JPH03150594A - System and device for character generation and document printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To output characters of high quality even in character zooming in consideration of the characteristics of an output device by obtaining raster type character data from contour coordinate data form reducing characters in thickness almost one picture element of the output device according to contour coordinate data on characters after conversion. CONSTITUTION:The contour coordinate data on a character which is transferred from a font ROM 2 is received and an affine conversion part 42 performs character shape deformation such as enlargement or reduction according to modification information on the character. The coordinate data obtained by the shape conversion is further coordinate-converted by a coordinate movement part 43 so as to make the character thin, and then stored in an internal data RAM 44 temporarily. A contour generation part 46 generates dot information indicating the contour on an internal RAM 48 according to the data stored in the internal data RAM 44. Further, a painting-out data generation part 47 generates painting-out data according to the information in the internal RAM 48 and transfers this data to the output device 5 to output the character. Consequently, the character with thickness corresponding to the characteristics of the specific output device can be outputted and the character quality is improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a character generation device that generates high quality characters for output devices such as displays and printers.

[Prior art] As high-definition display and printing devices became widespread,
Outline characters such as those described in Japanese Patent No. 3-15624 have come into use.

This outline character is created by transforming the coordinate data representing the outline of the character by applying coordinate transformation such as affine transformation. This is output to a dot display type output device.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In the above-mentioned prior art, the characteristics of the output device are not taken into consideration at all, so there is a problem in that the result of outputting the same character differs depending on the output device.

Additionally, when outputting characters enlarged by affine transformation, there was a problem in that the characters were thinner than previous designs in terms of character design.

6 Furthermore, as printing devices become more and more high-definition, it is thought that the difference in resolution between them and copying devices will increase.

This may cause a problem in which thin characters disappear when copying a printed document, resulting in quality deterioration.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a character generation method and device, and a writing device, which can output high-quality characters even when changing character size, taking into account the characteristics of each output device.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a document creation device that can switch between normal printing and printing of documents for copying.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, a character generation method according to the present invention converts character outline coordinate data expressed in vector format into character data expressed in raster format by coordinate transformation. However, in a character generation method in which the converted character data is provided to an output device, when obtaining a reduced character by the coordinate conversion, the size of approximately one pixel of the output device is calculated based on the contour coordinate data of the converted character. , contour coordinate data with a thinner character is obtained, and the raster format character data is obtained from the contour coordinate data.

A character generator according to the present invention converts contour coordinate data of a character expressed in a vector format into character data expressed in a raster format by coordinate transformation, and provides the converted character data to an output device. , means for storing size information of one pixel of the output device, and correcting the contour coordinate data so as to reduce the thickness of the converted character by an amount proportional to the stored size of one pixel. It is equipped with means.

In this device, the means for correcting the contour coordinate data changes the contour coordinate data so that each of the opposing contour lines of the character is moved approximately half a pixel toward the interior of the character.

Alternatively, the movement direction of the contour coordinate data is limited to the x and y directions, and the movement amount of each is limited, and the contour coordinate data is moved in the X or y direction, or both directions depending on the slope of the contour line. move.

In this case, it is desirable that the amount of movement when moving in both the x and y directions is smaller than the amount of movement when only one of them is moved. When outputting characters by rotating them by 90 degrees to an output device that has different amounts of movement in the X and Y directions, the amounts of movement are reversed.

If the relative position of the movement result of the contour coordinate data is different from the positional relationship before movement, means may be provided for returning to the contour coordinate data before movement.

Another character generator according to the present invention converts contour coordinate data of a character expressed in vector format into character data expressed in raster format through coordinate transformation, and provides the converted character data to an output device. In the apparatus, means for determining a point on the contour line of the contour coordinate data after the coordinate conversion is outside the thickness constituting the character, and creating data in which the area determined to be inside the thickness of the character is filled out. It is equipped with means.

Still another character generating device according to the present invention converts character contour coordinate data expressed in vector format into character data expressed in raster format through coordinate transformation, and outputs the converted character data to an output device. In the character generating device used for the purpose of the present invention, there is provided a means for determining that a point on the contour line of the contour coordinate data after the coordinate conversion is inside the thickness constituting the character, and means for filling out the area determined to be inside the thickness of the character. and a means for creating data.

