JPH11339002A - Image processor and information recording medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To surely preserve a transparent part and also to simplify processing by overlapping a transfer source image of the original plotting image on an image for transparency of transparent color data after independently decoding respective data of the transfer source image and the image for transparency and performing mask processing of a transparent color. SOLUTION: A transfer destination image 53 which is plotted at a prescribed part of a movie screen 51 is not an original plotting image but actually the one obtd. by docking the original plotting image and a transparent mask image 56 that becomes transparent color data. The original plotting image is what is expanded after a transfer rectangular image 55 is compressed and is stored in a memory. The transparent color data also becomes a transparent mask image and is formed by such a manner that a transfer rectangular image 56 is compressed and stored in the memory and then expanded. Even data in which an image is irreversibly compressed can surely keep a transparent color by forming the transparent rectangular image 56 in this way. Also, when image data and transparent color data are separated and compressed, processing is made simple and compression efficiency is improved.

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 an information recording medium suitable for use in an animation called sprite or cast in accordance with a scenario.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a method of displaying an animation, there are a frame-based animation and a sprite-based animation. Frame-based animation is a method of displaying pictures one by one like a so-called picture-story show. When creating each picture takes time and effort, the frames are displayed in order. And the load during playback is light.

On the other hand, in sprite-based animation, one picture (frame) is divided into a plurality of sprites (casts), for example, a moving character such as a hero character, a cloud, and a car, and each sprite is arranged in accordance with a predetermined scenario. To operate. This sprite-based animation has the advantage that it is easier to create each frame, and the memory size is smaller overall because multiple frame images share a sprite. . But,
In the sprite-based animation, it is necessary to move each sprite according to a scenario at the time of reproduction, and a heavy load is imposed on a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as a CPU) that executes a drawing process and a sprite combination process. I have.

[0004] In addition, a conventional sprite-based animation is known in which when a sprite is attached to a sketch, a transparency process is performed to make a part of the sprite transparent and display the sketch as it is. Also known is a blending process for blending the colors of both the sketch and the sprite at a predetermined ratio. These transparent processing and blending processing are often performed together with other processing, for example, enlargement / reduction processing. Further, each of these processes imposes a heavy load on the CPU, and the processing speed tends to be slow. Also,
In the transparent color processing, if some pixels are not transparent due to a conversion error but become transparent, the reproduced image becomes dirty. Therefore, this transparent color processing needs to be perfect.

On the other hand, as a technique for executing a transparent color, a technique of superimposing character data in an arbitrary context using transparent color processing (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 1-1).
42992) and a technique for reducing the memory capacity by reducing the number of bits representing the degree of transparency (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-162214).
It has been known. Further, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-190465, there is known a technique of devising a calculation or the like when overlapping a mask pattern with transparency defined, simplifying a drawing program, and increasing a drawing speed.

Further, as an image processing apparatus for performing high-speed processing without imposing a load on CPU power, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-63609 is disclosed.
The technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H10-209686 is known. In this technique, a figure formed by painting in a predetermined pattern is overwritten on a predetermined pixel position of a storage device in which a sketch is stored.

[0007]

A conventional image processing apparatus for playing back sprite-based animations can cope with the load of image processing by increasing the CPU power and the mounted memory. 8-6360
This is supported by an overwriting method as in the technology of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-90. However, when coping with an increase in CPU power, the animation becomes extremely complicated, for example, when a three-dimensional image is formed, or when various complicated processes are performed, a very expensive CPU or a high-capacity memory is required, and the device becomes extremely difficult. It will be expensive. Also, JP-A-8-63609
It is difficult to cope with various complicated processes at high speed only by using the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H11-163,036.

Although the transparent color processing is employed in various technologies as described above, when the compression / decompression is irreversible,
The idea of preserving the transparent part is not enough. In other words, the transparent color plane is kept, or the transparent color is allowed to be slightly mixed in the non-transparent part. This places too much load on the CPU or makes the image dirty.

On the other hand, recently, display devices which are portable and are handled by so-called amateurs, such as products called network displays, have begun to be adopted in convenience stores and the like. This kind of portable device which is easy to operate and is used by many people is required to keep its price down. On the other hand, although the price is kept low, the display speed is required to be equal to or higher than usual.

In the conventional sprite-based animation blending process, even when only a part of a sprite or a frame is required for image display, the entire image is blended and the necessary portion is transferred to a VRAM. . For this reason, in the case where the entire image is 1,000 × 1,000 dots, even when the portion required for display is 10 × 10 dots, the image portion of 1,000 × 1,000 dots is blended. For this reason, the blending process that places a load on the CPU becomes even heavier.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems. In transparent color processing in the case of irreversible compression, transparent parts are reliably preserved and the processing is simple. It is an object of the present invention to provide an image processing apparatus and a computer-readable information recording medium in which a load is not applied to a CPU or the like.

[0012]

In order to achieve the above object, in the image processing apparatus according to the present invention, an image decoding means for expanding image data obtained by compressing an image, and the decoded data are displayed on a display unit. In an image processing apparatus having display processing means for performing display processing, the image decoding means decodes respective data of a transfer source image composed of an original drawing image and a transparent image composed of transparent color data, The display processing means performs a transparent mask process by overlapping them.

As described above, since the mask processing of the transparent color is performed using the independent data of the transparent color, the transparent color can be reliably preserved even when the image is irreversibly compressed. Also, since the processing is simple and the compression efficiency is good at the time of image compression, the memory capacity can be reduced and the expansion speed is high even when this data is expanded.

[0014] According to the second aspect of the present invention, the first aspect is provided.
In the described image processing apparatus, a color defined as a transparent color is replaced with another color from an original drawing image obtained by expanding a transfer source image.

As described above, even when an unintended transparent color appears during processing such as compression / expansion, the transparent color is definitely made non-transparent, so that the image is not disturbed or stained. .

According to the third aspect of the present invention, in the image processing apparatus according to the first or second aspect, in the original drawing image obtained by expanding the transfer source image, a portion defined as transparent by the transparent color data is replaced by Replaced with a color defined as transparent.

As described above, since the transparent color data is independent and the transparent color portion is assigned to a predetermined color by using the data, the transparent color is reliably stored. In particular, even when irreversible compression is performed in image compression, transparent colors can be reliably preserved, which is preferable.

In addition, according to the present invention, in the image processing apparatus for superimposing a plurality of natural images by a display processing means for performing image display processing,
A specific color in a natural image is defined as a transparent color so as to be superimposed.

According to the present invention, it is not necessary to separately provide a transparent color plane for an expanded image, which is advantageous in terms of memory capacity and CPU power. In addition, a transparent color can be provided only by removing about one color from the conventional color, and an image of an arbitrary shape can be easily superimposed.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, in the fourth aspect,
In the image processing apparatus described above, a color defined as a transparent color is arbitrarily set by the image processing.

In the present invention, since the transparent color is arbitrarily set, it is possible to appropriately set a color that matches the characteristics of the image as the transparent color. For this reason, even if there is a slight mistake in the transparent color conversion, it is possible to prevent the image from being affected.

Further, in the invention according to claim 6, in the image processing apparatus according to claim 4, the color defined as the transparent color is white.

As described above, since the transparent color is the white color in the natural image, even if the color disappears, it has little effect on human vision. In addition, even if the whitest color disappears in human vision, there are other white colors,
It was confirmed that there was almost no visual effect. On the other hand, it has been experimentally confirmed that eliminating one black color is visually more problematic than white. If the white color is made a transparent color, the white color is usually placed at the uppermost position in the register, so that it is easy for system processing.

In addition, in the invention according to claim 7, in the image processing apparatus according to claim 4, 5 or 6, a blending process for blending the colors of a plurality of images at a predetermined ratio is provided. The color defined as transparent is replaced with another color.

There is a possibility that the same color as the conventionally defined transparent color will be formed by the blending process. In the present invention, such an unnecessary transparent color is replaced with another color, so that an unnatural color does not occur in a part of the image.

Further, in the information recording medium according to claim 8,
An image decoding step of decompressing the compressed image data; and a display processing step of performing display processing for displaying the decoded data on a display unit. The image decoding step includes a transfer source image composed of an original drawing image. And decoding each data of a transparent image composed of transparent color data, and the display processing step has a step of masking a transparent color by overlapping data of both images, The program for executing the steps is recorded.

