JP3318991B2 - Document editing method and apparatus - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a document editing method and apparatus for performing a coloring process with negative / positive inversion on an input document and outputting the document as a document having excellent readability.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Many documents used in offices have a positive polarity. A document having a positive polarity is a document in which the density of the color (foreground color) of a character or figure corresponding to a figure is higher than the density of the background color (background color) corresponding to the ground, An example is a black-and-white document in which characters and figures are printed on white paper with black ink. On the other hand, with the development of various presentation technologies and document processing technologies, negative polarity documents with a dark background and a thin foreground color have been increasing. Some slides and OHP sheets print white characters on a cyan background or print figures in pale yellow, but these are examples of negative polarity documents. Excellent in terms of readability and fatigue resistance. In addition, there are some documents in which only a part of the document (for example, a title character part) has a negative polarity to emphasize that part or to make it easy to distinguish it from other parts. An apparatus for creating such a negative polarity document includes a digital copying machine. For example, the digital copying machine disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-223275 has a processing function for coloring a document. By using this function, a black-and-white original document having a positive polarity can be converted to a document having a negative polarity. You can make color copy documents.

[0003]

However, in the above-described example of the digital copying machine, the user has to specify in detail which part of the original document should be processed in what color. The operation of the edit pen, edit pad, control panel, etc. is not only complicated and difficult to remember, but also takes time for experienced users to operate,
There were not a few retries due to operation mistakes. Further, in order to create a negative-polarity color document having excellent readability, various knowledge on coloring is required. Such knowledge is not sufficient for ordinary office workers, so even if they completely learned how to operate a digital copying machine, they could not always produce high-quality color documents that were easy to read.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and provides a function of performing a coloring process with negative / positive inversion on an input document and outputting the document as a document having excellent readability. The purpose is to:

[0005]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention has the following arrangement. That is, the present invention (first invention) holds predetermined color parameter information relating to coloring for each area including negative / positive inversion, and refers to the area and the color parameter information to output with negative / positive inversion. Determining a color parameter value for the document coloring process for each region, and generating an output image by performing a coloring process with negative / positive inversion on each region according to the color parameter value for each region determined in the step; A document editing method comprising: Further, the present invention (second invention) has predetermined color parameter information relating to coloring for each area including negative-positive inversion, and refers to the area and the color parameter information to output with negative-positive inversion. According to a color parameter determining unit that determines a color parameter value related to a document coloring process for each region, and performing a coloring process with a negative / positive inversion on each region according to the color parameter value for each region determined by the color parameter determining unit. An output image generating means for generating an output image.

[0006]

The color parameter determining means has predetermined color parameter information relating to coloring for each area including negative / positive inversion, and refers to the area and the color parameter information to determine a color parameter value of each area. It is determined (for example, an area as shown in FIGS. 18 and 19, a foreground color, a background color, and the like for each graphic element are specified). The output image generation means generates an output image by performing a coloring process with negative / positive inversion on each of the regions according to the determined color parameter values for each region. According to the present invention, the color determination has predetermined color parameter information relating to coloring for each divided region including negative / positive inversion, and the color parameter value is determined based on this color parameter information. A user who does not have specialized knowledge about the document can easily create a highly readable document including a negative-positive inverted portion based on an existing document.

[0007]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 shows the configuration of a document editing apparatus according to an embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a copying machine. This document editing apparatus includes a document image input module 21 and an area dividing module 2
2, a color parameter determination module 23, an output image generation module 24, and a printout module 25 as visualization means.

The original image input module 21 is a mechanism of an image scanner itself, and irradiates an elongated area in the main scanning direction with a light source while shifting a reading unit including a light source and an image sensor in a sub-scanning direction. The light is condensed and converted into an electric signal by a CCD image sensor or the like, and converted into a binary digital image in the input image memory 21.
Take in 1. Of course, the intensity of the reflected light may be input as a multi-valued image through an AD converter and binarized by digital image processing.

The area division module 22 includes a character / graphic division module 221 and a graphic element extraction module 222
And an edited image memory 223.

