JPH10208020A - Image processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image processor which efficiently performs editing processing of image parts. SOLUTION: An image part separating part 10 interprets a page description language and separates image parts from page data. An image part data generating part 20 adds an attribute to image part data and generates image part data. A page image part data generating part 30 collects image part data into one job unit and generates page image part data. A preserving and controlling part 40 adds management information to the page image part data and preserves it in a storage device 50. A page image part data fetching part 60 designates the management information and fetches the page image part data from the device 50. An editing control part 70 edits the fetched page image part data and generates an editing page. A display control part 80 shows the fetched page image part data or the editing page on a display device 80a. An editing page print outputting part 90 outputs the editing page to a printer 90a.

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 for performing image processing on page data described in a page description language.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art DTP (DeskTop Publishing) for creating a publication using a small computer such as a personal computer or a workstation is being widely used. With DTP, input of characters, editing of sentences, page layout, and the like can be performed by a single small computer.

In such a DTP, a page image, which is a bitmap image in page units, is created in a page description language and stored in a storage device to perform processing such as printout.

For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 5-224846, there is a method in which a search code is added to a rasterized page image from print information and stored in a storage device, and the page image is displayed on a display.

[0005]

However, in the above-described prior art, since only the stored page image is displayed, the user cannot perform image editing such as imposition and replacement of image parts on the display. There was such a problem.

[0006] Further, even in the conventional DTP, there is a problem that the recognition of the image parts is sparse, and the editing thereof cannot be performed. The present invention has been made in view of such a point, and an object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus that efficiently performs editing processing of an image component.

[0007]

According to the present invention, there is provided an image processing apparatus for performing image processing of page data described in a page description language. An image parts separation unit that separates the image parts into image parts, an image parts data generation unit that generates image part data by adding print instruction information obtained by interpreting the page description language as an attribute for each image part,
A page image component data generation unit that generates the page image component data by grouping the image component data in one job unit, a storage control unit that adds management information to the page image component data and stores the page image component data in a storage device, A page image component data extracting unit that specifies the management information and retrieves the page image component data from the storage device, an editing control unit that edits the extracted page image component data and generates an edited page, An image processing apparatus comprising: a display control unit that displays page image component data or the edit page on a display device; and an edit page print output unit that outputs the edit page to a printing device. .

Here, the image part separation unit separates page data into image parts by interpreting the page description language. The image component data generation unit generates image component data by adding print instruction information obtained by interpreting the page description language as an attribute for each image component. The page image component data generation unit generates the page image component data by combining the image component data in one job unit. The storage control unit adds management information to the page image component data and stores the data in the storage device. The page image part data extracting unit extracts the page image part data from the storage device by designating the management information. The edit control unit edits the extracted page image component data,
Generate an edit page. The display control unit displays the extracted page image component data or the edited page on a display device. The edit page print output unit outputs the edit page to the printing device.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the principle of an image processing apparatus according to the present invention. The image part separating unit 10 separates page data into image parts by interpreting a page description language. The image component data generation unit 20 generates image component data by adding print instruction information obtained by interpreting the page description language as an attribute for each image component.

[0010] The page image part data generation unit 30 generates page image part data by combining image part data in one job unit. The storage control unit 40 adds management information to the page image component data and stores the data in the storage device 50. The page image component data extracting unit 60 extracts page image component data from the storage device 50 by designating management information.

The edit control unit 70 edits the extracted page image component data to generate an edit page. The display control unit 80 displays the extracted page image component data or the edited page on the display device 80a. The edit page print output unit 90 outputs the edit page to the printing device 90a.