If the program on the information recording medium is read and executed by a computer, it is possible to reliably store a transparent color even if the data is irreversibly image-compressed. Also, since the processing is simple and the compression efficiency is good at the time of image compression, the memory capacity can be reduced and the expansion speed is high even when this data is expanded.

Further, according to the ninth aspect of the present invention, in the information recording medium according to the eighth aspect, there is provided a step of replacing a color defined as a transparent color with another color from the original drawing image obtained by expanding the transfer source image. I have.

As described above, even when an unintended transparent color appears during processing such as compression and decompression, the transparent color is surely made a non-transparent color, so that the image is not disturbed or stained.

In addition, according to the tenth aspect of the present invention, in the information recording medium according to the eighth or ninth aspect, a portion defined as transparent by the transparent color data in the original drawing image obtained by expanding the transfer source image. , A step of replacing with a color defined as a transparent color.

As described above, since the transparent color data is independent and the data is used to allocate the transparent color portion to a predetermined color, the transparent color is reliably stored. In particular, even when irreversible compression is performed in image compression, a transparent color can be surely preserved, which is preferable.

[0032]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. The image processing apparatus according to this embodiment is a local area network LA
It is incorporated in a network display 1 connected to the Internet 2 serving as a network via N3. This network display 1
It is connected to the Internet 2 via a LAN 3, a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as a personal computer) 4 serving as a host for connection to the outside, an ISDN 5 which is a digital public line network, and a host computer (hereinafter referred to as a WWW server) 6 of a provider.

This WWW server 6 has a URL (Uniform
Resource Locator), but usually http
(Http) is displayed using (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol). For this reason, it also functions as an HTTP server. The network display 1 also serves as a television monitor that can receive television broadcasts from the television station 8.

[0034] Other WWW servers 6a and 6b are connected to the Internet 2. Also, the WWW server 6 has:
A server computer 7 serving as a server, a personal computer 4a, and the like are connected via another LAN 3a and the like, and a display 7a is connected to the server computer 7. Note that L
AN3 has other network displays 1a, 1b.
And a personal computer 4b are connected.

Here, as the device into which the image processing device is incorporated, in addition to the network displays 1, 1a, 1b also serving as a part of the display means, the personal computers 4, 4a, 4b
Alternatively, the server computer 7 and the display 7a may be applied. Also, the connection between the ISDN 5 and the personal computer 4,
For connection between the SDN 5 and the LAN 3a, a DSU (Digital Service Unit), a terminal adapter, a modem,
A means for connecting to a network such as an IP router is used.

Network display 1, 1a, 1b
(Hereafter, network display 1
2), as shown in FIG. 2, a display unit 11 made of a liquid crystal at the center, an operation unit 12 arranged around the display unit 11, a speaker unit 13 for outputting sound, a specific web page. It is mainly composed of a magnetic card reader unit 14 for reading a magnetic card that can be accessed to read the address and reading other magnetic cards, and a connection unit 15 connected to a power supply line or the personal computer 4 as a host. .

The left and right operation units 12 of the display unit 11
0, there are ten types of menu buttons 12, and each of these buttons 12a
The corresponding operation menu is displayed on the display unit 11 close to. For example, various animations stored in the personal computer 4 are selected by their numbers. That is, when the first menu button 12a is pressed, 1
Make the number animation play. Various operation buttons 12b for accessing a homepage on the Internet are arranged below the display unit 11. An instruction operation unit 12c for moving the operation arrow on the screen up, down, left and right near the magnetic card reader unit 14.
Is provided.

The circuit configuration of such a network display 1 is as follows. That is, as shown in FIG.
(Liquid crystal) display unit 11 and C serving as arithmetic processing means
PU (= central processing unit) 21, dedicated graphics LSI 22 as display processing means, ROM and RAM for storing sprite data, scenario data, and the like
And external information source 2 such as personal computer 4
4 to the CPU 21 or the CPU 21
Data transmission / reception circuit 25 for transmitting instructions from PC to personal computer 4
And the VRA connected to the dedicated graphics LSI 22
M (video ram) 26, external amplifier and speaker unit 1
3 mainly includes a sound circuit 27 for supplying a sound to the display unit 3, a display control unit 28 for driving and controlling the display unit 11, and a peripheral device control unit 29.

