JPH03113494A - Pattern generating system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To generate a character pattern at high speed and to transfer it by providing a transfer means painting out a section between a dot starting point and a dot completing point in synchronizm with transfer when a contour pattern produced by a contour producing means is scanned in a prescribed direction and transferred to a prescribed output object equipment. CONSTITUTION:A storage means 3 stores character pattern reproducing information for producing the contour showing the dot starting point and the contour showing the dot completing point when a character code pattern is scanned in the prescribed direction. The contour producing means 4 produces the contour according to the character reproducing information stored in the storage means 3. The transfer means 7 paints out the section between the dot starting point and the dot completing point in synchronizm with transfer when the contour pattern produced by the contour producing means is scanned in the prescribed direction and transferred to the prescribed output object equipment. Thus, the character pattern can be generated at the high speed and transferred.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a pattern generation method for generating character symbol patterns.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, printing devices that have outline fonts develop their outline pixel by pixel in a memory such as a font cache, and store the entire font pattern by filling in the inside of the outline. There is.

FIG. 5 shows an example of its configuration.

The control unit that receives the print data sequentially stores the data in the main memory. Then, it instructs the font development section to generate an outline pattern corresponding to the character code in the stored print data. Upon receiving this instruction, the font expansion unit reads the corresponding data from the font memory and creates a closed outline (
(including the outer frame and, in some cases, the inner frame). The inside of the generated outline is filled in using a known filling process, and is stored in the font cache memory and also developed in the image memory. Here, the font cache memory is a memory provided for the next time the same character code is received. In this way, when one page or one line of character patterns is developed in the image memory,
By sequentially outputting the data to the output section, a visible image corresponding to the image in the image memory is formed.

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the case of an outline font, it takes time to fill in the inside of the outline after generating its outline, so the printing speed in the above-mentioned configuration is much slower than in a device that does not use an outline font. The disadvantage is that it is slow.

The present invention has been made in view of the related art, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a pattern generation method that can generate and transfer character patterns at high speed.

[Means for Solving the Problem] A pattern generation method of the present invention that solves this problem has the configuration shown below. That is, it is a pattern generation method that transfers the generated character symbol pattern to the output target device, and generates an outline indicating the start position of a dot and an outline indicating the end position of the dot when the character symbol pattern is scanned in a predetermined direction. a storage means for storing character pattern reproduction information for use in the character pattern reproduction information; a contour generation means for generating a contour according to the character pattern reproduction information stored in the storage means; and a contour generation means for generating a contour pattern in the predetermined direction. When scanning and transferring to a predetermined output target device, a transfer means is provided which fills out the section between the dot start position and the dot end position and transfers the image in synchronization with the transfer.

[Operation] In the configuration of the present invention, a contour indicating a dot start position and a contour indicating a dot end position when scanned in a predetermined direction are generated based on the stored character pattern reproduction information. When the generated contour is transferred to the output target device, the section between the dot start position and the dot end position is filled in and transferred.

[Embodiments] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a printing apparatus in this embodiment.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a control section (consisting of a microprocessor, etc.) that controls the entire apparatus. Reference numeral 2 denotes a main memory, which is composed of a ROM that stores the operation processing procedures of the control section 1, and a RAM that stores received print data and the like and is used as a work area of the control section 1. Reference numeral 3 denotes a font memory that stores data for generating outlines of character patterns, and is composed of a ROM.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a font development section, which develops the outline of a character pattern of a corresponding size from the coordinate data read from the font memory 3 in accordance with the character size designation information from the control section 4. Reference numeral 5 denotes a font cache memo that temporarily stores the contour pattern of a generated character, and is intended to improve efficiency when receiving the same character code. Reference numeral 6 denotes an image memory capable of developing, for example, one page of the outline pattern of the character pattern corresponding to each received character code.

7 is a paint control unit that sequentially reads the data developed in the image memory 6, generates a character pattern with the inside of the outline filled in, and outputs it; 8 is a paint control unit that receives data from the paint control unit 7 and outputs the actual printout. This is the output part to execute. Each component is connected via a system bus 9.

An outline of the operation of this embodiment in the above-described configuration will be explained.

