JPH07131628A - Image processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an image processor for automatically performing coloring or the like inside the closed loop area of an already prepared image such as a graph or a table. CONSTITUTION:This device is provided with an image memory 144 for storing image data for each picture element, detecting means for detecting the closed loop area of the image stored in the image memory, setting means 167 for setting attribute data to the picture element positioned inside the detected closed loop area, and operating means 16 for the same.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image processing device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When creating graphs and tables, it is usual to apply coloring or a specific pattern to the inner area of the closed loop of an image in order to improve its appearance. When creating a table or graph using application software dedicated to creating a table such as a personal computer, input basic data of the table or graph to automatically convert the graph or the closed loop of the table into a color as a function of the application software. Some output a ring or a pattern.

[0003]

By the way, when a table or a graph is created by using a personal computer as described above, coloring and patterning can be easily performed.
The graphs and tables created by hand have to be colored manually before, which requires complicated work.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus capable of automatically performing coloring or the like inside a closed loop area of an image of a graph or a table which has already been created.

[0005]

In the image processing apparatus of the first invention of the present application, an image memory for storing image data for each pixel, and a detection for detecting a closed loop area of the image stored in the image memory Means and setting means for setting the attribute data of the pixel located in the detected closed loop region.

Further, in the image processing apparatus of the second invention of the present application, an image memory for storing image data for each pixel, and a detecting means for detecting a plurality of closed loop regions of the image stored in the image memory. And a setting unit that sets different attribute data for each region with respect to the detected pixel located in the closed loop region.

[0007]

According to the image processing apparatus of the first invention of the present application, if the image of the created table or graph is read by the image reader or the like and stored in the image memory, the closed loop area of the image stored in the image memory is obtained. Is detected, and the attribute data is set for the pixel located in the detected closed loop region. This makes it possible to easily perform processing such as coloring on the area within the closed loop.

Further, according to the image processing apparatus of the second invention of the present application, in addition to the first invention, different attribute data is set for each of a plurality of closed loop areas, so that each area is set. It is possible to perform different coloring processes and the like.

[0009]

1 is a block diagram of a digital color copying machine 1 according to the present invention.
It is a sectional view showing an outline of the whole composition of. The copying machine includes an image reader unit 10 and a printer unit 20.
The image reader unit 10 scans and exposes a document image set on the document table 11 with a scanner 12, and photoelectrically converts the document image with a color image sensor 13, and then the image processing unit 1
In step 4, a predetermined process is performed and the result is output to the print head controller. The print head controller 15 converts the input image signal into digital data for driving a laser diode. Further, an operation panel 16 for setting each operation mode of the copying machine is provided on the front side of the document table 11 (see FIG. 2).

The printer unit 20 includes an image forming unit, a developing unit,
It consists of a paper transport unit. The image forming unit is the laser diode 21.
1 and a beam emitted from a print head 21 having an imaging optical system, which is modulated according to an image signal, writes an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum 22, and the electrostatic latent image is developed by the developing unit 23. After the development, the image is transferred onto a sheet on the transfer drum 24. Photoconductor drum 22 and transfer drum 24
Are synchronously driven by the drive motor 25.

The developing unit 23 includes a magenta developing unit 23M for developing with magenta toner, a cyan developing unit 23C for developing with cyan toner, a yellow developing unit 23Y for developing with yellow toner, and a developing with black toner. The developing device unit 23 as a whole is moved up and down by the motor 26, and each developing device is sequentially positioned at the developing position to develop the electrostatic latent image in each color.

The paper transport unit has paper feed cassettes 27a, 27b and 27c for accommodating copy paper therein, and paper feed rollers 28a, 28b and 28 for feeding copy paper from the paper feed cassettes.
c, a plurality of conveying rollers and a timing roller 29 for conveying the fed copy paper to the image forming unit, holding the copy paper on the surface thereof and repeatedly conveying the copy paper to the transfer unit to transfer toner images of respective colors The transfer drum 24, the transport belt 30 for transporting the copied copy paper, the fixing device 31 for fixing the toner image on the copy paper, and the discharge tray 32 for discharging the fixed paper. The printer unit forms a multicolor image by using the electrophotographic method as described above, and its configuration is already well known. Therefore, the detailed description thereof will be omitted here.

