KR100871825B1 - Character processing method based on outline font information, and computer software program product for allowing computer system to execute the method - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a method capable of appropriately thinning fonts based on outline information of outline fonts, and a variety of decorative processes. Determines whether the components constituting the traversal graphic path of the polygonal shape of the outline font intersect with the components constituting the other graphic paths, and if they intersect, adds an intersection at the intersection and exchanges paths at this intersection. A path eraser 18, a path eraser 19 which is completely contained in one polygonal graphics path and erases another polygonal graphics path in the same traversal direction, and a component constituting the polygonal graphics path. A thinning processing unit 20 for thinning the outline font by removing the character width of the character line is provided.

Description

CHARACTER PROCESSING METHOD BASED ON OUTLINE FONT INFORMATION, AND COMPUTER SOFT-WARE PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR ALLOWING COMPUTER SYSTEM TO EXECUTE THE METHOD }             

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an outline font processing method for processing and decorating based on a skeleton of a character in character data composed of polygons.

Fonts used in word processors and personal computers are roughly divided into bit-map fonts and outline fonts. Among them, the outline font forms outlines and draws all the areas enclosed by the outlines to display high-quality characters with little blurring even if the size of the characters is changed or rotated. Or there is a feature that can be printed (印字).

Data representing the outline font is stored as an outline font dictionary in a hard disc or a ROM. In the case of drawing one character, outline font data corresponding to the character is read from the outline font dictionary, and predetermined drawing is performed by the display device or the printing device.

By the way, this outline font expresses the character by enclosing it in outline. For this reason, there is a problem that it is difficult to decorate a character represented by an outline font by changing the character width or making it three-dimensional.

In other words, this decoration is usually made for characters represented in a skeletal structure. Fig. 1 (a) is a diagram showing a skeletal structure of a character corresponding to the phonetic symbol "a" of the Japanese character "hiragana". It is easy to give various decorations about such a skeletal structure.

In contrast, the outline font of this character is as shown in Fig. 1 (b), and this font is a cyclic graphic path having a plurality of polygonal shapes as shown in Fig. 1 (c), for example. It consists of 1a-1f. Each graphics path consists of a plurality of consecutive contours (line segments).

In the case of decorating the outline font, there is a method of thinning each polygon by shrinking it toward the center direction, but when thinning in this manner, as shown in FIG. As shown in Fig. 1 (a), the shape of the letters is disturbed.

There is also a method of thinning by substituting with bit-map data. However, in this case, the outline information of a character may be deformed when bit-mapped, and finally thinned. In many cases, good results are not obtained.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a method and a computer software program product capable of appropriately thinning fonts based on outline information of outline fonts.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and computer software program product capable of performing various decorative processes on outline fonts.

According to the first main aspect of the present invention, (a) from an outline font dictionary for storing data of outlines of outline fonts divided into a plurality of sections; Reading the font data; and (b) a plurality of element structures constituted by data for drawing outlines of outline fonts in the read font data. A step of constructing a cyclic graphic path of polygonal shape by connecting each component in sequence and (c) constituting the cyclic graphic path of polygonal shape Determine if it intersects with the components that make up another graphics path, if so, add an intersection at the intersection, and add each polygon Exchanging a path at this intersection so that the components constituting the traversal graphics path of do not intersect, and (d) within a single polygon-shaped graphics path that is completely contained within and in the same traversal direction. Determining whether or not a polygonal graphics path exists, and if present, erasing any other graphics paths other than that, and (e) the components constituting the polygonal graphics path. An outline font having a step of outputting a plurality of line segments formed by moving the character width direction by a predetermined distance based on a character width of the outline font and thus removing the character width of the outline font; Provides a treatment method.

According to such a structure, it becomes possible to perform a decoration process to the outline font which was conventionally difficult to decorate, such as shape conversion which concerns on a polygonal skeleton. That is, in the present invention, first, the intersection and the overlap between the plurality of polygonal graphics graphics paths are eliminated. Here, outline fonts such as True Type Fonts are composed of polygons surrounded by several polygon traversal graphics paths. However, the area where two polygons, clockwise and counterclockwise overlap, has a law that is not drawn. In the present invention, in order to facilitate subsequent thinning process and decoration process, a process of removing the intersection portion of the polygon is performed. It also removes the inside of other polygons from polygons with the same traversal direction to represent outline fonts with minimal elements.                 