The CPU 21, the dedicated graphics LSI 22, the memory 23, and the data transmitting / receiving circuit 25
And the peripheral device control unit 29 are connected by a high-speed host bus 30. Also, in the sound circuit 27,
A microphone input terminal 31 is connected, and external sound can be input. The display control unit 28 includes a first drive control unit 28a for driving the MIM-type liquid crystal, a second drive control unit 28b for displaying the analog-processed RGB values on the TFT-type liquid crystal, and digitally processed data. RGB value to TFT
Drive control unit 28c for displaying with a liquid crystal of the
A fourth drive control unit 28d for driving the RT,
It can correspond to a plurality of display objects. In this embodiment, the third drive control unit 28c is used.

The peripheral device control unit 29 includes the operation unit 12,
A magnetic card reader unit 14 is connected to receive data input therefrom. Further, the peripheral device control unit 29 includes an LED display unit 16 provided in the network display 1, for example, a power supply
N, OFF display (POWER display), display of ready state (READY display), display of busy processing (BUSY display) are connected, and each display is possible. Also, a flash memory 1 composed of an EEPROM
7 can be connected. An image / sound decoding unit 18 can be appropriately incorporated in the network display 1 as necessary, and can reproduce data in a retrofit memory 19 containing a predetermined background image or animation.

The external information source 24 is located outside the network display 1 and controls the display contents of the network display 1 on a large scale.
In the memory 23, the CPU 21 fetches specific data from a web browser or a display program, receives a program for controlling display, and receives a command from the external information source 24, and switches a display flow or issues an instruction. And a program for performing a process of displaying the specified specific image at the specified specific position.

Here, the dedicated graphics LSI 22
Is controlled by the CPU 21 to control the sequence between the screens. On the other hand, the display of a series of images and sprites in each screen is performed by looking at the scenarios and data in the memory 23 and based on the scenarios and data. A series of movements of the sprite and the like are controlled. Further, the VRAM 26 can take in two or four screens. The reason why two screens or four screens are used is that one screen or two screens can be used for display and the other screen or two screens can be used for writing. This two-screen or four-screen method eliminates flicker during writing and improves image quality. The sound circuit 27 is a 16-bit, 44.1KH
z, one channel, but other values can be used as appropriate.

The sprite data and the scenario data are installed on the memory 23 of the network display 1 or a hard disk (not shown), or the retrofit memory 19 containing the data is generated and attached to the network display 1. . At the time of installation, distribution is performed by communication using the Internet 2 or another network. Note that the network display 1 has a CD-R
If an information storage medium reading unit such as an OM reading mechanism is provided, data may be installed using an information storage medium such as a CD-ROM.

The structure of the dedicated graphics LSI 22 is as follows.
It is as shown in FIG. That is, the host interface 32 connected to the host bus 30 and the VR
An internal host bus 34 and an internal VRAM bus 35 between the VRAM interface 33 connected to the AM 26;
Is provided. Then, the decoding unit 36 and the image processing unit 3
7 are connected to both buses 34 and 35, respectively. The internal host bus 34 has an audio interface 38
, And a liquid crystal display interface 39 is connected to the internal VRAM bus 35.

The decoding unit 36 includes a natural image decoding function unit,
An index image decoding function unit and a palette RAM for index images are provided. The image processing unit 3
Reference numeral 7 is for performing overwrite processing and the like described later.
The audio interface 38 has various functions such as audio control, audio mixing, and sampling rate change. For mixing, up to three channels of two channels via the host bus 30 and input from an external microphone can be mixed.

The liquid crystal display interface 39 has display control, overwriting control when the retrofit memory 19 is used, and a function of hardware-displaying a cursor on the display (hereinafter referred to as a hardware cursor). ing.
The hardware cursor solves the problem of the software cursor by storing the cursor data in the memory 23 in a divided manner and combining the cursor data with other data. With a software cursor, when displaying a cursor display in a predetermined portion, it is necessary to store the original image at the position of the cursor before attaching the cursor, and to rewrite the original image when the cursor moves. This process imposes a load on the CPU 21. The hardware cursor solves such a problem. The liquid crystal display interface 39 has substantially the same function as that of the display control unit 28. When a display body compatible with the standard function of the liquid crystal display interface 39 is mounted, the display control unit 28 almost does not operate. Free pass.

