JPH01318177A - Processing system for vector character - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To output characters having high quality and different line width from the outline information of a character by furthermore changing coordinate data based upon directiveness when vectors intersect with each other. CONSTITUTION:Coordinate data previously defined with directiveness are extracted from a keyboard 205 or a program in a storage device 201 and the coordinate values of vertexes constituting the outline of a character are changed to contract or expand the line width of the character. Then, the changed coordinate data are checked and the coordinate data of the intersecting vectors are changed again so as not to intersect. The current size is linearly changed to an objective character size by using the coordinate data and character dots are developed in a memory area specifying the data and outputted. Since a character having no void part can be outputted at the time of painting out the character, characters having high quality and different line width can be outputted from the outline information of one character.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an information processing device that creates a document containing multi-sized high-quality characters, and particularly relates to an information processing device that creates a document by enlarging or reducing characters. This invention relates to a suitable vector character processing method.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, in order to generate high-quality characters, etc., it was necessary to
As described in Publication No. 230, contour information of characters etc. is stored in a storage device as stroke (polygon) data, the character data is retrieved by giving an index code, and a polygon filling algorithm is used on an output device such as a display. I expanded it to dots and output it.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In the above-mentioned prior art, when changing the size of a character, high-quality characters cannot be obtained simply by making the thickness of the character, that is, the line width, proportional to the character size. In particular, in the case of the Mincho font, the width of the horizontal lines is thin and the width of the vertical lines is thick, so as you gradually reduce the font size, the vertical lines approach quickly. As a result, a so-called "collapse" phenomenon occurs, and conversely, as the font size is gradually increased, the fonts appear weaker.

In view of these points, the inventors of the present invention first filed a patent application in 1986-1.
No. 39268 and No. 65-18741 disclose coordinate data of vertices of polygons as character outline information as a method for generating various characters with different line widths from outline information of one character. is defined with directionality, and when changing the coordinate data to change the character width, we propose a method that automatically determines the direction in which the vectors forming one side of the polygon should be moved based on the directionality. did.

By the way, in these prior inventions, when the vectors are close to each other in the original coordinate data, or when the amount of change in the line width of the character is large, after changing the line width of the character by changing the coordinate data, A phenomenon in which vectors intersect may occur. When such intersections between vectors occur, when filling inside the polygon of a character, for example, scan each line in the horizontal direction from the intersection where that line intersects the vector to the intersection with the next vector. If you take the method of filling out the characters, the overlapping parts of the characters caused by the intersection of the vectors will not be filled out and will become white. The prior invention did not disclose a solution to this problem.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a vector character processing method that outputs high-quality characters with different line widths from outline information of a single character.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, a vector character processing method according to the present invention is a vector character processing method in an information processing apparatus that uses coordinate data of vertices of a polygon (polygon) as character outline information, The coordinate data of the vertices is defined with directionality, and when changing the line width of the character, the coordinate data of the apex is changed based on the directionality, and the coordinate data after the change is divided into two consecutive Determine whether the vectors that the vertices make up differ from other vectors, and if the vectors intersect, create coordinate data that does not cause vectors to intersect by further changing the coordinate data based on the above direction. It was designed to do so.

Changing the coordinate data to create coordinate data in which the vectors do not intersect is, for example, finding the intersection point of the vectors and adding the coordinate data with the intersection point as a new vertex, which is unnecessary due to the directionality. This can be done by determining the vertices that are determined to be unnecessary and removing the coordinate data of the vertices that are determined to be unnecessary.

Note that in this specification, the word "character" is not limited to characters in a narrow sense, but also includes figures and the like.

[Effect]

As a premise of the present invention, the coordinates of the vertices of a polygon that approximates the outline of a vector character are defined with directionality. That is, the polygons are defined in such an order that the interior of the polygon is always viewed in one direction (for example, to the right).

As a result, when increasing or decreasing the line width of a character, it is automatically determined in which direction each side of the polygon, that is, the curve, should be moved.