Subsequently, the outline font thus processed is thinned. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the thinning process is a step of obtaining a character width of an outline font based on the polygonal graphic path, and successive line segments of the character width in the character width direction. Move the distance by half a distance and make the intersection of each line segment a new point constituting the above-described polygonal graphics path, and coordinates of two points close to each other in the text width direction. It consists of a step which synthesize | combines two or more adjacent line segments into one line segment by substituting by a coordinate of middle.

Here, as the character width calculation method of the outline font, for example, the distance from one line segment to the other line segment and the length of the one line segment with respect to the pair of line segments constituting the character width. This is achieved by adding the product of to the sum of all segments and dividing by the average length of all segments.

When the outline is thinned by such a process, a plurality of polygons are divided for each line segment in order to obtain a table of the line segments to be connected, and a schedule of non-overlapping line segments is created. Then, the line segments are sequentially connected to two line segments having the smallest difference in inclination at the connection point of the line segments. In this way, thin line segments are connected to each other in a smooth shape, and as a result, skeleton data based on the writing order of characters can be obtained.                 

The character can be decorated by defining a three-dimensional structure in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the line, for example, on the line segments constituting the skeleton data thus obtained.

According to a second main aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer software program product for processing outline fonts in a computer processing system, the storage medium being stored in the storage medium and having a plurality of the computer systems. A font data reading instruction for processing font data from an outline font dictionary for storing outline data of outline fonts divided into sections of < RTI ID = 0.0 >, < / RTI > and storing outlines of outline fonts in said storage system. A path building instruction for creating a plurality of components constituted by the data to be drawn based on the read font data, and sequentially connecting each of the components to construct a polygon-shaped circular graphic path; Stored on media The computer system determines whether the components constituting the traversal graphic path of the polygonal shape intersect with the components constituting the other graphic path, and if they intersect, adds an intersection at the intersection and traverses each polygon shape. A path exchange instruction for processing a path exchange at this intersection so that the components constituting the graphics path do not intersect, and are stored in the storage medium and completely included in one polygonal graphics path in the computer system. It is determined whether there is a graphics path of another polygonal shape in the same traversal direction, and if there is a polygonal graphics path erasing command for processing to erase other graphic paths of the polygonal shape, and storing in the storage medium. And said A plurality of characters in which the character width is removed by performing a process of causing a computer system to close the line segments opposing to the character width direction based on the character width in a character constituted by the polygon-shaped circular graphic path. There is provided a computer software program product having a thinning process instruction for outputting as a line segment.

According to such a structure, the outline process demonstrated in detail above can be performed by a computer system.

In addition, other features of the present invention, its operations and effects can be clearly understood by those skilled in the art by referring to the embodiments of the following invention and the accompanying drawings.

1A to 1D are diagrams showing examples of general outline fonts.

2 is a diagram showing an example of an outline font to be treated as one embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a diagram showing a system configuration of one embodiment of the present invention.

4 is a flow chart showing a process of performing outline processing of outline fonts.

5 is a diagram for explaining a process of performing outline processing of outline font.

6 is a diagram for explaining the exchange of paths between graphic paths.

Fig. 7 is a diagram showing graphic data of outline fonts after contour processing.

8 is a flowchart showing a process of acquiring a character width of an outline font.

9 is a diagram illustrating an example of character width measurement.

10 is a diagram illustrating an example of the acquired character width.

Fig. 11 is a flowchart showing a process of thinning by reducing an area enclosed by the outline of an outline font.

12 is a flowchart showing line segment connection when the area is reduced.

Fig. 13 is a diagram of an outline font after the area is reduced.

Fig. 14 is a diagram of an outline font after thinning processing.

Fig. 15 is a flowchart for explaining a process for connecting line segments after the thinning process.

Fig. 16 is a diagram illustrating a step for connecting line segments with each other.

Fig. 17 is a schematic diagram showing a connection result between line segments.

