JPH027664A - Picture processing unit - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To execute a desired contour processing by extracting the contour of a picture from original picture information and reproducing the leading and trailing parts of the extracted contour with a different thickness. CONSTITUTION:A picture data is written sequentially in memory banks 0-3 by a data of each line by multiplexers 12, 17, sent to a contour line processing circuit 18 via communication lines 114-116, and only the data of a noted line is sent to a no-processing circuit 19. Whether the contour line processing or no-processing is to be applied is decided by the input from an operation section 111, a selector 112 selects an output from either the contour processing circuit 18 or the no-processing circuit 19 and the result is supplied to a printer 113, and a formed picture is outputted from the printer. The contour processing circuit 18 has two filters with a different characteristic to output contour information in which the thickness of the contour is varied with the leading and trailing parts of the picture. Thus, various kinds of characters in, e.g., the design field are formed.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Industrial application field] The present invention relates to an image processing device that processes an original image.

[Conventional technology]

2. Description of the Related Art There is known an apparatus that reads an original image with a CCD image sensor or the like and reproduces the image based on the image signal obtained thereby.

The main purpose of this device is to function as a conventional copying machine, but by electrically processing image signals, it can perform functions that are difficult to perform with conventional copying machines. For example, image size conversion, arbitrary image extraction/deletion,
Editing such as movement can be performed easily, and it is used, for example, in the design field to transform and decorate characters.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] In such editing processing, for example, it is possible to extract the outline of a black character and reproduce the white character, but the thickness of the outline is not uniform. there were.

[Means for solving problems]

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and provides an excellent image processing device that extracts the outline of an image from document image information and reproduces the rising and falling parts of the extracted outline with different thicknesses. It is something to do.

〔Example〕

The present invention will be explained below using preferred embodiments.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention.

In this embodiment, an image input device 11 that outputs 8-bit pixel data, a video data multiplexer 12 that determines the data input destination, memory bank 01 memory bank 11 memory bank 2, memory bank 3, and which memory An address multiplexer 17 that determines which address in the bank to store data in, an outline processing circuit 18, a non-processing circuit 19 that does not perform outline processing, CPU110, an operation unit 111, a selector 112, and a printer 113.
, a communication line 114 through which data immediately before the line of interest passes, a communication line 115 through which data on the line of interest passes, and a communication line 116 through which data one line after the line of interest passes.

The image input device 11 shines light on the image of the document on the document table,
This device separates the image into pixels, which are the smallest units of the image, and sequentially reads each line using a light-receiving element such as a COD.

The video data multiplexer 12 and address multiplexer 17 transfer the image data to memory bank 0. 1. 2.3 are sequentially written. In other words, first write one line of data to memory banks 0 and 1.2, and then write data to memory bank 3.
When writing starts in memory bank 0. 1.
2 is read out, and the read data is transmitted to the communication line 114. 115. 116 to the contour processing circuit 18, and only the data of the line of interest is sent to the non-processing circuit 19.

Then, when writing to memory bank 3 ends and writing to memory bank 0 begins, memory bank 1.
2. 3 data is read out, the data from memory bank 1 becomes the data of the previous line, the data of memory bank 2 becomes the data of the line of interest, and the data of memory bank 3 becomes the data of the next line. It becomes data.

The above operation is performed sequentially for all lines using the four memory banks.

On the other hand, the input from the operation unit 111 determines whether contour processing or no processing is to be performed, and the selector 112 selects one of the outputs from the contour processing circuit 18 or the non-processing circuit 19 and supplies it to the printer 113. Then, the formed image is output from the printer.

The contour processing circuit 18 has two filters with different characteristics, and outputs contour information in which the thickness of the contour is changed at the rising and falling portions of the image. That is, processing is performed to obtain a print as shown in FIG. 2(a) for the input of the original image shown in FIG. 2(b).

If we perform the above processing in the − dimension, the result will be as follows. Figure 3 (
1) shows the output of a light receiving element such as a CCD, and (2) is the output (1) that is A/D converted at each point. (2)
Multiplying the value of by a filter of (-1, 0, 1) gives (3)
is obtained, and αX (1,1,O.

-1, 1), we obtain (4).

Set the negative values in (4) to 0, and (3) and (
Adding 4) gives (5). Here, if the threshold value is set to 3 and (5) is binarized, (6) is obtained. If the portion that is 1 in (6) is defined as the contour portion, the contour of the falling portion will be thicker than the contour portion of the rising portion.

By executing this method on a two-dimensional plane (main scanning direction and sub-scanning direction), an output as shown in FIG. 2(a) can be obtained. FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the contour processing circuit 18.

Three lines of data input from the video data multiplexer 12 are filtered with different characteristics by filter A54 and filter B55.

In this embodiment, the filter A54 performs the following filter processing, and the filter B55 performs the following filter processing.

Filter A54.FIG. 5(a) and FIG. 5(b) each perform the above-mentioned filtering process. An example of the configuration of B55 is shown. Figure 5 (a
) and (b), 60-63, 71-77 are adders, 64-68, 78-90 are D flip-flops, 6
9, 70. 91 to 93 are inverters.

Output 512 of filter B 55 is input to condition circuit 56 . The condition circuit 56 replaces inputs that take a negative value with zero and outputs them, and outputs inputs that take a positive value as they are, and an example of its configuration is shown in FIG. 601 is an AND gate, 602 is a selector, and selector 60
2 performs a selection operation according to MSB data indicating whether the image data is positive or negative; if the image data is positive, input A is selected; if negative, input B is selected.

