JPH0348975A - Graphic designating system for display device - 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] [Summary] Regarding a figure specification method in a graphic display device, etc., it is an object of the present invention to reduce the labor of operation and facilitate the drawing work when specifying a specific display element on a re-screen. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a graphic designation method for a display device in which a specific display element is designated by a cursor from among a plurality of display elements displayed on the screen of the display device, the designation method being such that the cursor If multiple display elements are included within the cursor, each display element included within the cursor can be specified one by one at predetermined time intervals, and the display elements that can be specified are highlighted. Constructed as.

[Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to a graphic designation method in a graph ink display device or the like.

Display devices used in CAD etc. display straight lines,
A large amount of graphic data, which is the internal representation of various shapes such as curves, circles, and polygons, is developed into an image memory (image memory) according to each attribute, and the contents of this image memory are read out and displayed on the CRT screen. A large number of figures each composed of one or more display elements are displayed.

Then, for any figure displayed on the CRT screen,
Design work, design creation work, etc. are advanced by modifying the figure by performing various conversions and deletions such as moving, rotating, enlarging, reducing, or mirroring, or by adding newly generated figures.

If the highlighted element is desired, the operator performs a switch operation (click) to designate (click) the element as the element to be modified or deleted.
element pick).

The size of the cursor is preset in consideration of operational convenience, such as visibility and movement speed on the CRT screen.

Highlighting is performed by temporarily changing a designable element from a solid line display to a broken line display or a chain line display, or by making the color or brightness different from other elements.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, in display devices, in order to specify a figure to be corrected or deleted from among a large number of figures displayed on the CRT Wi screen, when the cursor position is specified with a light pen or tablet left, the display contained within the cursor is Elements can be specified and highlighted on the CRTM screen.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In the conventional graphic designation method for display devices, when a cursor contains multiple elements, only one element, for example at the top position, within the cursor can be designated, and highlighting is not possible. be done.

Therefore, if the highlighted element is different from the desired element, you must partially enlarge the displayed shape or make the cursor smaller so that only the desired element is included within the cursor. Must be.

This is especially true when a large number of elements are crowded together on a CRT screen. j! In the work of drawing a crude figure, an operation to change the relative size relationship between the cursor and the figure is required every time an element is picked, making the work extremely troublesome.

In view of the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides a graphic designation method for a display device that can reduce the labor of operation and facilitate drawing work when designating a specific display element on the screen. It is an object.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the present invention has a plurality of display elements Ll, L2. This is a specification method for specifying a specific display element from among L3 by a cursor CU, and when the cursor CU includes a plurality of display elements, for each display element included in the cursor CU, The feature is that the display elements can be specified one by one at predetermined time intervals, and the display elements that can be specified are highlighted.

[For production]

A plurality of display elements L1 that overlap with the cursor CU on the screen 6a
~L3 can be specified one by one at predetermined time intervals.

Specifiable display elements are recognized by the operator by being highlighted.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a display device l for implementing the present invention.

The graphic data storage unit 2 stores graphic data received from a host system (not shown), internally generated graphic data, and highlight graphic data for highlighting, which will be described later, in the form of a data list.

As shown in FIG. 2, the graphic data storage section 2 has area numbers 1, 2, .
. . m storage areas, and a storage area with area number n that stores data corresponding to the graphic that can be specified and is highlighted.

The graphic data analysis unit 3 sequentially analyzes the graphic data stored in the graphic data storage unit 2, and generates coordinate position data and attribute data of dots on the screen necessary for displaying the figure. Part 3 is a DDA that generates dots necessary for drawing lines, arcs, etc. at high speed, for example.
(digital differential analyzer) and CG
(character generator), etc.

The bitmap memory 4 is a two-dimensional virtual screen made of readable and writable storage elements, into which dot data from the graphic data analysis section 3 is written, and the graphics to be displayed on the screen are reproduced on this virtual screen. Ru. The contents of the bitmap memory 4 are sequentially read out by scanning the virtual screen and output as a data string. The bitmap memory 4 consists of, for example, four memory planes, in which case it is possible to display in 16 colors.

The bitmap memory 4 has a frame buffer M that can store two frames worth of dot data.
Reading of one frame's worth of dot data and writing of one frame's worth of dot data corresponding to the next frame are performed in parallel.

The display control unit 5 performs D/A conversion on the data string output from the bitmap memory 4, or performs RG/G conversion using a color table in order to display colors defined by the operator.
Output the color information of B.

