JPS60159886A - Character pattern generation system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a character pattern generation method, and more particularly to a character pattern generation method for storing and reproducing a large number of character patterns in a kanji printer, a kanji display device, or the like.

BACKGROUND TECHNOLOGY Conventionally, in printers and display devices, which are printing devices of this type, character patterns are expressed as a set of dots (hereinafter referred to as a dot matrix) (see Figure 1), and each dot is stored as one bit in a character pattern memory. We have adopted a method of storing data in accordance with the following.

However, the number of kanji character types is approximately 4000 characters ~ soo.

If more characters are required and character patterns of various sizes are considered, the character pattern memory will require an enormous capacity.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the fact that there are many character patterns with a small number of strokes in dot matrix character patterns, and many line character patterns and symbols with many white parts, The purpose of the present invention is to provide a character pattern generation method that reduces the redundancy of the blank parts of character pattern information stored in the character pattern memory by making it possible to omit the blank parts on the character pattern matrix, thereby reducing the capacity of the character pattern memory. There is.

Structure of the Invention The character pattern generation method according to the present invention has N rows and M columns (N,
M is a positive integer) character dot patterns each having n rows and m columns (n, m are 1 < n, < / 2, 1 < m < lvI
/2), and when the contents of each sub-pattern are all blank or when one or more bits are black, a binary information signal corresponding to each of these cases is generated. (For example, the former case is set to ``0'' and the latter case is set to ``1.'') A sub-pattern index table storage means for storing an index table; By referring to the information signals of the dot pattern storage means for storing dot pattern information and the subpattern index table storage means, if all of the information signals indicate blanks, the n rows and m columns whose contents all have signals corresponding to blanks are selected. When a sub-pattern is generated and the information signal indicates that one bit or more is black, means for reading out the corresponding sub-pattern in n rows and m columns of the dot pattern storage means is provided, and these n rows and m columns are read out. The present invention is characterized in that all of the sub-patterns are combined to output a dot pattern matrix with N rows and M columns.

Example The present invention will be described in detail below using the drawings.

Figure 1 shows the Kanji character pattern in 32 rows and 32 columns, or 32
1 when expressed in a dot matrix of x32
An example is shown, for example, the case of the character "child". This 32 x 32 dot matrix 10
is further divided into 4 rows and 4 columns, that is, 4×4 subpatterns 11, and is decomposed into 8×8=64 subpatterns with 4×4 as one unit. If the dot matrix shown in Fig. 1 is represented by these 64 sub-patterns, it will become as shown in Fig. 2, and each sub-pattern (11) will have a 4 x 4 dot matrix configuration as shown in Fig. 3. It has become.

Since the sub-pattern matrix shown in FIG. 2 is not used as a sub-pattern index table, the sub-pattern information signal Pij, which is each component, is set to "0" or "0" depending on the information content, as described later. This is a 1-bit information signal represented by "1". Therefore, the subpattern index table requires 8×8-64 bits.

FIG. 4 shows a representation of the 32×32 character pattern matrix IO in FIG. 4 when it is converted into 4×4 dot subpatterns by assigning symbols to each subpattern. + SI2 +..., 888 are each 4x4
3 shows subpatterns of dots, each subpattern including 16 bits represented by the symbols dIf + d12 + . . . , d44 shown in FIG.

Figure 5 shows the actual sub-pattern index table (corresponding to Figure 2) for the example of the character "child" shown in Figure 1.
4x4 dots forming each sub-pattern (see Figure 3)
If all of the dots are blank, Pij is a symbol of "0", and if one or more bits of 4×4 dots are black, Pij is a signal of "1". In other words, the locations that indicate "1" are p, , p, □, p23
．． p24. p2. , . . , P3°, and the corresponding 34 subpattern information and other subpattern information are redundant information and are unnecessary and are not stored.

Immediately before the subpattern information compatible with this "1", as shown in FIG. 6, the subpattern index table shown in FIG.
+ PI3 +..., all up to P88 are "0" or "
1” information is stored. The character pattern memory in this case is assumed to be composed of a one-dimensional memory with 16 bits per word.

