JPH07182528A - Method and device for painting out outline font - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To paint out an area including a border line neither too much nor too little by using only the paint-out information showing the starting point, intermediate ending point, intermediate starting point or ending point of painting out. CONSTITUTION:Outline font data stored in a main memory 2 are read out by a processor 1 and font data prepared while paying attention onto counter- clock-wise and clock-wise directions on an outside contour line and an inside contour line are stored in a font data storage memory 4. The processor 1 prepares the paint-out information showing the starting point, intermediate ending point, intermediate starting point and ending point of painting out by extracting the data stored in the font data storage memory 4 and stores that information in a paint-out information storage memory 5. Based on the stored contents in the paint-out information storage memory 5, an output part 3 outputs data expressing the area to be painted out.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an outline font filling method and apparatus, and more specifically,
The present invention relates to a filling method and an apparatus for an outline font drawing device mounted on a word processor, a computer system, or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a known document that describes a conventional method for painting an outline font, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 2
There is a publication of -250190. In this publication, the contour line of a character is scanned from an arbitrary direction, the vector direction at the intersection of the contour line and the scanning line is obtained, and if the direction is positive, +1 is added, and if negative, -1 is added to the register. If the register value is other than 0, it is filled. That is,
Since a single character is composed only of elements such as closed contour points, vertical bars, horizontal bars, halves, and dots, and characters are not composed using biases, strokes, and strokes. , While reducing the amount of character information,
Even a complicated character has no inner contour line and can be a simple character having only an outer contour line.

[0003]

As described above, in the conventional outline font filling method and apparatus, when the contour lines are close to each other, such as the halo portion of the character, the error in the linear approximation of the curve is reduced. Due to the influence or the influence of the developing direction at the time of developing the dots of the straight line, for example, the case of the two straight lines in FIG. 12 may occur, resulting in the filling result shown in FIG. 13 and the filled area being interrupted. It was

The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and uses only the filling information indicating the starting point, the intermediate ending point, the intermediate starting point or the ending point of the filling,
To obtain the filled area including the boundary points without excess or deficiency,
Further, in the case of limiting the filling range of characters, symbols, etc., of the information of the line outside the filling range, performing the filling process without storing extra information such as coordinate information of points outside the range, By storing the fill information in a list structure, even if the result of repeating the addition of the fill information on the same coordinates becomes 0, the fill processing can be performed without the need of distinguishing from the coordinates having the initial value. It is an object of the present invention to provide an outline font filling method and an apparatus therefor.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides (1) an outline font defined by a sequence of points constituting an outline of a character or a symbol,
The outline font data is stored in the order of clockwise on the outer contour line, counterclockwise on the inner contour line, or counterclockwise on the outer contour line and clockwise on the inner contour line. Obtain a straight line that passes through two consecutive points of each data, and create fill information indicating the start point, intermediate end point, intermediate start point or end point of the filling according to the vector direction of the straight line, and based on the created information When outputting the data representing the area to be filled in, and (2) limiting the range to be filled with characters or symbols, one limited range per scanning line outside the limited range opposite to the filling scanning direction. Provide a point to store the external fill information, and output the data representing the area to be filled based on this point information and the information within the limited range. (3) The fill information is stored in a list structure along with the coordinate information along the scan line in a list structure, and the result of adding the fill information by tracing the list is a value other than 0 and the area where the coordinates of the elements of the list are filled. And output the data representing the area,
Alternatively, (4) a font data storage memory for storing the outline font data by paying attention to counterclockwise rotation and clockwise rotation on the outer contour line and the inner contour line, and the data stored in the font data storage memory are taken out,
A processor that creates fill information indicating the start point, intermediate end point, intermediate start point, and end point of the fill, a fill information storage memory that stores the fill information created by the processor, and a storage content of the fill information storage memory And an output unit that outputs data representing a region to be filled in based on.

[0006]

In the present invention, the stored outline font data is taken out and converted into a straight line having the same direction as the direction in which the data are arranged. Next, set the fill scan direction to any direction, check the intersection of each scan line and each straight line, and if the vector direction of the straight line is positive at the point immediately after the scan line enters the intersection, fill Start point information "+2" is output, and in the case of a negative value, intermediate start point information "+1" for filling
Is output. Further, at the point immediately before the scanning line exits from the intersection, if the vector direction of the straight line is positive, the intermediate end point information "-1" for filling is output, and if it is negative, the end point information for filling is "-2". Is output. The positive and negative signs described above may be reversed.