18 is a diagram illustrating an example of a decoration process.                 

Fig. 19 is a diagram showing an example of the result of the same processing performed on outline fonts of different languages.

EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION Hereinafter, the Example of this invention is described based on drawing using an Example.

Fig. 2 shows an outline font of a phonetic character corresponding to the phonetic symbol "a" in "hiragana" of Japanese characters. This outline font is composed of six polygonal cyclic graphic paths referred to by numerals 1a to 1f. Hereinafter, this circular graphic path is simply referred to as "polygon" for the sake of simplicity.

Among the polygons 1a to 1f, 1a to 1e represent a drawing area of a font, and the polygon 1f represents a removal area for inverting the drawing area. Each polygon 1a to 1f has an outline 2a to 2d composed of a line segment (element structure) having a starting point and an ending point as shown in the polygon 1b as an example. It is configured to be connected along a constant circulation direction so as to surround a predetermined area. The arrows attached to the outlines 2a to 2d each indicate the circulation direction (clockwise or counterclockwise). The difference between the drawing area and the removing area is determined by whether the circulating direction of the components constituting the polygon is constituted clockwise or counterclockwise.

Fig. 3 is a schematic block diagram showing a system 4 for performing decorative processing on the outline font described above.

The system 4 includes a program storage unit 10 and a data storage unit on a bus 9 to which a CPU 5, a RAM 6, an output device 7, and an input device 8 are connected. 11 is connected.

The data storage section 11 stores only an outline font dictionary 12 and character special effect data 13 when only those related to the present invention are described.

In addition to the OS / main program 15, the program storage unit 10 includes a font data read unit 16, a path constructing unit 17, a path exchanging unit 18, and a polygon path remover ( An inclusion polygonal path erasing unit 19, a thinning unit 20, a line segment continuity judging unit 21, a line segment connecting unit 22, and a character decoration output unit 23 are stored.

Each of these components 12 to 23 is actually a fixed area and a fixed area secured to a computer system and a storage medium such as a hard disc or a semiconductor memory installed in the computer system. It consists of installed computer software programs. And these are properly called and executed by the CPU5 on the RAM6 to exhibit the functions of the present invention.

Hereinafter, the detailed functions of the components 12 to 23 will be described together with the operation thereof.

First, the outline processing functions of the font data reading section 16, path building section 17, path changing section 18 and nested polygonal path erasing section 19 will be mainly described with reference to the flow chart of FIG.

The font data reading section 16 has a function of reading out desired outline font data from the outline font dictionary 12. The outline font dictionary 12 divides the outline of an outline font into a plurality of sections made of line segments or curves, and sequentially divides the outline of each section on a preset coordinate system preset in the outline font dictionary. It is created assuming drawing and forming outlines.

The path building section 17 instructs the font data reading section 16 to call the outline font data for the character designated as the processing target. The path constructing unit 17 constructs each contour (component) on the RAM area based on the read data (step A1 in Fig. 4), and connects these contours sequentially to form a polygon (a polygonal graphics path). (Step A2). In this way, graphic data as shown in Fig. 2 is constructed in the RAM area.

In the graphic data shown in Fig. 2, for example, as shown by the circle 25 in this figure, the outlines constituting the polygons cross each other. The path exchange unit 18 performs a graphic path exchange process in step A3 or below in FIG. 4 to remove such intersection from the graphic data in FIG.

First, the path exchanger 18 performs a process of reading a line segment from a polygon (step A3) to find an intersection. Subsequently, it is determined whether the read line segment intersects another line segment (step A4), and if it intersects, an intersection is added to the intersection to replace the path (step A5). . This processing will be described with reference to Figs. 5 (a) to 5 (d) and Fig. 6.

First, if there is a graphic path composed of each line segment as shown in Fig. 5 (a), the intersection of each line segment is found first, and each intersection on each graphic path as shown in Fig. 5 (b) is shown. Insert a new point at the position of. In this state, the continuous direction of the line segments intersect with each other as indicated by the broken arrow in the figure.

