JP2721154B2 - Image processing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Object of the Invention] (Industrial application field) The present invention relates to an image information editing apparatus and the like for displaying image information read from a two-dimensional scanning device on a display device and performing editing processing. The present invention relates to an image processing device. (Prior art) Recently, image information such as documents generated in large quantities is read by a two-dimensional scanning device (scanner) by optical two-dimensional scanning, and the read image information is displayed on a display device (CRT display device). It is supposed to. Then, the displayed image is rotated, enlarged, reduced, or cut, and combined with another document to edit a target document, and the edited document is sequentially stored in a storage medium such as an optical disk, or an output device. For example, there has been developed an image information editing device that outputs an image in a state that can be viewed with a CRT display device or printer. In this case, the image information read by the two-dimensional scanning device is stored in the image memory as it is, and the edited image information is stored in the display memory. In such a device, when storing the image information read by the two-dimensional scanning device in the display memory, the image information read from the two-dimensional scanning device is first stored in the image memory,
The contents stored in the image memory are processed by an enlargement / reduction circuit, that is, enlarged or reduced to a size corresponding to the display device, and then stored in the display memory. For this reason, there is a drawback that it takes a long time from the start of the image reading operation by the two-dimensional scanning device to the start of the image display on the display device. (Problems to be Solved by the Invention) The present invention eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks, greatly shortens the time required from the start of the image reading operation to the start of the display of the read image, and nothing is displayed on the display device. It is an object of the present invention to reduce the time for waiting an operator in a state. [Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, an image processing apparatus according to the present invention includes a reading unit for reading image information and an image information read by the reading unit. An image memory that stores the image information as it is read by the reading unit without changing the size of the image information, and an enlargement that automatically scales image information of different sizes read by the reading unit to a predetermined size. A reduction circuit, a display memory for storing the image information converted to a uniform predetermined size by the enlargement / reduction circuit, and a display means for simultaneously displaying a plurality of size-converted image information stored in the display memory. Outputting the image information read by the reading means to the image memory; and outputting the image information read by the reading means to the enlargement / reduction circuit for enlargement. Control means for outputting the reduced image information to the display memory and displaying the size-converted image information stored in the display memory on the display means in parallel by time division processing. It is characterized by doing. (Operation) According to the present invention, an operation of transferring image information read by a reading unit to an image memory and an operation of transferring the read image information to a display memory via a scaling circuit are performed in parallel by time division processing. By doing so, the waiting time from the start of the reading operation to the start of the display can be reduced. Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 shows an image information editing device as an image processing device of the present invention. That is, reference numeral 11 denotes a main control unit, which is a CPU 12 for performing various controls, a main memory 13, an image memory (first storage means) 14 having a storage capacity corresponding to image information for several pages of an A4 size document, Compression / decompression circuit 15 that compresses (reduces the redundancy) and decompresses (restores the reduced redundancy) a pattern generator that stores pattern information such as characters or symbols
16, an interface 17 for display, an address generator 18, an enlargement / reduction circuit 31 for enlarging / reducing image information, an interface 34, and the like. The above components are connected by a data bus 35 for control signals and an image bus (first output means) 36 for image information. Each module such as the two-dimensional scanning device 20 for flowing data to the image bus 36 and the scaling circuit 31 is connected to the control bus 35 as described above.
Is controlled by the CPU 12 via the. Scale circuit 31
The image bus 36 is used when transferring data from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 to the image memory 14 and when transferring data from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 to the display memory 32, so that data does not conflict on the image bus 36. Each module itself is controlled by the CPU 12 in the order in which data is generated. For example, when transferring data from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 to the image memory 14 and transferring data from the enlargement / reduction circuit 31 to the display memory 32, the CPU 12 sends the data , And the transfer unit are transmitted via the control bus 35, and information such as the data transfer destination and the transfer unit is also transmitted from the CPU 12 to the scaling circuit 31 via the control bus 35. These instructions are sent to the two-dimensional scanning device 20 and the scaling circuit 31 while being arbitrated by the CPU 12. As a result, the data transfer from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 and the data transfer from the scaling circuit 31 are processed in parallel in a time-division process, and data from the two devices conflicts on the image bus 36. There is no. The data transfer speed of the image bus 36 is
Each module connected to the image bus (two-dimensional scanning device 2
0, scaling circuit 31 etc.). As shown in FIG. 1, the interface 34 is an interface for a two-dimensional scanning device (reading means, scanner) 20, which will be described later, and outputs the image information from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 to the image bus 36 as it is. Are output to the enlargement / reduction circuit 31 via the internal bus (second output means) 34a. The enlargement / reduction circuit 31 enlarges or reduces image information supplied from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 via the internal bus 34a, and outputs the image information to the display memory 32 via the image bus 36. In addition, the above enlargement / reduction circuit
31 enlarges or reduces image information supplied from the image memory 14 or the display memory (second storage means) 32 via the image bus 36, and outputs the image information to the image memory 14 or the display memory 32 via the image bus 36. It is supposed to. The internal bus 34a serves as a bypass for transferring data from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 to the scaling circuit 31 via the interface 34.
