JPH0581428A - Picture processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To quickly and surely detect a start point by pointing and inputting an indication point in the vicinity of a closed area and defining the picture element, which is first found by outward spiral scanning from the indication point, as the start point of automatic tracking of the closed area. CONSTITUTION:The black picture element which is first found for a closed area 21 by outward spiral scanning from an indication point is defined as the start point of automatic tracking. In this case, defects are considerably resolved by 8 scanning directions. Picture elements are spirally scanned to shorten the average processing time. For example, when the clock area 21 is scanned from a indication point 22 and a maximum number of black picture elements is 100 and there are 200 picture elements between the indication point 22 and the close area 21, it is sufficient if 2004m8=1600 picture elements are scanned. Therefore, the processing time is shortened to a half. When the indication point 22 is closer to the closed area 21, the effect is improved furthermore.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention makes it possible to detect a starting point at the time of automatically tracking (automatic recognition) a closed area of a binary image digitized by being read by an input means such as a scanner at high speed and reliably. Image processing method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In order to perform image processing on a closed area displayed on a display means such as a CRT, it is necessary to recognize the shape and size of the closed area. Therefore, a designated point is designated near the closed region, the start point of the closed region is detected, and the closed region is automatically recognized (automatic tracking). In this case, conventionally, as shown in FIG.
Is input, and a predetermined number of pixels are scanned in four orthogonal directions (left, right, up and down) from the designated input point 12 and the closest black pixel found is used as the starting point for automatic tracking of the target closed region.

[0003]

As described above, when automatically recognizing a closed area on a binary image, it is necessary to indicate the vicinity of the closed area to be recognized, and the closed area closest to the indicated point is the closed area. It is necessary to check whether or not there is a closed area within a predetermined distance. However, since it is the operator who gives the instruction, the above determination is short (0.1 to 0.2).
Seconds). Since the above-mentioned conventional method for speeding up the scanning scans only in four directions, there is a drawback that if the vicinity of the corner of the closed region 13 is designated as shown in FIG. 14, the closed region 13 cannot be recognized. If the scanning direction is simply eight directions, it takes double the time, and there is a drawback that the speed cannot be increased. The present invention has been made under the circumstances as described above, and an object of the present invention is to detect a starting point at high speed and reliably for any closed region, and to perform automatic tracking efficiently. To provide the image processing method.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an image processing method, and the object of the present invention is to indicate a closed area displayed on a display means in the vicinity of the closed area when automatically tracking the closed area. This is achieved by pointing in a point, scanning outward from the pointing point in a spiral fashion, and making the first found pixel the starting point for automatic tracking of the closed region.

[0005]

According to the present invention, the closed area displayed on the display means is spirally scanned from the input pointing point, and the first black pixel found is used as the starting point for automatic tracking of the closed area. .. Since scanning is performed with a slight shift outward in all directions, the start point can be detected quickly and accurately for a closed region of any shape.

[0006]

1 to 3 are block diagrams showing an image processing system which is a premise of the present invention.
Further, the density data DD of an image obtained by reading an original such as a layout mount with the input device 1 such as a scanner is input to the input controller 100, and the input controller 100 screens the input density data DD via the built-in CPU 101. The dot conversion circuit 102 converts the data into halftone dots, the compression circuit 103 compresses the data, and the buffer 104 temporarily stores the data.
It is transferred via the SI bus and stored in the magnetic tape 210 or the hard disks 220, 221, ... Of the file server 200. The input controller 100 has a local disk (hard disk) 105 for temporarily storing data. The file server 200 has a CPU 201,
It is connected to other devices via the interfaces 202 to 205. The code information CD such as characters obtained by the edit input device 2 such as a word processor or a typesetting machine is once stored in the floppy disk 3 and then read out and input to the workstation 300. Workstation 3
00 is a CRT 301 as a display unit, a keyboard 302, a mouse 306 and a digitizer 303 as an input operation unit, and a hard disk 30 as a storage unit.
4. The workstation 300 has a plurality of sets of terminal devices each having a floppy disk 305.
It is mutually connected to the file server 200 via ERNET. CRT obtained with the input controller 100
Image data thinned out for display, frame data, and image data for contour display are stored in the magnetic tape 210 or the hard disks 220, 221, and the like together with the unthinned high-density data for image output, and are thinned out. Data is read out via the SCSI bus and transferred to the workstation 300 via the interfaces 204 and 202, and control commands and the like with the input controller 100 are transmitted via the interface 200 of the file server 200 via the auxiliary data line 4. Transferred to the file server 200
Further, an imagesetter 400 is connected to the. The image setter 400 is provided with a CPU 401, and the file server 20 is connected via an interface 402.
0 connected to auxiliary data line 5 and interface 4
It is connected to the SCSI bus via 03. The imagesetter 400 further has a sequencer 410 and a buffer 411 for storing necessary data, and the imagesetter 400 outputs a high-quality image to the high-quality output device 1
A laser beam printer 11 that outputs 0 and a relatively low image quality is connected. In addition, hard disk 2
20, 221 ... Prestores fixed data (bitmap data) such as logos, coats of arms, meshes, etc. and vector font data for character output.