When filling the entire characters, symbols, etc.,
All the output fill information is stored together with the coordinate information. When limiting the filling range of characters / symbols, etc., a point for storing fill information outside the limited range is provided for each scanning line outside the limited range opposite to the filling scanning direction, and the scanning direction on the scanning line is set. Information outside the limited range, which is the opposite of the above, is added as information at this point. It should be noted that when storing the fill information in an array or the like, it is necessary to distinguish between a coordinate that has become 0 as a result of repeating addition at the same coordinate and a coordinate that has an initial value. , The elements of the list remain even after the addition is repeated and the result becomes 0.

The area to be filled is a coordinate in which the stored filling information is extracted along with the coordinate along the scanning line, and the result of adding the extracted information is other than 0,
It is assumed that the coordinates in which the added result is changed from a value other than 0 to 0 and the coordinate in which the addition of the fill information is repeated at the same coordinates are 0 are areas to be filled, and data representing the area is output. When stored in the list structure, the element of the list having the fill information of 0 corresponds to the coordinate at which the result of repeating addition of the fill information becomes 0. In addition, when limiting the range to be filled with characters, symbols, etc., check the result of the points to which the fill information outside the limited range is added. To go.

[0009]

Embodiments will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining an embodiment of an outline font filling apparatus according to the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a processor, 2 is a main memory, 3 is an output unit, 4 is a font data storage memory, 5 Is a fill information storage memory.

The outline font data stored in the main memory 2 is read by the processor 1, and the font data created by paying attention to the counterclockwise and clockwise directions on the outer contour line and the inner contour line are stored in the font data storage memory 4. Remember. The processor 1 takes out the data stored in the font data storage memory 4, creates fill information indicating a fill start point, an intermediate end point, an intermediate start point, and an end point, and stores the fill information in the fill information storage memory 5. . The output unit 3 outputs data representing the area to be filled, based on the stored contents of the filling information storage memory 5.

2 to 4 are flow charts for explaining the operation of the outline font filling apparatus according to the present invention. Hereinafter, each step will be described in order. When the operation is started (step1), font data is taken out (step2) and a straight line is obtained from the data (s
tep3). Next, the scanning line is set to the top (step 4), and scanning is performed on the scanning line until it enters the intersection of the scanning line and the straight line or the filled range (step 5). Next, it is judged whether it is within the limited range (step 6). If it is not within the limited range,
Next, the vector direction of the straight line at the point immediately after entering the intersection is judged (step 7), and if the vector direction is positive, the start point information "+2" is added to the point storing the information outside the range. (Step8). If the vector direction is negative, the intermediate start point information “+1” is added to the point for storing the out-of-range information (step
9), scan until the point just before exiting the intersection with the straight line or within the filled area (step 10).

Next, it is judged whether or not it is within the limited range (step
11) If it is within the limited range, go to step 20 described later. If it is not within the limited range, the vector direction of the straight line at the point immediately before exiting the intersection is judged (step 12), and if the vector direction is positive, the intermediate end point information "-1" is stored as information outside the range. If the vector direction is negative, the end point information “−2” is added to the point for storing the out-of-range information (step 14) and the process returns to step 5.

In step 6, if within the limited range, scanning is performed until the intersection of the scanning line and the straight line or outside the filled range (step 15). Next, it is judged whether it is outside the limited range (step16). If it is not outside the limited range, the vector direction of the straight line at the point immediately after entering the intersection is judged (step17), and the vector direction is positive. If so, the start point information "+2" is added (step 18), and if the vector direction is negative, the intermediate start point information "+1" is added (step 19). Next, scanning is performed until the point immediately before exiting the intersection with the straight line or outside the filled range (step 20). Next, it is determined whether or not it is outside the limited range (step 21). If it is not outside the limited range, the vector direction of the straight line at the point immediately before exiting the intersection is determined (step 22). If the vector direction is positive, the intermediate end point information "-1" is added (step 23), and if the vector direction is negative, the end point information "-2" is added (step 24),
Return to step 15 above.

In steps 16 and 21, if the scanning line is outside the limited range, it is judged whether the scanning line is at the bottom (st
ep25), if it is not the bottom, the scanning line is set to the one one below (step 26), and the process returns to step 5. In step 25, if the scanning line is at the bottom, it is next determined whether or not data remains (step 27). If data remains, the process returns to step 2 and if not, the process ends (step 2).
8).

That is, the font data is taken out (step 2) and a straight line is obtained from the data as shown in FIG. 12 (s
tep3). Regarding a scanning line S1 and a straight line A on FIG.
At point P1 immediately after the scanning line enters the intersection with the straight line, the vector direction of the straight line is positive, so the start point information "+2" is output as shown in FIG. 5 (step 18). Since the vector direction of the straight line at the point P2 immediately before leaving the intersection is also positive, the intermediate end point information "-1" is output at the point P2 (step 23).