The character / graphic division module 221 performs a process of taking a document image captured by the original image input module 21 and extracting a meaningful unit as a document component such as a character area, a ruled area, and a graphic area from the input document image. The area division processing in the document recognition technology corresponds to this. This processing is performed by a known technique, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 64-15889, and Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-32712.
This is realized by a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Here, the character / graphic division module 221 divides the document image into a plurality of rectangles (blocks), the area type (character, ruled line, graphic, etc.) and the coordinate value of each divided block, and the area between the areas. Output information such as containment relationships. It is needless to say that pre-processing such as inclination correction and noise removal may be performed before performing this processing.

[0011] The graphic element extraction module 222
By referring to the area type and the coordinate value of each block output by the graphic division module 221 and further receiving a simple instruction regarding the graphic type from the user, the document image input module 21 reads a part of the document image The processing for extracting graphic elements such as a bar graph element and a pie graph element is performed. This processing corresponds to the closed loop extraction processing in the document recognition technology. This processing is realized by a known technique, for example, a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 1-262885 and 62-248080. Here, the graphic element extraction module 222 first allows the user to specify the graphic type (line graph, bar graph, pie graph, etc.) of each extracted graphic block. Next, from the document image captured by the document image input module 21, the user extracts only an image of a graphic block designated as a “bar graph” or a “pie graph”, inputs the extracted image, and extracts a closed loop as a graphic element.
The type (bar graph element, pie graph element, etc.) and coordinate value of each extracted graphic element are output.

The color parameter determining module 23 refers to a color parameter table 231 registered in advance, and for each area and each graphic element extracted by the area dividing module 22, a color necessary for a coloring process with negative / positive inversion is performed. The data of the parameter is added and passed to the output image generation module 24. The color parameter table 231 is stored in a ROM (Read Only Memory). The color parameter table 231 is a table indicating foreground colors, background colors, and the like to be output for each type of area and graphic element. Here, the “foreground color” means a color such as “character or graphic line” in the input black-and-white original document (that is, a black pixel portion on a black-and-white image) or a color copy document to be output. Refers to colors such as “lines of characters and figures”.
On the other hand, the “background color” refers to the color of the “ground” portion in the input black-and-white original document or the color copy document to be output. These represent how each area and graphic element must be finally subjected to the negative / positive inversion processing or to be colored without the negative / positive inversion.

These data held by the color parameter table 231 are, for example, subjective evaluations and the like described in the 1991 42nd Information Processing Society of Japan National Convention Proceedings, 7Q-7, “Evaluation Scale for Document Expression Quality”. Quantitative data obtained by the method of Fuji Xerox, "Presentation &Documentation", Fuji Xerox, 1989, "Fuji Xerox D Promotion Group, Core Design Production Division," Business Document Production Techniques -II Colorization ", Nikkei Inc., 1992", etc., or qualitative or quantitative data, or data representing each rule determined by company rules, etc. Is determined based on the various knowledge required for

The output image generation module 21 receives color parameter data necessary for coloring processing with negative / positive reversal from the color parameter determination module 23 and receives from the area division module 22 the coordinate values of each region and each graphic element and the inter-region values. It receives the inclusion relation and the like, and receives the image of the original document input from the original input module 21. Then, in accordance with the color parameters received from the color parameter determination module 23, the partial images of the original document corresponding to each area and graphic element are converted, an output image is generated, and a coloring process involving negative-positive inversion is finally performed. The generated color document image is generated.

In the printout module 25, the output image on the output image memory (image memory) 251 is transferred onto paper using a laser beam printing technique and discharged. In this embodiment, a laser beam printer capable of printing in full color is used.

The actual operation will be described with an example in which a black and white original document as shown in FIG. 3 is input and a color copy document is output. In FIG. 4, for example, the color copy document is cyan in the ground portion, the outline portion of the line graph and the bar graph and the character are white, the inside of the bar of the bar graph, the inside of the circle of the pie graph is yellow, and the inside of the circle of the pie graph is inside. The characters are black. A flowchart of the processing is shown in FIG. In the following, "coordinates" will be referred to as the origin at the upper left corner of the document, the X-coordinate toward the right of the page, and the Y-coordinate toward the bottom of the page, as shown in FIG.

First, the user turns the black and white original document of FIG. 3 upside down and places it on a platen such as an image scanner. Then, on the operation panel as shown in FIG. 6, "as is" or "negative / positive inversion" is selected by pressing a button. Here, “as is” means a faithful reproduction copy without performing the coloring process. "Negative / positive reversal"
When the "start button" is pressed in a state where is selected, the document image input module 21 starts scanning, and stores the document image of the document in the input image memory 211 which is an image memory.

