JPH08336038A - Image processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To unify the top and bottom directions of images and to output them when the images whose top and bottom are different coexist. CONSTITUTION: In a top and bottom detection part, the top and bottom directions are judged for the images of an image storage part 29 by character recognition. In a longitudinal and lateral discrimination part 48, the longitudinal and lateral directions of the images are detected. In a rotation angle decision part 50, a rotation angle for arranging the top and bottom of the images in one direction is decided by the top and bottom directions, the longitudinal and lateral directions and the feeding direction of recording paper. Then, in an image rotation part 44a, the images of the image storage part 29 are rotated corresponding to the decided rotation angle and outputted to a printer 36.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, and more particularly to an image processing apparatus capable of uniformly outputting the top and bottom of a plurality of originals.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In an image processing apparatus such as a copying machine or a facsimile machine, unless the orientations of originals read by a scanner are uniform, there is a problem that the top and bottom are not aligned when a read image is printed on recording paper. Therefore, various devices are known in which the images are aligned in a fixed direction.

For example, in the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 63-85982, a mark corresponding to the image forming direction is added to an image read by a scanner and stored in a memory. Then, when the image information is read, the mark is identified, and the image is rotated according to the identification result to align the recorded images.

Similarly, the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 61-118876 is configured so that search data is added to the image and stored in a memory, and the image is rotated by a predetermined angle based on the search data. I am trying. The search data includes date title, paper size, character direction, etc., and is input by the operator from the input means.

[0005]

In the above-mentioned conventional device,
There were the following problems. First, in the former device, there is a problem that a process of adding a mark to image information is required, and the image in the document is damaged by the mark, and a part of the image is not recorded. On the other hand, the latter device has a problem that the operator's burden increases because the search data is added to the image.

Further, as a problem common to both, for example, when an image transmitted from a facsimile machine or an image transmitted from a host computer is temporarily stored in a memory and then the image is printed by a printer, a problem occurs. . That is, in such a case, a means for adding a mark or inputting search data is required on the side of the facsimile machine or the host computer, while a means for recognizing the mark or search data is required on the receiving side. In other words, there is a problem that a unique system configuration in which the transmission side and the reception side have the same system is required.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve the above problems and provide an image processing apparatus capable of unifying the top and bottom of automatically stored images and outputting them to a printer or the like with a simple structure. .

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention for solving the above problems and for achieving the object includes an upside-down recognizing means for detecting the upside down of an image stored in an image storage means based on information in the image. The first point is that a rotation angle determination unit that determines a rotation angle for aligning the top and bottom of the image determined by the top and bottom recognition unit in one direction and an image rotation unit that rotates the image according to the rotation angle are provided. There are features.

Further, according to the present invention, an image synthesizing means for synthesizing a plurality of images into one image and a rotation angle of each image for aligning the top and bottom of the plurality of images discriminated by the top and bottom recognizing means are set. A second feature is that the rotation angle determining means for determining and the image rotating means for rotating the image according to the rotation angle are provided.

Further, according to the present invention, the top-bottom recognition means for detecting the top-bottom of the image stored in the image storage means based on the information in the image, and the area designation means for designating a part of the image,
An upside-down comparison means for determining whether the top and bottom of the designated portion and the other portion match, and a rotation angle determination means for rotating one of the two portions to determine a rotation angle for matching the top and bottom of the two portions. A third feature is that the image rotation means includes means for rotating the image according to the rotation angle.

[0011]

According to the first feature, the top and bottom of the image stored in the image storage means are determined, for example, by the direction of the characters in the image. Then, in order to align the top and bottom of the image in one direction, the image is rotated by the image rotating means. Further, according to the second feature, the rotation angle for aligning the top and bottom of the plurality of images to be combined is determined, and the image is rotated by the image rotating means according to this rotation angle.
Further, according to the third feature, a part of the image is specified, and the top and bottom of the specified part and the other part are determined. Then, the image is rotated by the image rotating means in order to match the top and bottom of the other part.