As shown in FIG. 5, data for controlling each frame 20 in the time axis direction is written in the memory 23. The duration of each frame 20 normally switches at a speed of appearing 25 frames per second, but in this embodiment, it can be changed within a range of 1/10 to 80 seconds. The memory 23 further stores one frame 2
A program for controlling a display position of a sprite (details will be described later) in 0 is written.

The image processing section 37 of the dedicated graphics LSI 22 basically performs an overwriting process.
For example, assuming that the sprite is the characters "A", "B", and "C", first, a program for displaying "A" is executed. This execution is performed by setting various parameters for displaying “A” and then downloading the compressed image data obtained by expanding “A” to the VRAM 26. Similarly, the image data of the characters “B” and “C” is downloaded to the VRAM 26 and overwritten (overwritten) as shown in FIG.

The inside of the image processing section 37 of the dedicated graphics LSI 22 and the processing flow are as shown in FIG. That is, a transparent color extracting process (step S101) is performed on the decoded image (hereinafter referred to as an original drawing image) transmitted from the decoding unit 36. Next, a transparent color replacement process (step S102) for giving the RGB values of the transparent color to the transparent color portion is performed. After that, an enlargement / reduction process (step S103) is performed, and after a transparent color is detected (step S104), a portion to be overwritten on the original image is detected by the overwrite detection unit 41.

Data for clip processing (step S105) and mask processing (step S106) are input to the overwrite detection unit 41, and after these processing are performed, blend processing (step S107) is performed. The processing such as the enlargement / reduction processing S103, the clip processing S105, and the blending processing S107 is not performed unless the processing is specified. The data subjected to the enlargement / reduction processing is input to the multiplexer 42 and docked with the data of the clip processing S105 and the like, and if necessary, the blend processing S1
07 is performed. When the painting function (details will be described later) is ON, the painting process is performed using the data from the color register 43. The data in that case is also subjected to a blending process S107 after that, and is sent to the liquid crystal display interface 39 as a final drawing image.

Next, the display function of the network display 1 will be described. Note that the phrase “sprite” used hereinafter refers to a component of an image in one frame 20 of the animation, and each is represented by a rectangle for the reason described later. For example, [A] [B]
Characters such as "C", pictures such as apples and persimmons, and geometric figures such as triangles and squares correspond to sprites. The “sprite screen” refers to a screen that displays such a “sprite”.

In general, each frame 20 which becomes each screen in the animation is composed of a plurality of sprite screens. Each sprite has 16 bits per pixel (R:
G: B = 5 bits: 6 bits: 5 bits) is a natural image in RGB format and is a natural image sprite. Each sprite is drawn in cooperation with the CPU 21, the dedicated graphics LSI 22, the memory 23, and the like.

The animation screen of this embodiment is
When these sprites overlap, the sprite that comes to the foreground is preferentially displayed. However, since the two specific colors are transparent, the color of the screen on the rear side can be displayed using the “transparency”.

The screen serving as the display unit 11 is an area for displaying an animation movie and serves as a display screen. The network display 1 has a display screen 50 having a display size of 320 × 240 pixels as shown in FIG. Also, the minimum size is 1 pixel width (pixel) x 1 pixel height (p
ixel), the maximum size is 1023 pixels wide x 5 high
An 11-pixel movie screen 51 can be supported. The origin (upper left corner) of the screen of the animation movie (movie screen 51) is the origin (upper left corner) P of the display screen 50. In addition, the display screen 50 of the network display 1 is set to 512 pixels in addition to 320 × 240 pixels.
× 240 pixels or 640 × 480 pixels.

Here, if the size of the movie screen 51 (described later in detail) is larger than the display screen 50,
A part of the movie screen 51 will be displayed. Conversely, when the size of the movie screen 51 is smaller than the display screen 50, a margin is formed at the right end or lower end of the display screen 50. The margin is displayed with the background color of the display screen 50. The background color of the display screen 50 is specified by an RGB value of 16 bits / pixel.

A space for drawing frames of the animation (see FIG. 8) is called a movie screen space 52. The space 52 is a kind of virtual space, and can be called a virtual RAM. This space 52 has a width of -1024 pixels to 1023 pixels in the width direction (horizontal direction) and a width of -512 pixels to 511 pixels in the height direction (vertical direction). However, an image is actually drawn. This is a partial area in this space 52. This actually drawn area is called a movie screen 51. The movie screen 51 always has the origin P (0, 0) as a base point. Its size varies from movie to movie. Origin P at maximum
A rectangular area (including a boundary) having (0,0) and (1023,511) as diagonals becomes the movie screen 51.