Next, the operation will be described. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a schematic operation procedure of the image processing apparatus of the present invention. [S1] The image part separating unit 10 separates page data into image parts by interpreting a page description language. [S2] The image part data generation unit 20 generates image part data by adding print instruction information obtained by interpreting the page description language as an attribute for each image part. [S3] The page image part data generation unit 30 generates the page image part data by combining the image part data for each job. [S4] The storage control unit 40 adds management information to the page image component data and stores it in the storage device 50. [S5] The page image component data extracting section 60 specifies management information and extracts page image component data from the storage device 50. [S6] The edit control unit 70 edits the extracted page image component data to generate an edit page. [S7] The display control unit 80 displays the extracted page image component data or the edited page on the display device 80a. [S8] The edited page print output unit 90 outputs the edited page to the printing device 90a.

Next, page data will be described. FIG.
Is a conceptual diagram showing page data. The page data in the figure is composed of a photographic image, character portions 1 to 3, and figures. Also, the X axis is set to the right and the Y axis is set to the lower direction with the upper left corner as the coordinate origin.

Next, the image part data will be described. FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram showing image part data. In the image part data 20a, attributes as shown in the figure are added to the image parts. The data tag is a tag indicating whether the image component is a figure, a character, or a photographic image.

The coordinates and size are the coordinates of the upper left corner of the bounding box of the figure part, and the X-axis and Y-axis of the rectangular area.
The width in the axial direction. All of these units depend on the printer as the output device.

The hierarchy holds the number of appearance of this drawing part by the drawing operator. P
An operator described in a DL (page description language) file has a property that an operator that appears later has a higher priority than an operator that appears earlier than the operator, so that the order in which the drawing operators appear is stored. By doing so, it is possible to express the hierarchical structure of figures and the like drawn in the page.

The color information is a CMYK color depending on an output device on which the graphic is to be drawn, or an address (offset) to a photographic image. A box is a set of boxes depending on an output device in an area where the part is to be drawn.

Next, the page image part data will be described. FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram showing page image component data.
The page image part data 30a includes Page1 to Page
N. In the figure, PageN includes image component data 1 to 4. Further, the management information 40a is JobI
D, a document name, a date, a time, and the number of pages.

Next, a detailed configuration of the image processing apparatus of the present invention will be described. FIG. 6 is a detailed configuration diagram of the image processing apparatus. The PDL interpreter 11 interprets PDL data input via a network. The image part separating unit 12 is configured to execute the processing based on the interpretation result of the PDL data.
Separation of graphic parts such as figures, characters and photographic images. The image part data generating means 21 generates image part data by adding coordinates, size, color, and hierarchical information, which are print instruction information, to these image parts as attributes.

The page image part data generation means 31 generates page image part data by combining image part data in one job. The storage control unit 41 adds management information to the page image component data and stores it in a file system existing locally or on a network. In the figure, it is stored in the local file system 51.

The input receiving means 100 is provided when the user
01 and a command input through a pointing device such as a keyboard 102 are notified to the page image component data extracting means 61 or the editing control means 71. The page image component data extracting means 61 extracts page image component data specified by the user from the file system 51.

The editing control means 71 performs editing specified by the user. Details of the editing control will be described later. The display control means 81 displays the page specified by the user and the editing result on the display 8 based on the page image component data.
0b. The edited page print output unit 91 converts the edited page image component data into a format that can be output by the full-color printer 90b according to the user's instruction, and transmits the converted data.