The output 513 of the condition circuit 56 and the output 511 of the filter A54 are added together in an adder 57, and the addition result 514
is input to the comparator 58. A comparator 58 compares the output 514 of the adder 57 with a predetermined slice level 515, and sets a binary value to 1 if it is equal to or greater than the slice level 515, and sets it to 0 if it is smaller than the slice 1 novel 515. output 516 to selector 112
supply to.

By selecting the output 516 of the comparator 58 by the selector 112 and supplying it to the printer 113 as density information 517, a printout as shown in FIG. 2(a) can be obtained.

Note that the selector 112 selects the output of either the unprocessed information 514 or the contour processed information 513, and outputs the density information 5.
Output as 17. Here, the selection target can be changed pixel by pixel by the control signal 518 of the selector 112 from the CPU 110. Therefore, it is possible to select output of unprocessed information for a certain portion and output of contour processed information for a certain portion.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram in which the operator can freely set the density of the contour portion and other portions obtained by the contour line/processing and logic circuit of FIG. 4. Blocks with the same functions as those in FIG. 4 are given the same numbers, and their explanations will be omitted.

The AND gates 201 and 202, the OR gate 203, and the inverter 204 reproduce the density l for the contour part.
, for the other parts, reproduction density 2 is density information 2
Output as 05.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of the operation section.

In this figure, an editor operation section 901, a point Ben 9
02, LCD display section 903 for setting various modes, contour processing mode key 90.4 paper selection key 905, AE and copy density adjustment key 906, number of copies display 907,
A numeric keypad 908, a clear key 909, and a copy start key 910 are provided.

Setting of the contour line processing mode using the FIG. 8 operation unit will be explained.

In the operation unit shown in FIG. 8, the contour line processing mode key 904
When is pressed, a display as shown in FIG. 9(A) is displayed on the liquid crystal display section 903. In display (A), key 701
When the key 702 is pressed, outline processing is performed on the entire area of the original image, and when key 702 is pressed, outline processing is performed only on the desired area of the original image.

When the key 702 is pressed in the display (A), a display like (B) is displayed on the liquid crystal display section 903, and the area designation mode is entered. During this display, the operator points the point on the digitizer with the point pen 902 By instructing, a desired area to be subjected to contour processing can be specified.

When the area designation is completed, the liquid crystal display section 903 displays a display as shown in (C), and it becomes possible to set the strength of the outline. That is, when the key 703 is pressed in display (C), the slice level for contour extraction is increased, and contour processing is weakened.

Furthermore, when the key 704 is pressed, the contour processing is strengthened. still,
705 is a display indicating the setting strength, which can be moved left or right by operating keys 703 and 704.

Next, the liquid crystal display section 903 displays (D), and enters the setting mode for the density of the outline and the density of images other than the outline. That is, by operating the keys 706, 707, 708 and 709, respectively. , the density is set, and the displays 710 and 711 move left and right accordingly.

After the above settings, when the copy start key 910 is pressed, outline processing according to the set mode is executed.

Furthermore, if the key 701 is pressed in display (A),
The mode can be set using the same procedure as described above except for specifying the area using display (B).

FIG. 10 shows a block diagram of another embodiment of the contour processing circuit 18. In FIG. 1O, by replacing the filter section with a ROM, the operator can select a plurality of filters.

The block diagram in FIG. 10 will be explained.

801 and 802 are timing adjustment circuits that function to send image data necessary for filter processing to ROMs 804 and 805. It is mainly made up of latches. 803
is a register containing address data that determines which filter to select. This data is sent from the CPU.

804 and 805 are ROMs that function as filters.

804 corresponds to the filter A54 shown in the fourth figure, and 805 corresponds to the filter B55 and the condition circuit 56 shown in the fourth figure.

806 and 807 are the outputs from the filters, respectively, and the outputs 511.807 in FIG. Corresponds to 513.

In this way, by performing the filtering process by looking up the table, the time required for the filtering process can be shortened, making it possible to adapt to high-speed processing.

In addition, in this system configuration, ROM804°80
If multiple types of filters are stored in 5, the operator can select many types of filters. Therefore, it is possible to obtain the optimum output suitable for the original. The filter selection method is performed by displaying a number on the liquid crystal display section 903 when entering the filter selection mode of the contour processing mode, and changing the number.

As described above, according to the contour line processing according to the present embodiment, the contour line of the document image is extracted and the thickness of the contour line reproduced at the rising part and the falling part is made different, so that, for example,
Buzzer 4. This makes it possible to form characters with variations in the field of electronics, etc. In this embodiment, the contour line processing was performed two-dimensionally in the main and sub-scanning directions, but as explained in the principle, it may be performed one-dimensionally in the main-scanning direction, or conversely, in the sub-scanning direction. Executing the process only in the direction can also be easily realized by changing the filter coefficients.

〔effect〕

As explained above, since the rising and falling parts of the outline of an image can be reproduced with different thicknesses, desired outline processing can be performed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is a block diagram showing an example of this process, and Figure 2 (
a) and (b) are diagrams showing the processing of the present invention, Fig. 3 is a diagram when this processing is performed on a one-dimensional plane, Fig. 4 is a block diagram of the contour processing circuit, and Fig. 5 (a) , (b) is a block diagram of the filter circuit, Figure 6 is a diagram of the condition circuit, Figure 7 is another block diagram of the contour processing circuit, Figure 8 is a diagram of the operation section, and Figure 9 is the display section. FIG. 10 is a block diagram of contour processing, in which 11 is an image input device, 12 is a video data multiplexer, 17 is an address multiplexer, 18 is a contour processing circuit, 11
0 is a CPU, and 113 is a printer.

Claims (1)

[Claims] An image processing device that extracts an image outline from document image information and reproduces rising and falling parts of the extracted outline with different thicknesses.