Further, the document creation device according to the present invention converts contour coordinate data of a character expressed in a vector format into character data expressed in a raster format by coordinate conversion, and provides the character data after the conversion to a printing device. In a document creation device that is equipped with a device and can be connected to a plurality of printing devices, means for inputting pixel size information specific to the plurality of printing devices, and for obtaining pixel size information of a specified printing device. The apparatus comprises means for referring to the table, and means for thinning the thickness of characters output to the printing device by approximately one pixel of the printing device in accordance with the pixel size information obtained by the means. be.

0- Another document creation device according to the present invention converts contour coordinate data of a character expressed in vector format into character data expressed in raster format by coordinate transformation, and provides the converted character data to a printing device. In a document creation device that is equipped with a character generator and can be connected to a plurality of printing devices, the table includes a table that holds pixel size information specific to the plurality of printing devices corresponding to each printing device, and a printing device that is instructed to output. means for referring to the table in order to obtain pixel size information of the printing device;
It is equipped with means for making the image thinner by pixel.

In these document creation devices, the means for narrowing by one pixel is, for example, to move each opposing contour line of a character approximately half a pixel toward the inside of the character.

[Effect] It has been empirically shown that for characters processed by affine transformation, the smaller the character size, the thicker the output sentence 1-character becomes by approximately 1 dot than the expected character thickness. Confirmed. On the other hand, output devices such as printers originally have different pixel sizes and shapes due to differences in ink bleeding and the like. Therefore, in the present invention, the quality of characters is improved by correcting the thickness of characters according to the pixel size of the specific output device used. In particular, when reducing a character, by reducing the thickness of the character by one pixel corresponding to the output device, it is possible to solve the problem of small characters appearing thicker than light characters when output.

In addition, as a specific implementation method, by providing a means to move the contour coordinate data by half a pixel, the two contour lines that make up the thickness of the character can be moved inside the character (in the normal direction). As a result, narrowing by one pixel can be achieved.

Furthermore, by fixing the amount of movement in the X+y direction, it is possible to virtually thin the character by one pixel, and by fixing it, high-speed processing can be realized.

In addition, it is possible to change the amount of movement depending on the direction of movement. This allows movement closer to the actual value.

If the above movement is carried out uniquely, a reversal phenomenon of coordinate values may occur. The inversion phenomenon refers to the occurrence of crossing or overlapping of contour lines when the character is made thinner by moving the coordinate points in the thinner part of the character. In order to solve this reversal phenomenon, if the relative positional relationship of the contour coordinates before the movement is different from the relative positional relationship of the coordinates after the movement, this inconvenience can be avoided by returning to the coordinate data before the movement.

In addition, when outputting 90' rotation data when outputting vertical and horizontal paper documents on the output device that the character generator outputs, and the amount of movement in the X and y directions is different, the XFy By reversing the amount of movement, the same character can be output regardless of whether the paper is printed vertically or horizontally.

In addition, if there are multiple output devices from which the character generator outputs characters, and if you select one of them to output, changing the amount of movement for each output device will result in the same output result for each output device. It can be set to 3 so that

Furthermore, when filling, points on the outline determined by the outline coordinate data after coordinate conversion are determined to be inside or outside the character, and by filling in the inside, the character is virtually made thicker or thinner by one pixel. be able to.

By performing this thickening and thinning processing for each character output size, it is possible to generate characters that are faithful to the optical characters, whether small or large. Examples will be described in detail.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the configuration of a character output device used to implement the present invention. 1 is a central processing unit that executes processing control of the character output device, 2 is a font ROM that stores character outline coordinate data, 3 is a character generator that employs the character generation method of the present invention, and 4 is the pixel size of the output device 5 is an input device for inputting characters, etc., and 5 is an output device for outputting characters, etc.

First, the central processing unit 1 transfers information in the font ROM 2 to the character generator 3. Character generator 3 is phono I-R
A dot character is generated based on the contour coordinate information of the character input from the OM 2 and various information input from the input device 4. The generated dot character data is transferred to the output device W5 and the characters are output.

First, a means for inputting the size of one pixel of the output device in this device will be explained.

