JPH0533427B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to an image editing device that can efficiently edit document images.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

Recently, various document filing devices have been developed. This document filing device digitizes and stores various document information, and displays necessary documents on a display or makes hard copies. However, the amount of information that exists in the world is extremely large, and in order to handle all of this information with the above-mentioned device, an extremely large-capacity storage device is required. However, only a small amount of this information is truly meaningful or valuable, and although it is important to find this information, it is generally very difficult to do so. Conventionally, attempts have been made to cut out necessary partial images from a plurality of document images, paste these partial images onto a single document image, organize information, and file the resulting information.

Conventionally, however, document filing devices incorporating this type of image editing function search for a document image to be used for cropping a partial image and a document image to paste the cropped partial image. Edit the image by displaying it on the display and using a pointing device such as a track ball, light pen, or mouse to specify the region to be cropped as a partial region on the document image and the region to paste it. I try to do this.
However, according to such an image editing method, as described above, a document image that has a partial image to be cropped and a document image to which the partial image is to be pasted are searched for, and they are displayed simultaneously. Since it is necessary to perform image editing between images, it is extremely difficult to edit a plurality of partial images each cut out from a plurality of document images into a single document image, for example. Particularly in this case, it has been extremely difficult to effectively lay out partial images cut out from a plurality of document images on a single document image. It was also difficult to change the layout.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in consideration of these circumstances, and its purpose is to provide a highly practical image editing device that can easily edit document images while effectively laying out partial images. It is about providing.

[Summary of the invention]

The present invention sequentially stores partial images obtained by cutting out arbitrary areas of a document image in a partial image storage device, simultaneously displays a plurality of partial images stored in the partial image storage device on a display, and displays future partial images. A document image with organized information is obtained by appropriately selecting the layout position and editing the plurality of partial images.

〔Effect of the invention〕

Thus, according to the present invention, it is possible to edit the image by determining the layout position while checking all of the plurality of partial images to be edited, thereby easily and effectively creating a document image in which information is organized. It becomes possible to obtain. Moreover, since the cutting process of partial images and the pasting process of these partial images with layout position control can be executed independently, the image editing work can be carried out efficiently, which is a great effect. It will be done.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an embodiment device. 1 in the figure is image data input from the image input unit 2;
This is an image storage unit that stores edited image data and the like in document units. The image data stored in the image storage section 1 is outputted via the image output section 3 as appropriate, and is displayed as an image on the image display section 4. The image editing section 5, which includes a clipping processing section 5a and a composition processing section 5b, controls the image data displayed on the image display section 4 through a keyboard input device 6a and a light pen input device 6b. In accordance with various control information inputted to 7, partial image cropping processing, partial image synthesis editing processing, etc. are performed. The partial image extracted by cutting out an arbitrary area in the document image by the clipping processing section 6a is provided to the partial image storage section 8 and stored therein. This partial image storage section 8 manages and stores the plurality of partial images obtained in this way. The plurality of partial images stored in the partial image 8 are each reduced at a predetermined reduction rate via the reduction conversion section 9, and then displayed all at once on the image display section 4. There is. Image editing control information is input to the plurality of partial images displayed in this manner from the keyboard input device 6a and the light pen input device 6bb, and the above instructions are input to the synthesis processing section 5b. Image composition processing is performed according to the information.

In the apparatus configured as described above, the cutting process 5a operates as follows. First, the image display section 4 reads out an image to be processed from among the plurality of images input and stored in the image editing storage section 1 under the control of the control section 7, and displays it. With respect to the image displayed on the image display device 4, the operator specifies and instructs an area in the image where necessary information exists via the keyboard input device 6a or the light pen input device 6b, and then Area information is given to the clipping processing section 5a via the control section 7. After obtaining this area information, the clipping processing section 5a cuts out only the image data of the specified area in the display image. The image data cut out from the display image by the cutout processing section 5a is output as a partial image to the partial image storage section 8 and stored therein. The clipping processing unit 5a sequentially cuts out only necessary information from each document image as partial images for a plurality of document images sequentially displayed on the image display unit 4.