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a schematic configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The facsimile machine is a multifunctional machine having a copying function as well as a communication function. In FIG. 1, the facsimile apparatus 1 includes an image reading unit (hereinafter referred to as “scanner”) 2, an image transfer unit 3, and a recording paper storage unit 4. Details of the scanner 2 will be described later with reference to FIG. The recording paper storage unit 4 has a plurality of recording paper trays 41, 4 so that recording papers of different sizes can be stored.
2, 43 and 44 are arranged in multiple stages. The image read by the scanner 2 and the image received by facsimile communication are printed on the recording paper pulled out from any of the recording paper trays 41 to 44, and the recording paper on which the image is printed is the recording paper discharge tray 32. Is discharged to.

Next, the scanner 2 will be described in detail.
FIG. 4 is a sectional view of the scanner 2. In FIG. 1, a document 6 to be transmitted or copied is placed on a document tray 5. A document sensor 7 for detecting the presence or absence of a document is provided on the downstream side of the document tray 5 in the document transport direction.
At the downstream end of the document tray 5, there is provided a pull-in roller 8 for sequentially pulling the document placed on the document tray 5 into the transport path from the lowermost one, and at the subsequent stage, there is a document transport path. Guide rollers 90, 91, 92 to be formed are arranged. The conveying path 10 is formed by the guide rollers 90 and 91, and the conveying path 11 is formed by the guide rollers 91 and 92. In particular, the transport path 11 is for reversing the original for double-sided reading. A width sensor 12 and a registration sensor 13 are provided on the transport path 10. The width sensor 12 detects the width of the document passing through the conveyance path 10, and the registration sensor 13 detects the position of the document to obtain the operation timing of the image sensor 14.

A conveyor belt 15 and a platen glass 16 are arranged in the rear stage of the conveyor path 10 so as to face each other, and a conveyor path 18 for guiding the document to the discharge roller 17 is formed in the latter stage of the conveyor belt 15 and the like. ing. A discharge sensor 19 for detecting the discharge of the document is provided on the conveyance path 18. Further, a recording paper discharge tray 20 is provided at the subsequent stage of the discharge roller 17, that is, outside the case of the scanner 2. In addition, not only guide rollers but also other guide members are provided in the conveying paths 10, 11, and 18, but they are not shown because they are not directly related to the present invention.

Below the platen glass 16 is provided a carriage 23 on which an image sensor 14 and a fluorescent lamp 22 for illuminating an original with light are mounted.
As the image sensor 14, for example, a CCD type sensor can be used. The carriage 23 is fixed to a wire 26 stretched between shafts 24 and 25. The shafts 24 and 25 are driven by a step motor (not shown) to wind or rewind the wire 26 around the shafts 24 and 25, whereby the shafts 24 and 25 reciprocate left and right as indicated by an arrow 21. The carriage 23 has a home position 28 determined with the home position sensor 27 as a reference.

With the above structure, the document 6 is pulled in by the drawing roller 8
And is guided to the conveyance path 10 by the guide rollers 90 and 91 between the conveyance belt 15 and the platen glass 16. After that, the conveyance belt 15 conveys it to a predetermined reading position and stops. The reading position is set to a position where the document 6 has been conveyed for a scheduled time after the rear end of the document 6 is detected by the registration sensor 13. When the document stops, the carriage 23
Moves from the home position to the right in the drawing, and the image information of the document is read. The original that has been read is transported in the transport path 1.
It is discharged onto the discharge tray 20 via 8.

When the document passes through the conveyance path, the width of the document is detected by the width sensor 12, and the length of the document is detected based on the time when the document passes through the registration sensor 13 and the known conveyance speed. To be done. In addition, the discharge sensor 19
Completion of document discharge is detected by the detection signal of.