As a first method of inputting the size of one pixel, there is a method of inputting information held by the user from the input device 4. A user of the character generator recognizes the characteristics of the output device 5 and inputs the pixel size from the input device 4.

As a second method, a method of inputting from a pixel information table provided inside the character generating device 3 can be considered. FIG. 3 shows an example of a pixel information table.

In FIG. 3, pixel size data 33 represents the size of one pixel for each output device with respect to one mathematical coordinate. In other words, the larger the ink blur, etc., the larger the pixel size data. When outputting characters to one of several types of output devices, the output device number 31 of each output device and the corresponding pixel size data 32 are set in the pixel information table 33 in advance. The character generating device 3 acquires the pixel size from the pixel information table 33 according to the selected output device.

The means for selecting the output device include a method in which the user of the character generator inputs the output device number using the human power device 4, and a method in which a signal corresponding to the output device number is outputted to the output device 5. A conceivable method is to provide a character generator and obtain this signal from the character generator.

In this way, pixel size data corresponding to the obtained output device number is obtained from the pixel information table 33.

Based on this acquired pixel size data, the output device 5
Character generator 3 that creates thin character data corresponding to
An example of the configuration is shown in FIG.

In FIG. 4, reference numeral 41 indicates character contour coordinate data and character modification information input from an input device.

This is a coordinate data conversion unit that performs coordinate data conversion based on the pixel size data of the output device described above, and includes an affine transformation unit 42 and a coordinate movement unit 43, which is one of the features of the present invention.
It consists of 44 is an internal RAM that stores coordinate data generated by the coordinate data conversion section. Reference numeral 45 denotes a raster conversion section (raster data generation section) for converting contour coordinate data into dot characters, and is composed of an outline generation section 46 and a fill data generation section 47. 48 is an internal RAM in which contour dot information is stored.

-1,7 The character generator 3 shown in FIG. 4 operates as follows.

First, the character contour coordinate data transferred from the phono ROM 2 is received, and the affine transformation unit 42 performs character shape conversion such as enlargement or reduction of the character according to character modification information. The shape-converted coordinate data is further converted by the coordinate moving unit 43 so that the characters become thinner, and the converted coordinate data is temporarily stored in the internal data RAM 44. The contour generating section 46 creates dot information indicating the contour on the internal RAM 48 based on the data stored in the internal data RAM 44. Furthermore, fill data generation section 4
7 creates fill data based on the information in the internal RAM 48. Characters are output by transferring this data to the output device 5.

Among these, the operation of the coordinate moving section 43, which performs a characteristic operation in the present invention, will be described in detail.

The coordinate movement operation of the coordinate data movement unit 43 is performed in the following two-dimensional manner.
There are two possible operation flows. The first method is to input the size of one pixel of the output device and set it to this size = 18 = Therefore, by moving the entire contour line by half a pixel in the normal direction of the contour line, thin characters are output. The second method is to generate thin characters by moving the coordinate data in either or both of the χ and y directions depending on the slope of the contour line.

First, the method shown in FIG. 1 will be explained with reference to FIG. One pixel of the output device is a perfect circle with radius p, and the coordinates of a point 52 obtained by moving the contour coordinates 51 (xi, yl) of the character by half a pixel in the normal direction of the contour are expressed as (xi' + yl, '
), consider a method of creating new character contour information. At this time, as shown in FIG.
2. y2). Furthermore, hereinafter, it is assumed that the direction representing the thickness of a character is always on the left side with respect to the direction of the outline of the character. This "left side" itself does not have any particular meaning, but it is meaningful to fix it to either the left side or the right side.

FIG. 6 shows the operation flow when determining the coordinates (xi'+yl,') of the point after movement.

19 First, the equation of a straight line 55 is determined by moving half a pixel in the normal direction to the straight line defined by (xo + yO) - (xl, + yl) (Broncro).

The equation of this line is It is.

Next, an equation of a straight line 56 obtained by moving half a pixel in the normal direction to the straight line defined by (xl, yl)-(x2.y2) is determined (block 62).

Similarly, this It is.