When data is transferred from 20 to the scaling circuit 31 via the interface 34, the data can be transferred without passing through the image bus 36. In addition, the two-dimensional scanning device 20
Whether the data is transferred to the scaling circuit 31 via the interface 34 or directly to the image memory 14 is determined by a command sent from the CPU 12 to the two-dimensional scanning device 20 via the data bus 35 for control signals. Is done. That is, CP
If there is a command to transfer data from U12 to the scaling circuit 31 via the interface 34, data is transferred via the internal bus 34a, and if there is a command to transfer data to the image memory 14, the image bus 36 Data is transferred via The image memory 14 has storage areas 14a, 14b, and 14 for storing original image information displayed in four windows A, B, C, and D in a CRT display device 24 described later.
c and 14d are provided correspondingly, and a storage area 14e for storing printout information is provided. The display interface 17 includes a display memory 32 and a display control unit 33. Display memory 32 above
The image information actually displayed in four windows A, B, C, and D of the CRT display device 24 described later, that is, the image information in the image memory 14 is enlarged, reduced, rotated, inserted, or inverted. Storage areas 32a, 32b, 32c, and 32d in which the image information subjected to the above-described operations are stored. The address generator 18 controls access to the image memory 14 and the display memory 32 in the display interface 17. Each of the storage areas 14a, 14b, 14
c, 14d and the respective storage areas 32a, 32b, 32 of the display memory 32
When storing the image information from c and 32d in the storage area 14e, the resolution 16 pixels / mm of each image information is converted into the resolution of the printer 25 of 8 pixels / mm and stored. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, A4 size image information is stored in the storage area 14a of the image memory 14, A3 size image information is stored in the storage area 14b, and the storage area 14c
B4 size image information is stored in the storage area 14d, and A5
Size image information is stored. In the storage areas 32a, 32b, 32c, and 32d of the display memory 32, display information corresponding to the image information of the storage areas 14a, 14b, 14c, and 14d is converted into a predetermined size and stored. It is to be remembered. Reference numeral 20 denotes, for example, a two-dimensional scanning device which obtains an electric signal corresponding to image information on the document 21 by scanning a document (document) 21 two-dimensionally with a laser beam light.
Reference numeral 22 denotes an optical disk device for sequentially storing image information and the like read by the two-dimensional scanning device 20 and supplied through the main controller 11 on the optical disk 19. On the other hand, a keyboard 23 is used for inputting a unique search code corresponding to image information, various operation commands, and the like. Reference numeral 24 denotes an output device such as a cathode ray tube display device (hereinafter referred to as a CRT display device) which is a display device, which is read by the two-dimensional scanning device 20 and supplied from the main control device 11 or from the optical disk device 22. It is for displaying image information and the like read out and supplied via the main control device 11. The display interface 17 of the main control device 11 constitutes an image information display device having a large meaning. The CRT display device 24 can simultaneously display four documents using a maximum of four windows. For example, four pieces of vertically displayed image information are displayed. Editing such as enlargement, reduction, rotation, and scrolling of an image can be performed independently for each window. Reference numeral 25 denotes a printer (printing means) which is read by the two-dimensional scanning device 20 and supplied through the main controller 11, image information read from the optical disk device 22 and supplied through the main controller 11, The image information and the like from the image memory 14 and the display memory 32 are printed out (printed out), that is, output as a hard copy 26. Numeral 27 denotes a magnetic disk unit which magnetically converts search data entered by the keyboard 23, search data including the size of one image information corresponding to the search code and the storage address on the optical disk 19 where the image information is stored. This is stored in the disk 28 for each piece of image information. 29 is a pointing device, for example, a CRT
By arbitrarily moving the cursor on the display device 24 in the vertical and horizontal directions and giving an instruction at a desired position, the display content where the cursor is located (for example,
A mouse for selecting various modes, edited images, cut-out ranges and the respective icons, and the like, or display contents of the CRT display device 24 (for example, various modes, edited images, cut-out ranges and respective icons, etc.) The choice is made on the same tablet. The search data includes a search code (image name) including a plurality of search keys, an image storage start track address of the image information corresponding to the search code on the optical disc 19,
It consists of the image storage start sector address and the number of image storage sectors (image length). Next, an operation in the case where an image of a document read by the two-dimensional scanning device 20 is displayed on the CRT display device 24 in such a configuration will be described. For example, an operator sets a document on the two-dimensional scanning device 20 now. Then, the two-dimensional scanning device 20 reads the document two-dimensionally by scanning the document,
Convert to image information. This image information is supplied to the image memory 14 via the image bus 36. This allows image memory
14 stores the original image read by the two-dimensional scanning device 20 in the same size. The image information from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 is supplied to the enlargement / reduction circuit 31 via the internal bus 34a. Thus, the enlargement / reduction circuit 31 converts the supplied image information into a CRT
The output is reduced to a size corresponding to the display device 24. As a result, the reduced image information from the enlargement / reduction circuit 31 is supplied to the display memory 32 via the image bus 36.
