JPH0357858B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides signals relating to characters/images (hereinafter referred to as characters) printed by a phototypesetting machine, or signals relating to characters to be printed, to an optical dial, digital font memory, etc. A character/image processing device in a phototypesetting machine, which outputs a desired character image to a display device such as a CRT or an image forming means based on the read signal from a character/image signal generating means consisting of a character/image signal generating means. It is related to.

A phototypesetting machine with a display device such as a CRT is effective not only as a monitor for normal character typesetting, but also as a monitor for nail typesetting and position placement typesetting. In particular, when performing tack printing typesetting, it is possible to print on the photosensitive material in the same state as it is displayed on the display device, which has the advantage of being able to set the feed amount and series while checking the display device. Ta.

However, when printing a combination of major series (large characters) and minor series (small characters), so-called mixed printing typesetting, the characters of the minor series are displayed small on the display device.
It is difficult to check the contact state between characters in detail, and it has been desired to perform magnification conversion processing such as enlargement before displaying.

For phototypesetting machines with conventional display devices such as CRTs, the following methods are used to always display the printed characters or the characters to be printed, and to change the magnification of the characters as necessary. is possible.

Standard size (display state where the size of the characters displayed on the display device and the size of the characters actually printed are almost the same. The same applies hereinafter) corresponds to the character memory for display and its enlargement rate N for enlarged display. However, a character memory with a storage capacity N2 ^times that of the standard size display character memory is provided, and the display can be switched as necessary.

The characters written in the character memory are converted to magnification through arithmetic processing and displayed.

However, in this case, if the number of characters to be stored is large or the magnification is large, a large capacity memory must be provided, making it expensive. Furthermore, simple magnification conversion using calculations as in the case of (2) is not very practical as it is difficult to obtain the precision required to accurately visually observe the state of the print.

Therefore, the present invention is a phototypesetting machine that sequentially prints characters at arbitrary printing positions on a photosensitive material, and includes a character/image signal generating means and an image signal sent from the character/image signal generating means. a buffer memory for storing, a character memory for writing the contents stored in the buffer memory as necessary, a display means for displaying a composite display of the contents read from the buffer memory and the contents read from the character memory; In a phototypesetting machine having the buffer memory, the character memory, and a control unit that manages data input/output timing and addresses for the display means, the character memories are arranged at different magnifications so that the display state corresponds to the printing state. It is composed of a plurality of character memories that store characters and images, and the contents of a desired character memory among the plurality of character memories are selectively read out and supplied to the display means, and the contents of a desired character memory among the plurality of character memories are One of them is a character memory which has a storage capacity corresponding to the entire printing area of the photosensitive material installed in the phototypesetting machine, and a signal obtained by performing arbitrary magnification conversion processing on the image signal sent from the buffer memory. The other character memory is a character memory having a storage capacity corresponding to a part of the printing area of the photosensitive material, and the image signal sent from the buffer memory is stored cumulatively at a predetermined address corresponding to the printing position. When storing the image, the previously stored contents are shifted by an appropriate amount and stored again, and the input image signal is stored at a predetermined address. The memory does not require a large capacity, and an inexpensive phototypesetting machine can be provided.

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention, and shows an example in which a type of character/image signal generating means for reading character patterns stored in an optical dial face is employed.

The characters on the dial 1 pass through the main lens 2, are printed on the sensitive material 3, are refracted by the half mirror (or prism) 4, are magnified by the magnifying lens group 5, and are then projected onto the imaging means 6. Ru. That is, the imaging means 6
The characters projected onto the photosensitive material 3 are enlarged N times by the magnification N of the magnifying lens group 5 compared to the characters printed on the photosensitive material 3.

The characters imaged by the imaging means 6 are temporarily stored in the buffer memory 7. The image information stored in the buffer memory 7 is read out as appropriate in accordance with readout control from a control unit (not shown) that manages data input/output timing and addresses, and is reduced by well-known methods such as dot thinning. After being converted to a desired magnification by a magnification converting circuit 8 according to the system, it is supplied to a write selection circuit 9.

The write selection circuit 9 controlled by the control section (not shown) performs the following according to the magnification of the magnification conversion circuit 8:
A character memory 10 having a storage capacity corresponding to the entire printing area of the photosensitive material, or a part of the printing area, that is,
Either one of the character memories 11 having a storage capacity for one line, several lines, or several characters is selected, and image information is written into the selected character memory.

Next, either the character memory 10 or 11 is selected by the read selection circuit 12 controlled by the control section (not shown), and the image information written in the selected character memory is The data is transferred to refresh memory 13 (hereinafter referred to as VRAM 13 to distinguish it from character memories 10 and 11). Then, a desired image is displayed on a display means 14 such as a CRT according to the image information transferred and set in the VRAM 13.

In the above configuration, for example, the magnification ratio N of the magnifying lens group 5 is 2, the character memory 10 is used for standard size display, and the character memory 11 is used for double enlarged display to store two enlarged characters. An example having a capacity will be described.