In the input device 1, a pattern (halftone image), a line drawing, and a character image (binary image) are digitized by density data (8 bits / pixel). The signal input at 8 bits / pixel is converted into a dot pattern by the input controller 100,
Information of 4 bits / pixel is generated. The binary image is converted into 1-bit / pixel information. Further, although characters are input as codes from the workstation 300, they may be input as images from the input device 1. Therefore, when input as an image, even a character is treated as an image (bitmap data). Although all images are output by the imagesetter 400, since all the code and vector information are converted to bitmap data in the imagesetter 400, use it in the sense of outputting bitmap data when speaking of image output. become.

The details of the input controller 100 will be described with reference to FIG. 4. The input controller 100 converts the density data DD input from the input device 1 into high density data for the high image quality output device 10 and a laser beam printer. 11
For CRT3 on workstation 300
Two sets of data for displaying 01 and five sets of rough image data sufficient to show the contour are simultaneously generated. Overall parallel processing speed can be achieved by hardware
This is because the data generation calculation load of 101 can be reduced.
That is, the high-density data for the high-quality image output device 10 is halftoned by the halftoning circuit 1021, compressed by the compression circuit 1031, and the compressed data is temporarily stored in the buffer 1041. Further, the data for image output by the laser beam printer 11 having a relatively low image quality is thinned out (110) by density data DD at a predetermined interval (for example, 1/3), and the rough data is halftone dot circuit 1022. Compression circuit 1
The data is compressed in 032 and then temporarily stored in the buffer 1042. Further, two types of coarser data to be displayed on the CRT 301 are thinned by the halftoning circuits 1023 and 1024 after thinning out the density data DD at predetermined intervals, and temporarily stored in the buffers 1043 and 1044, respectively. Further, in the case of a line drawing for creating a cutout mask from a halftone image, the image data after the Laplacian processing or the unsharp mask processing showing the contour data is thinned out (113), and then the binarization circuit 1025.
Is binarized and temporarily stored in the buffer 1045.

In such a configuration, the CPU 101 communicates with the input device 1 via a data line (not shown), and also the auxiliary data line 4 and the dual port RA.
It communicates with the file server 200 via M (not shown). Then, when there is a data transmission request from the input device 1, the CPU 101 sets necessary data in each circuit shown in FIG. 4, stores the setting data in the local disk 105, and further sets the setting value related to the sub-scanning. set. The density data DD from the input device 1 is input line by line, and the circuits shown in FIG.
It is stored in (1041 to 1045). CPU1 during this period
01 checks the SCSI bus switching, the data compression output buffer 1041 switching, and the presence or absence of error information from various circuits. The data once stored in the buffer 104 and the local disk 105 is sorted by a command from the CPU 101 and output to an external SCSI bus.

The configuration of the file server 200 is as shown in FIG. 2. The file server 200 has a common file management function such as file management and file sharing, and a communication control function for network communication and unit communication. is doing. That is, the file server 200
Via the SCSI bus to the hard disk (220, 2,
21 ...), manages files on the magnetic tape 210, and connects to the workstation 3 via ETHERNET.
00 and a software interface function, and further includes an input controller 100 and an image setter 400.
File management information service to the PC and utility function for file management via the SCSI bus. For example, font registration and SCSI disk garbage collection (dust removal processing). There are two types of font registration. One is registration of fonts possessed by the system. This registration stores vector fonts created by another font creation system in the form of magnetic tape in the hard disk of the image processing system. The other is the registration of external character fonts. Gaiji font is a character that does not exist in the system. In this case, the font created in another system is registered in this system from a floppy or magnetic tape.

