. Therefore, this monitor image corresponds to the document image, but is represented as a coarse image having a low resolution. The microcomputer 9 can designate an image processing target area on the monitor image of the dot matrix liquid crystal display section 10 with a cursor on the display screen, and the area specified by the cursor is the second area as the second memory means. Input to the memory 11. The second memory 11 is provided by the image data processing unit 12 in accordance with various image processing modes according to various image processing modes such as a masking memory, a character / photo switching memory, a negative / positive switching memory, or a bag character / normal character switching memory. (Data conversion), and a designated area for performing the image processing operation is input to each second memory 11 so as to be stored. The image data processing unit 12 has various built-in logic circuits (not shown) corresponding to various image processing modes, and is input to the image data processing unit 12 via the A / D converter 6. For the first image data, the image processing target area stored in the second memory 11 is subjected to data conversion in accordance with the image processing mode, and the converted data is converted to the third data.
Output as image data. When converting the first image data to the third image data, the original is read again separately from the original read performed to obtain the monitor image based on the second image data. In addition, since the original does not move from the state set in the reading unit 1 and remains in the state of being set first, the original reading and the second reading can be performed without the positioning operation even if the positioning operation is performed. Match. That is, the position equivalent to the image processing target area specified in the monitor image matches the actual image processing target area on the document. In this embodiment, the first memory 8 and the second memory 11 have different configurations. However, originally, it is sufficient that the first memory 8 and the second memory 11 have different functions. And the same area of one memory may be distinguished by different use times, and may be used as the first memory before displaying the monitor image on the display means, and as the second memory after the display. It is also possible to use. The third image data output from the image processing unit 12 is an image output unit 26 including a plate making unit 27 and a printing unit 28.
Is input to In the image output unit 26, the third image data is received by the thermal head 13 of the plate making machine unit 27, a plate 29 is formed by making a hole in the base paper 14, and the plate 29 is wound around the plate cylinder 17 of the printing machine unit 28. To print. More specifically, FIG.
Is a base paper wound in a roll shape, and the base paper 14 is sequentially supplied between the thermal head 13 and the platen roller 15.
The third screen data is input to the thermal head 13, and a hole is made in the document 14 in accordance with the screen data to form a plate 29. The plate 29 is cut to a suitable length by the cutter 24 and fed to the plate cylinder 17 by the base paper feed roller 16. The plate 29 is wound around the peripheral side so as to be taken up by the plate cylinder 17, is sandwiched between the ink supply roller 18 and the press roller 19 together with the printing paper 21, and the ink is transferred to the printing paper 21 from the portion where the hole is formed. And make a copy print. In the figure, reference numeral 20 denotes a paper feed ring, 22 denotes a paper feed roller, and 23 denotes a base paper discharge unit. As the image processing apparatus of the above-described embodiment, a copying machine in which the image output unit 26 includes a plate making unit 27 and a printing unit 28 has been described, but other parts corresponding to the image output unit are plate making units. It may be a digital plate making machine having only a mechanical section, or a digital copying machine having an image output section constituted by a laser printer.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 shows one embodiment of the image processing apparatus of the present invention.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a copying and printing machine provided with a plate making mechanism. 1... Original reading section as original input means, 5... CC
D sensor 7, sampling circuit as data level lowering means 8, first memory as first memory means 9, microcomputer as area signal input means 10, dot matrix liquid crystal as display means Display unit, 11... Second memory as second memory means, 12
…… Image data processing unit, 13 …… Thermal head, 17 ……
Plate cylinder, 26 ... Image output unit, 27 ... Plate making machine unit, 28 ... Printing machine unit, 29 ... Plate

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] An optical signal obtained by optically reading a document image for the first time is converted into first image data which is an electric signal, and the first image data is sampled and converted into low-resolution second image data. Storing the second image data in a first memory means, displaying an output signal from the first memory means on a display means as a monitor image, and designating an image processing target area for the monitor image of the display means; The designated image processing target area and the image non-processing target area other than the processing target area are stored in a second memory means, and an optical signal obtained by optically reading the document image for a second time is stored in a second first memory means. Converting the second first image data into image data, and desiring partial data of the second first image data in an area corresponding to the image processing target area in accordance with information stored in the second memory means; Image of An image processing method, comprising: performing data processing so as to perform data conversion according to a processing mode; and inputting the third image data image-processed by the data processing to a desired image output unit. 2. An original input means (1) for converting an original read signal obtained by optically reading an original image into an electric signal, and a first electric signal converted into an electric signal by the original input means (1).
A data level lowering means for converting the image data into second image data having a lower resolution; and a first memory means for storing the second image data.
Display means (10) for displaying the second image data output from the first memory means (8) as a monitor image; and specifying an image processing target area for the monitor image of the second image data. An area signal input means (9); a second memory means (11) to which the image processing target area and the image non-processing target area are input by the area signal input means (9); The newly output second first image data is treated as processing target data, and the partial data of the second first image data corresponding to the image processing target area according to the information stored in the second memory means (11). An image data processing unit (12) for outputting third image data processed to perform data conversion according to the image processing mode to an image output unit (26). . 3. The image output section (26) includes a plate making machine section (27) having a thermal head (13) and a plate (29) formed by the plate making machine section (27). 3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a printing unit (28) for performing transcript printing by wrapping around the printer.