The image information written to the buffer memory 7 is
First, the image is reduced to 1/2 by the magnification conversion circuit 8 in order to be written into the standard size display character memory 10, and then written into the character memory 10 by the write selection circuit 9.

Next, in order to write it into the character memory 11 for enlarged display, the image information is read out from the buffer memory 7 by the control section (not shown), and the processing magnification in the magnification conversion circuit 8 is 1, that is, the contents of the buffer memory 7 are directly transferred to the writing selection circuit 9. Character memory 1
Written to 1.

In this way, the write selection circuit 9 controls the memory to be written in according to the magnification of the magnification conversion circuit 8. As a result of the writing, standard-sized characters are written in the character memory 10, and characters enlarged twice by the magnifying lens group 5 are written as they are in the character memory 11.

In addition, at the time of writing, in order to prevent part of the previously written character area 21 from being erased due to overlapping of the character areas 21 and 22 printed with nails as shown in FIG. The circuit 9 reads out the content already stored at the address of the character memory to be written, superimposes this with the information written by the write selection circuit 9 in the OR gate 15 or 16, and calculates the logical sum at the new address of the address. It is written into the character memory 10 or 11 as the stored content.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the display state of the display means 14 when the printing operation is progressing while repeating the writing process to the character memory as described above, and FIG. 3A shows the display state in the standard size. A diagram showing an example, FIG. 3B, is a diagram showing an example in which the display image of FIG. 3A is doubled and displayed.

In FIGS. 3A and 3B, the area within the broken line 30 is an area where an image to be printed next is displayed, that is, an unprinted character display area.

Now, the operator prints the character "e", so
First, confirm the display state shown in FIG. 3A, and then operate the read selection circuit 12 to confirm the details.
In the enlarged display state shown in Figure B, the interval between the character "U" that has already been printed and the character "E" that will be printed is set.
Operate as appropriate by changing the feed amount, etc.

At this time, the character "e" has not yet been written in the character memories 10 and 11.

In other words, the character "e" is brought to the position of the optical axis 17 by the operator's marking operation, and the image pickup means 6
This is the state in which the image has been captured and written into the buffer memory 7. Then, it is read out from the buffer memory 7 and supplied to the magnification converting circuit 8, and is magnified by the same magnification as the character memory selected by the read selection circuit 12 separately, and the VRAM is read out by the OR gate 18.
13 and displayed on the display means 14.

The contents of character memories 10 and 11 at this point are:
As shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B.

The display state in FIG. 3A is obtained by reading out the area 40 of the character memory 10 in FIG. 4A from the VRAM.
This is a composite display of the image written in 13 and the character "e" written in buffer memory 7.

In this way, the area 40 is a readout area of the character memory 10, and the information in the area 40 is
The data is transferred to the VRAM 13 and displayed on the display means 14.

Further, the character memory 10 is provided corresponding to the entire area of the photosensitive material, and in this embodiment, the magnification ratio is 1, so the printing state and display state on the photosensitive material correspond one-to-one. Characters already printed on the photosensitive material are stored in the same format.

In contrast, character memory 1 in this embodiment
1 stores an image that is twice as large as the characters printed on the sensitive material, and its storage capacity is currently two characters.
It is something smaller. The contents written in the character memory 11 include the two characters "iu" before the position where printing is to be performed, that is, the area 30 on the display means 14 in FIG. 3B.

Next, the printing position of the printed character "e" shown in FIG. 3 is determined by the operator's operation, and when the printing is done on the photosensitive material, the contents stored in the character memories 10 and 11 are shown in FIG. 4 C and D. will be updated as follows.

That is, in the character memory 10 in FIG. Move accordingly. Therefore, the character “e”
After printing, the contents of character memory 10 are transferred to VRAM 13.
The display state of the display means 14 transferred to is as shown in FIG. 5A. In this way, all printed characters are written into the character memory 10.

On the other hand, since the capacity of the character memory 11 is for two characters, the state shown in FIG. 4B is already in place before the character "E" is printed, and there is no room for writing the character "E". Therefore, when the character "e" is printed, a control unit (not shown) shifts the storage address of the already stored content according to the feed amount set when printing the character "e", and also shifts the storage address of the stored content according to the feed amount set when printing the character "e". picture"
is written to the specified address. As a result, the content of the character memory 11 becomes as shown in FIG. 4D, and this content is transferred to the VRAM 13 and displayed on the display means 1.
4 is displayed as shown in FIG. 5B. The characters printed in this way are stored in the character memory 11.
Two characters before the print position are stored.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the printed image is enlarged N times and imaged, and the captured image information is scaled by a well-known method such as thinning, and the image is enlarged to 1/N.
(i.e., enlargement ratio = 1) is written into the character memory 10, and image information without magnification conversion is written into the character memory 11, and the readout selection circuit is operated appropriately to select either the character memory 10 or 11. By selecting and displaying, it is possible to arbitrarily select and display the aforementioned standard size characters and characters enlarged by N times. Furthermore, the capacity of the character memory 10 is set to cover the entire area of the photosensitive material, and the capacity of the character memory 11 is set to hold two enlarged characters, so the memory dedicated to enlarged display can be extremely small, and enlargement is performed by an optical system. This enabled high-quality and high-speed display.