In the present invention, when increasing or decreasing the line width of a character, it is detected whether the vectors intersect with each other after the coordinates are changed by moving the vectors, and if an intersection occurs, the intersection point of the intersection is set as a new vertex. , and determine unnecessary vertices based on the above-mentioned coordinate direction, and remove the vertices determined to be unnecessary. According to the present invention, the coordinate data of the vertices of the new polygon determined in this way is given the directionality and is used as the coordinate data of the new polygon. None of the vectors formed by the vertices intersects with any other vector, and the above-mentioned inconvenience caused by filling out characters is eliminated.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an information processing device used to implement the present invention. This information processing device includes a storage device 201 that stores data such as operating programs and vector characters, and a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as CPU) 202.
, a display 205 for displaying data such as characters, a printer 204 for printing data such as characters, and a keyboard 205 for inputting character search codes and the like.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a table used when vector character outline information is stored in the storage device 201 in, for example, polygon data format. The index table 301 for extracting the character data using the search code includes:
For example, in response to the search code 302 for “A”, the character outline information table 304 in which character data is stored is
A pointer 303 indicating the start address of the character data is stored.

The character contour information table 304 includes the number of polygons (i.e., the number of loops) 505 that constitute the contour of the character data, the number of vertices 306 that constitute the first contour (loop 1), and the coordinate data 307 of the vertices that constitute the loop. 309, and further includes the number of vertices of the next loop 2, 310°, the number of loops of the next character, 311, and so on.

A character is made up of several contours defined by ordered vertices. The ordering here is done in such a way that the right side of the vector connecting the two vertices is the filled area of the character . The direction of the vector may be determined in the opposite direction, but it is necessary to keep it the same for all characters.

Next, we will explain how to change the line width of one character so that the vectors do not intersect with each other, following the flow shown in Figure 1. block 10
1) According to the same method as in the prior invention, the coordinate values of the vertices constituting the outline of the character are changed, and the line width of the character is reduced or expanded (block 102). Next, the changed coordinate data is checked and the coordinate data of intersecting vectors is changed again so that they do not intersect (block 1o3).

Using this coordinate data, change the size linearly to the target character size, develop the character into dots in the memory area specified by the data, and output.

Further, in the reverse of this procedure, the character size may be changed linearly first, and then the line width may be changed.

Next, a method of changing the coordinates of block 105 so that the changed coordinates and vectors do not intersect will be explained using the flowchart of FIG.

An if block 901 detects vectors that intersect with each other, and if such a vector is found, the following processing is performed.

In block 902, it is determined whether one vector intersects with two vectors in one loop, and in this case, processing 1 described below is performed (block 905).
. In other cases, that is, when one loop intersects with another loop, processing 2, which will be described later, is performed (block 904).

Next, Process 1 will be explained using the flows shown in FIGS. 4, 6, and 10. FIG. 4 shows the case where Process 1 is performed. Viewed from the vector connecting the vertices 401 and 402 (hereinafter abbreviated as vectors 401 and 402), vector 4
03 and 404 enter from the left side to the right side of vectors 401 and 402, and the intersection of these two vectors is 4
It is 08. Continuing with the same loop vector 406,
407 passes from the right side to the left side of the vectors 401 and 402, and the intersection point at this time is 409. At this time,
The intersection point 408 and the intersection point 409 are set as new vertices of the loop inserted into the vectors 401 and 402, and added to the coordinate data (block 1001).6 Next, the apex 40 of this loop is
4. The vertices 4o5 and 406 are removed from the coordinate data, and the vertices to be removed are determined based on the directionality of the coordinate data. In other words, since the right side of the vectors 40i and 402 is the character filling area, this vector 40
1. From the vertex that entered from the left side of 402 to the right side,
Vertices extending from the right side to the left side are removed (block 1002). As a result, as shown in FIG. 6, the vertices of the loop that enters the vectors 401 and 402 are the vertices 4o3. , vertex 408, vertex 409, vertex 407
become.

At this coordinate, apex 408 and apex 409 in FIG.
The line segment connecting the vectors includes the line segments from the vectors 401 and 402, and the line segment from the loop that entered this vector. Using this information, for example, if a method is used to fill in each horizontal scan line from the point of intersection with the vector to the point of intersection with the next vector, it is possible to connect the vertices 408 and 409. On a line segment, there are two points of intersection at the same time. The first intersection indicates the end of filling, and the second intersection indicates the beginning of filling, so there are no unnecessary white areas.
It is possible to output completely filled characters.

In the following examples, the text is filled in in the same way.

Next, Process 2 will be explained according to the flows shown in FIGS. 5, 7, 8, 11, and 12. FIG. 5 shows the case where Process 2 is performed. Loop B521 intersects with loop A320, and the intersection points are intersection point 510 and intersection point 511. Loop A and loop B may be the same loop. In this case as well, the process is performed in the same way as process 1, but there are two methods depending on whether the vertices of both intersecting loops are replaced or the vertices of only one loop are replaced. You can choose either method. first.

