JPS63287891A - Pattern generation system - Google Patents

Abstract

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

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a pattern generation method, and more particularly, to a pattern generation method that inputs a character symbol code and generates and outputs a pattern corresponding to the character symbol board. be.

[Background Art] In recent years, with the development of document processing devices, the types of patterns used in printing devices for printing out documents have also become richer.

For example, in addition to printing documents in Mincho or Gothic fonts, in order to emphasize the characters themselves, the characters are shaded (hereinafter referred to as shadows, and characters with this shadow are referred to as shadow characters). It has become possible to print with .

Normally, this shadow character is printed out by shifting the basic character pattern by a predetermined dot.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in this case, the amount of shadow shift is constant regardless of the size of the accompanying basic character pattern. That is, half-width, double-width, superscript, and subscript characters are printed with the same amount of shift as the shadow for full-width characters (normal characters). Because of this, it looks unnatural,
It wasn't satisfying.

The present invention has been made in view of such conventional technology,
The present invention aims to provide a pattern generation method that generates natural shadow characters.

[Means for solving the problem] In order to solve this problem, the present invention has the following configuration.

That is, a storage means for storing at least two types of character symbol pattern groups having a dot structure, an input means for inputting a character symbol code, a selection means for selecting one of the character symbol pattern groups, and a selected character symbol. a first pattern generating means for generating a pattern corresponding to the character symbol code from a pattern group; a second pattern generating means for generating a shading pattern based on the pattern generated by the first pattern generating means; and the selection. The apparatus further includes output means for outputting the first pattern and at least a portion of the shading pattern in a superimposed manner at a relative position corresponding to the dot configuration selected by the means.

[Operation] In the configuration of the present invention, the selection means selects one of at least two types of character symbol pattern groups stored in the storage means, and the pattern corresponding to the character symbol code inputted by the input means is selected as the first pattern. This pattern is generated using the following pattern generation means. A shading pattern based on the first pattern is generated by the second pattern generating means, and the first . A part of the second pattern is superimposed and outputted by the output means.

[Embodiments] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a printing apparatus main body 1 and the relationship with a data source (for example, a host computer, etc.) 2 in this embodiment.

In the figure, numeral 3 is a CPU that controls the entire printing apparatus, and the processing procedures stored in the program ROM 5 (Figs. 5 and 6)
It operates according to the flowchart shown in the figure. 4
is a reception buffer memory that receives information from the data source 1 and temporarily stores it.

6 is a character font RO that stores various character patterns.
M, and in this embodiment, two types of character fonts are stored: a 10x15 dot character pattern and a 20x30 dot character pattern. Also, this character font ROM6
As shown in FIG. 2, the font information area 6a has a font information area 6a in which size information corresponding to these two types of character patterns is stored. 7 is a RAM, which is used as a work area for the CPU 3, and when normal printing or shadow character printing is set, a shadow flag 7a for storing data to that effect (such as ``0pa or 1''), and a reception buffer. A current font area 7b that temporarily stores the character pattern (read from the character font ROM) corresponding to the data (character code) read from the memory, and a ΔX storage area 7c that stores the "shift" amount (ΔX1ΔY) of the shadow part. , Δy storage area 7d. Reference numeral 10 denotes a printing section that prints in two colors, and prints the images developed in the black image buffer memory 8 and the red image buffer memory 9 in a composite manner using the respective printing colors. .

[Overview of Shadow Character Printing (FIGS. 3(a), (b), FIG. 4)] Next, the concept of shadow character printing in the configuration of the above-described embodiment will be explained below.

As explained earlier, in the embodiment, there are two sizes of fonts stored in the character font ROM 6, and a third
In figures (a) and (b) - as an example the letter symbol “H”° 10
A pattern of X15 dots and a pattern of 20X30 dots are shown. When printing each pattern, it is printed with the amount of deviation corresponding to each size as shown in Figure 4.The black areas in the figure are the basic character patterns, and the shaded areas are the basic character patterns. is the shadow part.When printing these, the basic character pattern is black (developed in the black image buffer memory 8), and the shadow pattern is colored red (developed in the red image buffer memory 9). It will be printed.

Now, regarding the determination of the amount of "shift" of this shadow pattern, in this embodiment, it is 10" for the number of dots in the horizontal direction of the selected character font size.

The quotient obtained by dividing the number of vertical dots by 15'' is stored in the ΔX storage area 7c, and the quotient obtained by dividing the number of vertical dots by 15'' is stored in the Δy storage area 7d.

For example, when a character pattern of 10 x 15 dots is selected, the amount of deviation in the x and y directions of the shadow part, ΔX,
Both Δy are 1 dot, and the amount of deviation for a 20×30 dot character pattern is 2 dots.

[Explanation of Print Processing Procedure (FIG. 5)] Based on the principle of shadow character printing explained above, the print processing procedure in the embodiment will be explained according to the flowchart of FIG. 5.

First, when the power to the printer main body 1 is turned on or reset, initial settings are executed in step S1. In this initial setting, each peripheral element is initialized and the shadow flag 7a is turned off. In other words, normal printing is set.