The file server 200 provides services and data storage for data transfer between the workstation 300, the input controller 100 and the imagesetter 400, and the input controller 100 receives the auxiliary data line 4 and the dual port RMA. Then, necessary information is obtained from the file server 200 for securing and deleting areas of various files. Input controller 100
In order to register the data once stored in the internal buffer 104 as a file of the image processing system, information such as the file name and file capacity is transferred to the file server 200, and S
Access the hard disks 220, 221, ... On the CSI bus. As a result, the file server 200 manages directory communication and disk area management. Further, the file server 200 transfers file data to the workstation 300 via ETHERNET,
Receive data from workstations. At this time, according to the instruction from the workstation 300, the file server 200 causes the hard disk (2
20, ...) and the magnetic tape 210 are managed, and necessary information such as a directory is updated. Also, imagesetter 4
The command for 00 and the command for the magnetic tape 210 are obtained, and the service according to the command is performed. Furthermore, a predetermined command is sent to the imagesetter 400 via the auxiliary data line 5 and the dual port RAM, file management information is sent in response to a request from the imagesetter 400, and disk data on the SCSI bus is sent. As a result, the imagesetter 400 is directly accessed. Furthermore, the utility information related to the entire image processing system is managed by the hard disks 220, 221, ... On the SCSI bus, and the font information,
Common files on the system correspond to such information.

Next, the operation of the workstation 300 will be described with reference to the flow chart of FIG. 5. The document data edited by the edit input device 2 and stored is read from the floppy disk 3 (step S310).
Data format conversion is performed on the code information CD of the document data (step S311). And CRT
One page of document content is displayed on 301 (step S3
12) The image data output position of the image read from the layout mount or the like is designated by the mouse 306, the keyboard 302, and the digitizer 303 (step S313), and page description data for each page is created together with the frame of the layout mount (step S314). ). Such data creation is performed for all pages (step S315), and then an imposition instruction for creating a printing block is issued using the keyboard 302 (step S316) to create impositioned page description data (step S317). ). Then, the file server 20
The created data is transferred to 0 (step S31
8) Then, the image setter 400 is instructed to output an image, and the operation ends (step S319).

Next, with reference to FIG. 6, an operation example at the time of imposition will be described. The workstation 300 reads the image data thinned out from the hard disks 220, 221, ... Of the file server 200 (step S33).
0), reading the document data from the floppy disk 3 (step S331), C of the workstation 300
Display necessary information on RT301 and mouse 30
6, the keyboard 302 and the digitizer 303 are operated to lay out images, documents, and frames page by page (step S332). Then, the type of imposition registered in advance is designated by the keyboard 302 (step S33).
3) Then, each page is laid out and displayed on the CRT 301 together with the number of pages in the instructed imposition state (for example, A to D in the figure) (step S334). Here, the imposition registration is stored with the number of pages pre-assigned in consideration of folding during binding of a plurality of pages, for example, A4 version 4 pages or A5 version 8 pages. 6A to 6D, the imposition state is determined by the number of pages (“1”, “8”, “5” in B,
It is displayed together with "4". In this way, the contents such as images and characters are not displayed, and the image setter 400 generates and outputs a bitmap according to the page description data (step S335).

FIG. 7 shows an example of the configuration of the imagesetter 400. A CPU bus 412 and an image data bus 413 are connected to a sequencer 410, and a logical operation circuit 420 and a first memory 421 are connected to the sequencer 410. Further, the main memory 430 for the CPU 401 is connected to the CPU bus 412, the common memory 424 is connected between the image data bus 413, and the interface 4
The outputs of 02 and 403 are input to the CPU bus 412. CPU bus 412 and image data bus 413
A buffer 433, a decompressor 440, and a third memory 423 are connected between the two, and a buffer 434, a raster image converter 431, and a second memory 422 are connected.
The buffer 435 and the output control circuit 436 are connected. The CPU bus 412 has a vector font memory 43.
2 is connected to the output control circuit 436 and the output buffer 4
The high image quality output device 10 and the laser beam printer 11 are connected via 36A. Vector font memory 4
In 32, a vector font necessary for the raster image converter 431 to generate a character bitmap is stored. Usually vector font is disk (22
0,221, ...), but it is inefficient to read out vector fonts via the SCSI bus every time a character bitmap is generated, so all necessary vector fonts are stored in the vector font memory 432 in advance. By reading it in, the speed of character bitmap generation is improved.

