JPH04178779A - Picture processing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a beautiful print picture by commanding contents of picture processing to the inside and the outside of a closed area to not only subject a picture forming the closed area to line thinning process but also perform the picture processing of contents commanded to the inside and the outside of the closed area. CONSTITUTION:A monitor 70 is arranged on the deep side on the upper face of a retaining plate 52, and a keyboard 72 as the input means is arranged on the front side, and the keyboard 72 or the like is used to perform coloring and editing work. Meanwhile, a CPU 84 as the processing means expands coordinates of a change point stored in a RAM 88 and information of color and pattern following this point to obtain data for each picture element and prints a picture while restoring the state of this bit image, and at this time, a picture L is subjected to line thinning process and this thinned picture is colored and patterned to print out the picture. Thus, lines of the picture on a document are sufficiently thinned and are inconspicuously printed out though they are thick, and a beautiful picture is outputted.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to an image processing device that specifies a closed area surrounded by lines in an image read by a scanner and performs predetermined image processing such as coloring. It is.

(Technical background of the invention) A manuscript is read by a scanner, and an image is colored based on the read image, a part of the image is cut out and edited, a part of the image is cut out, and a part of the image is combined with other images, and various image processing is performed. An image processing apparatus has been proposed that outputs the image data to a printer.

One way of using such a device is to image-process the inside or outside of a closed area surrounded by lines or drawing lines of a read image into a certain color or pattern. If the original has thick lines, these thick lines will remain black and sharp, and especially if the inside and outside of this closed area are pale in color, these lines will remain clearly and create a beautiful printed image. There were problems such as not being able to obtain it.

(Objective of the Invention) The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and when performing predetermined image processing such as coloring on the inside or outside of a closed area surrounded by a read object line, it is possible to It is an object of the present invention to provide an image processing device that makes it possible to obtain beautiful printed images by thinning or erasing images to make them less noticeable.

(Structure of the Invention) According to the present invention, the purpose is to provide a scanner for reading a document;
an image monitor for displaying the read image; a digitizer for specifying a closed area surrounded by lines of the read image; and a processing content input means for instructing the content of image processing for inside and outside the closed area; This is achieved by an image processing device characterized by comprising processing means for thinning the drawing lines forming the closed area and for performing image processing according to the commanded content on the inside and outside of the closed area. Ru.

Here, the processing means can perform the same image processing on the thinned object line as either inside or outside the closed area, and erase the object line as a result.

(Operation) The image of the original is read by a scanner and stored in memory. In the digitizer, a closed area surrounded by drawing lines is specified in the document, and the contents of the process to be applied to the inside or outside of this closed area, such as applying a predetermined color or pattern, for example, are specified. Then, the processing means processes the specified contents for this closed area. Here, the processing means performs thinning processing on the drawing line, making the drawing line sufficiently thin to make it inconspicuous, or making the thinned drawing line the same color or pattern as the inside or outside of the drawing line. Process. The results of this processing can be output from a printer or sent to other computers or image processing devices connected to each other.
It is also stored in an external storage device such as an optical disk.

(Example) Fig. 1 is a perspective view of an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing its internal structure, Fig. 3 is a side perspective view, Fig. 4 is a front perspective view, and Fig. 5 is a perspective view of an embodiment of the present invention. The figure shows the top surface of the scanner presser cover, Figure 6 is a block diagram, Figure 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of editing processing with coloring as a typical process, and Figure 8 is an explanatory diagram of line thinning process. It is.

First, the arrangement structure of each part will be explained based on FIGS. 1 to 4. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1o indicates a horizontally elongated casing, and this casing 1
0 is kept horizontal by a pair of left and right feet 12.12. The upper surface of the casing 10 can be opened and closed upward [14]. The lower portions of the legs 12.12 are connected by a member 16, and a rack 18 for receiving printed sheets is hooked onto this member 16.

A printer 20 is housed inside the housing 1o, as shown in FIG. 2.3. This printer 20 includes a paper feed roll 22 and a platen 24, which are arranged laterally in parallel. This platen 24 is located in front of the paper feed roll 22, and the paper 26 pulled out from the lower edge of the paper feed roll 22 is hooked onto the platen 24, rotated, and guided downward from the front edge of the platen 24. The platen 24 is belt driven by a feed motor 28.

The printer 20 includes a print head 30 that runs left and right along the front surface of the platen 24. This print head 30 is guided by a guide rod 32 and is driven by a carriage motor 34.
It is sent left and right by a belt 36 wrapped around the. In this embodiment, the print head 3o is of an inkjet type, and at its return position (home position), the ink ejection nozzle is closed by a capping portion 38 to prevent the ink ejection nozzle from drying out and to clean it.

4o is a waste liquid tank that collects waste liquid (waste ink) ejected into the cabin portion 38 for cleaning. The print head 30 is equipped with ink tanks and nozzles for four colors: yellow, magenta, cyan, and black. In FIG. 4, reference numeral 42 indicates a printing area by this print head 30.