On the other hand, a partial image storage section 8 into which the partial images obtained by the cutting processing section 5a sequentially performs the cutting processing is inputted.
manages and stores each of the above partial images as shown in FIG. 2, for example. That is, the partial image storage unit 8 assigns a series of management numbers to the plurality of partial images, and stores the data of each partial image in terms of the size of the partial image and the display area (display area) on the image display device 4. position), and information such as the image reduction ratio for displaying this image.
Note that the reduction ratio of the partial images indicates control information when the data of each partial image is reduced and converted by the reduction converter 9 in order to simultaneously display the plurality of partial images on the image display device 4.

After the plurality of partial images stored in the partial image storage section 8 are reduced to a predetermined size via the reduction conversion section 9, the plurality of partial images stored in the partial image storage section 8 are displayed on the image display section 4 in advance, for example, as shown in FIG. 3a. Partial image data A, B, C, etc. are displayed simultaneously in the set display area. The display position of each of these partial images is managed in the partial image storage section 8 as the display area information described above.

The image display section 4 has its image display screen divided into, for example, a display area for the partial images and an image editing area. The target image is displayed. Note that x in FIG. 3 indicates a cursor, and position information and the like necessary for image editing processing are inputted using this cursor x. This movement of the cursor x on the display screen is performed using the track ball or the like mentioned above. Alternatively, this position information may be input using a light pen. In this way, on the display screen of the image display unit 4, the plurality of partial images obtained by the above-described cutting process and the composite processing target image serving as the mount are displayed simultaneously.

Then, an image editing layout command is input to the control section 7 from the keyboard device 6a on this display screen, and an image composition mode is set. In this state, a partial image to be synthesized and edited is specified, and a position on the image to be synthesized where the partial image is to be laid out is specified and instructed. In accordance with these instruction information, the synthesis processing section 5b overlays the specified partial image at the specified position and displays it, for example, as shown in FIG. 3b.
Incidentally, at this stage, only the display restriction of the image is performed, and when all the editing processing for each of the partial images is completed, the image to be synthesized by overlaying each of the partial images is transferred to the image storage unit 1. All you have to do is write it to , so that you can get a single document image that has been subjected to image synthesis processing.

In this way, according to the present device, only necessary information is cut out as partial images from among the information given as various document images, and after this is stored in the partial image storage section 4, each of these partial images is processed as appropriate. By reducing the size of the document and displaying it on the image display section 4, it is possible to effectively create an organized document image while considering its layout. Moreover, at this time, it is easy to change and set the layout position as appropriate, and the editing work can be proceeded while checking the document image to be created. Therefore, a desired document image can be edited and created easily and efficiently, which has great practical advantages.

Note that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above. For example, the reduction ratio of a partial image may be determined depending on the size of the partial image and the importance of the content, and the reduced-converted partial images may be combined into images as they are. It is also possible to lay out one partial image at multiple positions on one document image. Furthermore, it is of course possible to include enlargement of partial images as the aforementioned reduction conversion process. Further, a display section for partial images and a display section for images to be combined may be provided separately. In summary, the present invention can be implemented with various modifications without departing from the gist thereof.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a device according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the information management structure of the partial image storage section of the embodiment apparatus, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the display form of images. 1... Image storage unit, 2... Image input unit, 3...
Image output unit, 4...Image display unit, 5...Image editing unit, 5a...Cutout processing unit, 5b...Composition processing unit, 6a...Keyboard input device, 6b...Light pen input device, 7...Control unit, 8...Partial image storage unit, 9...Reduction conversion unit.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A means for cutting out an arbitrary image area in image data as a partial image, a partial image storage section for storing each of the plurality of partial images cut out by this means, and a partial image storage section for storing each of the plurality of partial images cut out by this means. means for collectively displaying the stored partial images; means for inputting an instruction to edit image composition for each of the displayed partial images; 1. An image editing device comprising means for cutting and pasting editing and composing an image on a display screen. 2. The image according to claim 1, wherein the means for displaying partial images reduces and converts all of the plurality of partial images stored in the partial image storage device and simultaneously displays them on the display. Editing device.