FIG. 2 shows the appearance of the operation panel 16. 16
1 is a group of numeral keys for setting the number of copies. Reference numeral 162 denotes a display unit for displaying various set operation modes and messages to the user, and 163, a key group for input for setting the operation mode corresponding to the displayed messages.
164 is an enter key for confirming the input state,
165 is a print button for instructing the start of copying.
66 is a reset key.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the control circuit of the copying machine. RG of the original read by the color line sensor 13
Each of the B image signals is processed by the preprocessing unit 141 of the image processing unit 14.
After the D / D conversion and the shading correction, the γ correction unit 14
The gradation is corrected in 2 and is temporarily stored in the image memory 144 via the memory control unit 143. Therefore, after the image processing to be described later is performed, RGB image data is called via the memory control unit 143 at the image forming timing of each color of the image forming unit. The RGB image data is stored in the color conversion unit 14
After the color system is converted from RGB to YMCK in step 5, D
The / A converter 146 converts the analog video signal.
The print head controller 15 controls the light emission of the laser diode 211 according to the video signal. Operation panel 1
The various copy modes set by 6 are controlled by the control memory 1
Stored in 49, a microcomputer (CPU) 16
7 reads the control data of the control memory 149,
The sequence control of the line sensor 13, the image processing unit 14, and the print head control unit 15 described above is performed. Further, other input / output control at the time of executing copying and communication control with another CPU not shown are performed via the IC 148 for input / output control.

The image memory 144, as shown in FIG.
Two-dimensional addresses of x-coordinate (corresponding to the main scanning direction which is the arrangement direction of the line sensor 13) and y-coordinate (corresponding to the sub-scanning direction orthogonal to the main scanning direction) are set corresponding to the document. Image data for each pixel read by the line sensor 13 is stored in the address. The image data of each pixel of the image memory 144 is, as shown in FIG. 5, an 8-bit area indicating the value of each RGB image signal read by the line sensor 13 (8 bits for each RGB = 256 for each color).
It consists of 8 bits of gradation and attribute information. The attribute information is an area in which edit information described later is stored.

In the digital color copying machine having the above-described structure, the coloring process executed by the CPU 167 is performed by the following procedure. 1: Detection of closed loop figure in marker area 2: Detection of adjacency relationship of closed loop figure 3: Color number assignment to each closed loop figure considering adjacency relationship 4: Conversion of assigned color number to RGB data The procedure will be described in order. (1) Detection of Closed Loop Graphic in Marker Area FIGS. 6 and 7 are flowcharts of a program executed by the CPU 167. First, the operator operates the operation panel 1
By operating the mode setting key 163 and the enter key 164 of No. 6, the selection to perform the coloring process is confirmed, and the area of the document to be subjected to the coloring process is surrounded by a marker pen (not shown) to The document is set on the document table 11, and the print button 165 is operated. Then, as described above, the image data of the original is stored in the image memory 144.

Subsequently, the CPU 167 causes the image memory 14
Based on the image data stored in No. 4, the pixel with the marker pen is detected in the original image (step S).
1). This is obtained by detecting a specific color (color corresponding to the marker pen) in the image memory 144, as is well known. Then, the pixel (x,
For y), 1 is set in the first bit of the attribute information, and 0 is set in the other pixels. Hereinafter, the value of the first bit of the attribute information of the pixel (x, y) is set to q (x,
y).

Next, the pixels belonging to the inside of the closed loop area surrounded by the marker (hereinafter referred to as the marker area) are detected.
Specifically, first, in step S2, q (x, y) = 1
Value of the minimum and maximum addresses (min.x, m) of each of the x and y coordinates (address of the image memory 144) from the pixels of
in. y, max. x, max. y) are obtained respectively. Next, in step S3, the second bit of the attribute information is set to 0 for all pixels. Hereinafter, the value of the second bit of the attribute information of the pixel (x, y) is represented as r (x, y). In step S4, the pointer (line L) indicating the line extending in the X coordinate direction is moved to the step S2 on the image memory 144.
The minimum value min. The value x indicating the pixel on the line L is set in step S
The minimum value min. Set to x. The pixel (x, y) on the line L thus designated is q (x, y) =
It is determined whether or not it is surrounded by one pixel (step S6),
If it is sandwiched, the second bit r (x,
Set y) to 1. Next, in step S8, the value of x is incremented by 1, the next pixel on the line L is designated, and the processes of steps S6 and S7 are similarly executed. This process is performed in step S9 so that the value of x is the maximum value max. Repeat until x is reached. This allows
For the pixels on the set line L, 1 is set to the second bit of the attribute information of all the pixels located in the marker area as shown in FIG. Furthermore, in step S10,
The line L is sequentially incremented so that the line L has the maximum value max. Repeat until y is reached (step S11),
The second attribute information of all pixels located in the marker area
Set the bit to 1.