Next, an operation from generation of page data to generation of page image component data will be described with reference to a flowchart. FIGS. 7, 8 and 9 are flowcharts showing the operation procedure up to generation of page image component data from page data. [S10] The PDL interpreter 11 receives page data described in PDL as one job from a client on the network. [S11] The PDL interpreter 11 secures a storage area for a photographic image and a storage area for a character mask depending on a printer, which is an output device corresponding to the size of a page to be interpreted, as a preparation for interpreting the PDL. [S12] The PDL interpreter 11 interprets the PDL operator. [S13] The PDL interpreter 11 determines whether the PDL operator is a drawing command. If it is a drawing command, the process proceeds to step S14; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S26. [S14] The PDL interpreter 11 increments a counter (hierarchical data) holding the hierarchical structure. [S15] When interpreting the PDL, the PDL interpreter 11 saves information on the currently designated color and clip information. This stores the color of the figure or the like to be drawn in the future. The clip area indicates an area to be displayed. [S16] The image part separating means 12 separates the image part from the page data. If the image part is a character, the procedure goes to step S17, if it is a figure, to step S19, and if it is a photographic image, the procedure goes to step S21. [S17] The image component data generating means 21 extracts the coordinates and size of the bounding box of the character. [S18] The image component data generation unit 21 transfers the character mask to the mask area. [S19] The image component data generating means 21 extracts the coordinates and size of the bounding box of the figure. [S20] The image component data generation means 21 stores the box data. [S21] The image component data generation means 21 extracts the coordinates and size of the bounding box of the photographic image. [S22] The image component data generation means 21 transfers the photographic image to the image data area. [S23] The image part data generating means 21 generates image part data by adding an attribute consisting of a tag, coordinates, size, color information and hierarchical information to each image part.

[S24] The page image part data generating means 31 inserts the image part data into the part area. For example, in the case of a character, the address (offset) to the character mask data area, the upper left coordinate of the bounding box of the character, the size, the color information, and the hierarchical data are inserted into the component area as one piece of image component data. .

In the case of a figure, a set of box structures corresponding to the output device of the figure drawn so far, coordinates of the upper left corner of the bounding box depending on the output device of the figure, size, and color information Is inserted into the component area as one image component data together with the hierarchical data.

Further, in the case of a photographic image, an address (offset) to the photographic image is used as color information, coordinates of an upper left corner of a bounding box of the photographic image, size, hierarchical data, and box data in which the image is drawn. At the same time, it is inserted into the component area as one image component data. [S25] The page image component data generating means 31 sorts the component regions in ascending order in both the X-axis and Y-axis directions. [S26] The page image component data generating means 31 determines whether the page data has been completed. If the processing has ended, the process returns to step S27; otherwise, the process returns to step S12. [S27] When recognizing the end of the page data, the page image part data generating means 31 adds Pa to this page data.
geID is added and temporarily stored. [S28] The PDL interpreter 11 confirms the end of the job. If the processing has been completed, the process proceeds to step S30. If not, the process proceeds to step S29. [S29] The PDL interpreter 11 retrieves the next page data. Then, the process returns to step S12. [S30] The storage control unit 41 adds the Job ID, the document name, the date, the time, and the number of pages as job management information, and stores the job management information in the file system 51.

Next, the operation from editing the page image component data to printing will be described with reference to a flowchart. FIG. 10 and FIG. 11 are flowcharts showing the operation procedure until the page image component data is edited and printed. [S40] The user specifies JobID and PageID. [S41] The page image component data retrieving means 61
The page image part data is extracted from the file system 51 based on the JobID and the PageID. [S42] The user specifies whether to display the page image component data on the display 80b. If it is to be displayed, go to step S43; otherwise, go to step S44. [S43] The display control means 81 displays the designated page image component data. [S44] The page image part data extracting means 61
It is determined whether there is any other page image component data to be extracted. If there is, the process returns to step S40; otherwise, the process proceeds to step S45. [S45] The user selects an editing function. [S46] The editing control means 71 performs editing according to a user's instruction. [S47] The editing control means 71 determines whether the editing has been completed. If the processing has been completed, the process returns to step S48; otherwise, the process returns to step S40. [S48] The edit page printout unit 91 determines whether to perform printing. If printing is performed, step S49
If not, go to step S52. [S49] The edited page printout unit 91 converts the edited page, which has been edited, into printable data. [S50] The edit page printout unit 91 transfers printable data to the full color printer 90b. [S51] The full-color printer 90b executes printing. [S52] The editing control means 71 determines whether to save the page image component data again. If so, the process proceeds to step S53. If not, the process ends. [S53] The save control unit 41 adds the new JobID and P
Create an ageID. [S54] The save control unit 41 adds new JobID and PageID to the page image component data and saves the page image component data in the file system 51.

