JP3424942B2 - Bilingual image forming device - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a bilingual image forming apparatus such as a copying machine and a facsimile apparatus using digital image data having a bilingual function. A bilingual image forming apparatus that optically reads an original (or inputs image information via a communication line), recognizes a word in the read (or input) image information, and outputs a translation corresponding to the word. About. 2. Description of the Related Art Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 4-7796 discloses an apparatus for obtaining a bilingual translation and translation output for an arbitrary language using a copying machine.
A "digital copying apparatus" disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-205 is known. This digital copying apparatus cuts out character information for each character from the input image information stored in the memory means and, based on the interval between the cut-out characters, converts a character for each word consisting of one character or a set of a plurality of characters. A word dictionary that classifies information, includes a character pattern dictionary in which the characteristic amount of each character is registered in advance, recognizes the character indicated by the image information cut out for each character, and registers the translation result for each word. And for each of the extracted words, refer to a word dictionary according to the composition of the characters constituting the words, recognize the translation result of each word, and store the character information obtained as the translation result in the output image area of the memory means. Is written as image information. However, according to the above-mentioned prior art, when a translated word is output identically for a character in an arbitrary language in a manuscript, two drawing pages are required based on the configuration state of the manuscript. Or more. Also, when only the words are cut out and the translated words are written together (hereinafter referred to as a word book in the present application), the output is completely different from the manuscript, so it is difficult to know which part of the manuscript corresponds to the output. There was a problem that it took time to perform the operation and the working efficiency was poor. [0004] Further, when a linked word is divided by a special symbol and searched in a dictionary as an independent word, a word having an end of a line in one word, which is frequently found in general published documents, is referred to as the linked word. There was a problem that when it was recognized as a word, a mistranslation was output. In addition, when the dictionary search is restricted, there is a case where it is not necessary to output a translated word even if the word is recognized as a word. It is meaningless to output such an area. [0005] Also, if it is desired to obtain bilingual information for a manuscript composed in an arbitrary language, if there is no room to fit a translated word into the structure of the manuscript, or if there are many words to be output as a word book, May be more than one. In this case, the number of output sheets cannot be known in advance, and when obtaining a plurality of outputs, it is not possible to know which part of the document corresponds to which page. there were. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and displays the number of bilingual information to be output to a user for one original, and which part of the original corresponds to which page of the bilingual output. It is an object of the present invention to improve the work efficiency by displaying to a user only a desired output page and selecting and outputting the desired page. According to the present invention, there is provided an image reading means for optically reading a document image and converting the image into image information;
An image storage unit for storing image information read by the image reading unit or image information input via a communication line; an image processing unit for performing various image processing on the image information; Image recording means for recording an image on a recording medium based on an image signal to be converted, translation word storage means for storing the original image information and translation information for the information, and document image information based on the information in the translation word storage means In a bilingual image forming apparatus having control means for executing a bilingual process and display means for displaying various information, the control means performs a bilingual process on the original image information.
Of the original image information in the drawing data obtained by
Output range for each page and originals within the output range
Information indicating the page on which the image information is output is described above.
A bilingual image forming apparatus for displaying on a display means is provided. According to the present invention, bilingual processing is performed on document image information, and drawing data is created based on the execution result. Then, the image obtained by translating the original image information
Output range for each page of document image information in application data
Box, the page number of the document image information within this output range
Information indicating whether or not to output is displayed on the display means. An embodiment of a bilingual image forming apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 shows a configuration of a digital copying machine 100 and a translation device 102. Cable 101
Are used for communication of commands between the digital copier 100 and the translation device 102 and for input / output of images. When the translation process is selected in the operation unit, the multi-valued image input from the scanner is binarized, stored in the memory of the translation device 102, and executed. Further, the binary image created by the bilingual processing is combined with the multi-valued output image input by the scanner, or only the binary image output is executed. Translation processing and communication with digital copier 100, translation apparatus 102
The operation of inputting an image to the memory of the user and transmitting the output image subjected to the translation processing to the digital copying machine 100 is performed by the CPU for the translation processing.