A cutter 44 is located below the platen 24 and cuts the print paper 26. That is, a fixed blade and a movable blade face each other with the printing paper 26 in between, and when the movable blade is moved by a motor, it moves toward the fixed blade and cuts the paper 26.

A scanner 50 is located on the right side of the top surface of the lid 14. The scanner 50 includes a presser lid 52 placed on the lid 14 from above, a transport mechanism that sandwiches the document 53 between the presser lid 52 and the lid 14 of the housing 1o, and transports the document 53 from right to left.
The CCD line sensor 54 housed in the 0 and the original 53
and an optical system that guides the image on the main scanning line perpendicular to the conveyance direction to the line sensor 54. The transport mechanism is the fourth
As shown in the figure, it is composed of four feed rollers 56 that sandwich the original 53 from above and below and feed it from right to left, and the two rollers 56 on the side of the casing 10 are rotationally driven by a motor (not shown). The optical system is composed of an appropriate number of mirrors 58 and lenses 60. Note that 62 is a light source.

64 is a digitizer, and the document 53 of this scanner 50 is
It is provided on the upper surface of the lid 14 adjacent to the discharge side, that is, the left side. This digitizer 64 includes a coordinate detection plate 66 and a stylus pen 68. The detection plate 66 has a resistor spread over the entire surface, and the coordinates are detected from the change in resistance value when the detection plate 66 is pressed with the tip of the stylus pen 68. For example, the upper right corner of the detection plate 66 is determined as a reference position, and the upper right corner of the document 53 is aligned and fixed to this reference position.

Reference numeral 70 is an image monitor consisting of a liquid crystal panel, and 72 is a keyboard for manually inputting image processing contents, which are attached to the upper surface of the presser cover 52 of the scanner 50. That is, as shown in FIG. 1.5, a monitor 7o is arranged on the back side of the upper surface of the presser plate 52, and a keyboard 72 as an input means is arranged on the front side thereof. The operation of this keyboard 72 will be described later. Note that on the front side of the scanner 50,
As shown in FIG. 1, a confirmation key 74, a start key 76,
A print number input key 78, a mode selection key 90, a setting device 92 for setting the line width by thinning processing, and the like are provided.

A printer 20, a scanner 50, a digitizer 64,
A monitor 70, a keyboard 72, and even keys 74.
76, 78, 90, setting device 92, etc. are connected to the bus 82 via interfaces 80a-e, respectively (
Figure 6). The ROM 86 stores operating programs for the CPU 84 and various constants. The bus 82 also includes a CPU 84, ROM 86, and RAM 8 as processing means.
8, image memory F (F, , F2), etc. are connected. It may also be connected to another CPU or the like via this bus 82 to mutually transmit and receive image information.

(Coloring is an editing operation) Next, as an example of the basic image processing of this embodiment, the coloring and editing operation will be explained using FIG. 5.7 and the like.

First, after setting the mode selection key 90 to the standard mode, the document 53 is set in the right insertion slot of the scanner 50 with its front side (image side) facing down and its back side facing up (FIG. 7, step 200). Then, by pressing the start key 76, the scanner 50 starts, and while feeding the original 53 to the left, the lower surface (
The image of the front surface) is read by the line sensor 54 (step 202). This read image data is image-processed by the CPU 84 and stored in the RAM 88, and is also sent to the monitor 70 where this image is displayed. Ru.

The original 53 that has passed through the scanner 50 and is ejected to the left side of the presser cover 52 is placed face up on the detection plate 66 of the digitizer 64 adjacent to this ejection port, and the original 53 is placed at the reference position (upper right corner). The upper right corner of is set (step 204
).

Next, coloring is edited using the keyboard 72 or the like (step 206). First, the work contents for the image displayed on the monitor 70 are in modes 208A, 21OA, and 2.
Choose from 12A. Mode 208A is selected when a closed area S surrounded by image lines, that is, object lines L (see Figure 5) is to be filled with a predetermined color (step 2o8).
. When performing this filling, use the 1-point designation key 214A.
Step 214) and specify one point within the area to be filled in with the stylus pen 68 of the digitizer 64, this area to be filled in will be input (step 216), and this specified point will be displayed as a small circle mark M. .

The present invention is applied to the case where a closed area S to be filled is specified using this one point specifying key 214A. That is, the line (object line) L of the image read by the scanner 50 is thinned. This thinning process will be described later.

Mode 210A is for selecting an operation for converting the color of a desired area (step 210), and two-point specification and multi-point specification can be selected as the method of specifying this area. 2-point specification is to specify the coordinates of the diagonal position of the area, and 2-point specification key 2
18A (step 218). Multi-point specification is done by sequentially specifying the corners of the area (using the multi-point specification key 220
A is specified (step 220). After inputting the method of specifying the area using the key 218A or 22OA in this way,
All you have to do is input the coordinates from the digitizer 64 (step 2).
16).