Next, the imposition processing which is the editing of the page image component data will be described. The imposition processing is, for example, A4
The processing includes combining two pages of the size to create one page of the A3 size, and creating four pages of the A4 size to create an A2 size page. Such processing can be easily realized using page image component data.

The user specifies the imposition operation and the size after imposition. If the pages necessary for imposition are not available, JobID and PageID are designated, and the necessary pages are extracted. Depending on the direction of the page, there may be cases where the page needs to be rotated. In this case, the user specifies the page that needs to be rotated and its angle. When the rotation is specified, all the image part data existing in the page image part data are rotated with respect to the raster data of the photographic image area and the character mask data of the character mask area that are connected to the coordinate system and the image part data. Is performed.

In this case, the coordinates of all the image component data are adjusted so that the origin is always at the upper left of the page. Next, the user instructs the layout of the page. Since the imposition operation always creates one new one-page data by combining two, four, and eight pages of the same size, in this layout, the length of the paper size corresponds to the coordinates of the image part data in the page image part data. Alternatively, the layout is completed only by adding the lengths in the short direction.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an imposition process of page image component data. Page1 of A4 and Page of A4
e2, each of which is composed of a photographic image, characters, and graphics. Then, as shown in FIG.
1 and Page 2 of A4 are rotated and combined by 90 degrees to create a page of A3.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart showing the operation procedure of the user when performing the imposition processing of the page image part data. [S60] It is determined whether to perform an imposition operation. If so, go to step S61; otherwise, go to return. [S61] The size after imposition is specified. [S62] It is determined whether the required pages are available. If not, the procedure goes to step S63, and if so, the procedure goes to step S65. [S63] JobID and PageID are specified. [S64] The page image component data is extracted. [S65] It is determined whether rotation is necessary. If necessary, go to step S66; otherwise, go to step S67.
Go to [S66] The angle of the page that needs to be rotated is specified. [S67] The page layout is specified. [S68] Rotation and translation operations are performed on the page image component data. Then, return.

Next, an exchange process for editing image part data will be described. The image part data in the page image part data holds coordinates and hierarchical data. As for image parts having the same coordinates and size, an image part having a large hierarchical data appears on the surface. By utilizing this property, the exchange of image part data can be easily realized.

The user specifies the JobID and PageID of the page image component data including the image component data to be exchanged with the original page image component data, and takes out the same from the file system. The replacement image part data must have a size larger than the size of the image part data to be replaced singly or in combination. The user sets the coordinates of the replacement image part data in the original image so as to make the coordinates of the replacement image part data equal to the coordinates of the replacement image part data or to set the coordinates so as to cover the bounding box of the non-replacement image part data.

Further, a value obtained by adding 1 to the hierarchical data of the non-exchanged image part data is set as the hierarchical data of the exchanged image part data, and inserted into the page image part data of the original image. At this time, sorting is performed so that both the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction are in ascending order based on the coordinates.

Thereafter, when an instruction is given to print the edited page image component data, it is converted into printable data and transmitted to the printer. FIG. 14 is a diagram showing an image part data exchange process. The original page image part data 71a includes a photographic image 71a-1 and a graphic character ABC71a-2.
Consists of The replacement page image component data 71b includes a graphic character XYZ 71b-1.

First, the user designates graphic character ABC71a-2 and graphic character XYZ71b-1 which are image part data to be exchanged. Editing control means 71
Sets these coordinates and inserts the graphic character XYZ 71b-1 into the original image page image component data 71a. Then, the replaced page image component data 71c including the graphic character XYZ 71b-1 is completed.

