JPS5911937B2 - interactive plotting device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an interactive drawing device that inputs drawing information and draws a drawing in an interactive manner with a built-in processor. - This relates to an interactive plotting device characterized in that plotting is performed by specifying the position of a light spot with a pen, and after completion of this monitor plotting, formal plotting is performed on a plotting paper using a plotter.

Conventional drawing devices that draw drawings interactively with a built-in processor can be broadly classified into the following types. (1)
This CRT is equipped with a polar ray display tube (hereinafter referred to as CRT).
A system in which drawings are drawn one after another in an interactive manner, and after checking the drawings, the drawings are output to a recording device such as a plotter.

(2) Direct drawings are made on drawing paper using a plotter/digitizer.

(3) A device that is equipped with a CRT and a plotter/digitizer and can arbitrarily perform the plotting operations described in items 1 and 2 above.

However, each of these types of interactive drawing devices has the following drawbacks.

In the plotting device described in item 1, the storage type CR is used as a CRT.
When T is used, it is necessary to erase the screen every time the screen is corrected, which causes deterioration in operability. On the other hand, when a refresh type CRT is used as a CRT, resolution cannot be easily increased with a raster scan type, and with a random scan type, the equipment cost is extremely high and the refresh rate decreases as the number of vectors increases. This has the disadvantage that flicker occurs as a result. Furthermore, with the device of the type described in Section 2, since it is not possible to monitor the drawing, a pencil and an eraser are indispensable, and in reality, it is difficult to use it for anything other than fair copying.

Further, in the drawing device of the type described in Section 3, the first
In addition to the problems of the devices described in Sections 1 and 2, there is a further disadvantage that the operation is complicated.

The object of the present invention is to eliminate such drawbacks, and to
To provide an interactive plotting device which is capable of plotting monitor figures and recording the figures directly on a drawing sheet using a single plotter without using an RT, and which has superior operability than when using a CRT. Our goal is to provide the following. Another object of the present invention is to use drawing paper as a medium and irradiate the scanning light beam onto it, and not only input drawing information from a keyboard but also input coordinates on the recording surface related to the scanning light beam using a light pen. The aim is to realize a plotter that can draw monitor figures by using operations such as specifying.

The present invention will be explained in detail below using the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of an interactive drawing device according to the present invention, and is a perspective view with a partially broken portion shown in order to clearly show a built-in laser scanner section. In FIG. 1, 10 is a case, 20 is a keyboard arranged at the upper end of the case 10, 30 is a display, 40 is an X-Y plotter attached to the upper part of the case 10, and 50 is arranged inside the case 10. A light beam scanner 60 is provided, and 60 is a light pen. The keyboard 20 is equipped with letters, numbers, symbols, and function keys, and can provide drawing information such as operation commands and numerical parameters to a built-in processor (not shown).

This processor is capable of executing various programs necessary for plotting, and in connection therewith, it drives the display 30, light beam scanner 50, and X-Y plotter 40 as appropriate. The various programs mentioned above are stored in advance in a built-in or replaceable storage element (not shown).

In addition, after the input drawing figure data etc. are once stored in the built-in storage element, a new drawing figure based on this data can be recorded on the XY plotter 40. The display 30 is a display that provides a step-by-step display for guiding the input of drawing information from the keyboard 20 or the light pen 60, and is driven by the processor.

The X-Y plotter 40 has substantially the same construction as a known X-Y plotter, except that the drawing board 41 is made of a substantially transparent material.

That is, it is attached to a pen cartridge 43 that is movable in the X-axis direction so as to be slidable in the Y-axis direction, and
, a recording head 44 movable in the Y-axis direction, and a pen 45 attached to the recording head is moved and driven up and down based on data provided by the processor to print on the drawing board 4.
A plot can be recorded on a drawing paper 42 placed on the drawing paper 1. The structure of the keyboard 20, processor, memory element, display 30, and X-Y plotter 40 is substantially the same as that of a conventional interactive drawing device that does not use a CRT.

The light beam scanner 50 is capable of projecting and scanning a light beam from the back side of the drawing board 41 under the control of a processor, and scans the drawing paper so that a light spot of this light beam appears on the drawing paper on the drawing board 41. It's getting old.

The light beam scanner 50 shown in FIG. 1 is a laser scanner and is exemplified as a raster scan type, and a laser light source 51. Modulator 52, fixed mirror 5
3, a galvanometer mirror 54, and a rotating polygon mirror 55.

The modulator 52 controls the laser light source 51 to control the brightness of the bright line by intermittent light spots and brightness modulation.
The fixed mirror 53 has a mirror that reflects the laser beam, changes the direction of the beam by specular reflection, and is fixed to the substrate section 56 of the scanner 50. Note that this fixed mirror does not necessarily have to be composed of a mirror, and an element having a function of changing the beam direction, such as an optical prism, may be used without any problem. Galvanometer/
The mirror 54 has a mirror that swings in response to a signal given by the processor, and can deflect the beam in the Y-axis direction.

Note that a solid-state deflector can also be used as the galvanometer mirror. The rotating polygon mirror 55 is used to deflect the beam in the X-axis direction, and is rotated at a constant speed under the control of the processor. These laser light source 51, fixed mirror 53, L//〈nometer mirror 54, and rotating polygon mirror 55 are respectively arranged at appropriate positions, and the beam emitted from the laser light source 51 is sequentially transmitted to the fixed mirror 53,
The drawing board is reached through a galvanometer mirror 54 and a polygon mirror 55.