In this way, when the marker area is detected,
Next, a closed loop area of the document image in the marker area is detected, and 2, 3 ,. ． ． , N are given. This is controlled by the procedure shown in FIG.
9a to 9d show the image memory 1 to be processed.
44 shows a state of 44 attribute areas.

In step S12, the value indicated by the third bit to the eighth bit of the attribute information of the white pixel among the pixels in the marker area, that is, the pixel of r (x, y) = 1 is set to 1, The other pixels are set to 0. Hereafter, the pixel (x,
The value indicated by the 3rd to 8th bits of the attribute information of y) is represented as s (x, y). Here, a white pixel is a pixel in which an image is not drawn on a document, and is a pixel in which all values of R, G, and B in the image memory 144 are equal to or more than a predetermined value (230/256), and the density is In other words, it can be rephrased as a pixel having a predetermined value or less (whitish). In step 12, the variable k is set to the initial value of 2. The state of the image memory 144 at this time is as shown in FIG. 9a. The shaded area in the figure is the marker area, r (x,
y) = 1 is set. The figure (line drawing) in the marker area indicates the image of the document, and the pixels on the line drawing are s
(X, y) = 0 is set, and the pixels other than the image are
It is set to s (x, y) = 0.

Next, in step S13, s (x, y) =
Detects whether there is a 1 pixel. If not, this process is terminated, and if there is, the process from S13 onward is advanced. In step S13, among the pixels of s (x, y) = 1, the pixel with the smallest y is obtained. If there is more than one, among them, x
The pixel with the smallest value is specified as the pixel of interest (step S1).
6). Then, for the pixel of interest, s (x, y) = K
(2 at the beginning) Next, in step S17, it is detected whether or not there is a pixel of s (x, y) = 1 around the pixel of interest. If there is, s is set for the pixel around the pixel of interest in step S18 and s (x, y) = 1.
(X, y) = K (initially 2) is given. Next, the pixel to which s (x, y) = K is given in step S18 is set as the target pixel this time, and the processes of steps S17 to S19 are repeated. Here, the pixels around the target pixel are eight pixels around the target pixel as shown in FIG. 10, and the target pixel is searched in the order of the numbers given in FIG. If there are no pixels of s (x, y) = 1 around the pixel of interest, step S
In step 20, the value of the counter k is incremented by 1, and the processes of steps S13 to S20 are repeated. As the value of the variable k increases,
The state of the image memory 144 transits as shown in FIGS. 9b, 9c, and 9d.

By the above processing, if there is no pixel of s (x, y) = 1 among the white pixels in the marker area, the processing is terminated (no in step 13). At this stage, the pixels in the closed loop area of the original image in the marker area are numbered for each area (see FIG. 9e).

(2) Detection of Adjacent Relationship of Closed-Loop Graphic Next, the adjacency relationship of the closed-loop area (area number 3 or more) of the document image in the marker area thus extracted is checked.
First, the adjacency relationship table of each area shown in Table 1 is configured in the control memory internal area 149. Items shown by-are unnecessary for the data in the table. In this table, 0 is set when there is no adjacent relationship, and 1 is set when there is an adjacent relationship.

[0024]

[Table 1]

A method of detecting the presence / absence of an adjacency between areas will be described by taking areas 3 and 4 as an example. (Fig. 9e). First, when a specific pixel t3 included in the area 3 and a specific pixel t4 included in the area 4 are connected by a straight line, the values of s (x, y) are checked for all the pixels located on this straight line. , S (x, y) changes from a number of 3 or more to 0, and the sum of the number of times s (x, y) changes from 0 to a number of 3 or more u (t3, t4). Here, s (x, y)
Since the pixel of = 0 corresponds to the boundary of the closed loop area, when the straight line passes through the boundary from the area 3 and further enters the area 4, that is, when u (t3, t4) indicates 2, the two areas are adjacent to each other. Can be said to be doing. For all t3 included in the area 3 and all t4 included in the area 4, u
The values of (t3, t4) are calculated, and if there are pixels t3 and t4 in which the value of u becomes 2, it is determined that the regions 3 and 4 are adjacent to each other. Even if u is obtained for all pixels, if u is not 2, the areas are considered not to be adjacent to each other. A value of 1 is set in Table 1 above for pairs of adjacent regions. Detect adjacency relationships for all pairs and complete the adjacency table. Table 2 in the example of FIG. 9e
become that way.