Furthermore, the coordinates of the intersection of the two straight lines obtained in blocks 61 and 62 are determined (block 63), and this coordinate of the intersection is set as the moving point (x 1' + y 1') (block 64).
). The coordinates of the intersection point are found as a solution of two simultaneous equations.

By performing the above operations on all the 20-contour coordinate data forming the character, the coordinate point can be moved inside the character.

Next, the second method will be explained with reference to FIG.

In this method, the direction of movement is determined from the slope of the contour.

In FIG. Two line segments made up of three points 7
The deviation in the X direction and the X direction of the end point that determines the slope of 1.72 is ΔχO=xl−x, respectively.

Δyo=y 1-y.

Δχ 1=x2−xi Δy 1=y 2−y ”, and one pixel of the output device is a rectangle of 2pxx2py. FIG. 8 shows an operation flow for determining the coordinates (x1'y1') of the coordinate movement position fEf74 of the coordinates (xl+yl) of the contour point 73 of one character at this time. If the deviations ΔXO and ΔX1 in the X direction of the two line segments are both in the positive direction (block 81), move yl in the positive direction by py (
Block 82). Otherwise, if the deviations of the two line segments are both negative by 1 (block 83), yl is moved by py in the negative direction (block 84).

Furthermore, the deviations ΔyO and Δy1 in the X direction of the two line segments
are both in the positive direction (block 85), χ1
is moved by px in the negative direction (block 86). Otherwise, if the deviations of the two line segments are both negative (block 87), then Xl is moved by px in the positive direction (block 88). This operation allows the coordinate point to be virtually moved inward by the pixel size of the output device.

In an output device having rectangular pixels as described above, when outputting a character rotated by 90 degrees, the values of px and py are exchanged in advance and the same operation is performed.

Furthermore, if one pixel of the output device is circular, a method of changing the amount of movement depending on the slope of the contour line can be considered. FIG. 9 shows an operation flow when one pixel of the output device is a perfect circle with radius p.

The operation flow is shown in the case where the moving amount of horizontal line 2 and vertical line, which are used in large numbers as constituent lines of characters, is p, which corresponds to half a pixel, and the shaded area is assumed to have an average of 45'', and is set to p v' 2.

If any of the line segments 71 and 72 is determined to be a horizontal line (block 91), the amount of movement in the X direction is p.
block 92), otherwise p v'
2 (block 93). Also, if either of the line segments 71 or 72 is determined to be a vertical line, (
Block 94), the amount of movement in the X direction is p, and block 9
5), otherwise p v' 2 (block 96).

In this way, according to the set movement value, the eighth
By performing the operations shown in the figure, the contour coordinates can be moved.

When performing coordinate movement as shown above, if the relative positional relationship of the coordinates before movement from the front and back coordinates of the contour line and the relative positional relationship of the coordinates after movement from the front and back coordinates of the contour line are not the same, the coordinates before movement are Output as coordinates after movement.

The coordinate data generated in the manner described above is transferred to the internal RAM 4, and dot characters are output according to the method described above.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described using FIG. 10.

FIG. 10 shows the configuration of a character generating device 3 according to a second embodiment. In the figure, 101 is a coordinate transformation section, and 102 is a raster transformation section. The coordinate conversion unit 101 converts the font RO
Shape conversion is performed based on information indicating the contour coordinates of the character input from M and character modification information input from the input device 4 or the like. The raster conversion unit 102 receives the converted coordinate data and converts it into dot characters based on this. When converting to dot characters, thin characters are generated by determining points on the outline to be outside the character.

FIG. 11 shows an example of contour occurrence. In the conventional straight line generation method, the points through which the contour line passes are generated as the contour line by rounding off the decimal places, but in this example,
As shown in FIG. 11(a), when the left side of the contour line in the advancing direction (inside the line segment) is the negative side of the filling direction (X direction in the example shown), when calculating the coordinate data, The X+V data is rounded down to the decimal point to generate a contour line as shown at 111. Conversely, if the left side of the line segment in the advancing direction is the positive side of the filling direction, then the decimal point is rounded up. This causes the opposing contour lines that define the thickness of the character to move closer together. By filling in the inside of this outline, thin characters are generated.