103 controls. CPU 104 is a digital copier 10
0 overall control is executed. FIG. 2 shows a digital copying machine 10 according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a bilingual apparatus 102 mounted on the translation apparatus 102. CP for controlling the entire digital copying machine 100
U104, scanner 201 for reading document information, image processing unit 202 for executing various image processing, output unit (printer) 20 for outputting an image read from scanner 201
3. An operation unit 204 for inputting various operation commands, a translation processing CPU 103, an image area of the read image information and an area identification unit 205 for recognizing the area, and a result recognized by the area identification unit 205 in a predetermined format. Recognition result data creation unit 206 to be stored, recognition result data creation unit 206
Drawing data creation unit 207 for creating a drawing on a memory based on the above data, and a dictionary search unit 2 for searching an output translation word for creating data in the drawing data creation unit 207.
08, a drawing unit 209 that executes a drawing process based on the read and image-processed information, and a drawing data creation unit 207
Is created by a memory (ROM) 210 in which a dictionary to be searched, fonts to be used, and translation processing codes are stored, input / output images, recognition result data created by a recognition result data creation unit 206, and a drawing data creation unit 207. Memory for storing drawing data and translation processing data (RA
M) 211. FIG. 3 shows a digital copying machine 10 according to the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of another translation device 102 mounted on the translation apparatus 102. In addition to the configuration shown in FIG. 2, a drawing control unit 301 that controls the drawing operation of the drawing unit 209 by referring to the drawing data of the drawing data creation unit 207 is provided. FIG. 4 shows a digital copying machine 10 according to the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of another translation device 102 mounted on the translation apparatus 102. In addition to the configuration of FIG. 2, a special symbol recognition unit 401 that recognizes special symbols in recognized characters and controls words to be searched in a dictionary is arranged. FIG. 5 shows a digital copier 10 according to the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of another translation device 102 mounted on the translation apparatus 102. In addition to the configuration of FIG. 2, an output page calculation unit 501 that calculates the number of output pages using data created by the drawing data creation unit 207 is provided. FIG. 6 shows a digital copying machine 10 according to the present invention.
FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of another translation device 102 mounted on the translation apparatus 102. In addition to the configuration of FIG. 2, an output recognition unit 601 that recognizes which part of the input document is output on which page using the data created by the drawing data creation unit 207 is arranged. FIG. 7 shows a digital copying machine 1 according to the present invention.
9 is a flowchart showing an outline of the control operation of the CPU 103/104 of the translation apparatus 102 and 00. Operation unit 204
When a translation command is input from the scanner 201, the scanner 201
Is read and the image input is executed (S70).
1). The input image is identified by the image area (character image or picture image), and the area is recognized by the image area determination program (S702). In the character region identified in step 702, recognition of the number of lines, the position of the line, the number of characters in the line, and the character position in the region identified by the region is executed by the line / character position recognition program (S7).
03). Known OCR for character recognition of recognized character areas
The program is executed using a program (S704), and the results recognized in steps 702 to 704 are stored in a predetermined format in the memory 211 of the translation device 102 (S704).
706). At this time, in the case where a search for a word including a special symbol such as a divided English word used in the present invention is performed, the search and control of a special character are performed in the OCR processing in step 704 (S705). This recognizes a special symbol or a registered character or symbol in a character string regarded as one unit for performing a dictionary search, and regards the character before or after the symbol or the character as one dictionary search unit. At this time, if a predetermined symbol (generally, a hyphen) is recognized at the end of the line, the character string before and after that is not regarded as a dictionary search unit, but is linked to the next character string (the word at the beginning of the next line). The operation is performed in units of one unit, and the format of step 706 is a format in which special characters are taken into consideration in the memory 211.
To be stored. Next, a dictionary search for the character recognized in step 704 is executed (S707). The drawing data is created in a predetermined format from the recognition result data and the dictionary search result stored in the step 706, and is stored in the memory 211 of the translation device 102 (S7).
08). Based on the drawing data information created in step 708, an output image is drawn (S709), stored in the memory 211 of the translation device 102, and output, as shown in FIGS. 17, 18, and 19 as examples. An output image is obtained (S710). FIG. 8 shows a digital copying machine 10 according to the present invention.
