JPH0823741B2 - How to process vector characters or graphics - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus that creates a document including multi-size high quality characters, and is particularly suitable for creating a document including large or small characters. The present invention relates to a processing method of vector characters and figures.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, in order to generate high quality characters, etc., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 50-14230
As described in No. 4, the stroke information (polygon) of contour information such as characters is stored in a storage device, the index code signal is given to take out the character data, and the character data is linearly converted to a target character size and displayed. The output device was developed using the polygon fill algorithm to output dots.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In the above conventional technique, the thickness of a character, that is, the line width is only linearly proportional to the character size. However, when the character size is small, it is necessary to make the character thickness thinner so that the character does not get crushed, and when the character size is large, it is necessary to make the character thickness thicker so that it is powerful. Technology could not meet this requirement.

An object of the present invention is to provide a vector character / graphics processing method for outputting characters of various line widths from one typeface.

[Means for Solving Problems] In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, outline information such as characters and figures is stored as coordinate data of vertices of a polygon. In the vector character / graphics processing method of the information processing apparatus having the storage means for storing the data and the output means for outputting the data of the character / graphics in the dot format, the coordinate data of the vertices of the polygon are defined with directionality. Then, the coordinate data of the character / figure defined by the directionality is retrieved from the storage means according to the input index code, and the direction in which each side of the polygon is moved is determined based on the directionality, and the character The feature is that the coordinate data of the new vertex of the polygon is obtained according to the designated change amount of the line width of the figure.

As one embodiment of the present invention, the coordinate data is such that, for example, when the vertices of the polygon are traced in the definition order, the inside of the character / figure formed by the polygon is always viewed in the right hand (or the left hand). It is defined.

After obtaining the coordinate data of the new vertex of the above polygon,
By linearly converting the coordinate data, the characters / graphics can be converted into a target size.

Furthermore, divide the size of the above characters and figures into groups,
The change amount of the line width may be set for each group.

At this time, the change amount of the line width may be set to 0 for the most frequently used group among the plurality of groups.

In this way, the inside of the outline of the character / graphic whose line width has been changed can be filled with an arbitrary pattern. However, this filling is not necessary, for example, in the case of white characters, and in such a case, only the contour line may be output.

Further, the present invention is suitable for use in combination with character / graphic size conversion, but the size conversion is not necessarily required.

[Operation] In the present invention, in which direction the contour line is moved
Whether you can make the line width of the shape thick or thin,
Focusing on the fact that it can be judged by giving directionality to the definition order of the vertex coordinate data of the polygon, based on this directionality, the coordinate data of the vertexes of the polygons forming the outline of the vector character / graphic is changed. The line width can be arbitrarily thickened or thinned by shifting the contour by a desired change amount.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention is particularly effective when converting the size of a character / graphic, that is, enlarging / reducing, and it is possible to obtain the optimum line width of the character / graphic depending on the size of the character / graphic.

If the change value of the line width is determined by grouping the character and graphic sizes and individually determined for each group, it is not necessary to calculate or prepare the change width for all the character and graphic sizes. At this time, if the change value of the most frequently used group is set to 0, it is often unnecessary to change the coordinate data for changing the line width.

[Embodiment] An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an information processing apparatus used for implementing the present invention. This information processing apparatus includes a storage device 101 for storing data such as operation programs and vector characters, a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as CPU) 102, a display 103 for displaying data such as characters in a dot format, and data for characters and the like. Has a printer 104 for printing in a dot format and a keyboard 105.

FIG. 6A schematically shows the contour information of the character "mouth" in the form of a polygon. In the following description, for simplicity of explanation, it is assumed that the contours are all polygons. The same can be done when a part of the contour is interpolated by a curve such as a spline.

The letter "mouth" in Figure 6A has an outer contour 1 and an inner contour 2. The area surrounded by the contours 1 and 2 shows the solid area 3 of the character. Outer contour 1 is an ordered vertex
It is composed of 11 to 14, and this ordering is such that the right side of the vector connecting the two vertices becomes the character-filled area 3. Also, the inner contour 2 has the ordered vertices 15-
Similar to outer contour 1, this ordering is such that the right side of the vector connecting the two vertices is the filled area 3 of the character. The vector direction may be determined in the opposite direction.

FIG. 3 shows a storage device for the contour information of the character “mouth” in FIG. 6A.
101 shows an example of a table for storing in the polygon data format. In the index table 201 for extracting the character data with the index code,
For example, a pointer 203 indicating the start address of the character data in the character contour information table 204 storing the character data is stored corresponding to the index code 202 of “mouth”.

The character contour information table 204 includes the number of polygons (that is, the number of loops) 205 that configures the contour of the character data, the number of vertices 206 that configures the outer contour 1, the coordinate data 207 to 210 of the vertices that configure the loop, and the inner The number of vertices 211 forming the contour 2 and the coordinate data 212 of the vertices forming the loop
215, the number of loops of the next character data 216, loop 1
Includes 217 vertices of. In addition to these data, data of the size 221 of the character in the x-axis direction and the size 222 of the character in the y-axis direction are required. These data represent the body size of a character.

Next, a method of changing the character width, which is the center of the present invention, will be described according to the flow of FIG.

This processing is started in block 301. From the keyboard 105 or a program, a character index code 202 is given to retrieve character outline information from the storage device 101 (block 30).
2). The character change width h (h may be not only positive but also negative or 0) is calculated according to the next designated target character size (block 303). The change width h may be proportional to the target character size, or may be determined for each group by dividing the target character size into groups.