Next, the character / figure division module 221
Performs an area dividing process by accessing a document image stored in the input image memory 211. As a result, as shown in FIG. 7, the document image of the original document shown in FIG. 3 has, in the input image memory 211, an area in which characters are grouped together (character block) and an area in which ruled lines exist (ruled line block). ), A region where a figure exists (a figure block), and the rest (margin). Each of the divided areas is a rectangular area. As shown in the table of FIG. 8, the data expressing each area (rectangular block) is “area number”.
"Region type""Graphictype""X coordinate of upper left point""Y point of upper left
It is represented by a set of coordinates, “rectangular width”, “rectangular height”, “upper area number”, and “lower area number”. However, since the “graphic type” of the graphic block has not been determined in the processing at this stage, all the values are “unknown”. This data is passed to the next graphic element extraction module 222, color parameter determination module 23, and output image generation module 24.

While the original image input module 21 and the character / figure division module 221 are performing processing,
The display of the operation panel in FIG. 6 may be switched to the display of the operation panel as shown in FIG. By viewing the message displayed on this panel, the user can know that the user has to wait for a while until the next operation.

First, the graphic element extraction module 222 refers to the data in the table shown in FIG.
0 is displayed on the operation panel, and the user is requested to input an instruction relating to "graphic type". The operation panel shown in FIG. 10 includes a rough configuration diagram for notifying the user of what size and how many graphic blocks are present at which position in the original document, and a graphic type of each graphic block. A button is displayed for inputting the information. The configuration diagram showing the position of this figure block is shown in the table shown in FIG.
FIG. 4 is a diagram drawn based on coordinates, “rectangular width”, and “rectangular height”, and is reduced or enlarged at an appropriate magnification according to the size of the operation panel.

The user inputs a type (graphic type) of a graphic block (corresponding to N2 in the table of FIG. 8) labeled "graphic 1" in accordance with a message on the operation panel shown in FIG. Press the button labeled "Line graph" and then press the button labeled "Confirm". Graphic element extraction module 222
Receives the input from the user and rewrites the data relating to the “graphic type” in the table shown in FIG. That is,
In the figure, the value of "line graph" is entered in the figure type column of N2 in which the value of "unknown" has been entered. Then, the display of the operation panel is switched as shown in FIG. The user follows the display of the operation panel as shown in FIGS. 11 and 12, and in the same procedure, the graphic type (bar graph) of “graphic 2” (N5) and the graphic type (circle) of “graphic 3” (N6) Graph) is sequentially input. In response to the user's input, the graphic element extraction module 222 similarly rewrites the data relating to the “graphic type” to complete the table as shown in FIG. At the end of this process,
The display of the operation panel as shown in FIG. 12 may be switched again to the display of the operation panel as shown in FIG. 9 to notify the user that the user should wait.

Next, the graphic element extraction module 222
Referring to the data in the table shown in FIG. 13, a part of the document image stored in the input image memory 211 is accessed to extract a graphic element (closed loop) included in the image of each graphic block. However, a graphic block whose graphic type is “line graph” (in this example, N
This process is not performed on the image of 2).

The procedure for extracting a graphic element (closed loop) is as follows.
The case of “bar graph” will be described as an example. First, "upper left point X coordinate", "upper left point Y coordinate", "rectangular width", and "rectangular height" of a graphic block (N5 in this example) where the graphic type is "bar graph" are accessed from the table shown in FIG. Then, only the image (part) of this area is cut out from the document image (entire) stored in the input image memory and stored in the edited image memory 223 which is the image memory. Next, from the table shown in FIG. 13, the "lower region number" of this figure block (N51, N5 in this example)
2, N53) and their respective lower areas (all in this example, character blocks) are accessed at the "upper left point X coordinate", "upper left point Y coordinate", "rectangle width", and "rectangle height". And
Of the images of this figure block stored in the edited image memory 223, all the binarized values of the image corresponding to these lower regions are rewritten to zero. That is,
By removing the image of the character or graphic in the lower block included in the graphic block, the extraction of a closed loop that is not a graphic element (a bar graph element in this example) is prevented. By performing such processing, an edited image as shown in FIG. 14 remains in the edited image memory 223. The graphic element extraction module 222 includes an edit image memory 223
Using the edited image left as shown in FIG. 14 as an input, a closed loop as a graphic element is extracted. In this example, as shown in FIG. 15, three bar graph elements (P5
1, P52, P53) are extracted. The extracted coordinate values of each graphic element (bar graph element) are passed to the color parameter determination module 23 and the output image generation module 24.