The CR7 display unit 6 displays C according to the output from the display control unit 5.
Graphics, characters, etc. are displayed on the R7 screen 6a.

The light pen 7 detects light on the CR7 screen 6a of the CR7 display section 6 and transmits position information to the display control section 5. For example, a rectangular cursor CU (see FIG. 1) is displayed at the position specified by the light pen 7. light pen 7
is equipped with a pen down switch.

The cursor generation unit 8 generates a cursor of a certain size by referring to the data regarding the cursor size stored in the cursor size register 9.6 Display control unit 5
The cursor C is placed at the position specified by the light pen 7 on the CR7 screen 6a according to the output of the cursor generation date.
Display U.

Further, the position information of the cursor CU when the pen down switch of the light pen 7 is pressed is transmitted to the cursor generating section 8.

The figure detection unit 10 compares the data regarding the position and size of the cursor Cυ outputted from the cursor generation unit 8 with the data of each figure from the figure data analysis unit 3, and determines the elements within the cursor range of the cursor CU. That is,
Extract the element included in the cursor CU. however,
When the cursor CU includes a plurality of elements and the priorities of the elements are different depending on the display color or the area number of the graphic data storage unit 2, only elements with the same priority are extracted.

The highlight figure generating section 11 generates highlight figure data H for highlighting the element extracted by the figure detecting section 10.

The generated highlight graphic data H is stored in the highlight data list 13 on -1.

The highlight graphic data H stored in the highlight data list 13 is transferred to the storage area with area number n of the graphic data storage section 2, as will be described later.

As a result, on the CR7 screen 6a, multiple elements included in the cursor CU can be specified one by one at predetermined time intervals (for example, 0.3 to 0.5 seconds) and are highlighted. That will happen.

The control Tj unit 12 controls the entire display device l.

Each of these parts is realized by hardware such as a memory element, a logic element, a microprocessor-1 and other various LSIs, and a cathode ray tube, and software such as a program stored in the memory element. Although not shown, input devices such as a keyboard, output devices such as a printer, external storage devices, etc. are also connected as necessary.

FIGS. 1(a) to 1(d) are diagrams showing the state of the CR7 screen 6a when a graphic is specified, and FIGS. 2(a) to (d) are diagrams showing the data storage state in the graphic data storage section 2. In these figures, by the same alphabets a to d,
This is a correspondence between the state of the CR7 screen 6a and the data storage state.

In FIG. 2(a), each figure data 1.2...
Types of colors, types of shapes such as line segments, arcs, circles, triangles, etc.
It consists of line types such as solid lines, broken lines, and dashed-dot lines, and position data such as starting points, ending points, center points, and radii.

These graphic data 1, 2, . . . are area numbers l.

The dot data is read out in the order of 2, .

These operations are performed at regular intervals under the control of the control unit 12, but as described later, the bitmap memory 4
For each writing of dot data into the . . . , the reading of the graphic data 1, 2, . . . and the data analysis by the graphic data analysis section 3 are performed twice each.

In Fig. 2(b) to (d), data 1°2...
In addition, the storage area with area number n contains data H1 for highlighting each element that can be specified.
~H3 is stored.

There are three line segments L on the CR7 screen 6a of the 1st Cfl(a).
1 to 3 are displayed. Each line segment Ll~3 is shown in Figure 2 (
They are drawn using data 1 to 3 in a), and in this case, each of the line segments L1 to 3 constitutes one element and each constitutes one figure.

In FIG. 1(a), for example, when the light pen 7 is brought close to the line segment L2 in order to perform an element check on the line segment L2, a cursor CU of a predetermined size is displayed on the screen 6a. At this time, since the line segments L1 to L3 are close to each other, the line segments L1 and L3 are included in the cursor CU along with the line segment L2.

Next, the operation when specifying a graphic in the display device 1 will be explained based on a flowchart.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation when specifying a figure.

In FIG. 3, first, in step #11, the graphic data analysis unit 3 analyzes area numbers 1 to m of the graphic data storage unit 2.
Analyzes the data of and generates the analysis result and cursor generator 8
Based on the cursor position data from , the graphic detection unit 10 extracts elements included in the cursor CU, that is, line segments L1 to L3.

Subsequently, in step #12, three pieces of data H1-3 for highlighting the three line segments L1-3 extracted in step #11 are added to highlight data list 1.
The highlight data list 13, which is sequentially written to step #11, is composed of a pair of memory areas.
Every time an element is extracted in , data is written alternately to each memory area.