- As shown in Figure 6, the character pattern information for a character consists of a subpattern index table (Figure 2) and a 4x4 dot subpattern (Figure 3), and the character pattern memory is accessed. In this case, the start address of the subpattern index table is given for each character.

Based on the above explanation, the blocks of the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 7 will be described. Character pattern memory address generation unit l whose character code includes a character nosit turn address table
is input. The character pattern corresponding to the character code is stored in advance in this character turn memory address table. Therefore, the start address of the character information in the character pattern memory corresponding to the input character code is output and stored in the character pattern memory. 2.

Since this character pattern memory 2 stores the pattern shown in FIG. 6 described above, the sub-pattern index table is first read out from this memory 2. This sub-pattern index table is supplied to the sub-pattern index information determination circuit 3. Next, the subpattern information is sequentially read by the number of "1" in the subpattern index table and sent to the one character dot matrix memory 5. At this time, if the content of the subpattern index table is "1", , sub-pattern information from the character pattern memory 2 is transferred to the one-character dot matrix memory 5 via the selection circuit 4. When the content of the sub-pattern index table is "0", the character pattern memory 2 is not read out, and the information from the separately provided memory 6 is selected by the selection circuit 4 and sent to the one-character dot memory 5. be transferred. As shown in the figure, this memory 6 stores 4×4 sub-pattern information of "0", and serves as an information signal indicating that all the sub-patterns are blank.

As mentioned above, the memory required to store a 32 x 32 original character pattern generally has a capacity of 1024 bits and 64 words, but in this example, in the case of a "child" character, the subpattern index memory There are 4 words and 34 subpattern words, totaling 38 words, which reduces the capacity to about 1/2. However, according to this method, if there are no or few blank subpatterns in the character pattern,
Although the character pattern memory is increased by 4 in the sub-pattern index table, the above problem can be avoided if each character has an identification bit table indicating whether or not to refer to the sub-pattern index table.

In this example, the 32x32 dot matrix is divided into 4x4 subpatterns, and the subpattern size nxm is equal to the character matrix size N.
For xM, 1≦n<'/2゜1 <tn≦4>
The optimum value can be selected within the range of '2.

Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the present invention, the storage of character pattern information in memory is divided into two parts, a subpattern and a subpattern index table, and information in blank parts of character patterns is omitted. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the character pattern memory capacity.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows 32 Kanji character patterns according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Figure 2 shows the subpattern index table when the character pattern matrix in Figure 1 is divided into 4 x 4 subpatterns, Figure 3 shows the subpattern index table in Figure 2. A diagram showing the configuration of a sub-pattern,
Figure 4 is a diagram showing a character pattern matrix when the pattern matrix in Figure 1 is made into sub-patterns.
The figure shows the blank sub-pattern when the "child" character pattern matrix in Figure 1 is made into a sub-pattern, and
The figure shows the storage state of subpatterns and subpattern index tables in the character pattern memory, and FIG. 7 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention. Explanation of symbols of main parts 2...Character pattern memory 3...Sub pattern index information judgment circuit 4...Selection circuit 5...1 character dot matrix memory 10...Character pattern matrix 11...Sub pattern applicant NEC Corporation L/Picture 2 Diagram 3 Diagram 0 #4 Diagram #Roseki

Claims (1)

[Claims] This is a character pattern generation method that generates a character pattern using a dot pattern of 8 rows and M columns (N and M are positive integers), in which each of the 8 rows and M columns of dot patterns is divided into n rows and m columns (n
, m is an integer that satisfies 1 times n times 2,1 times m <'/2)
75-, and when the contents of each sub-pattern are all blank or when one or more bits are black, a sub-pattern index stores an information signal table corresponding to each of these cases. By referring to the information signals of the table storage means, the dot pattern storage means for storing dot pattern information only for subpatterns in which one or more bits of black exist among the subpatterns, and the subpattern index table storage means, all of these are stored. When a blank is indicated, an n-by-m-column sub-pattern whose entire content has a signal corresponding to a blank is generated, and when the information signal indicates that one or more bits are black, the dot pattern storage means means for reading out sub-patterns of n rows and m columns corresponding to the sub-patterns, and is configured to combine all these sub-patterns of n rows and m columns to output a dot pattern matrix of 8 rows and M columns. Character pattern generation method.