11 is a flowchart showing an outline of another control operation of the CPU 103/104 of the translation apparatus 102 and the translation apparatus 102. Operation unit 20
If the output control command is selected in Step 4 (YES in the output control (S801)), a special case search is executed when the translation command is input (S8).
02). In this special case search processing, the output of the corresponding area is controlled in the drawing in step 709 described above. FIG. 9 shows a digital copying machine 10 according to the present invention.
11 is a flowchart showing an outline of another control operation of the CPU 103/104 of the translation apparatus 102 and the translation apparatus 102. At α in FIG. 7, using the data created in step 708, if this information uses the currently selected recording paper, it calculates how many sheets to use (S901). The calculated number of pages is displayed on the operation unit 204 of the digital copier 100 at a position where the user can recognize the page (S902). FIG. 10 shows a digital copying machine 1 according to the present invention.
12 is a flowchart showing an outline of another control operation of the CPU 103/104 of the translation apparatus 102 and 00. Α in FIG.
In step S1001, it is determined, using the data created in step 708, where the content of one output page corresponds to the position on the document. The information recognized by the page position recognition is displayed at a position of the operation unit 204 of the digital copying machine 100 where the user can recognize the information (S1002). At this time, a mode of outputting all pages and outputting a selected page is provided in the operation unit 204, and when the latter selected page output is selected (when YES is selected in the page output selection (S1003)), The user inputs from the operation unit 204 whether to output a page (S1004). The data of a certain portion of the input page is searched, and the data of that portion is stored (S1005). Step 70 above
8 or creates an output image based on the drawing data information created by the drawing data search (S709).
02 is stored in the memory 211 on the device 02 and output (S71).
0). FIG. 11 is an example of a memory map of recognition result data stored in the memory 211 in the present invention. Here, in the present invention, a rectangular unit identified as an area surrounded by a fixed margin on the top, bottom, left and right in a recognized character area of a document is referred to as a “column”, and a dictionary is arranged before or after an arbitrary special symbol or character. A character string regarded as one unit of search will be referred to as a “split word”. The following shows the memory format of columns, images (pattern areas), lines, words, divided words, and coordinates. <Column> Number of endpoints of the rectangle of the row Number of rows present in the current row Number of images present in the current row Top memory address value of image information storage location Top memory address value coordinate information storage location of row information storage location Memory address value at the beginning of the image <Image (Image)> Memory address value at the beginning of the coordinate information of the end point of the rectangle of the image <Line (Line)> Start position coordinates of the line (Start memory address value of the coordinate information) End of the line Position coordinates (first memory address value of coordinate information) Number of words in current line Number of divided words in current line First memory address value of word information storage location First memory address value of divided word information storage location <word (Word)> (Note 1) Word start position coordinates (first memory address value of coordinate information) Word end position coordinates (first memo of coordinate information) (Readdress value) Number of characters of current word If the current word is a divided word, offset value of only the divided word (unit: number of characters) Offset value to text data in which current word is stored <Split Word> (Note 2) ) Start position coordinates of division word (first memory address value of coordinate information) End position coordinates of division word (first memory address value of coordinate information) Number of characters of current division word Rest of division word connected to current division word Offset value to the text data in which the currently divided word is stored <coordinate (Point)> X coordinate Y coordinate However, for the above notes 1 and 2, refer to the description of FIG. Here, the structural format unit described above is stored in the memory 211 in a format as shown in FIG. FIG. 11 is briefly described as “Number of
The structure format of the number of steps (n) stored in the column "Column" is repeated. Next, the coordinate structure format indicating the end point of the rectangle of the step is stored for the recognized end point. Next, focus on one column, and if there is a picture in the column,
The structure format of the image is repeated, and the coordinate structure format indicating the end points of the rectangle of the image is stored for the recognized end points. Next, a coordinate structure indicating the upper left coordinate (start coordinate) and lower right coordinate (end coordinate) of each row when the row format is stored as a rectangle and the row format is stored several times in the target column. Stores the format. Hereinafter, the description will be continued focusing on a certain line. Next, the word structure format is stored several times in the line of interest, and if a divided word is present, the word structure format is stored several times. This operation is repeated for existing rows and existing columns. The steps, images,
When all the information of the line, the word, and the divided word is stored, the OCR recognition result is stored at the offset position to the text data existing in the structure format of the word and the divided word.