The path exchanger 18 then exchanges paths between the graphic paths at the newly inserted points so that the continuous directions of the line segments do not cross each other. By doing so, it is possible to eliminate the intersection between the line segments as shown in Fig. 5C. This procedure will be briefly described with reference to Figs. 6 (a) and 6 (b).

Fig. 6 (a) shows the state before exchanging paths, and Fig. 6 (b) shows the state after exchanging paths. If the points added to the intersections are points B and E, respectively, before each path is exchanged, each path is continuous in the order of point A to point B to point C and point D to point E to point F. Intersect at B and point E. On the other hand, the path exchanger 18 exchanges passes at these points B and E, and continues in the order of point A to point B to point F and point D to point E to point C as shown in Fig. 6B. To remove the intersection of the paths.

Subsequently, the path exchange unit 18 judges whether the above process has been performed for all the elements (step A6), and if not, reads another line segment and returns to step A4 to continue the process (step A7). .

Subsequently, the nested polygon path erasing unit 19 erases unnecessary polygons contained inside one polygon. Specifically, first, the circulation direction of each polygon is found (step A8). Subsequently, it is judged whether the one polygon is completely contained inside the other about two polygons with the same circulation direction (step A9). In the example of Fig. 5C, such a polygon exists. In this case, as shown in Fig. 5 (d), the polygon inside is deleted (step A10). It is determined whether such processing has been performed for all the elements (step A11), and another polygon is read out and the process returns to step A8 to continue the process (step A12). An example of a region in which unnecessary polygons are removed is shown in FIG. 7. Compared with Fig. 2A, it can be seen that only the outline portion is drawn.                 

Next, the thinning processing by the thinning processing unit 20 will be described. As shown in Fig. 3, the thinning processing unit 20 moves the line segment based on the character width calculating unit 27 for calculating the character width of the outline font and the calculated character width. And a line segment synthesizing unit 29 for synthesizing the moved line segment into one line segment. First, the operation of calculating the character width by the character width calculating section 27 will be mainly described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In this embodiment, the length of the most frequent frequency is the width of the character when measured in the vertical direction of the outline. In other words, in obtaining the character width, first, the length until the vertical bisector passes through the inside of the area and exits the area as shown in Fig. 9 is obtained. Since the width of a character may enter too large a value, the upper limit of the length to be calculated | required is determined, and the value beyond that is not included in a calculation subject. In order to prevent this, the weighted average multiplied by the length of the line segment is used as the width of the character in the calculation. In order to obtain such a weighted average, it is preferable to prepare the variable L of the line segment and the variable M of the multiplier.

Specifically, the character width calculating section 27 reads the graphic path data shown in FIG. 7 (step B1 in FIG. 8). For each line segment constituting this graphic path, as shown in Fig. 9, the vertical bisector of the line segment is considered, and the length to the intersection point through the inside of the area is calculated (step B2). If this length is longer than the threshold (step B4), ignore step B4 and step B5 (step B3) .If the length is within the threshold, add the length of the line segment to the variable L of the line segment (step B4). The value multiplied by the length and the length of the line segment is added to the variable M of the multiplier (step B5). It is judged whether or not this process has been performed by all the elements (step B6), and another line is read out and the process returns to step B2 to continue the process (step B7). After all the calculations, divide the variable of the multiplier by the variable of the line segment to find the weighted average (step B8) .The formula is M ÷ L = ((sum of line length x length of vertical line)) ÷ ( The sum of the lengths of the line segments) = weighted average width of the characters.

A concrete example by this calculation is shown in FIG. Since the width of this character varies from polygon to polygon, record the width of the character for each polygon. However, the removal areas (areas B, C) have the same values as the drawing areas around them, and the calculation is omitted.

Subsequently, the movement of the line segment by the line segment moving unit 28 will be mainly described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, in this process, since the information of the outlines constructed above is processed and changed, the information of the line segments constituting the outlines is copied to a predetermined area of the memory (step C1). Next, the character width by the character width acquisition process is read for each polygon (step C2). Line segments and points that face each other that constitute this character width are specified.                 

Next, the line segment moving unit 28 moves the line segments inside the area by only half the size of the read character width (step C3). In this way, as shown in Fig. 12, since new intersection K is generated between neighboring line segments, the coordinates of the intersection K are calculated (step C4), and the intersection K is substituted into the original starting point or end point (step C6). This allows neighboring line segments to form a continuous graphics path at this intersection.

After the above processing is performed at all points, the same processing is performed for the other polygons (steps C6 and C7). In this way, as shown in Fig. 13, graphic data in which all polygons are uniformly shrunk can be obtained.

In this state, it is possible to obtain an approximate result of thinning, but the thinning data shown in Fig. 14 is obtained by synthesizing the points and the line segments closer to the line segment combining section 29. This combining process is executed by, for example, a process of moving two adjacent points to their intermediate coordinates.

In the thinning data thus obtained, data representing the continuity of the line segment does not necessarily follow the writing order of the characters. For this reason, in this embodiment, the line segment continuity judging unit 21 and the line segment connecting unit 22 update the data indicating the continuity of the line segment in accordance with the writing order of the characters.

Therefore, first, the line segment continuity judging section 21 divides the line segments composed of polygons, respectively, and prepares a list of line segments (step Dl in FIG. 15). Then, it is determined whether there are line segments overlapping each other (step D3), and when there are overlapping line segments, one of the line segments is deleted (step D4). It is judged whether or not this process has been performed for all elements (step D5). If not, the process returns to step D3 (step D6) and the same process is performed.

Next, the coordinates where two or more points overlap is found from the list of line segments from which the overlapping is removed (step D7). This coordinate is a connection point, and the line segment connected to this coordinate is found (step D8). Next, two line segments connected with the smallest inclination difference among the line segments connected to each connection point are specified and connected so that it may continue (step D9). In the point where three or more line segments are connected as shown by the circle | round | yen shown in FIG. 16, this process connects line segments mutually in writing order. If the above processing is performed for all the connection points and all the line segments (step D11), as shown in Fig. 17, the connection processing based on the writing order is completed (step D12). By doing in this way, the skeletal structure of the character which can be decorated can be obtained.

Next, the character decoration output unit 23 performs the decoration process based on the skeleton structure obtained above. In this case, the line of the obtained line segment is decorated in a predetermined format stored in the character decoration data 13 (Fig. 3). Fig. 18A is a diagram showing a state in which the cylindrical appearance is given. In addition, various three-dimensional representations can be achieved by adding conditions such as the end point of the line of the line segment and the angle of the line segment. In this way, as shown in Fig. 18 (b), the three-dimensional structure of the appearance is decorated with texture based on the skeleton of the character.

As the character decoration data 13, it is preferable that various patterns necessary for character decoration are stored. For example, the condition of the end point of the line of the line segment or the deformation of the connection angle of the line of the line segment, the projection condition, the three-dimensional form such as a cylinder or a prismatic column, a texture or an image, etc. are pre-patterned and defined and stored. It is.

19 (a), 19 (b) and 19 (c) are examples of the same processing performed on outline fonts in English, Arabic and Korean, respectively. Thus, the present invention can obtain a character skeleton based on the writing order regardless of the language, and can perform appropriate decoration processing.

It is preferable that the character decoration output unit 23 not only outputs the character-decorated data in this way as structure data but also converts and outputs the bit map data. By doing so, it can be used as image data in various scenes such as telop in broadcasting.

In addition, this invention is not limited to the said one Example, A various deformation | transformation is possible in the range which does not change the summary of invention.

For example, in the above embodiment, the character width is obtained to achieve thinning, but the method of thinning is not limited thereto. For example, it may be a method of moving a pair of line segments defining the character width in a direction close to each other at regular distances without obtaining the character width.

Claims (12)

As a method of processing an outline font, (a) Reading font data from an outline font dictionary which stores data of outlines of outline fonts divided into a plurality of sections. With the step to do, (b) A plurality of element structures composed of data for drawing outlines of outline fonts are created based on the read font data, and the respective elements are sequentially connected to each other to form a polygon ( A step of constructing a cyclic graphic path having a variety of shapes, (c) It is determined whether the components constituting the polygonal graphics traversing path intersect with the components constituting the other graphics path. If they intersect, the intersection is added to the intersection, and the Exchanging a path at this intersection so that the components constituting the traversal graphic path do not intersect, (d) determine if there is a graphics path of one polygon-shaped graphics path completely contained therein and in the same traversal direction, and if so, erase the other graphics-shaped graphics path (if any). 스텝) step, (e) move the components constituting the polygonal graphics path in the text width direction by a predetermined distance based on the text width of the outline font, and thus the text width of the outline font; Outputting a plurality of line segments formed by removing the The outline font processing method comprising the. The method of claim 1, The step (e) is (e-1) calculating a character width of the outline font based on the polygon path graphic path; (e-2) Step of moving each successive line segment in the character width direction by a distance of about half of the character width, and making the intersection of each line segment in this case a new point constituting the traversal graphic path of the polygonal shape. and, (e-3) step of synthesizing two or more adjacent line segments into one line segment by substituting two coordinates adjacent in the character width direction with the coordinates of the midpoint of the two points; The outline font processing method comprising the. The method of claim 2, The step (e-1), For all line segments, the value obtained by multiplying the value of the length of one line segment with the distance from one line segment to the other line segment with respect to the pair of line segments constituting the character width is added to all line segments. An average font width of the character is calculated by dividing by the average length. The method of claim 2, and (f) a step of finding out whether each line segment output in said thinning processing step is continuous with each other. The method of claim 4, wherein In the step (f), the polygonal graphics path is divided for each line segment. A process for processing outline fonts, comprising the steps of: connecting rows sequentially from two line segments having the smallest difference in inclination at the connection points of the line segments. The method of claim 1, (g) The method of processing outline fonts further comprising the step of subjecting the character having the thinned line segment to a decoration process. A computer readable recording medium for processing outline fonts in a computer processing system, A font data reading instruction for processing font data from an outline font dictionary for storing outline data of outline fonts divided into a plurality of sections in said computer system; A plurality of components constituted by data for drawing outlines of outline fonts in the computer system are created on the basis of the read font data, and each component is sequentially connected to construct a circular graphic path in a polygonal shape. A path building instruction for processing; In the computer system, it is determined whether the components constituting the polygonal graphics traversal path intersect with the components constituting another graphics path. A path exchange instruction for processing a path exchange at this intersection so that the components constituting the path do not cross each other; The computer system determines whether there is a graphics path of another polygonal shape in the same traversal direction completely included in one polygonal graphics path, and if there is, performs a process of erasing a graphics path other than that in the polygonal shape. A circular graphics path erasing command A plurality of characters in which the character width is removed by performing a process of bringing the computer system into a line composed of the circular graphic path of the polygonal shape so as to approximate line segments facing the character width direction based on the character width. Thinning processing instruction for outputting as line segment of The computer-readable recording medium that recorded the data. The method of claim 7, wherein The thinning processing instruction, A character width calculation command for obtaining a character width of an outline font based on the polygon path graphic path; A segment movement instruction for moving each successive line segment in the character width direction by a distance of about half of the character width, and for making the intersection of each segment in this case a new point constituting the polygonal graphics path; Line segment compositing command for compositing two or more line segments into one line segment by substituting two coordinates close to the character width direction with the coordinates of the midpoints of the two points. A computer-readable recording medium comprising a. The method of claim 8, The character width calculation command For a pair of line segments constituting the character width, the value obtained by multiplying the distance between one line segment and the other line segment by the value of the length of the one line segment is added to all line segments and divided by the average length of all line segments. A computer-readable recording medium characterized by calculating an average character width of a character. The method of claim 8, A computer-readable recording medium further recording line segment continuity determination instructions for finding whether each line segment output from the thinning step is continuous with each other. The method of claim 10, The line segment continuity judging command divides the polygon-shaped circular graphic path for each line segment, extracts non-overlapping line segments, and sequentially from two line segments having the smallest difference in inclination at the connection point of the line segment. And a line segment connecting instruction for connecting line segments following the row. The method of claim 7, wherein A computer-readable recording medium further comprising a decorative processing instruction for performing a decorative process on a character having a thin line segment processed in the computer system.

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