JPH02201535A - Character pattern generating system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the data volume by setting circles which have centers at points set at intervals on vector data indicating the skeleton of each picture and have radiuses determined by attribute data and defining the line, which is formed by connecting points of these circles intersecting the advance direction of the vector at right angles, and a contour to generate a character pattern. CONSTITUTION:Circles are set which have centers at points set at proper intervals on the line determined by vector data indicating the skeleton of each picture and have radiuses obtained as a function of distance from the start point of this vector. The line connecting points of these circles intersecting the advance direction of the vector at right angles is defined as the contour to generate a character pattern. Thus, the quantity of stored data is reduced to a half in comparison with the technique where all contours around the character pattern are stored as vectors and the contour line vector font is used.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary] Circles having centers at appropriately spaced points on vector data representing the skeleton of each stroke and radii determined by attribute data are set, and these circles are A character pattern is generated using a line connecting points perpendicular to the traveling direction of the vector as an outline.

[Industrial application field]

This field relates to a method for generating character patterns used for displaying, printing, etc.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, dot fonts or outline vector fonts have been used as a method for generating character patterns such as those described above.

However, in character pattern generation methods using dot fonts, it is difficult to perform transformation processing such as enlarging, reducing, or rotating characters to be displayed.
Contour vector fonts have a problem in that the amount of data per character becomes extremely large.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to obtain a vector font that is suitable for transformation processing while significantly reducing the amount of data compared to the case where an outline vector font is used.

[Means to solve the problem]

Characters to be displayed are broken down into strokes, vector data representing the skeleton of each stroke and attribute data representing the attributes of this stroke are stored in correspondence, and appropriate positions on the line defined by this vector data are stored. Set circles with centers at points spaced apart from each other and a radius determined by the attribute data, and generate a character pattern with a line connecting the points where these circles intersect perpendicularly to the direction of travel of the vector as an outline. I made it.

[For production]

There are various types of fonts, but for example, Mincho kanji has relatively thick vertical lines and thin horizontal lines that are geometric, and a brush-like trajectory that increases or decreases in width in proportion to the pressure of the pen.
It is characterized by strokes, strokes, folds, and bends, and while katakana is somewhat straight, it does not have geometric parts consisting of relatively thick vertical lines and thin horizontal lines, and hiragana does not have straight parts. In addition, for alphanumeric characters and symbols, it is a pen-like trajectory consisting of straight lines, arcs, serifs, etc., and the width in the horizontal direction changes in proportion to the pressure of the pen.

By the way, characters are generally composed of a combination of line segments called a stroke, and the shape of this stroke is determined by the shape of the line segment that is the center line of the stroke and the width of the line segment at each position.

Stroke data, which is the shape of the line segment that is the center line, is determined by the creator of the character pattern, but the width at each position of the line segment is determined by stroke attributes such as points, strokes, strokes, folds, and curves. It can be defined functionally.

Figure 1 shows examples of the types of picture attributes; the left column classifies the picture types into eight types, and the right column shows the shapes of pictures corresponding to these types as skeleton vectors. It is. Note that the points shown are the starting ends of these vectors.

Figure 2 shows the aforementioned geometric locus, calligraphy locus, and pen-like locus. In the geometric locus shown in figure (a), the end processing as shown is performed, and the fb1 figure In the brush-like trajectory shown in Figure 1, the thickness of the stroke corresponds to the pressure of the brush, and in the pen-like trajectory shown in Figure +01, the width is approximately horizontal in proportion to the pressure of the brush.

The width of the trajectory that makes up these strokes can be specified as a function of the distance from the origin of the vector for each stroke, so if you remember the vectors and stroke attributes in correspondence, you can easily create character patterns. Obtainable.

In the present invention, in order to obtain the width of this locus, circles are set whose centers are at appropriately spaced points on the line defined by the above vector and whose radius is determined as a function of the distance from the origin of this vector. , a character pattern is generated using a line connecting the points where these plurality of circles intersect at right angles to the traveling direction of the vector as an outline.

Note that the function determined by the above attribute data is determined in advance for each font to be displayed, such as a geometric trajectory, a calligraphy trajectory, and a Vennian trajectory.

The table below shows an example of a data table in which the character "sui" shown in FIG. 3 is stored according to the present invention.

Needless to say.

In addition, in order to distinguish between the aforementioned geometric trajectories, brush-like trajectories, pen-like trajectories, etc., it is necessary to insert codes to identify them into the data, or to insert codes indicating the above two types into the data. A different code may be used for each trajectory.

Here, S1 to S1° of the stroke data is the number of the stroke, and then the coordinates of the starting point of this stroke and the coordinates that constitute the vector of the skeleton of the stroke are arranged in order.
When the types of images shown in the figure are actually stored in the table, appropriate symbols such as the numbers shown in FIG. 1 can be used. Note that the above coordinates should be created based on the character pattern area where the character is to be displayed. [Effects of the Invention] According to the character pattern generation method of the present invention, all the contours around the character pattern are stored as vectors. It is clear from the table above that the amount of data that needs to be stored is approximately half that of the conventional technology that uses contour vector fonts. A special effect is achieved in that character patterns of exceptional quality are obtained.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is a diagram illustrating the types of attributes of strokes, Figure 2 is a diagram showing geometric locus, calligraphy locus, and pen-like locus, and Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating the character pattern "Ei" according to the present invention. It is a figure which shows the generated example.

Claims (1)

[Claims] Characters to be displayed are broken down into strokes, vector data representing the skeleton of each stroke and attribute data representing the attributes of this stroke are stored in correspondence, and appropriate positions on the line defined by this vector data are stored. A character pattern is generated with a line connecting the points where these multiple circles intersect perpendicularly to the direction of travel of the vector as an outline. A character pattern generation method characterized by: