JP3029765B2 - Thicker text generator - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thick and thin character generating apparatus, and more particularly, to a character generating apparatus having a different outline font having a different thickness mounted on a word processor or a computer system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventional methods for generating thick and thin characters include the following. One in which the character designer changes the thickness of a character by hand or by using a computer, one character at a time, and prepares and stores a plurality of data with different thicknesses. When printing or displaying, characters are fattened by shifting them by a few dots horizontally or diagonally. An outline font is developed into a bitmap font, a white pixel adjacent to a black pixel is converted into a black pixel based on information added in advance, and a thicker character is generated (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. No. 252697).

A series of points forming a contour is moved in a direction perpendicular to the inclination of the contour at each point to the outside or inside of the contour by a predetermined moving amount. Deformation information such as a moving direction and movement or correction information is added to each point constituting a character in advance, and each point is moved or corrected based on the information (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
-24689, JP-A-4-13689).

[0004]

The above prior arts have the following problems. In the method by the designer, since the number of characters is large, an enormous amount of time and labor are required, and the uniformity of the entire characters is easily lost. In the method of superimposing characters while shifting them, the quality of the obtained characters is significantly reduced, and it takes time to print or display. Converting outline fonts to bitmap fonts once to generate bold characters takes a lot of time and effort to convert, requiring additional information beforehand, which takes time and labor, and requires large font data. Become.

[0005] In the method of moving a point with a constant moving amount, thick and thin strokes existing in originally designed characters become monotonous, and the quality deteriorates. In the method of adding deformation information and correction information to the movement direction, movement amount, etc. to each point that constitutes a character in advance, font data must be added for each point of font data, which takes time and labor. The data gets bigger. As described above, the conventional thick / thin character generating apparatus has a problem in that although the character has some of the above-described important elements that determine the characteristics and quality of the character, it does not take this into account. Was.

[0006] The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, without enormous time and labor, and
By considering the element part without creating deformation information such as movement direction and movement amount for each point in advance, high-quality thick and thin characters that maintain the uniformity and quality of the original characters easily and quickly It is an object of the present invention to provide a thick and thin character generating device which can be obtained.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method for moving a point sequence from an outline font defined by a sequence of points constituting a character outline to a thicker character or a thinner character. In a thick and thin character generating apparatus for generating characters, a font data storage unit and a font data reading unit are provided.
Reading means and the font data reading means.
Determine the type of element at each point of the font
Element discriminating means to be performed and the type of the element.
Control data for controlling the direction and amount of movement of each point.
Element control data storage means to keep, thick and thin
Quantity input means and the element control data storage means.
Input from the control data and the thick and thin amount input means
Calculates the movement vector of each point based on the thickened and thinned amount
Moving vector calculating means for reading the font data;
Calculating a straight line connecting the two points read by the output means
Straight line calculating means, and the straight line calculated by the straight line calculating means.
The vector component calculated by the movement vector calculation means
Translation means for translating the straight line and the translation means
Intersection calculation to calculate the intersection caused by the parallel translation
Means for outputting the obtained bold and thin characters
Which is characterized by having

[0008]

The type of the element at each point of the outline font is determined by the element discriminating means, the control data is read from the element control data storage means according to the type of the element, and the movement direction corresponding to the element type is determined by the movement control means from the control data. The movement amount is obtained, and each point is moved based on this data.

[0009]

Embodiments will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining an embodiment of a thick and thin character generating apparatus according to the present invention. In the drawing, 1 is a font data storage unit, 2 is a font data reading unit, 3 is an element discriminating unit, and 4 is A straight line calculation unit, 5 is a movement amount calculation unit,
Reference numeral 6 denotes an element control data storage unit, 7 denotes a thick and thin amount input unit, 8 denotes a parallel movement unit, 9 denotes an intersection calculation unit, and 10 denotes an output unit.

There are several types of characters, such as decorations called "scales" that determine the characteristics and quality of the characters, and some important shapes that are not decorations. In the following, what is classified for each shape is called an element. The font data stored in the font data storage unit 1 is read from the font data reading unit 2, and the element type of each point is determined by the element determination unit 3. The straight line calculation unit 4 calculates a straight line connecting the two read points. The element control data storage unit 6 holds control data for controlling the moving direction and the moving amount of each point according to the type of the element. The movement amount calculation unit 5 calculates a movement vector of each point based on the data in the element control data storage unit 6 and a predetermined thickening amount. The translation unit 8 translates the straight line by the vector calculated by the movement amount calculation unit 5. The intersection generated by the movement by the translation unit 8 is calculated by the intersection calculation unit 9, and the result is output from the output unit 10 as thick and thin data.

FIGS. 2 and 3 are flowcharts for explaining the operation of the thick and thin character generating apparatus according to the present invention. Hereinafter, the steps will be sequentially described. step1 : First, the standard thickening / thinning amount W (when thickening: W>)
0, thinning: W <0) is input. This is performed only once at the beginning of the entire process, and is used when calculating the movement amount in step 9 described later. step2 : Next, read outline font data for one character. In the read data, for example, a sequence of dots constituting the outline of the character is arranged in order, such as the crosses of the character "pressure" in FIG. Here, the number of character outlines is two and P
_{1, 1} to P _{1, 18,} are arranged as P _2,1 to P _{2, 28.} Further, among the points constituting the character, the point currently being processed is referred to as a processing target point.