When reading both sides of a document, after the image on the surface of the document 6 is read, the transport means, that is, the transport belt 15 and the guide roller 91 are reversed to transport the document in the transport path 1.
The document 6 is guided to 1, and the original 6 is inverted and conveyed to the reading position. Then, when the image on the back surface of the document 6 is read at the reading position, the document 6 is discharged onto the discharge tray 20.

Next, the structure of the control device of the facsimile apparatus 1 will be described. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of essential parts of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the configuration of the scanner 2 is as described above.
The image storage unit 29 is a large-capacity image information storage device including a DRAM and a hard disk. The encoder 30 compresses and encodes the image information, and the decoder 34 expands and decodes the image information.

The image storage unit 29 stores image information read by the scanner 2 and compressed by the encoder 30 and received compressed image information. The modem and line control unit 35 has a function of modulating transmission image information and sending it to the line, and a function of taking image information from the line and demodulating it. Printer 36
Prints out the image information accumulated in the image storage unit 29.
The image processing unit 44 has a function of rotating the image information read by the scanner 2 or the image information stored in the image storage unit 29 by a designated angle or enlarging / reducing the image information, and includes a page memory for that purpose. Further, the character recognition unit 46 also has a page memory, and an image is developed for character recognition.

Each of the above components is connected to the data bus 45, and is controlled by the operation of the CPU 38 according to a program stored in the ROM 37 in advance. The RAM 39 is used as a work area for storing control data for control by the CPU 38. The operation unit 40 includes an input unit including a key for an operator to input an instruction and a display unit for displaying a result processed by the CPU 38 according to the instruction and the like. The display unit can be configured by a known display means such as a liquid crystal panel.

Next, the operation of the facsimile apparatus according to this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart. In FIG. 5, in step S1, it is determined whether or not there is a copy instruction. This judgment is made depending on whether or not the operator operates a predetermined key of the operation unit 40. In step S2, an image reading and storage routine is executed. This process is shown in FIG.

In FIG. 6, in step S200, the drawing roller 8, the guide rollers 90 to 92, the conveyor belt 15 and the like are driven to convey the original. In step S210, it is determined whether the document has been conveyed to the reading position. This judgment is made when the registration sensor 13 changes from on to off, that is, when the document passes the registration sensor 13
This is performed depending on whether or not a known time required for the document to be conveyed to the scheduled position 5 has elapsed. When it is determined that the document has been conveyed to the reading position, the process proceeds to step S220 and the conveyance belt 15 and the like are stopped. In step S230, the length of the document is detected by the time from the on-off of the registration sensor 13 and the document conveying speed, and the width of the document is detected by the width sensor 12, and the size of the document is detected by these length and width. And the vertical and horizontal orientations are detected.
The detection result is stored in the RAM 39.

In step S240, the carriage 23 is moved to read. Fluorescent lamp 2 for reading image information
The image sensor 1 detects the reflected light of the light irradiated on the document surface in 2.
This is done by detecting in 4. In step S250, the image information of the read document is encoded by the encoder 30 and stored in the image storage unit 29. In step S260, it is determined whether or not the reading of all originals is completed by turning on / off the original sensor 7. When the reading is completed, the process returns to the main routine (FIG. 5) and proceeds to step S3.

In step S3, the image of the first page is read from the image storage unit 29 and decoded by the decoder 34.
The data is expanded in the page memory of the character recognition unit 46. Step S
In step 4, the top and bottom of the manuscript are judged by character recognition. This character recognition will be described later. In step S5,
The rotation angle of the image for aligning the top and bottom of the original with the top and bottom of the recording sheet is determined based on the feeding direction of the recording sheet, the vertical and horizontal orientations of the original, and the vertical direction of the original. The feeding direction of the recording paper is determined by the orientation of the recording paper set in the recording paper tray, and the vertical and horizontal orientations of the document are determined based on the detection signals of the width sensor 12 and the registration sensor 13. The orientation of the original is that determined in step S4.