In addition, as shown in Figure (b), if the left side of the line segment's advancing direction is the negative side of the filling direction, if you round up the decimal point of the coordinate data (if it is the positive side, truncation operation), it is possible to generate bold characters.

Note that it is also possible to apply this rounding up and down processing to only one of the opposing contour lines that determine the thickness of the character, and rounding off the other contour line as usual.

Next, a specific method of setting a point on the outline outside the character so that the point is not filled out will be explained with reference to FIG.

5- First, accurately calculate the second point of the contour line and store its position coordinates in decimal point coordinates. This position coordinate is a coordinate in a certain direction with respect to the filling method, for example, the filling direction is
If the direction is the X direction, if the filling direction is the X direction, it is the X direction.
The other coordinate (decimal point coordinate) is calculated by setting the decimal point of the direction coordinate to O. In the example shown in the figure, calculations are made such that one X coordinate corresponds to an X coordinate whose decimal point is 0. For example, when the X coordinate is yn and the X coordinate is stored as a decimal point coordinate, contour information for one character is calculated and the X coordinate is stored for each corresponding X coordinate.

Consider the case where the contour information for the - character is the information indicated by "." in FIG. 12, and the yn line is filled in. yn line" 2 from the smaller X,
The first contour point found is the starting point for filling. The search continues, and the next contour point found is set as the end point of filling. At this time, the starting point of filling is rounded up to the nearest whole number of decimal points of the stored coordinate data, and the ending point is rounded down. In this way, after converting the contour points into integers, the points existing between them are output as inside the character.

Note that when outputting a thick character, conversely, the starting point coordinates are rounded down and the ending point coordinates are rounded up, so that points on the outline are filled in.

According to this embodiment, by simply determining and executing rounding down or rounding up after the decimal point, both high-quality characters and characters with emphasized thickness can be easily output, and the software scale can be reduced.

In addition, for high-quality characters, laser beam printers (LBP)
), etc. However, when copying a document containing characters output in this way, there is a problem that the print quality deteriorates because the characters are thin, but this example solves this problem. can do. That is, it is possible to easily generate high-quality characters for LBP and to generate characters for copying.

Next, as a third example, 7- An example of a document printing device that employs a character correction method will be described.

FIG. 13 shows an example of a document printing device for realizing this embodiment. In the figure, 131 is an input device for the user to input and instruct whether to select normal printing or copy printing, 132 is a page memory that stores print data, and 133 is a document on the page memory. A printing device 134 for printing data is a character generating device according to the present invention.

When using this document printing device, the user first uses the input device 131 to select "normal printing" or "copy printing". When "normal printing" is selected, the character generator 134 recognizes the points on the outline as outside the character,
The generated characters are generated on page memory 132. When ``print for copying'' is selected, points 1 and 2 of the contour line are recognized as inside the character, and the generated bold characters are generated on the page memory 132. The document data generated in this manner is transferred to the printing device 133 and printed.

According to this embodiment, it is possible to solve the problem that thin characters disappear when copying a printed document and the quality deteriorates as printing devices become more precise.

[Effects of the Invention] According to the present invention, since it is possible to output characters with a thickness that corresponds to the characteristics of a specific output device, character quality can be improved.

By having means for inputting the pixel size of the output device, it is possible to correspond to various output devices.

By having a means for holding the pixel size of the output device and limiting the output devices, it is possible to support various output devices without the user having to perform complicated processing.

The direction of coordinate movement is determined by the inclination, X+'! By limiting to only the direction, faster movement processing can be performed.

Furthermore, for a circular pixel, when the contour line is a diagonal line, by changing the amount of movement of xr'/, the movement accuracy can be improved by 29-.