In block 304, the coordinate values of the vertices forming the outline of the character are changed so that the width is changed by h. This algorithm will be described with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 5, when the contour composed of the vertices 401, 402, and 403 is changed by the width h, the change point 4 of the apex 402 is changed.
21 is a line 431 that is separated from the vector 411 composed of the vertices 401 and 402 by h outside the contour (left side of the vector 411) and a vector 412 composed of the vertices 402 and 403. Is an intersection with a straight line 432 that is separated by h outside the line. In general, the formula for a straight line that is separated from the straight line ax + by + c = 0 (1) by h is Is. Therefore, considering the directionality of the straight line 431, The straight line 432 is Becomes Since the vertex 421 is the intersection of the straight line 431 and the straight line 432, the coordinates (x _i ′, y _i ′) are Becomes However, Is. For other vertices, the coordinates of the change point can be similarly obtained from the coordinates of the vertices before and after that vertex.

Returning to FIG. 4, in block 305, 2h is added to the data of the sizes 221 and 222 in the x-axis and y-axis directions of the character shown in FIG. 3, respectively. This is because the line width of the character has increased
2h is added.

Next, in block 306, the sizes 221 and 222 in the x-axis direction and the y-axis direction, respectively, are set so as to obtain the target character size.
And the ratio of the target character size to the x-axis direction and the y-axis direction are multiplied by all coordinate data to linearly change the size (enlarge / reduce).

Finally, in block 307, the inside of the polygon defined in block 306 is filled with the specified pattern and the data is output to the specified memory area. To fill polygons and output them in dot format, for example, use the well-known and fast algorithm "Polygon scan conversion" (For details, see "Ohno" Polygon scan conversion ", PIXEL (No .1
6), pp.136-141 ”).

 This processing ends at block 308.

FIG. 6B shows that the contour “1” is changed to the contour 501 and the contour 2 is changed to the contour 502 by performing this process on the character “mouth” in FIG. 6A.

[Effect of the Invention] According to the present invention, since a character having an arbitrary line width can be created from one typeface, it is possible to obtain the same character as a thin typeface in which the character is not crushed for a small size character. Since it is possible to obtain the same character as a powerful thick typeface for a large size character, it is possible to reduce the cost of developing a large number of typefaces and the capacity for storing them in a storage device.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flow chart showing the configuration of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an information processing device for characters and the like used for implementing the present invention, and FIG. 3 stores outline information of characters for the present invention. FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a table for this, FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing flow, FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing a calculation method for changing the thickness of characters, and FIG. 6A is the character “mouth” represented by a polygon. And FIG. 6B is a schematic diagram showing outline information obtained by changing the line width of the characters in FIG. 6A. 1 ... Outer contour of character, 2 ... Inner contour of character, 3 ... Filled area, 11-18 ... Vertex, 101 ... Storage device, 102 ... Central processing unit, 103 ... Display, 104 ... Printer, 105
… Keyboard, 201… Index table, 202… Index code, 203… Pointer to character outline information table, 2
04 ... Character contour information table, 431, 432 ... Straight line separated from character contour by width h, 421 ... Changed vertex.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Kazuko Suzuki 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Inside the Hitachi, Ltd. microelectronics equipment development laboratory (56) Reference JP-A-62-82484 (JP , A) JP 61-238086 (JP, A) JP 61-51189 (JP, A) JP 59-69787 (JP, A) JP 59-765 (JP, A)

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A character or a character of an arbitrary size based on polygon data defining, for each polygon (polygon) forming the outline of a character or graphic of a specific size, each vector connecting the vertices of the polygon. A method of processing a vector character or a vector figure for generating an image of a figure, wherein each vertex of a polygon is connected so that the direction of each vector has a predetermined relationship with the inside of the outline of the character or figure. By defining a vector, polygon data representing the shape of each polygon forming the outline of the character or figure of the specific size is created in advance, and the correction amount is set for each group in which the size of the character or figure is divided into groups. When defining a character or graphic image that is defined in advance, the size of the character or graphic that creates the image is accepted and For each polygon data of the character or figure that generates the, the correction amount defined for the group that the received size and the received size are the vertices of the polygon defined by each vector defined by the polygon data of the polygon. According to the direction of the vector connecting the vertex with another vertex,
A method of processing a vector character or a vector figure, characterized by generating an image of a character or a figure whose contour is composed of polygons having respective vertices after the movement. 2. A character or a character of any size based on polygon data defining, for each polygon (polygon) forming the contour of a character or graphic of a specific size, each vector connecting the vertices of the polygon. A method of processing a vector character or a vector figure for generating an image of a figure, wherein each vertex of a polygon is connected so that the direction of each vector has a predetermined relationship with the inside of the outline of the character or figure. By defining a vector, polygon data representing the shape of each polygon forming the outline of the character or figure of the specific size is created in advance, and the correction amount is set for each group in which the size of the character or figure is divided into groups. When defining a character or graphic image that is defined in advance, the size of the character or graphic that creates the image is accepted and For each polygon data of the character or figure that generates, the vertices of the polygon defined by each vector defined by the polygon data of the polygon are set in the direction determined by the direction of the vector connecting the vertex and another vertex. , The polygon data of the character or figure that generates the image by moving the amount corresponding to the correction amount defined for the group to which the received size belongs and generating the coordinate data that defines the coordinates of each vertex after the movement. Each second polygon having vertices of coordinates defined by each coordinate data generated with respect to, is expanded or reduced according to the received size to generate each third polygon,
A method of processing a vector character or a vector graphic, characterized in that an image of a character or a graphic whose contour is formed by each of the generated third polygons is generated. 3. The polygon data is created so that the correction amount becomes 0 for a group in which the size of the belonging character or figure is used most frequently. How to process vector characters or vector graphics of.