(3) Assigning a color number to each closed-loop figure in consideration of the adjacency relationship. Next, based on the completed adjacency table, color numbers C1, C2. ． ． Is given. Therefore, the area names are arranged in ascending order, focusing only on the portion 1 of the adjacency table (Table 1). For example, in Table 1, 3,
Area names are arranged in the order of 4 and 5. Color numbers C1, C2, and C3 are assigned to each area in this order. Then
In order to reduce the colors as much as possible, the same color number is assigned to the non-adjacent areas. In the case of Table 1, the color numbers C4 are assigned to the remaining areas 6 and 7 which are not adjacent to each other. In this way, the area name / color number correspondence table is created in the control memory 149 (Table 2).

[0027]

[Table 2]

(4) Conversion of the assigned color number into RGB data Correspondence between the color number and the actual color can be set by the user in advance by operating the input key 163 of the operation panel 16 in six ways (mode 1, mode 1). 2, mode 3 ...) can be set. A color number in each mode and R corresponding to the color number set by the user by inputting the key 163,
The G and B values are stored in the control memory 149 in a table format (Table 3). The control memory 149 is provided so that the mode is saved even when the power of the copying machine main body is turned off.
It is desirable to back up the battery.

[0029]

[Table 3]

The user selects one of the six mode numbers prior to the copying operation. This is also performed by operating the input key 163. According to Table 3, the color numbers are associated with the actual colors. Color numbers are C1 and C
2 ,. ． ． Select in order. The color number is 12 as shown in Table 4.
You can set the color. If 12 colors are not enough,
Coloring processing is not performed for areas with large color numbers.

Next, the RGB values of the pixels belonging to the area corresponding to each color number are rewritten to the values in Table 3 according to Table 3.
After that, as in the normal copying operation, the image memory 14
The copying operation according to the RGB image data of No. 4 is executed, and the copied image in which the closed loop area in the marker area of the document is colored is obtained on the paper.

Instead of applying the marker pen on the original, an area (coloring area) 110 as shown in FIG. 11 may be used to specify the area to be colored. Place the manuscript on the base plate 111 and specify two points with the editor pen 112.
1, y1) and (x2, y2) are input / output control ICs 148
It is taken into the CPU 147 via. Then, in step S12 of FIG. 7, s is added to the white pixel in the marker area.
Instead of setting (x, y) = 1, x1 <x <x
2 and white pixels in a region satisfying y1 <y <y2,
If s (x, y) = 1 is set, closed loop detection in the designated region can be performed in the same manner.

As a color monitor,
Coloring mode is set to mode 1 for one document.
It is also possible to sequentially change from the mode to the mode 6 so that six differently colored copy sheets can be obtained.

Further, in this embodiment, the number of areas designated by the marker pen or the editor is one, but a plurality of areas may be designated at the same time and the coloring processing may be performed on the plurality of areas.

[0035]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the image processing apparatus of the first invention of the present application, if the image of the created table or graph is read by the image reader or the like and stored in the image memory, The closed loop area of the image stored in the image memory is detected, and the attribute data is set for the pixel located in the detected closed loop area. This makes it possible to easily perform processing such as coloring on the area within the closed loop.

Further, according to the image processing apparatus of the second invention of the present application, in addition to the first invention described above, different attribute data is set for each of the plurality of closed loop areas, so that each area is set. It is possible to perform different coloring processes and the like.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing a schematic configuration of a digital color copying machine.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an appearance of an operation panel.

FIG. 3 is a control block diagram of the copying machine.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a two-dimensional address of an image memory.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a configuration of image data of one pixel on an image memory.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a control procedure of marker area detection.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a control procedure of closed loop detection.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a state of pixels in a marker area of an image memory.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a state of attribute information of pixels in a marker area of an image memory.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a configuration of a target pixel and its surrounding pixels.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an editor.

[Explanation of symbols]

14: image processing unit, 144: image memory, 147: microcomputer (CPU), 110: editor

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An image memory for storing image data for each pixel, a detection means for detecting a closed loop region of an image stored in the image memory, and a pixel located in the detected closed loop region, An image processing apparatus comprising: a setting unit that sets the attribute data. 2. The setting means sets attribute data relating to color to pixels whose density is equal to or less than a predetermined value in the pixels located in the detected closed loop area, and the image is set based on the set attribute data. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein data is rewritten. 3. The image according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: designating means for designating an arbitrary area of the image, wherein the detecting means detects a closed loop of the image in the area designated by the designating means. Processing equipment. 4. An image memory for storing image data for each pixel, a detecting means for detecting a plurality of closed loop regions of an image stored in the image memory, and a pixel located in the detected closed loop region. And an setting unit that sets different attribute data for each area. 5. The determination means for determining the adjacency relationship of a plurality of closed loops detected by the detection means is provided, and the setting means sets the attribute data in accordance with the adjacency relationship determined by the judgment means. 4. The image processing device according to item 4.