The rotation angle is preferably determined by searching the table shown in FIG. In FIG. 7, for example, if the recording paper feed direction is vertical, the original orientation is horizontal, that is, the original reading direction is horizontal, and the original orientation is 90 °, then the image rotation angle is 270 °. It is determined. It should be noted that the upside-down direction and the rotation angle of the document are shown in the counterclockwise direction with respect to the recording paper feeding direction.

Returning to the explanation of FIG. In step S6, the image processing unit 44 rotates the image according to the determined rotation angle. In step S7, the rotated image is output to the printer 36 for printing. In step S8, the presence / absence of a document on the document tray 5 is determined by the detection signal of the document sensor 7. If there is no manuscript, this process ends, and if there is still a manuscript, the process proceeds to step S9, the image of the next page is read from the image storage unit 29, and is decoded by the decoder 34.
The data is expanded in the page memory of the character recognition unit 46.

Next, the determination of the vertical direction of the original will be described. FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a character recognition process for upside-down direction determination. In the figure, step S
At 40, characters for judgment are cut out from the image. Various area detection methods by feature extraction of image analysis can be used as this clipping method.For example, a density histogram for obtaining the distribution of black and white pixels in the vertical and horizontal directions of a document within a predetermined range is created. , The character area is determined by the size of the high density area. Then, a predetermined number of characters are extracted from this character area. An example of the area detecting means for extracting characters is disclosed, for example, in "Pattern Information Processing", pages 66 to 68, 166 to 171 edited by the Institute of Electronics, Communication and Communication, published by Corona. .

When the characters are extracted, the characters are recognized one by one (step S41). As a character recognition method, a known method such as a fixed-point sampling method, a sonde method, a slit method, a method of capturing a feature of a character outline, or a method using a correlation function can be used. For example, in the fixed point sampling method, the cut-out character is applied to a mesh having a predetermined observation point, and the character is recognized depending on whether or not a character portion exists at the observation point. The above-mentioned character recognition method is disclosed in Chapter 3 of "Character / Graphic Recognition Machine" edited by Toshio Kitagawa, published by Kyoritsu Shuppan Co., Ltd.

In step S42, it is determined whether or not the character can be recognized. If it can be recognized, the variable A is incremented (step S43), and if it is not recognized, the variable B is increased.
Is incremented (step S44). Step S
At 45, it is determined whether or not the recognition processing of all the extracted characters has been completed. If the recognition process is not completed yet, the process proceeds to step S41, and if the recognition process of all the characters is completed, the process proceeds to step S46. In step S46, the character recognition rate I (= (A / A + B) × 100) is calculated. In step S47, the calculated character recognition rate I is stored in the RAM 39.

The processes of steps S41 to S47 are carried out for four cases in which the four directions of one image, that is, the upper, lower, left and right directions, are assumed to be the sky. Then, the case where the character recognition rate is highest is determined to be the actual upward direction. When the top direction is determined, the angle of the top direction based on the feeding direction of the recording paper is registered as the top and bottom direction.

The character recognition rate and the vertical direction will be described more specifically. In FIG. 9, when recognizing the character “XENON” of the processing target image V, each side a of the image V,
The recognition rate when b, c, and d are assumed to be the sky is shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, when the side a is the top, 100% of "XENON" can be recognized, but when the sides b and d are the top, they cannot be recognized at all. Further, when the side c is the heaven, the recognition rate of 40% is obtained because the letters “X” and “O” that are the upper and lower sides can be recognized, and as a result, when the recognition rate is the highest, that is, the side a is the heaven. It can be determined that the case is the vertical direction of the image V.

Next, the image rotation processing will be described with reference to the schematic diagram of the page memory in FIG. FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of a page memory provided in the image processing unit 44. The image is read from the image storage unit 29 to the page memory, and the rotation angle of the image is determined by the order of reading the image information from the page memory. In the figure, the address of the page memory is shown by XY coordinates. When the image is rotated 90 ° to match the orientation of the document vertically and horizontally, the image information is written and read from the address (0, 0) to the page memory as shown in FIG. At this time, image information is read from the address (0, Y) as shown in FIG. When the image is rotated by 180 °, image information is read from the address (X, Y) to the page memory as shown in FIG.
When the image is rotated by 270 °, the image information is read from the address (X, 0) as shown in FIG.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. In the second embodiment, two images received by facsimile communication are combined and printed on one recording sheet. in this case,
If you read the two stored images as they are and combine them, and the top and bottom of the images are not the same,
Difficult to read printed characters. Therefore, in the second embodiment, the top and bottom of the two images to be combined are aligned with the recording paper feed direction.

The second embodiment will be described with reference to the flow chart. In FIG. 11, in step S10, it is determined whether there is an incoming call. If there is an incoming call, the process proceeds to step S11, the image is received and stored in the image storage unit 29. In step S12, the image of the first page is read from the image storage unit 29, decoded by the decoder 34, and then developed in the page memory of the character recognition unit 46. In step S13, it is determined whether or not there is a next page.

If there is a next page, the process proceeds to step S14, and it is determined whether or not the received document has a half size such as A5 landscape. If it is a half-size document, the process proceeds to step S15, the image of the next page is read from the image storage unit 29, decoded by the decoder 34, and developed in the page memory of the character recognition unit 46. In step S16, the vertical direction of the two originals is determined by character recognition. In step S17, the image is rotated by the image processing unit 44 in order to align the top and bottom of the document with the recording paper feed direction. In this case, when the vertical direction of only one of the two images does not match the recording paper feed direction, only that one image is reversed.

In step S18, when two originals are combined, it is determined by searching the recording paper trays 41 to 44 whether or not there is a recording paper of a size that can be accommodated in both the main scanning direction and the sub scanning direction. This judgment is made for the following reasons. That is, in the case of a normal half size, it is often possible to print on one sheet of recording paper. However, if, as a result of the combination, for example, the long side of the original document is in contact with the short side of the latter document,
This is because it is impossible to print on a recording paper that is twice as large as the half size.

If the recording paper in which the combined image fits is not set, the flow advances to step S19 to cancel the development of the document developed later and erase the image from the page memory of the image processing unit 44. If the recording paper in which the combined image fits is set, the process proceeds to step S20.
A recording paper tray accommodating the recording paper is selected, an image is output to the printer 36, and printing is performed.

In step S21, it is determined whether or not there is a next page. If there is a next page, go to step S22,
The image of the page is read from the image storage unit 29, decoded by the decoder 34, and developed in the page memory of the character recognition unit 46.

If the determination in step S14 is negative, that is, if the received document is not half size, steps S15 to S18 are skipped and the process proceeds to step S20. Similarly, when the determination in step S13 is negative, steps S14 to S18 are skipped and the process proceeds to step S20.

Although the two images are aligned in the recording paper feed direction in the second embodiment, when the images to be copied are only these two images, one image may be simply aligned with the other. Good. Therefore, if the top and bottom of the two sheets are aligned with each other, it is not always necessary to rotate the recording sheets in the recording paper feed direction.

Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described.
In the third embodiment, the operator designates a part of the image, determines whether or not the top and bottom of the image of the part of the designated image is different from other parts, and if they are different, the top and bottom are unified. To rotate a portion of the image. For example, as shown in FIG. 12, when four originals P1 to P4 are edited to create one original P, it is assumed that the original P1 is upside down from the other originals P2 to P4. To do. In the figure, the arrow indicates the vertical direction of each document. In this case, if only the original P1 can be inverted and copied, the editing error can be easily corrected later. In the third embodiment, it is possible to automatically correct the inconsistency of the top and bottom and make a copy by only specifying a part of the image.

Referring to the flow chart of FIG. 13, the third
The processing of the embodiment will be described. In the figure, step S5
0 to S52 are the same processes as steps S1 to S3, and detailed description thereof will be omitted. In step S53, it is determined whether or not there is an area instruction. This area is, for example, the bottom 1 of the image.
The / 2 portion or the upper right ¼ portion is instructed by instructing the operation unit 40 with a preset function key or inputting coordinate numerical values. In step S54, the vertical direction of the designated area and the undesignated area is detected by character recognition. In step S55, the image of the designated area is rotated so that the top and bottom of the designated area match the top and bottom of the non-designated area. In step S56, the image is output to the printer 36 and printed.

In step S57, it is determined whether or not there is a next page. If there is a next page, the process proceeds to step S58, the image of the next page is read out, decoded, and developed in the page memory of the character recognition unit 46. If there is no next page, the process ends.

In the third embodiment, the top and bottom of the designated area and the non-designated area are aligned with each other. However, the original P is one of a plurality of originals, and the plurality of originals are collected as one set. May be copied in. In this case, the original P, which has been subjected to the process of aligning the top and bottom of the originals P1 to P4, is further subjected to a rotation process for aligning the top and bottom with another image. This process may be performed in the same manner as the first embodiment described with reference to FIGS. That is, the rotation angle is determined according to the table of FIG. 7 based on the vertical and horizontal directions of the image of the original P with the top and bottom aligned, that is, the original reading direction, the vertical direction of the original P detected in step S54, and the recording paper feed direction. Then, the printer 36 prints according to this rotation angle.

The image processing of the third embodiment will be described with a schematic diagram. In FIG. 14, when the top and bottom of the part P1 of the image P is opposite to the top and bottom of the other parts P2 to P4 as shown in FIG. 14A, the top and bottom of the part P1 is first inverted to match the top and bottom of the parts P2 to P3. ((B) of the same figure). Further, in order to unify the top and bottom of the image P, the entire image P is rotated in accordance with the recording paper feed direction ((c) in the figure).

Furthermore, the third embodiment can be modified as follows. First, it is determined whether the top and bottom of the image P is the same as the recording paper feed direction (determination 1). Further, it is determined whether the designated area P1 and the undesignated areas P2 to P4 are upside down (determination 2).

The processing based on the results of judgment 1 and judgment 2 is shown in FIG. Column a in the figure is the recording paper feed direction, and b
The column is the vertical direction of the image P, and the c column shows the processing result corresponding to the case of the combination of the a column and the b column. First, in case 1 above, judgment 1 and judgment 2 are affirmative,
The top and bottom of the images P2 to P3 are inverted. On the other hand, in case 2, the determination 1 is negative and the determination 2 is positive, and the image P1 is inverted. Further, in case 3, the determination 1 is affirmative and the determination 2 is negative, so that the images P1 to P4 are all inverted. Further, in case 4, both judgment 1 and judgment 2 are negative, and the image is not inverted.

In the third embodiment, for simplification of description, only the case where the vertical direction is reversed (rotated by 180 °) is shown, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the image P1 is changed to the images P2 to P2.
Of course, it can be rotated at various angles to match P4.

Next, the functions of the essential parts for carrying out the operation of the present embodiment will be described with reference to the block diagram of FIG. In the figure, the image storage unit 29 stores the document read by the scanner 2 and the image information received by the receiving unit 47. The vertical / horizontal determining unit 48 determines the vertical / horizontal orientation of the document based on the width and length of the document detected by the width sensor 12 and the registration sensor 13 of the scanner 2. When the processing target is a received image, the vertical / horizontal determination unit 48 determines the vertical / horizontal direction of the image based on the width in the main scanning direction obtained from the protocol information at the time of reception and the length in the sub-scanning direction obtained by decoding the image in the image storage unit 29. Determine the orientation.

The upside-down detecting section 49 cuts out characters from the image in the image storage section 29 and detects the upside-down direction of the image. The recording paper storage unit 4 outputs information indicating the orientation of the recording paper in the selected recording paper tray, that is, the recording paper feed direction, to the rotation angle determination unit 50. The rotation angle determination unit 50 determines a rotation angle by searching, for example, a search table based on the vertical and horizontal orientations of the image determined by the vertical and horizontal determination unit 48, the vertical direction of the image, and the recording paper feed direction. The determined rotation angle is the image rotation unit 4
4a is input. The image rotation unit 44a is the image storage unit 29.
Rotate the image input from according to the rotation angle,
Output to the printer 36.

The area designating section 51 designates a partial area of the image to be processed by the operator's input. When the area is designated, the upside-down detecting unit 49 detects the upside down direction between the area and the other area. The detection result is input to the upside-down comparison unit 52, and the upside-down comparison unit 52 determines a rotation angle for matching the upside of the designated region with the non-designated region and inputs the rotation angle to the image rotation unit 44a. The image rotation unit 44a rotates the designated area of the image input from the image storage unit 29 according to this rotation angle.

In the case of image synthesis, the upside-down detecting section 49
Determines the vertical direction of the two images, and the rotation angle determination unit 50 determines the respective rotation angles to determine the image rotation unit 4.
4a. Then, the image rotating unit 44a develops the two images in one page memory, combines them, rotates them at a specified angle, and outputs them to the printer 36.

The above is an example of outputting the image stored in the image storage unit 29 to the printer 36, but the present invention can be applied to the case of transmitting the image stored in the image storage unit 29 by facsimile communication. Is. Also,
Top and bottom judgment is not only made by recognizing the characters in the image,
The graphic information in the image may be compared with the registered graphic information and executed. The point is to determine the top and bottom by comparing the information in the image with the reference registration information.

[0055]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the invention of claim 1, the top and bottom of the image are automatically discriminated, and the image is rotated according to the discrimination result so that the top and bottom are aligned in one direction. . According to the second aspect of the invention, when a plurality of images are combined, the top and bottom of the combined images match. Further, according to the invention of claim 3, the top and bottom of the designated part and the other part can be aligned.

As described above, according to the first to third aspects of the present invention, even if the orientation of the image when reading the image into the image storage means is not uniform, the orientation of the image is automatically determined. You can match this up.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a main part of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a schematic configuration of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of main parts of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of a scanner.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a procedure of image processing according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for reading and storing a document.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a table for searching a rotation angle of an image.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a character recognition process.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of top-and-bottom determination by character recognition.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram of a memory for explaining the principle of image rotation.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a procedure of image processing according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of a target of image processing by specifying an area.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart showing the procedure of image processing according to the third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing an example of an image that has been image-processed in the third embodiment.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing an example of an image that has been subjected to image processing according to a modification of the third embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

2 ... Scanner, 6 ... Original, 12 ... Width sensor, 13
... registration sensor, 29 ... image storage section, 36 ... printer, 44 ... image processing section, 44a ... image rotating section, 47
... reception unit, 48 ... vertical / horizontal discrimination unit, 49 ... upside-down detection unit,
50 ... Rotation angle determination unit, 51 ... Region designating unit, 52
... upside down comparison section

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An image storage means, an upside-down recognition means for detecting the upside down of the image stored in the image storage means based on information in the image, and a upside down direction of the image determined by the upside down recognition means in one direction. An image processing apparatus comprising: a rotation angle determining unit that determines a rotation angle for matching; and an image rotating unit that rotates the image according to the rotation angle. 2. An image storage means, an upside-down recognition means for detecting the upside down of the image stored in the image storage means based on the information in the image, and an image combining means for combining a plurality of images into one image. A rotation angle determination unit that determines a rotation angle of each image for aligning the top and bottom of the plurality of images determined by the top and bottom recognition unit, and an image rotation unit that rotates the images according to the rotation angle. An image processing device characterized by the above. 3. An image storage means, an upside-down recognition means for detecting the upside down of the image stored in the image storage means based on information in the image, an area specifying means for specifying a part of the image, and the specified area. A top-bottom comparison means for determining whether the top and bottom of one part and the other part match, a rotation angle determining means for rotating one of the parts to determine a rotation angle for matching the top and bottom of the parts, and the rotation angle And an image rotating means for rotating the image according to the above.