That is, words are stored as text data. When a divided word exists, the same is stored. FIG. 12A shows a memory 21 used in the present invention.
This is an example of a memory map of the drawing data stored in No. 1 and a translation result output as shown in FIG. 18 can be obtained. FIG. 12B is also an example of a memory map of the drawing data stored in the memory 211 used in the present invention.
A translation result output as shown in FIG. FIG.
Although the structure format shown in FIG. 12 may be used, here, unlike the structure format shown in FIG. 11, the structure formats are stored in the order of appearance as shown in FIG. 12C. Here, the contents of the structure format of FIG. 12A will be briefly described. First, the number of stages stored in the recognition result data is stored in a. b is a column information section, which is a column number which is the recognition order of the column of interest, the number of rows existing in the column of interest, the maximum length in a line which is the length of the longest row in the column, and the column. This is the minimum X coordinate of the frame. The next step boundary length stores the maximum width in the main scanning direction as a fixed value in advance when displaying a format as shown in FIG. In the present invention, as an example, the fixed value is shown in FIG.
As shown in (1), there are provided two levels, a step boundary length that can use the entire main scanning width of the output sheet and a step boundary length when the output sheet is divided into two steps. Here, when the maximum length in a line is larger than the column boundary, it can be determined from this item that the process of displaying the line of interest over two lines should be performed. The length of the column data indicates an offset value up to the head of the structure format of the next column. Therefore, the sum of b and c × the number of existing lines and d × the number of existing words in the target column is stored in the length of the column data. c is the line number, the number of words included in the line of interest, and the maximum line length is obtained by subtracting the minimum X coordinate from the maximum X coordinate of the word in the line of interest and represents the maximum length of the line. Next, the maximum and minimum Y coordinates of the line of interest are stored. The length of the line data indicates an offset value to the beginning of the structure format of the next line. Therefore, in the line of interest, the sum of c and d × the number of existing words is stored as the length of the line data. e is stored as text data. “d” stores an offset value for referring to a translation word corresponding to the word of interest from the translated word data part, and stores coordinates indicating the position of the word of interest. In order to cut out a word from a document as a rectangle, two pieces of information, that is, upper left and lower right, need only be known. 12B, text data in which an output word and a translated word are alternately stored in the same item and e as in FIG. 12A is created, and is referred to using the offset value of d. FIG. 13 illustrates the contents of the structure format of a word and a divided word. First, the number of characters that are members of the word structure format indicates the number of characters that were recognized as words by OCR. If the recognized word is a divided word, the offset value is the offset value of the number of divided words in that line. Is represented. An appropriate fixed value is substituted for a word that is not a divided word. In FIG. 13, 0xff is substituted. Next, the number of characters that are members of the divided word structure format indicates the number of characters of the recognized divided word, and the remaining number of divided words indicates the number of divided words connected to the target divided word. FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram of the processing when a hyphen arrives at the end of a line. 1) shows the state of the original when there is a hyphen at the end of the line. Here, "comuni-"
Compare the number of characters in the word with the number of characters in the split word. As a result, as shown in 2), it is found that the number of divided words is smaller by 1 in 8 and 7. Then, since the information of the last word existing in the line is known, this word can be recognized as not being treated as a divided word. Then, the divided word at the end of the line is extracted from the divided word text data, the word at the beginning of the next line is extracted from the word text, and the two words are connected, and then a dictionary search is performed. Next, the number of characters at the end of the line and the number of characters at the beginning of the line are compared, and as shown in 3) and 4), the translated word searched by the dictionary search process can be output to the one with the larger number of characters. FIG. 15 shows an example of the LCD display of the operation unit 204 when the present invention is executed. FIG. 15 shows that when a document is translated, two pages are displayed, and the background display is changed so that the area of each page can be distinguished. In addition, the display of the page number is displayed corresponding to each area. As described above, the output area and the bilingual output sheet in which the rectangle recognized on the original is drawn by enclosing the line are output as the output paper, so that the bilingual information to be output later is output. In the case where the output of the bilingual information for one document covers a plurality of pages, the bilingual information can be easily referred to. By outputting a translated word below a word, it is possible to refer to the meaning of an unknown word while reading the text of the manuscript. Also, by cutting out the image of the original as the first language and using the image of the original as it is without losing the layout of the original to the maximum, it is possible to provide a bilingual information part desired by the user in an output format that is easy to find. . Further, only words to be translated are written out, and