Regarding the straight line B, since the vector direction of the straight line is negative at the point P3 immediately after the scanning line enters the intersection with the straight line, intermediate start point information "+1" is output (step 19). Since the vector direction of the straight line at the point P4 immediately before leaving the intersection is also negative, the end point information "-2" is output (step 24). The result of adding the fill information of FIG. 5 obtained from the straight lines A and B is shown in FIG. 6, and the result of performing the same processing for all scanning lines is shown in FIG. 7, and the filled areas are separated as shown in FIG. There is no such thing.

Further, as shown in FIG. 8, when the filling range of characters and symbols is limited, the filling information on the scanning line S2 is stored in a list structure as shown in FIG. In this case, the addition result of the fill information outside the limited range is the sum of the results of point P5 (step8) and point P6 (step13).
It is stored at the point P0 where the fill information outside the limited range is added, and is not 0. Therefore, at the time of filling, the scan line is filled from the point P7 where the scan line falls within the range as shown in FIG. Note that the method of storing information outside the range may be different from the method of storing information within the range, such as storing information within the range in a list structure and storing information outside the range in an array.

Further, when the filling information on the scanning line S3 in FIG. 8 is stored in a list structure, it becomes as shown in FIG. Point Q is a start point, an intermediate end point, an intermediate start point, and an end point, so the result of adding all the fill information is 0, but it remains as an element of the list, and the information Can be distinguished from coordinates that have never been added. At the time of filling, assuming that the result of repeating addition of the filling information at the same coordinates is 0, the point where the list element remains is also included in the filling area.

[0019]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, only the filling information indicating the starting point, the intermediate ending point, the intermediate starting point or the ending point of the filling is used,
It is possible to obtain the filled area including the boundary points without excess or deficiency. In addition, in the case of limiting the filling range of characters, symbols, etc., of the information of lines outside the filling range,
The filling process can be performed without storing extra information such as coordinate information of points outside the range. Further, when the fill information is stored in the list structure, even if the result of repeating the addition of the fill information on the same coordinate is 0, the processing for distinguishing from the coordinate having the initial value is not performed. End

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram for explaining an embodiment of an outline font filling device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart (No. 1) for explaining the operation of the outline font filling device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart (No. 2) for explaining the operation of the outline font filling device according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart (No. 3) for explaining the operation of the outline font filling device according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining output of fill information according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a result of adding fill information according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a painting result in the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining a method when the filling range is limited in the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating a method of outputting fill information and a storage method using a list structure according to the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram for explaining a method for obtaining a filled area in the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a storage method of a fill information list structure according to the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining the difference between the conventional filling method and the method according to the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a diagram for explaining a result obtained by a conventional filling method.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Processor, 2 ... Main memory, 3 ... Output unit, 4 ... Font data storage memory, 5 ... Fill information storage memory.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Masayuki Fujisawa 22-22 Nagaike-cho, Abeno-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka Within Sharp Corporation (72) Inventor Yutaka Nobuti 22-22 Nagaike-cho, Abeno-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka Osaka Incorporated (72) Inventor Minehiro Konya 22-22 Nagaike-cho, Abeno-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. In an outline font defined by a sequence of points constituting an outline of a character or a symbol, outline font data is output in a clockwise direction on the outer contour line, a counterclockwise direction on the inner contour line, or on the outer contour line. The stored data is taken out in the order of counterclockwise rotation and clockwise on the inner contour line, a straight line passing through two consecutive points of the extracted data is obtained, and the filling start point is determined by the vector direction of the straight line. A method for filling an outline font, characterized in that fill information indicating an intermediate end point, an intermediate start point, or an end point is created, and data representing an area to be filled is output based on the created information. 2. When limiting the range to be filled with characters or symbols, one point is provided outside the limited range opposite to the filling scanning direction, and one point for storing the filled information outside the limited range is provided for each scanning line. The outline font filling method according to claim 1, wherein data representing a region to be filled is output based on the point information and the information within the limited range. 3. A region in which fill information is stored together with coordinate information along a scanning line in a list structure, and the result of adding the fill information by tracing the list is a value other than 0 and the coordinates where the list element exists. And
The outline font filling method according to claim 1, wherein data representing the area is output. 4. A font data storage memory for storing outline font data by paying attention to counterclockwise rotation and clockwise rotation on the outer contour line and the inner contour line, and the data stored in the font data storage memory is taken out,
A processor that creates fill information indicating the start point, intermediate end point, intermediate start point, and end point of the fill, a fill information storage memory that stores the fill information created by the processor, and a storage content of the fill information storage memory An outline font filling device, comprising: an output unit that outputs data representing an area to be filled based on the.