Next, the process moves to step S2 to receive data from the data source 2, and it is determined in step S3 whether the data is a character symbol code or a control code. Note that the control code is usually several bytes of data following the escape sequence (IB) I, where H is a hexadecimal number)
This is often the case, and this example is also used in this example. If it is a control code, the process moves to step S4, where it is determined whether the control code is a code specifying character type selection or a code related to shadow printing. In the case of character type selection, the process moves to step S5, and based on the code, the size of the character font is selected so that the received character code will be generated in 10x15 or 20x30 dots. Next, the process moves to step S6, and in preparation for printing shadow characters, the amount of "shift" in the shadow portion is calculated according to the size of the selected character font. Note that details of this processing will be described later.

In addition, if it is determined in step S4 that the input control code is data related to shadow printing, the process moves to step S7 to determine whether the data is related to the start of shadow printing or the data related to the end of shadow printing. If it is a start, turn on the shadow flag 7a,
When finished, set off in step 38.9.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S3 that the input data is a character symbol code, the process moves to step S10, and first, the pattern corresponding to the character symbol code is created using the currently selected font size. The font is stored from the font ROM 6 into the current font storage area 7b and expanded into the black image area 8. Next, in step S11, it is determined whether the current state of the shadow flag 7a is on or off.

When it is on, that is, when shadow printing is performed, the process moves to step S12, and the font pattern stored in the current font storage area 7b is shifted by ΔX and Δy and developed in the red image buffer memory 9. Next, in step S13, it is determined whether the pattern (image) for one page has been developed in either the black image buffer memory 8 or the red image buffer memory 9. If it is less than , the process returns to step S2. When this expansion process reaches one page, the process moves to step S14, where the images in the image buffer memory are combined and printed in their respective print colors.

[Description of shadow shift amount setting (FIG. 6)] The shadow shift amount setting routine in step S6 mentioned above will be explained.

First, the width of the font cell is read from the font information area 6a corresponding to the font size selected in step S20, and the quotient (integer) when dividing the cell width by 10'' is stored in the ΔX storage area in step S21. It is stored in the ΔX storage area 7C.

In the next step S22, the height of the font cell is read in the same manner as in step S20, and in step S23, the quotient of dividing the cell height by 15 is calculated in the Δy storage area 7d.
to be memorized.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the shadow shift amount changes depending on the size of the character type, so natural shadow printing is possible.

Note that the above-mentioned character font size and shadow amount do not limit the present invention in any way. For example, the division value is “
It may be a value other than "10" or "15", and a table of shadow portion shift amounts may be provided for each character type.

In addition, the “shift” calculated in the red image buffer memory 9
When a character pattern is developed in terms of color, if the character pattern developed in the black image buffer memory 8 is masked as a mask pattern, the black area and red area will not overlap.

Furthermore, in the embodiment, the case where the shadow part is printed in red has been explained, but since it is sufficient to be able to distinguish between the basic character pattern part and the shadow part, it is possible to print a checkerboard pattern, a striped pattern, etc. for this shadow part. A similar shadow character can also be generated by performing a logical AND operation.

Furthermore, although the basic character pattern and the shadow character pattern were explained using the same font pattern in the embodiment,
There is no problem even if the shadow portion has an italic pattern with the same dot configuration.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, by superimposing a shading pattern on a character symbol pattern at a relative position corresponding to the dot configuration of the generated character symbol pattern, a natural shading pattern is created. It becomes possible to generate character patterns.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a diagram showing the relationship between the configuration of the printing device and the data source of the embodiment, Fig. 2 is a diagram for explaining the font information area, and Fig. 3 (a) is a diagram showing the character pattern of 10 x 15 dots. , Fig. 3(b) is a diagram showing a character pattern of 20x30 dots, Fig. 4 is a diagram showing an example of shadow printing of the character pattern shown in Figs. 3(a) and (b), and Fig. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the character pattern shown in Figs. Flowchart for explaining example print processing. FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining a shadow shift amount setting routine. In the figure, 1... printing device main body, 2... data source, 3...
...CPU, 4...Reception buffer memory, 5...Progera AROM, 6...Character font ROM, 6a...
...Font information area, 7...RAM, 7a...
Shadow flag, 7b... Current font storage area, 7c... ΔX storage area, 7d... Δy storage area, 8... Black image buffer memory, 9... Red image buffer memory, 10... It is a printing device. 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) A storage means for storing at least two types of character symbol pattern groups with dot configurations, an input means for inputting a character symbol code, a selection means for selecting one of the character symbol pattern groups, and a selected character. a first pattern generation means for generating a pattern corresponding to the character symbol code from a group of symbol patterns; a second pattern generation means for generating a shading pattern based on the pattern generated by the first pattern generation means; A pattern generation method comprising: an output means for outputting the first pattern and at least a portion of the shading pattern in a superimposed manner at a relative position corresponding to the dot configuration selected by the selection means. (2) The pattern generation method according to claim 1, wherein the selection means selects based on a control code inputted together with a character/symbol code. (3) The pattern generation method according to claim 1, wherein the object to be outputted by the output means is a printing device.