By outputting the translation of the word and other information in a format in which it is also written, when selecting only one translation with a high priority due to the recording space and outputting it, the translation is output. If it is not appropriate, the operation of looking up the dictionary need not be performed. Further, a translation output format can be selected according to the user's preference. Also, it is very convenient to refer to the bilingual output by assigning a number to the area output sheet and assigning the same number to the bilingual output part corresponding to the content. When a large number of lines are present in the divided rectangular area, reference to the bilingual output becomes more convenient by assigning line numbers. Further, by controlling the translated word search means, controlling the output of translated words for the same word, and controlling the output of the portion where no translated word is output within a predetermined range, the processing time and output space are reduced. be able to. Further, it is possible to display and notify the user of the number of output pieces of the bilingual information for one document. Further, it is possible to display and notify the user which part of the document corresponds to which page of the bilingual output. Therefore, only the desired output page can be selected and output. As described above, according to the bilingual image forming apparatus of the present invention , the bilingual processing of the original image information is performed.
One page of the document image information in the drawn drawing data
Output range and document image information within the output range
Means for displaying on which page the page is output
Which part of the manuscript is displayed on what page
Can be shown to the user
Select and output only the desired output page
be able to. Therefore, the working efficiency can be improved.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a bilingual image forming apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a bilingual image forming apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a bilingual image forming apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a bilingual image forming apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a bilingual image forming apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a bilingual image forming apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a control operation of the CPU according to the present invention. FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a control operation example of a CPU according to the present invention. FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a control operation of the CPU according to the present invention. FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a control operation example of a CPU according to the present invention. FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a recognition result data format used in the present invention. FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a drawing data format used in the present invention. FIG. 13 is an explanatory diagram showing a structure format of a word and a divided word. FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram showing a special case of a bilingual output format. FIG. 15 is an explanatory diagram showing a display state of the operation screen integrated tablet according to the present invention. FIG. 16 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of an input original; FIG. 17 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of an area output sheet according to the present invention. FIG. 18 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of an output result in a bilingual output format according to the present invention. FIG. 19 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of an output result in a bilingual output format according to the present invention. [Description of Signs] 100 Digital copier 101 Cable 102 Translation device 103 Translation CPU 104 CPU 201 Scanner 202 Image processing unit 203 Output unit 104 Operation unit 205 Area identification unit 206 Recognition result data creation unit 207 Drawing data creation unit 208 Dictionary search unit 209 Drawing unit 210 ROM 211 RA
M 301 drawing control unit 401 special symbol recognition unit 501 output page calculation unit 601 output recognition unit

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-4-77965 (JP, A) JP-A-61-77969 (JP, A) JP-A-4-22995 (JP, A) JP-A-61-77995 189592 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06F 17/21-17/28 B41J 5/30 G06K 9/20 H04N 1/00

Claims (1)

(57) Claims 1. An image reading means for optically reading a document image and converting the image into image information, and image information read by the image reading means or input through a communication line. Image storage means for storing image information; image processing means for performing various image processing on the image information; image recording means for recording an image on a recording medium based on an image signal output by the image processing means; A translation storage unit for storing the original image information and translation information for the information, a control unit for executing a translation process on the original image information based on the information in the translation storage unit, and a display unit for displaying various information Wherein the control means obtains the original image information by performing a translation process.
One page of the document image information in the drawn drawing data
Output range and document image information within the output range
Means for displaying on which page the page is output
A bilingual image forming apparatus.