In such a structure, the operation is shown in FIG.
As shown by, first, an output instruction request is output from the file server 200 to the imagesetter 400 via the auxiliary data line 5 with the file name in the hard disks 220, 221, ... As a parameter. Specifications to be output from that file are written in the file, and the specifications are sequentially decoded to calculate the address of the code data and the compressed data for each unit image, and the overlapping process by the logical operation is repeated for the address, The processing result is stored in the first memory 421. The imagesetter 400 calls the parameter file via the SCSI bus and repeats this operation. For the code data, for example, character code and instruction information such as position, typeface, size, etc. are input via the SCSI interface 403 (step S400), and converted into a raster image by the raster image converter 431 via the buffer 434 (step S401). ), The raster image data is stored in the second memory 422 (step S402). Further, the image data whose data has been compressed is inputted via the interface 403 via the SCSI bus (step S403), decompressed by the decompressor 440 via the buffer 433 and restored (step S40).
4) The restored image data is stored in the third memory 423 (step S405). Further, bitmap data such as logos stored in the hard disks 220, 221, ... Is input via the interface 403 (step S406) and stored in the common memory 424 (step S407). The data stored in the second memory 422 to the common memory 424 are all bitmap data, and these stored data are logically operated by the logical operation circuit 420 via the CPU 401 (step S41).
0), the data logically operated so as to synthesize, edit or image-process a picture or a document is stored in the first memory 421 (step S411). After the data is stored in the first memory 421, it is judged whether or not it is finished, that is, whether there is no correction or addition (step S412), and the above operation is continued until the logical operation such as correction is finished. This logical operation circuit 420 performs logical operations such as sum, product, difference, exclusive OR of bit map data generated from code data such as characters, bit map data obtained by expanding compressed image data, and bit map data with the CPU 401. Work together,
The image information to be output to the high image quality output device 10 or the laser beam printer 11 is generated.

Here, in the image processing method of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 9, a spiral scan is performed outward from the designated point 20 and the first black pixel found in the closed region 21 is automatically detected. Use as a starting point for tracking. In this case, by making the scanning direction eight directions, the drawbacks of the conventional method can be largely eliminated. Further, by making the order of pixels to be scanned spiral, it is possible to shorten the average processing time. For example, the designated point 2 in FIG.
When scanning the closed region 21 for 2, the maximum number of pixels to be scanned is 1000 pixels,
If up to 1 is 200 pixels, the conventional method is 1000+
This means scanning 1000 + 1000 + 200 = 3200 pixels. However, in the present invention, 200 × 8
Since the scan of = 1600 pixels is sufficient, the processing time becomes about half. If the pointing point 22 is close to the closed area 21,
The effect will be even greater.

FIG. 10 shows an operation example of the present invention. First, an instruction point is input (step S1), and the distance from the instruction point is set to "1" (step S2). Then, for the direction defined in the order as shown in FIG. 11 (A) or (B),
It is sequentially checked whether or not points separated by the distance from the designated point are black pixels (step S3). In addition, (A) of FIG.
The shaded area in (B) is the designated point. If the examined point is a black pixel (step S4), the black pixel is found and the process ends. If it is not a black pixel, the distance from the designated point is incremented by "+1" (step S5). Here, it is determined whether or not a predetermined distance is exceeded (step S6), and if the predetermined distance is exceeded, the black pixel is not found and the process ends. If not, the process returns to step S3 to return to the above. Repeat the operation. Assuming that the algorithm D in FIG. 11A is used for the order check, the distances "1" and "2" are checked in the order shown in FIG. As described above, the scan operation of the present invention is executed. In the above description, scanning is performed in eight directions, but the number of directions is arbitrary.

[0018]

According to the present invention, the closed area displayed on the display means is spirally scanned from the input pointing point, and the first black pixel found is used as the starting point for automatic tracking of the closed area. To do. Since scanning is performed with a slight shift outward in all directions, the start point can be detected quickly and accurately for a closed region of any shape.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram (workstation, input controller) showing a configuration example of an image processing system.

FIG. 2 is a block configuration diagram (file server) showing an example configuration of an image processing system.

FIG. 3 is a block configuration diagram (image setter) showing an example configuration of an image processing system.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of an input controller.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation example of a workstation.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining an imposition operation.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a detailed configuration of an imagesetter.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing an operation example thereof.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining the principle of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing an operation example of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of scanning according to the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining a scan example of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a diagram for explaining a conventional scan operation.

FIG. 14 is a diagram for explaining a conventional defect.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Input Unit 2 Image Processing Unit 3 Bus Line 4 Bus Line 10 CPU 11 DMA 12 Image Memory 13 Logical Operation Circuit 14 Common Memory

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. When pointing a closed area displayed on a display means for automatic tracking, a pointing point is pointed in the vicinity of the closed area, and a spiral scan is performed outward from the pointing point. An image processing method, wherein the found pixel is used as a starting point of automatic tracking of the closed region.