In the above embodiment, the character memory 10 is used for standard size display, and the character memory 11 is used for enlarged display, and the capacity of character memory 11 is set for two characters. Magnification when writing to memories 10 and 11,
Alternatively, the magnification of the magnifying lens group 5 may be set appropriately, and the number of character memories is not limited to two, but by providing a large number of character memories and varying the magnification when writing. , it is also possible to obtain various display magnifications.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment, the character memory 10,
11 was provided only for display purposes. On the other hand, in the embodiment shown in Fig. 6, the characters on the dial are not directly printed on the photosensitive material, but are stored in a character memory and displayed on a display means for proofreading, and then printed on a CRT or the like. The printing means prints on the photosensitive material.

That is, in FIG. 6, 61 is an image forming means such as a CRT, 62 is a display means such as a CRT, 63 is an output selection circuit, and as in the previous embodiment, the characters on the dial 1 pass through the main lens 2. N with magnifying lens group 5
After the image is enlarged twice and captured by the imaging means 6, it is written into the buffer memory 7. Thereafter, the image information in the buffer memory 7 is read out by a display control means (not shown), reduced to 1/N by the magnification conversion circuit 8, and written into the character memory 10, and the image information converted to an arbitrary magnification is transferred to the character memory 10. 11
will be written to. At this time, the output selection circuit 63 first outputs image information only to the display means 62, and displays the contents of the character memory 10 or 11 selected by the readout selection circuit 12. In this way, after the operator has typed the desired number of characters on the dial 1, the operator displays the contents of the desired position in the character memory 10 on the display means 62 and performs proofreading. Next, by operating the output selection circuit 63, the display control circuit (not shown) sets the readout selection circuit 12 to read the character memory 10, sequentially transfers the contents of the character memory 10 to the VRAM 13, and starts the image formation 61. By outputting, printing is performed on the photosensitive material 3.

As described above, in this embodiment, all the captured characters are temporarily written into the character memory 10 instead of being printed sequentially on the photosensitive material 3, so that the contents of the character memory are displayed before printing on the photosensitive material 3. Means 62
It can be displayed on the screen for confirmation and proofreading, preventing typographical errors and improving printing work efficiency.

As described above, the present invention provides a character memory with a storage capacity corresponding to the printing area of a photosensitive material, and a character memory with a storage capacity of several characters or several lines, each having a magnification converted by a magnification conversion circuit. Since information is written, any printed or imaged characters can be displayed at a desired magnification on the display means, and the character memory can be expanded to have a storage capacity of several characters or lines. Since image information is stored, a large-capacity memory for enlarged display is not required, and an inexpensive character/image processing device for a phototypesetting machine with high display accuracy can be provided.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention;
Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing the state of printing, Fig. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the display state of the display means 14, Fig. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the state of writing to the character memory, and Fig. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the state of writing to the character memory.
The figure is an explanatory view showing the display state after writing to the character memory is completed, and FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention. 6...imaging means, 7...buffer memory, 8...
... Magnification conversion circuit, 9 ... Write selection circuit, ... Character memory, 12 ... Read selection circuit, 13 ...
VRAM (refresh memory), 14, 62...
Display means, 61... image forming means.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A phototypesetting machine that sequentially prints characters at arbitrary printing positions on a photosensitive material, comprising a character/image signal generating means and a character/image signal generated from the character/image signal generating means. A buffer memory for storing image signals, a character memory for writing the contents stored in the buffer memory as necessary, a display means for displaying a composite display of the contents read from the buffer memory and the contents read from the character memory, and the display means In a phototypesetting machine having the buffer memory, the character memory, and a control unit that manages data input/output timing and addresses for the display means, the character memory is controlled so that the display state shown above corresponds to the printing state. Characters with different magnification
Consisting of a plurality of character memories for storing images, selectively reading out the contents of a desired character memory among the plurality of character memories and supplying the read to the display means, one of the plurality of character memories. is a character memory with a storage capacity corresponding to the entire printing area of the photosensitive material installed in the phototypesetting machine, and a signal obtained by performing arbitrary magnification conversion processing on the image signal sent from the buffer memory is transferred to the printing position. The other character memory is a character memory having a storage capacity corresponding to a part of the printing area of the photosensitive material, and stores the image signal sent from the buffer memory. 1. An image processing device for a phototypesetting machine, characterized in that the previously stored contents are shifted and re-stored by an arbitrary and appropriate amount, and the input image signal is stored at a predetermined address.