FIGS. 15 and 16 are flowcharts showing the operation procedure of the user when performing the image part data exchange processing. [S70] It is determined whether or not the image component data is to be exchanged. If it is to be replaced, the process returns to step S71. [S71] It is determined whether necessary pages are available. If not, the process proceeds to step S72, and if so, the process proceeds to step S74. [S72] JobID and PageID are specified. [S73] The page image part data is extracted. [S74] Replaced image part data in the original image is designated. [S75] Replacement image part data is designated. [S76] It is determined whether or not the replacement image part data has a larger size than the replacement image part. If it is larger, the process returns to step S77; otherwise, the process returns. [S77] The coordinates of the replacement image part and the hierarchical data are updated. [S78] The replacement image part data is inserted into the page image part data of the original image. [S79] The page image part data of the original image is sorted. [S80] It is determined whether the editing of this page is completed. If the process is completed, the process returns. If not, the process proceeds to step S71.

As described above, the image processing apparatus of the present invention separates image part data from page data and generates page image part data by adding coordinates, size, color, and hierarchical information as attributes. The configuration was adopted. Thereby, since all the image component data included in the page data is extracted, editing and composition can be easily performed. Further, since the extracted image component data is sorted in the ascending order of the coordinates, the composition can be performed efficiently.

Further, since the save control means 41 saves all page image component data, it can be converted into various printable formats. Further, since the data is stored as a file, the data can be stored for a long period of time, so that it is possible to easily combine the image components created before.

Next, a modification of the present invention will be described. The modified example of the present invention has a configuration in which page image component data is compressed and decompressed and stored or retrieved in a storage device. For example, the storage control unit 41 applies lossless compression to each page image component data in one
D and the tag of the algorithm that performed the compression are added. The compressed page image component data is stored in the file system 51 as one job.

The page image part data extracting means 61 extracts page image part data from the file system 51 based on the specified Job ID and Page ID. At this time, the page image part data extracting means 61 refers to the tag of the compression algorithm and uses the algorithm. The page image component data is decompressed and transferred to the editing control means 71.

As described above, the modification of the present invention has a configuration in which page image component data is compressed, stored in the file system 51, decompressed, and extracted. This makes it possible to reduce the amount of page image component data.

[0044]

As described above, the image processing apparatus of the present invention is configured to generate and edit page image component data from page data. This makes it possible to efficiently perform editing operations such as imposition and image component replacement.

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a schematic operation procedure of the image processing apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram showing page data.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram showing image part data.

FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram showing page image component data.

FIG. 6 is a detailed configuration diagram of the image processing apparatus.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure until page image component data is generated from page data (part 1).

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure until page image component data is generated from page data (part 2).

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure until page image component data is generated from page data (part 3).

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure from editing page image component data to printing (part 1).

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure from editing page image component data to printing (part 2).

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an imposition process of page image component data.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure of a user when performing imposition processing of page image component data.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an image part data exchange process.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure of a user when performing an image component data exchange process (part 1).

FIG. 16 is a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure of a user when performing an image component data exchange process (part 2).

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 10 image component separation unit 20 image component data generation unit 30 page image component data generation unit 40 storage control unit 50 storage device 60 page image component data extraction unit 70 edit control unit 80 display control unit 80a display device 90 edit page print output unit 90a Printing equipment

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An image processing apparatus for performing image processing on page data described in a page description language, comprising: an image component separation unit configured to interpret the page description language and separate the page data into image components; An image part data generation unit for generating image part data by adding print instruction information obtained by interpreting a language as an attribute to each image part, and a page image part data by combining the image part data in one job unit A storage unit that adds management information to the page image component data and stores the page image component data in a storage device; and stores the page image component data from the storage device by specifying the management information. A page image part data take-out unit to be taken out, and edit control for editing the taken-out page image part data and generating an edit page A display control unit that displays the extracted page image component data or the edited page on a display device; and an edited page print output unit that outputs the edited page to a printing device. Processing equipment. 2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the editing control unit performs imposition processing and exchange of the image component data using the attribute added to the image component data as editing of the page image component data. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: 3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the storage control unit compresses the page image component data and stores the data in the storage device. 4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the page image component data extracting unit expands the page image component data and extracts the data from the storage device.