The same processing is performed on the graphic block (N6 in this example) in which the graphic type is "pie graph", so that the edited image as shown in FIG. 16 is stored in the edited image memory. Based on this, an output result (P61, P62) as shown in FIG. 17 is obtained. The coordinate values of each of the extracted graphic elements (pie graph elements) are also passed to the color parameter determination module 23 and the output image generation module 24.

Here, the generation of the edited image on the edited image memory 223 and the extraction of the graphic elements are performed for each graphic block. However, as long as the storage capacity of the edited image memory 223 permits, a plurality or all of the graphic blocks can be stored. It is desirable to collectively process them.

The color parameter determination module 23 outputs the results of the area division module 22, that is, the character / graphic division module 221 and the graphic element extraction module 222, and the color parameter table 231 on the ROM in advance.
By extracting the color parameters stored in the image processing unit, the color processing with negative / positive inversion is performed for each of the divided areas (character blocks, ruled lines blocks, graphic blocks, etc.) and each graphic element (bar graph elements, pie graph elements, etc.). Outputs necessary color parameter values to output image generation module 24
Send to The individual color parameter table sent to the output image generation module 24 is, as shown in FIGS. 18 and 19,
It indicates a foreground color and a background color pattern.
The table in FIG. 18 indicates the color arrangement pattern of each area, and the “area number” and “area type” of each block divided by the character / graphic division module 221 are displayed.
"Figure type" of each block specified by the user,
And “Cyan amount” and “Magen” of “foreground color” and “background color” determined for each of these area types and graphic types.
It is represented by a set of “ta amount”, “Yellow amount”, and “Black amount”. The table of FIG. 19 indicates the color arrangement pattern of each graphic element. The “graphic element number” and “graphic element type” of each closed loop area extracted by the graphic element extraction module, and each of these graphic element types "Cyan" for each of the decided "foreground color" and "background color"
Amount, “Magenta amount”, “Yellow amount”, “Bla”
ck amount ”.

The output image generation module 24 receives, from the area dividing module 22, data such as the coordinate values of each divided or extracted area and each graphic element and the inclusion relationship between the areas, based on this data. Then, a partial image of the original document is sequentially accessed from the input image memory 211, and a partial image corresponding to each area and each graphic element is colored according to the color parameter received from the color parameter determination module 23. The resulting color document image is stored in the output image memory 251 which is an image memory. In this embodiment, since full-color output is performed, the output image memory 25
In the case of 1, Cyan and Magent are provided for each pixel.
It is assumed that tone value information for four colors a, Yellow, and Black is held.

The output image generation module 24 first accesses the coordinate values of each graphic element from the area division module 22 and, from the image of the entire original document held in the input image memory 211, as shown in FIG. Cut out only graphic element images. In this example, three closed loop regions (P51, P52, P53) extracted as bar graph elements
And two closed loop regions (P61, P62) extracted as pie graph elements. And FIG.
In accordance with the instruction of the color arrangement pattern shown in FIG. 9, gradation value information of each pixel is generated for each graphic element. FIG. 21 shows an image of the graphic element stored on the output image memory 251 as a result of this processing. In the image of the three bar graph elements, foregrounds such as lines of characters and figures do not exist and there are only backgrounds. Therefore, all the pixels inside these three closed loop areas are “Yellow amount 20%, all others are 0%. ". On the other hand, in the image of the two pie chart elements, since a set of pixels representing characters is present in each case, that is, a foreground exists, each pixel in that portion is represented by “Bl
A value corresponding to 100% for the ack amount and a value corresponding to "0%" for all others, and a value corresponding to "20% for the Yellow amount and all others 0%" for all the pixels in the background portion other than those.