Mode 212A is for selecting a background painting operation that colors the background in an area including images and text (step 2).
12) The area specification method for this work is the 2-point specification key 222.
After the coordinates are designated using A or the multi-point designation key 224A (steps 222 and 224), the coordinates are entered manually from the digitizer 64 (step 216).

After the work area is input in this way, a pattern is specified (step 226). This designation is performed by pressing one of the standard pattern designation key group 226A or the registered pattern designation key group 226B. After specifying the pattern, the next step is to specify the color (step 228). This color specification is performed by pressing one of the standard color key group 228A and the registered color key group 228B. Also, when specifying the color density, use the density key group 2.
After specifying with 26C, press the color specification key.

After inputting the work contents and work area as described above, the confirmation key 74 (FIG. 1) is pressed to confirm the input contents (step 230). As a result, the input results are printed in a reduced size to, for example, A7 size. Looking at this confirmation print, if further corrections are necessary, the color editing work is performed again on the corrected portions. The work data input through the above operations are stored in the RAM 88.

The data stored in this RAM 88 is stored in the scanner 50.
The coordinates of a change point in an image on a scanning line, and information such as colors and patterns after this change point are compressed as one group.

Although coloring has been explained above as an editing task, it is of course possible to perform various other tasks such as enlarging/reducing images, cutting and pasting images, compositing photographic manuscripts with text manuscripts, etc. be.

After inputting the content of the work and the work area, the number of copies to be printed is input using the number input key 78, and the start key 76 is pressed again to start the printer 20 (step 232). Then, the print paper 26 is fed and the print head 30 moves left and right to perform color printing, and the printed paper 26 is collected in the rack 18 below the housing 10 (step 234).

Here, the CPU 84 as a processing means expands the coordinates of the change point and subsequent color/pattern information stored in the RAM 88 and prints the data while restoring it to a bit image state as data for each pixel. This poetry painting! iL
Line thinning processing is performed at the same time. This thinning, for example,
As shown in the figure, this is performed by a method of sequential thinning using a thinning mask pattern. That is, the binary figures of the image stored in the RAM 8g are read out in the same order as scanning, put into the shift register or the first figure memory F1, and the 3x3 sub-pattern (see the shaded area in Fig. 8) is extracted from there. . When this sub-pattern satisfies the relationship shown in any of the mask patterns a to d in the figure, the position of the center X is set to O'.

In other words, if this position X is "1", change it to °゛0゛,
If it is "0", leave it as is. Then, these data are sequentially transferred to another graphic memory F2. If this is repeated for all pixels, one pixel at a time will be removed from the outer periphery where the line width is wide. It is shown here that φ may be either 1 or O in the mask patterns a to d. Next, image memo υF1
By exchanging F2 and F2 and repeating the same process, the wires can be gradually thinned. The degree of this thinning or the number of repetitions can be determined using the setting device 9.
It is determined by the line width set by 2.

The above-mentioned coloring and patterning process is performed on the thinned image as described above, and the image is printed out.

Note that in the case of the image processed in this way, although the line has been thinned, there still remains some drawing. Therefore, it is desirable to apply the same processing to the drawing line after thinning as the color and pattern on the inside or outside of the drawing line. Such settings can be made using the setting device 92.

In this case, images I and 9L will be printed completely disappearing, making the printed image even more beautiful. It goes without saying that the thinning algorithm is not limited to this embodiment.

This embodiment includes image processing in the case of region setting by two-point designation and multi-point designation, but in the present invention, a closed region S surrounded by the image 1a is designated by one-point designation, and this designated It can be applied to those that perform image processing such as coloring and patterning on the inside and outside of the closed region S, and may not have the function of performing image processing by two-point designation or multi-point designation.

(Effects of the Invention) As described above, the present invention performs image processing by thinning the lines of an image read by a scanner, that is, the drawing lines. Therefore, even if the drawing lines of the original are thick, they can be made sufficiently thin to make them inconspicuous and can be printed out, and a beautiful image can be outputted (claims).

If the same image processing as applied to the inside or outside of the drawing line is applied to the thinned drawing line, the drawing line can be completely erased and the output image can be made even more beautiful. (2)).

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing its internal structure, Fig. 3 is a side perspective view, Fig. 4 is a front perspective view, and Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the scanner. FIG. 6 is a block diagram, FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of the editing process with coloring as a typical process, and FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of the thinning process. 50... Scanner, 53... Document, 64... Digitizer, 70... Image monitor, 72... Keyboard as processing content input means, 84
... CPU as a processing means, 92 ... Setting device, L ... Drawing line, S ... Closed area.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A scanner that reads a document, an image monitor that displays the read image, a digitizer that specifies a closed area surrounded by lines of the read image, and image processing contents for inside and outside of this closed area processing content input means for commanding;
An image processing apparatus characterized by comprising processing means for thinning the drawing lines forming the closed area and for performing image processing according to the instructed content on the inside and outside of the closed area. (2) The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processing means performs the same image processing on the thinned object line as either inside or outside the closed area.