We will explain how to replace the vertices in both loops.

In block 1101, two intersection points are added to the coordinate data of loop A320 and loop B521, respectively. Next, in block 1102, unnecessary vertices are removed from the coordinate data for each loop. The vertices to be removed are determined based on the directionality of the coordinate data. For each loop, the right side of the vector is the fill area, so from the vertex 502 of loop B that enters from the left side of the vector of loop A to the right side, to the vertex 504-j of the vector that goes out from the right side to the left side. remove. Similarly for loop A, vertices 507 to 508 are removed. As a result, as shown in FIG. 7, the vertices of loop A are vertex 506, vertex 510, vertex 511, and vertex 509, and the vertices of loop B are vertex 5o1, vertex 511, vertex 51o, and vertex 5.
It will be 05.

Next, another method of process 2 will be explained. Poyri 1
At step 201, two intersection points 510 and 511 are added to the coordinate data only in loop B. In block 12o2, unnecessary vertices are removed from the coordinate data of loop B. The vertices to be removed are determined based on the directionality of the coordinate data, and are the vertices 5 of loop B that are included from the left side to the right side of the vector of loop A.
02 to the vertex 504 from the right side to the left side. Next, at block 1203, a new vertex is added to loop B. These new vertices are the vertices of loop A that entered loop B, and are vertices 507 and 508. This vertex is also determined based on the directionality of the coordinate data. This new vertex is added to loop B in the reverse order of its entry into loop B, and the new vertices of loop B are vertex 501 and 11 points 511 as shown in FIG.
, vertex 5o8, vertex 5o7, vertex 51o, and vertex 505.

In the above, only the coordinates of loop B have been changed, but similarly, only the coordinates of loop A may be changed.

(Figure 13).

The above processing is performed for all intersecting vectors.

By paying attention to each loop containing two intersecting vectors and the direction of the vectors, new (-) coordinate data is found and coordinate data in which the vectors do not intersect is created.

If the intersections of the above two cases are combined,
For example, even if one vector intersects with three other vectors, coordinate data can be changed correctly by paying attention to the loop that includes the vector as described above.

In the above embodiment, the outline of the character is entirely composed of polygons, but even when a part of the outline is interpolated with a curved line such as a spline, the processing shown in Figs. 14 to 17 can be performed. Just go. Although FIG. 4 shows an overlap between curved lines, it may also be an overlap between a curved line and a straight line. Figure 15 is 1
If the coordinate data is changed in both overlapping loops, the 16th
The figure shows that when only the coordinate data in loop 1403 is changed,
FIG. 17 shows a case where only the coordinates of loop 1404 are changed.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, when changing the line width of vector characters, it is possible to create coordinate data in which vectors do not intersect with each other, so when filling in characters, characters without white areas can be created. It is possible to output high quality characters with different line widths from the outline information of one character.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart for changing coordinate data according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an information processing device for characters, etc. used to implement the present invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing character contour information according to the present invention. 4 to 8 are detailed explanatory views of the present invention, and Figures 9 to 12 are schematic diagrams showing a table for storing
The figure is a flowchart showing the processing flow of the present invention.
3 to 17 are detailed explanatory diagrams of the present invention. 201...Storage device 202...Central processing unit 203...Display 204... -Printer 205...Keyboard 501...Index table 502...
...Search code 503...Pointer to character contour information table 304...Character contour information table agent Patent attorney Masaru Ogawa 〒1 Stomach closed ○ Enbi 10 figure rod 11 figure ffi + 2 figure shift

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A vector character processing method in an information processing device that uses coordinate data of the vertices of a polygon as character outline information, wherein the coordinate data of the vertices is defined in advance with directionality. , when changing the line width of a character, change the coordinate data of the vertices based on the directionality, and with respect to the changed coordinate data, a vector constituted by two consecutive vertices intersects another vector. A method for processing vector characters characterized by determining whether or not the vectors intersect, and further changing the coordinate data based on the directionality when the vectors intersect, thereby creating coordinate data in which the vectors do not intersect. 2. Changing the coordinate data to create coordinate data in which the vectors do not intersect is not necessary due to the directionality, by finding the intersection between the vectors and adding the coordinate data with the intersection as a new vertex. 2. The vector processing method according to claim 1, wherein the vector processing method is performed by determining a vertex that is determined to be unnecessary and removing coordinate data of the vertex that is determined to be unnecessary.