As a result, the image of the document read by the two-dimensional scanning device 20 is stored in the display memory 32 in a reduced size. As described above, the data transfer rate of the image bus 36 depends on each module (the two-dimensional scanning device 20, the enlargement / reduction circuit 31).
Etc.) sufficiently faster than the transfer speed. In particular, the data flow in the configuration of the present application includes “the flow from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 to the display memory 32 through the scaling circuit 31” and “the flow from the two-dimensional scanning device 20 to the image memory 14”. However, in particular, the enlargement / reduction circuit 20 requires processing for each pixel, so that the data transfer speed from the enlargement / reduction circuit 31 is particularly slow as compared with the others. Therefore, when the data from the scaling circuit 31 flows through the image bus 36, the data transfer performance of the image bus 36 is higher than the data transfer performance of the scaling circuit 31. The image bus 36 is not occupied for a period during which data transfer is being performed. Therefore, the data transfer from the scaling circuit 31 is completed and the image bus
By arbitrating to use the image bus 36 for data transfer from the other two-dimensional scanning device 20 by using the time when the 36 is released, the other two-dimensional scanning device 20 can be used after the data transfer of one of the two is completely completed. The data transfer can be completed in a shorter time than in the sequential processing for performing the data transfer of the above. As described above, the image information read by the two-dimensional scanning device is stored in the image memory via the image bus as it is in the image memory, and is also supplied to the enlargement / reduction circuit via the internal bus, and is displayed on the CRT display device. The size is changed to a size corresponding to the size, and the changed image information is stored in the display memory. Thus, by directly supplying the image information from the two-dimensional scanning device to the enlargement / reduction circuit without passing through the image memo, the time required to read the image and display it on the CRT display device can be reduced. . [Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, a plurality of pieces of image information read by a reading unit are stored in an image memory, and are converted to a predetermined size and displayed. It is possible to provide an image processing apparatus that can significantly reduce the waiting time until display.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining a connection relationship between an interface and its periphery, and FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an entire configuration. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of storage in an image memory and an example of storage in a display memory. 11: Main control unit, 12: CPU, 14: Image memory (first storage unit), 19: Optical disk, 20: Two-dimensional scanning device (reading unit), 21: Document, 22: Optical disc device, 23… Keyboard, 24… CRT display device, 3
1 ... Enlargement / reduction circuit (change means), 32 ... Display memory (second storage means), 34 ... Interface, 34a ...
... internal bus (second output means), 35 ... data bus, 36
... Image bus (first output means).

   ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page    (56) References JP-A-56-97174 (JP, A)                 JP-A-60-19275 (JP, A)                 JP-A-63-20687 (JP, A)

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] Reading means for reading image information; image memory for storing image information read by the reading means in the same size as read by the reading means without changing the size of the image information; A scaling circuit for automatically scaling image information of different sizes to a uniform predetermined size; a display memory for storing the image information converted to a uniform predetermined size by the scaling circuit; Display means for simultaneously displaying a plurality of size-converted image information stored in the memory; operation of outputting the image information read by the reading means to the image memory; image information read by the reading means Is output to the scaling circuit, and the scaled image information is output to the display memory, and the size-converted image information stored in the display memory is output. An image processing apparatus characterized by comprising a control means for causing performed in parallel by time division processing and operation of displaying on the display means.