Step3 : Next, the number of contour lines is set to N, and i
The number of points constituting the (1 ≦ i ≦ N) th contour line is Q
Set aside for [i]. For example, in FIG.
[1] = 18 and Q [2] = 28. step4 : Next, the initial value 0 is substituted for a variable i for distinguishing the contour and a variable j for distinguishing the points constituting the i-th contour. step5 : Next, the variable i is advanced by one. step6 : Next, the variable j is advanced by one. step7 : Next, the processing target point P _{i, j} and the immediately preceding point P
_a straight line L connecting _{i, j-1} and Pi, j and its next point P _{i, j + 1}
Is obtained.

[0013] step8: keep to the variable E and then determine the type of the elements of the target point. For example, FIG.
The points P _{1,1 to} P _1,4 in FIG. 5A and the points P _{2,1 to} P _{2,6 in} FIG.
Are defined as elements, and element numbers for identifying the elements are respectively set to 1 and 2. The element type may be determined using the element data added to the font data in advance, or may be determined based on the positional relationship between points before and after the processing target point.

Step 9 : Next, the parallel movement amount D of the straight lines L and M
1. Find Dm. At this time, the thickening amount W serving as a reference and the ratio of the parallel movement are determined by the following equation (1) using FIG. Here, FIG. 6 shows, for example, when the second point of the element number 1 is the processing target point, the parallel movement ratio T [1] of the straight line L.
[2] = 1.0, ratio T [1] [3] = 0.5 of straight line M
It is.

[0015]

(Equation 1)

Step10 : Next, the straight lines L and M are translated in parallel by D1 and Dm to obtain straight lines L 'and M', and their intersection point P '
_{Find i, j} . The direction of parallel movement is P for a straight line L
_In the case of the straight line M, the vector from _{i, j-1} to _{Pi, j} is a direction in which the vector from point _{Pi, j} to _{Pi, j + 1} is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. For example, the point P _{1, 2} Tosureba line L to the target point in FIG. 7 is a straight line L', straight line M is a straight line M', the intersection is a point _{P'1, 2.}

[0017] step11: Next, the output point _{P'i, j} the point P _i, as a point of post-thick narrowing of _j. Step 12 : Next, it is checked whether all the points on the i-th contour line have been processed. If there is a point which has not been processed yet, the above steps are repeated from step 6. Step 13 : Next, it is checked whether all contour lines in the character have been processed, and if there is a contour line that has not been processed yet, the above steps are repeated from step 5. step14 : Next, it is determined whether or not the next character exists, and the process is repeated from step2 until all the characters are processed.

In this way, element 1 (point P _1,1
To P _{l, 4)} for an example of performing the thickening process in FIG. 8 (a), an example in which the thickening process for element 2 (the point P _2,1 to P _{2, 6)} in FIG. 8 (b) Show. Here, the element number is set to 0 for points not defined as elements. In this example, two straight lines passing through the processing target are translated and the intersection point is set as a point after thickening and narrowing. Therefore, only the rate of movement is defined in FIG. When the target point is moved, data of the moving direction may be added to FIG.

[0019]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, the decorative part and the characteristic part of the character are classified into several types for each shape, and the thickening / thinning amount (ratio) and direction are classified for each classification. By using a table, it is possible to maintain high quality and uniformity of the entire original character without having to spend a lot of time and manpower, and without creating deformation information such as moving direction and moving amount in advance. Thick and thin characters can be obtained easily and at high speed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram for explaining an embodiment of a thick and thin character generating apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart (part 1) for explaining the operation of the thick and thin character generation device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart (part 2) for explaining the operation of the thick and thin character generation device according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of an outline font.

FIG. 5 is a view showing the shape of an element according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an element control data table in the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a parallel movement and an intersection according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram in which elements are thickened in the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Font data storage part, 2 ... Font data readout part, 3 ... Element discrimination part, 4 ... Straight line calculation part, 5 ... Movement amount calculation part, 6 ... Element control data storage part, 7 ... Thickness thinning amount input part, 8 ... Translation unit, 9 ... Intersection calculation unit, 1
0 ... output unit.

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-5-313630 (JP, A) JP-A-3-234559 (JP, A) JP-A-2-187371 (JP, A) (58) Field (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G09G 5/24 G06T 5/30 G06T 11/20

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] From 1. A character outline font defined by series of points constituting the contour, in moving the point sequence thick thin character generator for generating a thick character or thin character, and font data storage means , Font data reading means, and fonts read by the font data reading means.
Element that determines the type of element at each point
And the moving direction and moving amount of each point depending on the type of the element.
Element control data that holds control data for controlling
Data storage means, thick and thin amount input means, and control data stored in the element control data storage means.
Data input from the data and the thickening input means.
A movement vector that calculates a movement vector for each point based on the quantity
File calculation means and the font data reading means
Straight line calculating means for calculating a straight line connecting two points, and calculating the moving vector by calculating the straight line calculated by the straight line calculating means
Translate the straight line by the vector calculated by the means
And the parallel movement by the parallel movement means.
Intersection calculating means for calculating the intersection generated by the above, and output means for outputting the obtained bold and thin characters
Thick thin character generator and wherein the.