Next, in step #13, the contents of the highlight data list 13 are checked, that is, by comparing the contents of both memory areas of the highlight data list 13, it is determined that the element extracted in step #13 is the same as the previous one. Determine whether or not. If YES in step #13, this means that the cursor CU has not been moved on the CR7 screen 6a, and in this case, the process advances to step #14.

If no in step #13, on the CR7 screen 6a,
This is the case when the cursor position is specified for the first time for element big, or when the cursor CU is moved so as to newly overlap the line segments L1 to L3. In this case, the process advances to step #16.

In step #16, a timer is started to determine the time that can be specified for one element, that is, the time for highlighting.

In the following step #17, the first data H1 of the highlight data list 13 is transferred to the storage area with area number n of the graphic data storage section 2, as shown in FIG. 2(b), and the process proceeds to step #18.

On the other hand, in step #14, the end of the above-mentioned timer is checked. If yes to step #14,
This is a case where one element has already been highlighted and the set time for that highlighting has elapsed. In this case, step #15 is performed in order to be able to specify the next element.
If no in step #14, proceed to step #1
Move to 8.

In step #15, the second data H2 from the highlight data list 13 is transferred to the graphic data storage section 2.

As a result, as shown in FIG. 2(C), highlight graphic data H2 is stored in the storage area of area number n instead of highlight graphic data H1.

In step #18, all the data in area numbers 1-n of the graphic data storage section 2 are analyzed and the data is written into the bitmap memory 4 head.

At this time, after the dot data for the data in area numbers 1 to m corresponding to normal display is written, the highlight graphic data H in area number n is written.

In other words, in the visual memory 4, for elements to be highlighted, dot data corresponding to the highlighted display is superimposed on the previously written dot data for normal display using data H of the highlight figure. The final image is drawn with the specific element highlighted.

The above routine is repeated at regular intervals.

As a result, as shown in FIG.
Here, among a plurality of elements included in the cursor CU, one element can be specified and highlighted in sequence at each predetermined time interval measured by a timer.

Figure 1(b) shows three line segments L included in the cursor CU.
1 to 3, line segment HLI is displayed, which is emphasized by representing line segment L1 with a broken line instead of line segment L1. In addition, FIGS. 1(c) and 1(d) each show the line segment L2. In place of L3, the dashed line segment HL2. HL3
are displayed in sequence.

In each of the states shown in FIGS. 1(b) to 1(d), the operator recognizes that the line segments L1 to 3 are display elements that can be displayed as element big.

After this, during the period when the desired line segment L2 is highlighted, that is, during the period when the line segment HL2 is displayed, the pen down switch of the light pen 7 is operated to element jump the line segment L2. , for line segment L2,
You can modify shapes by performing various transformations such as moving, rotating, enlarging, and reducing them, and by erasing them to proceed with design work.

In the above-described embodiment, the time period during which one element can be designated (highlighted display time) can be appropriately set in consideration of work efficiency and operability.

In the above embodiment, highlighting is performed by changing a specific element to a broken line. However, for highlighting, it is possible to change the line type to use a chain line instead of a broken line, or to change the color or brightness of the display. You may also make changes.

In the above embodiment, the light pen 7 is used to specify the position of the cursor CU, but a keyboard, tablet, etc. may be used instead, and the shape of the cursor CU may be other shapes. Other types of cursors, such as a cross that indicates the position at the intersection of a vertical line and a horizontal line, may be used.

Further, various configurations other than those described above can be adopted as the overall configuration of the display device l.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, when specifying a specific display element on the screen, it is possible to reduce the effort required for operations and to facilitate drawing work.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a diagram showing the state of the CRT screen when specifying a figure, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the data storage state in the figure data storage section, Fig. 3 is a flowchart showing the figure specifying operation, and Fig. 4 is a diagram showing the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a display device for implementation. In the figure, 1 is a display device, 6a is a CRT screen (screen), CU is a cursor, and L1 to 3 are line segments (display elements). tJl area number (a) (1)) (c) (d) Figure 2 of the national policy showing the determination of the date and moon age in the figure date column leg (a) (b) (c) (d) State of the CRT screen when specifying the figure Figure 1: Flowchart showing darkness Figure 3: Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A specification method for specifying a specific display element from among a plurality of display elements (L1) (L2) (L3) displayed on the screen (6a) of the display device (1) using a cursor (CU) A plurality of display elements (L1) (L
2) If (L3) is included, each display element (L1) (L2) (L3) included in the cursor (CU) can be specified one by one at a predetermined time interval. A graphic designation method in a display device characterized by highlighting possible display elements.