As described above, each animation movie can have a movie screen 51 with a minimum size of 1 pixel wide × 1 pixel high and a maximum size of 1023 pixels wide × 511 pixels high. The sprite drawn in the movie screen space 52 is
Only the part included in the movie screen 51 is actually drawn. The portion outside the movie screen 51 is not drawn. This movie screen 5
A transfer destination image (drawing image) 53 is drawn on a predetermined portion of the image data.

The image drawn on the movie screen 51 is not an original drawing image, but is actually an original drawing image and a transparent mask image 56 which becomes transparent color data. The original drawing image is as shown in FIG.
The transfer rectangular image 55 is compressed, stored in the memory 23, and then expanded. The transparent color data also becomes a transparent mask image, and the transparent rectangular image 56 is compressed and the one stored in the memory 23 is expanded and formed. Each image 55,
56 is the maximum size, 1023 pixels wide by 511 high
Pixels and the same size.

As described above, the transparent rectangular image 56 is formed because a specific color in a natural image is assigned as a transparent color. This is because a transparent color cannot be preserved. When the image data and the transparent color data are separated and compressed in this manner, the processing is simplified and the compression efficiency is improved. The transparent rectangular image 56 is a simple bitmap image in which bits of “1” or “0” are assigned to a transparent color portion therein and bits of “0” or “1” are assigned to an opaque portion. .

A part of the decoded transfer rectangular image 55 that should not be transparent may have a color defined as a transparent color. For this reason, first of all, as mentioned above,
A transparent color extracting process S101 is performed. Next, the transparent data of the transparent rectangular image 56 is docked. At this time, a transparent color replacement process S102 for assigning a predetermined transparent color to a transparent portion of the docked original drawing image is performed. In this embodiment, the RGB values are (31, 62, 3).
The colors 1) and (31, 63, 31) are transparent.

In the enlargement / reduction processing S103, data of the width and height of the transfer rectangular image 55, which is the image, is input, and the data is enlarged or reduced to a predetermined size. At this time, since the transparent color processing has already been performed, the width and height data of the transparent rectangular image 55 is not required. However, you may make it input. The enlarged / reduced data is subjected to transparent color detection processing S104 for overwriting. Before or after this processing, data may be created for clip processing S105 or mask processing S106. It is preferable that the processing is performed in the order of the mask processing and the clip processing.

In the clipping process S105, as shown in FIG. 9, a predetermined portion of the drawing image 53 is cut out by applying a clip window 61 to the drawing image 53. The maximum size of the clip window 61 is 1023 pixels in width and 511 pixels in height. The clip window 61 can be freely arranged in the movie screen space 52.

The clip processing S105 is divided into two types. One is for drawing an image in the clip window 61 as shown in FIG. 10A (the hatched area is a drawing area), and the other is for drawing a clip as shown in FIG. Instead of drawing the image in the window 61, a portion (hatched portion) located outside the clip window 61 in the display screen 50 serving as an effective display area is drawn. In the clip processing S105, an offset value and a size of the clip window 61 are input. The offset value is located at the center of the movie screen space 52 and becomes the base point P of the drawing screen, that is, X
Y indicates a deviation from the position of (0, 0).

As described above, in the clip processing S105,
A clip window 61 having an arbitrary size specified by the register for the clip window 61 can be specified as an arbitrary window start position to perform a clipping process. In addition, by specifying the clip window mode,
The processing method of the clip window 61 can be either FIG. 10 (A) or FIG. 10 (B).

As shown in FIG. 11, the mask processing S106 is to apply a mask 62 to the drawing image 53, and to provide a kind of blindfold. The portion where the mask 62 is applied is not displayed. In this embodiment, a tiling method is used for forming the mask 62.
That is, the mask processing S106 is realized by laying the mask pattern 63 of an arbitrary size specified by the width and the height on the tiling rectangular area serving as the mask 62. The width, height, and start position of the mask 62 can be arbitrarily specified.

The enlarged / reduced data is input to the multiplexer 42 together with the position data. At this time, B
Whether the normal processing or the next filling processing is performed is switched according to the D mode signal. The BD mode signal is “0” (or “1”) when performing normal pasting work after enlarging / reducing, and becomes “1” (or “0”) during filling processing. At the time of painting, the painting process is performed with the color from the color register 43. The function of filling the rectangle is slightly different from the function of the network display 1 originally attached thereto. Predetermined rectangular area 64
(See FIG. 12) is a process of painting with an arbitrary color designated by the color register 43. This function is applied to screen initialization and rectangular / straight line drawing processing.

This rectangle filling function has a maximum of 102
The function is to fill a rectangular area 64 having a size of 3 × 511 pixels with a single color. In addition, the designation of the painted area 64 can be designated at any position in both the horizontal (−1024 to 1023 pixels) and vertical (−512 to 511 pixels) directions. The color of the rectangle drawing is specified by the color register 43, the width and the height are specified by the width and height specifying register (not shown), and the drawing start position is specified by the drawing offset register (not shown). I have.

After the various processes as described above are performed, finally, a blending process S107 is performed.

As shown in FIG. 13, when the transfer source image 65 composed of the transfer rectangular image 55 and the transparent rectangular image 56 is drawn by a predetermined drawing method as shown in FIG. This is a process of mixing a background color (background image) 68 of the drawing page 66 with a specified blend ratio to obtain a transfer image 67. The blend ratio is specified in a range of 0 to 100%, in this embodiment, in 32 levels. When the value is 100%, the color of the own opaque pixel is completely overwritten on the sketch.
When the value is 50%, the color of its own opaque pixel and the color of the underlying pixel are mixed by 1/2 each. When the value is 0%, the color of the sketch is stored as it is.

The blend ratio is an attribute of the transfer source image 65 and is specified as a part of scenario data described later. After the transparent pixels and the opaque pixels are determined according to the drawing method of the transfer source image 65, a blending process is performed on the opaque pixels.

This blending process is specifically described in FIG.
As shown in (1), the background image 68 already written in the drawing page 66 and the transfer source image 65 are mixed, and a blended image is drawn in a rectangular area specified by a transfer destination image position register (not shown). Things.
The blending coefficient can be arbitrarily specified for each of the transfer source image 65 and the background image 68 by a predetermined register from 0.0 to 1.0 in 1/32 units.
In addition, the value of each color component of RGB becomes 6 by the blending process.
If the bit exceeds “63”, it is clipped to “63”.

When the blending process S107 is completed, VR
After being drawn on the AM 26, the liquid crystal display interface 39 reads the drawn final image from the VRAM 26 and outputs it to the display unit 11 such as a liquid crystal display.

If only a part of the image is displayed on the network display 1 instead of the entire image, it is not necessary to decode the entire image, and the display memory can be reduced. The size of the display memory and the size of the display panel may be changed depending on each network display 1. For example, one network display 1 can display “ABCD”, another network display 1 can display “AB”, and another network display 1 can display only “A”. It may be large.

In the above embodiment, the clip processing S1
Since the blend processing S107 is not performed on the pixel subjected to the mask processing 05 or the mask processing S106, the calculation amount of the CPU 21, the dedicated graphics LSI 22, and the like is reduced, and high-speed drawing can be performed. Further, since the blending process is the last process, there is no disadvantage that unnecessary colors remain.

The above embodiment is an example of a preferred embodiment of the present invention, but the present invention is not limited to this, and various modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention. is there. For example, in addition to the blending process S107 and the clipping process S105, other processes such as a sprite automatic movement process can be performed. After performing the blending process S107, the color defined as the transparent color may be replaced with another color. This is suitable when the image subjected to the blending process S107 is reused.

In this embodiment, the RGB values are (31,
Although two colors, 62, 31) and (31, 63, 31), are transparent, only one color may be assigned as a transparent color, or three or more colors may be made transparent. The transparent color is preferably white as described above, but may be another color. .

The present invention can be applied to a device that does not have a server like the network display 1 and does not have a server but simply reproduces animations and images. Further, the above-described processing steps may be programmed and recorded on a computer-readable information recording medium. In this case, a hard disk or the like in the host server may be used as the medium in addition to a medium such as a CD-ROM or a floppy disk. When the program is recorded on a hard disk or the like of the host server, the program can be transmitted using a communication network such as the Internet or wireless communication such as a television broadcast.