Next, the output image generation module 24 performs a coloring process on the area excluding the graphic element. First, the data of the table shown in FIG. 13 is accessed from the area dividing module 22, and each area (block) is obtained from the image of the entire original document held in the input image memory 211.
Cut out partial images of. However, in this image,
It does not include graphics element images that have already been colored.
FIG. 22 shows a partial image of the original document cut out by this processing. Next, an output image of each region included in the partial image is generated. Since the region and the region overlap each other, the output image of the overlapping portion is determined by the region dividing module by the “lower region”. Is performed with priority given to the area determined as "". For example, FIG.
2, the graphic block N2 including the line graph is a sub-region of two character blocks (N21, N2).
Since it is clear from the data of the table shown in FIG. 13 that the overlapping is performed with 2), the coloring processing of the overlapping area is performed according to the instruction of the color arrangement pattern for the character block. Therefore, according to the instruction of the coloration pattern shown in FIG. 18, each pixel representing a character corresponding to the foreground in the character block is given a value corresponding to “all 0%”, that is, “white”, and All pixels are given a value corresponding to “Cyan amount 5%, all others 0%”. On the other hand, each pixel representing a straight line or a curve corresponding to the foreground inside the figure block excluding the character block is given a value corresponding to “all 0%”, that is, “pure white”, and all the pixels in the background portion are assigned “Cyan amount 5”. % And all others are given values corresponding to 0% ". Similar coloring processing is performed on each of the other character blocks, ruled line blocks, and graphic blocks other than the above. As a result, the entire output image of the area excluding the graphic element is shown in FIG.
It looks like 3.

As a result of a series of processing in the output image generation module 24 described above, an image of a full-color output document in which a negative polarity and a positive polarity are mixed as shown in FIG. It is memorized.

The output image on the output image memory 251 is scanned four times, and from the tone value information of each color, the colors are visualized by superimposing the colors on plain paper by the laser beam printing technique, so that the negative polarity and the positive polarity are obtained. The document is output as a full-color copy document with mixed polarities (same as FIG. 4).

[0032]

As has been described in detail above, according to the present invention, a user who does not have specialized knowledge about the coloring of a document can copy a negative-positive portion based on an existing document. It is possible to easily create a document having excellent readability, including:

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a basic configuration diagram of a document editing apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram showing an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of an input document according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output document according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a process in the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of an operation panel display in the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result of the character / graphic division module according to the embodiment;

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result of the character / graphic division module according to the embodiment;

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of an operation panel display in the embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of an operation panel display in the embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of an operation panel display in the embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of an operation panel display in the embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result of the character / graphic division module according to the embodiment;

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example of input to a graphic element extraction module according to the embodiment;

FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result of the graphic element extraction module according to the embodiment;

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing an example of input to the graphic element extraction module in the embodiment.

FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result of the graphic element extraction module according to the embodiment;

FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result of the color parameter determination module according to the embodiment.

FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result of the color parameter determination module according to the embodiment.

FIG. 20 is a diagram illustrating an example of input to an output image generation module in the embodiment.

FIG. 21 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result of the output image generation module according to the embodiment.

FIG. 22 is a diagram illustrating an example of input to an output image generation module according to the embodiment.

FIG. 23 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result of the output image generation module according to the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 ... document image holding means, 12 ... area dividing means, 13 ...
Color parameter determination means, 14 ... output image generation means, 15
... visualization means, 21 ... original image input module, 211
... input image memory, 22 ... area division module, 221
... Character-graphic division module, 222 ... Graphic element extraction module, 223 ... Edited image memory, 23 ... Color parameter determination module, 231 ... Color parameter table, 2
4. Output image generation module 25 Printout module 251 Output image memory

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04N 1/38-1/393 G06T 11/60

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. Coloring for each area including negative / positive reversal
Holds predetermined color parameter information related to
With reference to the recording area and the color parameter information,
Color parameter value related to coloring process of output document with rotation
And determining for each area, for each of the color parameter values determined area in that step
Therefore, a coloring process involving negative / positive reversal is applied to each area.
And generating an output image.
Document editing method. 2. Coloring for each area including negative / positive reversal
Having predetermined color parameter information related to the
Referring to the area and the color parameter information, the color parameter value relating to the coloring process of the output document with the negative / positive inversion is calculated.
A color parameter determining means for determining for each region, in accordance with area-specific color parameter values determined by the color parameter determining means, the output image generation means for generating an output image by performing coloring process with negative-positive inversion in respective regions A document editing apparatus comprising: