JPH09245156A - Image processor and its device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To give proper image processing to image data based on a page describing language. SOLUTION: A PDL(page describing language) analytic part 201 inputs PDL data 102 to convert image data and discriminates the kind of an image from a presently processing PDL command 102 to generate a control flag according to the kind. Image data and the control flag obtained like this are stored in an a corresponding address in an image memory 301 and a flag memory 302. An image processing part 401 gives image processing corresponding to the control flag read out from the corresponding address in the flag memory 302 to image data read out from the image memory 301.

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 a method thereof, for example, an image processing apparatus having a function of inputting a command described in a page description language and converting it into image data and a method thereof. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Page description language (hereinafter referred to as "PDL")
When obtaining output image data from the image data described in (may be referred to as "PDL data" below), the following image processing method has been proposed. That is, the bitmap data generated from the PDL data is referred to, the bitmap image is divided into a plurality of areas, and flag data representing the image type is generated for each of the areas. Then, by referring to the flag data, it is a method of obtaining output image data subjected to different image processing for each area.

[0003]

However, the above-mentioned technique has the following problems. In other words, if the flag data for image processing is generated by referencing only the bitmap data, the image type may be erroneously determined,
The image processing using this flag data is not always the optimum image processing.

The present invention is intended to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus and method capable of performing appropriate image processing on image data based on a page description language. And

[0005]

The present invention has the following configuration as one means for achieving the above object.

The image processing apparatus according to the present invention inputs a command described in a page description language and converts it into image data, and a characteristic of the image data is determined, and the determination result is a flag of a plurality of bits. And a determining means for outputting as.

Further, a conversion means for inputting a command described in a page description language and converting it into image data, and a generation means for referring to the command and generating a flag of a plurality of bits corresponding to a processing method of the image data. And a storage unit that stores the image data obtained by the conversion unit and the flag obtained by the generation unit in association with each other.

The image processing method according to the present invention includes a conversion step of inputting a command described in a page description language and converting it into image data, a determination step of determining a characteristic of the image data, and a determination step of the determination step. And an output step of outputting the determined determination result as a flag of a plurality of bits.

Further, a conversion step of inputting a command described in a page description language and converting it into image data, and a generation step of referring to the command and generating a flag of a plurality of bits corresponding to a processing method of the image data. And a storage step of storing the image data obtained in the conversion step and the flag obtained in the generation step in the storage means in association with each other.

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining processing of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 201 denotes a PDL analysis unit, which analyzes a command 102 included in image data 101 described by PDL, and outputs an address which is the analysis result and a pixel value of the address to an image memory 301. At the same time, the multi-bit control flag based on the command 102 and the analysis result is output to the flag memory 302. Here, the control flag indicates the characteristic of the image data and corresponds to the image processing performed on the image data. The detailed configuration of the PDL analysis unit 201 will be described later.

An image processing unit 401 reads a pixel value and a control signal value at a certain address from the image memory 301 and the flag memory 302, and refers to a flag reference table 402 stored in the ROM, for example, Output image data 501 is generated.

An example of generating output image data of grayscale 256 gradations in which CG images, characters, print images and the like are mixed from the image data described in PDL with the configuration shown in FIG. 1 will be described below. The print image is, for example, an image for each pixel obtained when an image of a printed matter formed by halftone dots is read by an image scanner.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the image data 111 described in PDL, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of an image generated from the image data 111.

First, when the command 112 (page command for setting an image area) at the address 0 of the image data 111 is input to the PDL analysis unit 201, the image data generation unit 202 sets the address (0,0) to the upper left. The 1024 x 1024 pixel area defined as a point is interpreted as the effective image area.

Next, when the command 113 at the address 1 (cgimage command for setting the area of the CG image to be generated) is input to the PDL analysis section 201, the image data generation section 202 sets the address (100, 100) to the upper left point. Area A of 256 × 256 pixels (Fig.
Generate a code to generate a CG image (see 3). The flag generator 203, which has entered this code and command 112,
For example, a command reference table 204 stored in ROM or the like
Address (100,100), (100,355), (355,10
The control flag for the CG image is output to the address of the flag memory 302 corresponding to the rectangular area having four vertices (0) and (355,355).

From the second address to the 100th address of the image data 111, each pixel value of the CG image of 256 × 256 pixels is included. The image data generation unit 202 outputs the pixel value included in the address to the address of the image memory 301 corresponding to the address of the image data 111.

Next, when the command 114 (ch_string command for generating a character string in the designated area) at the address 101 is input to the PDL analysis unit 201, the image data generation unit 202 sets the address (100,500) as the lower left point. 12 in the area C (see Fig. 3)
Generate a code to generate a character image for the five characters of point. Next, the image data generation unit 202 generates character image data from the code string representing the character string included in the address 102, and assigns the pixel value forming the character image to the address forming the character image in the image memory 301. Output. The flag generation unit 203 to which the code, the command 114, and the address of the character image are input from the image data generation unit 202 outputs the control flag for the character image to the address of the flag memory 302 corresponding to the area where the character image is generated. To do.

Next, the command 115 at the address 103 of the image data 111 (prima for setting the area of the print image to be generated)
ge command) is input to the PDL analysis unit 201, the image data generation unit 202 sets the address (500,100) as the upper left point.
A code for generating a print image is generated in a region C (see FIG. 3) of × 256 pixels. The flag generation unit 203 to which this code and the command 115 have been input receives the addresses (500,100), (500,3
The control flag for the print image is output to the address of the flag memory 302 corresponding to the rectangular area having four vertices of (55), (755,100), and (755,355).

202 from the address 104 of the image data 111
The address includes each pixel value of the print image of 256 × 256 pixels. The image data generation unit 202 outputs the pixel value included in the address to the address of the image memory 301 corresponding to the address of the image data 111.

On the other hand, the image processing unit 401 sets a window of, for example, 5 × 5 pixels centered on the address of interest, and stores the image data contained in the window in the image memory 30.
1 and read from the flag memory 302. Then, with reference to the flag reference table 402, the number of output lines and the edge emphasis amount are switched for each pixel of the 5 × 5 pixel window according to the control flag read from the flag memory 302. Therefore, it is possible to obtain the output image data 501 in which the image data read from the image memory 301 is adaptively subjected to the image processing according to the control flag.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the relationship between commands and control flags, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the relationship between control flags and image processing. These tables are stored in the command reference table 204 and the flag reference table 402, respectively.

For example, a control flag "0" indicating 200 lines and no edge emphasis is given to the above-mentioned page command and nop command indicating non-operation. Similarly, pri described above
The mage command has 200 lines, "1" indicating the print image filter, the cgimage command has 200 lines and the weak edge enhancement "2" has the ch_string command and the line command for forming the line drawing described above. , The rectangle command is given 400 lines, and “3” indicating no edge enhancement is given, and the mapimage command for forming a map image is given 400 lines and “4” indicating a map filter, respectively.

Note that these tables may be supplied from the outside via a storage medium such as an FD. In that case, the table read from the storage medium is stored in the RAM of the PDL analysis unit 201 and the image processing unit 401 or the like for reference.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an example of the hardware configuration of the image processing apparatus of this embodiment. PDL analysis unit 201
The ROM 12 pre-stores programs and data including a PDL analysis program, a command reference table, font data, and the like. The CPU 11 uses the RAM 13 as a work memory according to the program stored in the ROM 12 to execute the PDL described above.
The processing of the analysis unit 201 is executed.

Further, the bus 14 exchanges data between the CPU 11, the ROM 12, and the RAM 13, inputs PDL data, outputs image data between the PDL analysis unit 201 and the image processing unit 401, and the image memory 301 and the flag memory 302. It is used to exchange control flags.

In the above description, an example in which only the control flag stored in the flag memory 302 is used as an index for image processing has been described. However, one image is divided into a plurality of areas by referring to the generated image data, By outputting the flag data corresponding to the area, these two flags can be combined and used as an index for image processing. In this way, optimum image processing can be realized in both global processing and local processing.

In the above description, an image with 256 shades of gray is described as an example, but when processing a full-color image, the image memory 301 and the flag memory 302 are prepared by the number of color channels (the number of color components). However, the above-described processing may be performed for each channel. Therefore, the present embodiment can be easily extended to full-color image processing.

As described above, according to this embodiment, since the control signal for image processing is generated by referring to the command of the image data described by PDL, it is possible to accurately determine the type of image. Therefore, the generated image data can be subjected to appropriate image processing.

[0031]

[Other Embodiments] Even if the present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), an apparatus (for example, a copying machine) Machine, facsimile machine, etc.).

Another object of the present invention is to supply a storage medium storing a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiment to a system or apparatus, and to supply the computer (or CPU or M or M) of the system or apparatus.
Needless to say, this can also be achieved by the PU) reading and executing the program code stored in the storage medium. In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium implements the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention. Examples of the storage medium for supplying the program code include a floppy disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM,
CD-R, magnetic tape, non-volatile memory card, ROM, etc. can be used.

Further, by executing the program code read by the computer, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (operating system) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. It is needless to say that this also includes a case where the above) performs a part or all of the actual processing and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written in the memory provided in the function expansion card inserted into the computer or the function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instruction of the program code, It goes without saying that a case where the CPU included in the function expansion card or the function expansion unit performs some or all of the actual processing and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments is also included.

When the present invention is applied to the above-mentioned storage medium, the storage medium stores the program code corresponding to the above-mentioned flowchart. Briefly, the memory map example of FIG. Each module shown will be stored in the storage medium. That is, at least the program code of each module of “image data generation”, “image type determination” and “flag data generation” may be stored in the storage medium.

[0036]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to provide an image processing apparatus and a method for performing appropriate image processing on image data based on a page description language.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating processing of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention,

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of image data described in PDL,

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of an image generated from image data described in PDL,

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the relationship between commands and control flags;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the relationship between control flags and image processing;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration example of an image processing apparatus,

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a memory map of a storage medium storing a program code according to the present invention.

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. A conversion means for inputting a command described in a page description language and converting it into image data, and a determination means for determining a characteristic of the image data and outputting the determination result as a flag of a plurality of bits. An image processing apparatus having. 2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit determines a characteristic of image data from a command of the page description language. 3. A conversion means for inputting a command described in a page description language and converting it into image data, and a generation means for referring to the command and generating a flag of a plurality of bits corresponding to a processing method of the image data. And an image data obtained by the conversion means and a storage means for storing the flag obtained by the generation means in association with each other. 4. The generating means determines a characteristic of image data from a command of the page description language, and generates a flag according to the determination result by referring to a characteristic information table. The image processing device described in. 5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising: referring to a predetermined processing information table to execute image processing according to the flag. 6. The image processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the processing unit executes image processing of a halftone processing condition and an edge processing condition according to the flag. 7. A conversion step of inputting a command described in a page description language and converting it into image data, a determination step of determining a characteristic of the image data, and a determination result obtained in the determination step having a plurality of bits. And an output step of outputting as a flag of the image processing method. 8. A conversion step of inputting a command described in a page description language and converting it into image data, and a generating step of referring to the command and generating a flag of a plurality of bits corresponding to a processing method of the image data. And a storage step of storing the image data obtained in the conversion step and the flag obtained in the generation step in a storage unit in association with each other. 9. A computer-readable memory in which a program code for image processing is stored, wherein a conversion step code for inputting a command described in a page description language and converting the command into image data, and characteristics of the image data A computer-readable memory comprising: a code of a determination step of determination and a code of an output step of outputting the determination result obtained in the determination step as a flag of a plurality of bits. 10. A computer-readable memory in which a program code for image processing is stored, and a conversion step code for inputting a command described in a page description language and converting the command into image data, and referring to the command. , A code of a generating step for generating a flag of a plurality of bits corresponding to a method of processing the image data, the image data obtained in the converting step, and the flag obtained in the generating step are stored in the storage means in association with each other. A computer readable memory having the code of a storing step for storing.