Also, when outputting to a printing device etc., the document data should be
When outputting rotated data, by automatically reversing the amount of movement in the X+y direction, the output result can be made equal to the output result before rotation.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of an example of output by a character generator embodying the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of a character output device for carrying out the embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a diagram of a pixel information table. A schematic diagram showing a configuration example, FIG. 4 is an internal block diagram of a character generator for realizing the first embodiment of the present invention,
Figure 5 is a first schematic diagram showing the movement position of the character outline coordinates, Figure 6 is a flowchart of the method for determining the movement position coordinates of Figure 5, and Figure 7 is the first schematic diagram showing the movement position of the character outline coordinates. 2, FIG. 8 is a flowchart of the method of determining the moving position coordinates of FIG. 7, FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the method of setting the moving distance, and FIG. 0 for realizing the example; FIG. 11 is a schematic diagram showing the outline of a character; FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram when the outline -L point is not included as a character filling target; FIG. 13 is a block diagram of the document creation device of the present invention. 3...Character generator, 33 Pixel information table, 43
Coordinate movement section, 102 raster conversion section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A character generation method in which contour coordinate data of a character expressed in vector format is converted into character data expressed in raster format by coordinate transformation, and the converted character data is provided to an output device. , When obtaining a character reduced by the coordinate conversion, based on the contour coordinate data of the converted character, obtain contour coordinate data that reduces the thickness of the character by approximately one pixel of the output device, and A character generation method characterized in that character data in the raster format is obtained from coordinate data. 2. In a character generation device that converts character outline coordinate data expressed in vector format into character data expressed in raster format by coordinate transformation, and provides the converted character data to an output device, 1 of the output device. A means for storing pixel size information, and a means for correcting the contour coordinate data so as to reduce the thickness of the converted character by an amount proportional to the stored size of one pixel. A character generator featuring: 3. The character according to claim 2, wherein the means for correcting the contour coordinate data changes the contour coordinate data so that each of the opposing contour lines of the character is moved approximately half a pixel inward of the character. Generator. 4. The means for correcting the contour coordinate data limits the movement direction of the contour coordinate data to two axes, x and y, and limits each movement amount, and
3. The character generating device according to claim 2, wherein the contour coordinate data is moved by the amount of movement in one direction or in both directions. 5. The amount of movement when moving in both x and y directions is
5. The character generating device according to claim 4, wherein the amount of movement is reduced compared to when only one of them is moved. 6. The character generating device according to claim 4, wherein when outputting a character rotated by 90 degrees to an output device having different amounts of movement in the x and y directions, the amount of movement is reversed. 7. The character generating device according to claim 4, further comprising means for returning the contour coordinate data to the contour coordinate data before the movement when the relative position of the movement result of the contour coordinate data is different from the positional relationship before the movement. 8. In a character generation device that converts contour coordinate data of a character expressed in a vector format into character data expressed in a raster format by coordinate transformation, and provides the converted character data to an output device, after the coordinate transformation. The present invention is characterized by comprising means for determining that a point on the outline of the outline coordinate data is outside the thickness of the character, and means for creating data in which the area determined to be inside the thickness of the character is filled in. Character generator. 9. In a character generation device that converts contour coordinate data of a character expressed in a vector format into character data expressed in a raster format by coordinate transformation, and provides the converted character data to an output device, after the coordinate transformation. The present invention is characterized by comprising means for determining that a point on the outline of the outline coordinate data is inside the thickness of the character, and means for creating data in which the area determined to be inside the thickness of the character is filled in. Character generator. 10. A plurality of printing devices, including a character generation device that converts contour coordinate data of a character expressed in a vector format into character data expressed in a raster format by coordinate transformation, and provides the converted character data to a printing device; In a document creation device connectable to the printer, means for inputting pixel size information specific to the plurality of printing devices, and means for referring to the table to obtain pixel size information of the designated printing device; A document creation device comprising means for reducing the thickness of a character output to the printing device by approximately one pixel of the printing device in accordance with pixel size information obtained by the device. 11. A plurality of printing devices, including a character generation device that converts contour coordinate data of a character expressed in a vector format into character data expressed in a raster format through coordinate transformation, and provides the converted character data to a printing device; In a document creation device that can be connected to, a table that holds pixel size information specific to the plurality of printing devices corresponding to each printing device, and a table for obtaining pixel size information of a printing device that is instructed to output. The present invention further comprises: means for referring to the table; and means for reducing the thickness of characters output to the printing device by approximately one pixel of the printing device in accordance with the pixel size information obtained by the means. Characteristic document creation device. 12. The document creation device according to claim 10 or 11, wherein the means for narrowing by one pixel moves each of the opposing contour lines of the character approximately half a pixel toward the inside of the character.