The font memory 3 in this embodiment stores coordinate format data that generates the outline pattern 30 shown in FIG. 3(A). In this embodiment, the outline pattern 30 is used to make the pattern finally output to the output section 7 into a character pattern 31 shown in FIG. 3(B). still,
In order to generate the outline pattern 30 from the coordinate data stored in the font memory 3, it is sufficient to perform a process such as connecting the stored coordinate data of each point with a line, and this is also possible. Since this is used in the font, we will omit its explanation.

Further, in order to generate the character pattern 31 from the outline pattern 30, the following processing is performed.

First, the dots are scanned one by one in the scanning direction of FIG. Output as .

Then, in the process of scanning, once the dot of °°1" is detected again, it is output as "O". Then,
After detecting the “1” dot again, the next “1” dot is detected.
Until “ is detected, °゛1” is output. Hereafter, this process is repeated.

To explain the above-mentioned process with reference to FIG. 3(A), reference numeral 30a
Code 3 located in the same scanning direction as the dot indicated by
The 0b dot section becomes a "1" dot. By sequentially processing this line by line, the character pattern shown in FIG. 3(B) can be generated. That is, 30a indicates a filled start dot, and 30b indicates a filled stop dot.

Now, the overall processing flow of this apparatus based on the above-mentioned principle is as follows.

First, the control section 1 inputs various information such as a character size designation control code from an external host computer, etc., and also receives character codes to be printed, and stores them in the main memory 2.

In parallel with this reception process, the font development unit 4 is instructed to generate a contour pattern corresponding to the received character code so as to have a specified character size. Based on this instruction from the control unit 1, the font expansion unit 4 determines whether or not the outline pattern has already been stored in the font cache memory 5, and if so, reads out the outline pattern and stores it in the image memory 6. Expand to. If it is determined that the font cache memory 5 does not have an outline pattern for the character, the corresponding data is read from the font memory 3, the outline pattern is generated, and the outline pattern is stored in the font cache memory 5. memory 6
Also expand it.

When data for one page is developed in the image memory 6 in this way, the control section 1 instructs the paint control section 7 to print output. When the paint control section 7 receives this instruction, it reads out one dot at a time from the image memory 6 in accordance with the scanning direction described above, and outputs data with the inside of the outline filled in to the output section 8.

The paint control section 7 can be realized by a flip-flop as shown in FIG. 2, for example. That is, the dot information read from the image memory 6 is supplied to the terminal J. That is, when the dot read out in synchronization with the output synchronization signal is 1", the output Q is inverted, so that the processing described above becomes possible.
As the scan start signal, a signal generated at the start of scanning for each line is used. For example, if the output section 8 is a laser beam printer or the like, the signal may be a known beam detect (BD) signal.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the control section is freed from the complicated process of filling in the inside of the outline, so that character patterns can be generated at high speed. In other words, by using this principle, high-speed printing becomes possible.

Further, according to the embodiment, since it is not necessary to store the entire outline of a character pattern in the font memory 3, there is also the advantage that the storage capacity is small.

Note that the paint control section 7 is not limited to the illustrated configuration. For example, as shown in FIG. 4, different data can be input in parallel from the image memory 6,
"OR" and "AND" the filled parts that overlap each other.
” etc. may be made programmable.

Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, character patterns can be generated and transferred at high speed.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of the printing device in this embodiment, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the contents of the paint control section in the embodiment, and Figs. 3 (A) and (B) explain the filling process in the embodiment. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the contents of another paint control section, and FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a conventional printing apparatus. In the figure, 1... control unit, 2... main memory, 3...
・Font memory, 4... Font development section, 5...
Font cache memory, 6... Image memory, 7.
. . . Paint control section; 8. . . Output section. Patent applicant Canon Corporation Figure 3 (A) Figure 3 (B)

Claims (1)

[Claims] A pattern generation method for transmitting a generated character symbol pattern to an output target device, the method comprising: an outline indicating the start position of a dot and an end position of the dot when the character symbol pattern is scanned in a predetermined direction; a storage means for storing character pattern reproduction information for generating a contour shown in the figure; a contour generation means for generating a contour according to the character pattern reproduction information stored in the storage means; A pattern characterized by comprising: a transfer unit that, when scanning a pattern in the predetermined direction and transferring the pattern to a predetermined output target device, fills out and transfers a section between a dot start position and a dot end position in synchronization with the transfer. How it occurs.