[0078]

As described above, in the image processing apparatus according to any one of the first to seventh aspects, the transparent color is reliably preserved even after performing various processes. Therefore, the displayed image is not disturbed or stained. In addition, by devising the position and data structure of the transparent color, the transparent color processing can be performed without imposing a large load on the CPU and the like.

Further, in the information recording medium according to the present invention, a program is recorded which causes the mask processing of the transparent color to be performed by using the step of overlapping the transparent data. For this reason, when this information recording medium is read and executed by a computer, even if the data is irreversibly compressed, the transparent color can be reliably stored, and at the time of the transparent color processing, the processing efficiency is increased, and the operation environment is improved. It can be a good device.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an outline of an Internet system to which a network display incorporating an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention is connected.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an overview of the network display of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of the network display of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of a dedicated graphics LSI in the network display of FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a memory 2 in the network display of FIG. 3;
FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the role of a scenario stored in the third scenario.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining a basic operation of an image processing unit in a dedicated graphics LSI used for the network display of FIG. 1;

FIG. 7 shows an enlargement and enlargement performed by the dedicated graphics LSI of FIG.
It is a figure for explaining the processing order of reduction processing etc.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining the principle of transparent color processing performed by the dedicated graphics LSI of FIG. 4;

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining the contents of clip processing performed by the dedicated graphics LSI of FIG. 4;

10A and 10B are diagrams illustrating two methods of the clip processing in FIG. 9, wherein FIG. 10A illustrates a method of drawing the inside of a clip window, and FIG. 10B illustrates a portion other than the clip window. It shows the method.

FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining the contents of a mask process performed by the dedicated graphics LSI of FIG. 4;

FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining the contents of a painting process performed by the dedicated graphics LSI of FIG. 4;

FIG. 13 is a diagram for explaining the content of a blending process performed by the dedicated graphics LSI of FIG. 4;

[Explanation of symbols]

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 network display (device incorporating an image processing device) 2 Internet 3 LAN (local area network) 6 WWW server (HTTP server) 11 display unit 21 CPU 22 dedicated graphics LSI (display processing means) 23 memory 26 VRAM 36 decoding Unit 37 image processing unit 50 display screen 51 movie screen 52 movie screen space 53 transfer destination image (drawing image) 55 transfer source image (transfer rectangular image) 56 transparent mask image (transparent rectangular image)

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. An image processing apparatus comprising: an image decoding unit that expands image data obtained by compressing an image; and a display processing unit that performs a display process for displaying the decoded data on a display unit. Is to decode the data of the transfer source image composed of the original drawing image and the data of the transparent image composed of the transparent color data, and the display processing means performs the mask processing of the transparent color by overlapping them. An image processing apparatus characterized in that: 2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a color defined as a transparent color is replaced with another color from the original drawing image obtained by expanding the transfer source image. 3. The original drawing image obtained by expanding the transfer source image, wherein a portion defined as transparent by the transparent color data is replaced with a color defined as a transparent color. 3. The image processing device according to 2. 4. An image processing apparatus for superimposing a plurality of natural images in a natural image by a display processing means for performing image display processing, wherein a specific color in the natural image is defined as a transparent color and superimposed. An image processing apparatus characterized by performing the above processing. 5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the color defined as the transparent color is arbitrarily set by image processing. 6. The image processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the color defined as the transparent color is white. 7. A blending process for blending colors of a plurality of images at a predetermined ratio, wherein a color defined as the transparent color generated by the blending process is replaced with another color. 7. The image processing device according to 5 or 6. 8. An image decoding step for decompressing image data that has undergone image compression, and a display processing step for performing display processing for displaying the decoded data on a display unit,
The image decoding step includes a step of decoding respective data of a transfer source image composed of an original drawing image and a transparent image composed of transparent color data, and the display processing step superimposes data of the two images. A computer-readable information recording medium having a step of performing a mask of a transparent color thereby, and recording a program for executing each of the steps. 9. The information recording medium according to claim 8, further comprising a step of replacing a color defined as a transparent color with another color from the original drawing image obtained by expanding the transfer source image. 10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of replacing a portion defined as transparent by the transparent color data in the original drawing image obtained by expanding the transfer source image with a color defined as a transparent color. The information recording medium according to claim 8.