Since the drawing board 41 is substantially transparent, the laser beam passes through the drawing board and is projected onto the back side of the drawing paper 42. If tracing paper, which is used for normal drafting, is used as a drawing paper, the light spot on the back of the paper can be clearly seen from the front of the paper. Therefore, by modulating the brightness of the laser beam and scanning the light spot on the surface of the drawing paper using the same principle as the CRT method, a monitor figure can be made to appear on the drawing paper. Although the laser scanner described above is of a raster scan type, the laser scanner is not limited to this, and a random scan type can also be used.

The random scan type scanner is the scanner 5 mentioned above.
This can also be easily realized by replacing the zero rotating polygon mirror 55 with a galvanometer mirror. The light pen 60 comes into contact with the drawing paper and receives the laser beam that has passed through the drawing paper 42 and converts it photoelectrically, and the output photoelectric voltage signal is sent to the processor. There is.

Through cooperation between the light pen 60 and the laser scanner 50, a tablet digitizer function can also be achieved by pointing the pen tip at a specific area on the drawing paper. The operation of the present invention in such a configuration will be described next.

In addition to inputting operation commands and numerical parameters from the keyboard 20 according to the display on the display 30, the light pen 6
0 is also given to perform monitor drawing. In other words, a desired basic figure is recalled and displayed from various basic figure files stored in advance in the memory element, a straight line is drawn by specifying the coordinates of two points with the light pen 60, and even once Complete the monitor shape by adding transformations and corrections to the created shape. After the monitor drawing is completed in this manner, a plot command is given from the keyboard 20, and the monitor figure is plotted with a pen using the X-Y plotter 40 and made into a hard copy. Next, monitor plotting is performed in another plot area by the same operation as described above, and after completion of the plotting, pen plotting is performed.

Thereafter, complex figures can be easily drawn by sequential drawing in the same manner.

Incidentally, the plots on the X-Y plotter 40 may be recorded at once after all monitor drawings are completed. If the laser scanner 50 is of a random scan type, the refresh rate can be increased by sequentially plotting the confirmed lines and removing them from the monitor scan.

In addition, when the drawing area is large and the optical length changes greatly depending on the scanning position, the substrate section 56 of the scanner can be moved in the X-Y directions by a drive mechanism 70 as shown in FIG. (only the driving mechanism in the Y-axis direction is shown in the figure), so that extreme differences in optical lengths do not occur.

Note that the drive mechanism 70 is driven by instructions from a processor. In addition, the drawing paper can be used for tracing and
In addition to paper, it is also possible to use recording paper having scattering properties such that blurring of light spots due to light scattering is not a practical problem.

Additionally, the light pen 60 may be wireless,
Furthermore, the laser beam can be replaced by any other light beam that can be sensed by a light pen and that allows the appearance of a light spot on the drawing paper to be seen.

Furthermore, scanning a plane with a light beam causes much non-linear distortion,
The refractive distortion caused by the thickness of the transparent drawing board 41 can be calculated, and the deflection angle of the laser beam can be corrected by performing correction calculations in a processor to sufficiently correct the positional error of the light spot due to the distortion. Can be done.

Furthermore, by extending the optical length using multiple reflections by mirrors, the amount of distortion correction can be minimized. As explained above, according to the present invention, it is possible to draw an actual-size monitor on drawing paper by displaying light points using a light beam scanner, and after thoroughly checking and considering this monitor drawing, trace this monitor drawing with a plotter. Since plots are recorded on the screen, it is possible to realize an interactive plotting device that is easier to operate than conventional devices using a CRT, without using a CRT.

In addition, not only keyboard operations but also light and pen operations can be used for drawing on the monitor, making it possible to perform drawing operations with a rich intuitiveness similar to handwriting, resulting in the realization of an extremely easy-to-use drawing device.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing one embodiment of an interactive drawing device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing another embodiment of the present invention. 10... Case, 20... Keyboard, 30... Display, 40... X-Y plotter, 41... Drawing board, 42... Drawing paper, 43... Pen cartridge, 44...
...Recording head, 45...Pen, 50...
...Light beam scanner, 51...Loser light source, 52...Modulator, 54...Galvanometer mirror 55...Rotating polygon mirror, 56
.... Board part, 60 .... Light pen,
70... Drive mechanism.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. In an interactive plotting device that includes a processor and inputs plotting information from a keyboard in an interactive manner with the processor to obtain plotted drawings on a plotter, the plotting board of the plotter on which plotting paper is placed is substantially a light beam scanner made of a transparent material, which scans a light beam from the back side of the drawing board and projects the monitor drawing onto drawing paper placed on the drawing board;
An interactive drawing device comprising a light pen capable of sensing a light spot generated by projecting a light beam from the front side of a drawing paper. 2. The interactive drawing device according to claim 1, wherein the entire light beam scanner is configured to be movable in the X-axis and Y-axis directions. 3 Calculate the position error of the light spot due to non-linear distortion due to plane scanning and refractive distortion due to the thickness of the drawing board,
An interactive drawing device according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the amount of deflection of the light beam is corrected. 4. The interactive drawing device according to claim 3, wherein the optical length of the light beam scanner is increased by applying multiple reflections by mirrors.