JPH04246784A - Image processing 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]

0001

[Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an image processing device.
In particular, the present invention relates to an image processing apparatus having a printer section capable of full-color output, for example.

0002

[Background Art] Conventionally, when outputting a hard copy of the screen of an engineering workstation (hereinafter abbreviated as EWS) to a printer, the display color of the printer is the bitmap display (hereinafter abbreviated as display device) possessed by the EWS.
is limited by the number of display gradations (number of planes).

[0003] Now, let us consider a case where the printer has a full color output function (8 bits each for RGB) and the number of display gradations of the EWS bitmap display is 8 bits (256 gradations). EWS is usually equipped with a multi-window system, and various applications are displayed coexisting on the screen in the form of multiple windows. In such an EWS, even if the application has the function to logically display a full-color image, the EWS
Due to the hardware limitations of the S display device, it is not possible to display the number of gradations as is, so for example, use a bit compression method such as the dither method to compress the bits to 256 gradations or less, and then display them as a window on the display device. do. After that, when a hard copy of the screen is output to a printer, the window portion of the image that should originally have been displayed in full color will be bit-compressed and output.

On the other hand, when printing out an image with the original number of gradations, that is, in full color, either the full color image is printed out separately from the hard copy of the screen, or
There was no choice but to output the image in the form of a hard copy of the screen along with other applications other than the image displayed on the display device in the EWS gradation number.

[0005]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the above-mentioned conventional example, an image window that is originally full color and compressed and displayed coexists with an application window other than a full color image, while the number of tones that is original to the original image is reduced. In order to make a hard copy, it is necessary to temporarily import the screen hard copy data and full-color image data into a buffer area and explicitly combine them, which is a tedious task for the operator.

The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional example, and provides an image processing device that can automatically capture an original image with fine gradation expression, synthesize it with another image with coarse gradation expression, and simultaneously output it. The purpose is to provide

[0007]

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above object, an image processing apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, in an image processing apparatus that includes a printer section capable of outputting image data in color to a recording medium at a high gradation level and a display section capable of outputting image data in color at a relatively low gradation level, , a display means for simultaneously displaying image data having a high gradation level and data other than an image having a relatively low gradation level compared to the image data on the display section; a storage means for storing the image data and the data other than the image; a display control means for controlling the display of the image data and the data other than the image; and a display control means for controlling the display of the image data and the data other than the image displayed on the display means. a management means for managing control information to be controlled; and when the image data displayed on the display means and data other than the image are simultaneously printed on the print section, reading the image data from the storage means and displaying the image data. and print control means for controlling the image data to be replaced with original image data having a high gradation level, combined with data other than the image, and printed. .

[0008]

[Operation] With the above structure, the present invention reads image data with a high gradation from the storage means and reduces the gradation when printing image data displayed on the display section with a reduced gradation on the print section. It operates to replace the displayed image data and print it simultaneously with data other than the image displayed on the display unit.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an image processing apparatus that is a typical embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, the image processing device includes a main memory 1, a CPU 2, a hard disk device 3, a bit map display 4, a display control section 5, a printer control device 6, an image memory 7 for holding images to be output to a printer, and a full color printer device. It consists of 8.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the relationship between the processing processes executed by the image processing apparatus of this embodiment. As shown in FIG. 2, a management program is started in the CPU 2, and a client process 21 issues an image display and output request to a printer, a process 22 manages image display, and a multi-window is installed on a bitmap display 4 (hereinafter referred to as a display device). A window process 23 is executed to realize this. When outputting an image to a full-color printer device 8 (hereinafter referred to as a printer), the data is transferred to the image memory 7 that saves the image to be output to the printer, and then a printout request is issued to the printer control unit 6 to output the image data. do. Furthermore, when displaying an image on the display device 4, the display is performed by issuing a display request to the window process 23. Note that the window process used in this embodiment is assumed to be a window system realized in the form of a process, such as the X window system developed at Masachi University of Technology.
It may also be a window system built into the operating system.

Next, the operation of the image management process of this embodiment will be explained with reference to the flowcharts shown in FIGS. 3 to 5.

First, when the image management process 22 is activated, first, in step S31, an image management table 40 as shown in FIG. 6 is initialized. Entries in the image management table 40 include an entry number 41, a window identifier 42,
There are display position origin coordinates 43, window size 44, original image file name 45, and number of gradations 46 on the display device 4. Next, in step S32, a request issued from the client process 21 is accepted. In step S33, processing is performed according to the type of request received. Step S3
In step 4, it is determined whether to continue processing with the management process 22 waiting for an event or to terminate the management process itself. Here, if the process is to be continued, the process returns to step S3.
The process returns to step 2 and enters a request event waiting state. On the other hand, if the management process ends, the process ends. Note that in this embodiment, the types of requests include display requests and print requests, but other requests may also be made.

Next, consider the case where the request issued by the client process 21 is an image display request to the display device 4. Here, it is assumed that the image data file name and the starting point of the display position on the display device 4 are specified in the display request. In this case, details of the request processing executed in step S33 are shown in FIG.

First, in step S41, it is confirmed that the requested event is a display request, and the process proceeds to step S42, where original image data is read from the hard disk device 3 based on the image data file name included in the display request. Next, in step S43, a compressed image is generated from the original image data so that the number of gradations that can be displayed by the display device 4 is not exceeded. For example, if the original image data is 8 bits each for RGB,
If the number of gradations of the bitmap display is 256 gradations (8 bits), the image will have 64 gradations (6 bits) and 128 gradations.
Compress to gradation (7 bits), etc. Color dithering, pino mapping, and the like are known as image compression methods, but here, it is assumed that image compression is performed using an existing compression method, and a description thereof will be omitted.

In step S44, a display request is issued to the window process 23 using the compressed image data, and the display is performed on the display device 4. In this embodiment, all windows are managed by adding identifiers to them based on the image management table 40 shown in FIG. 6, so when a window is displayed, the window process 23 returns one corresponding window identifier to the management program. . In response to this, in step S45, this window identifier and the image file name,
After registering the number of gradations of the original image in the image management table 40 of FIG. 6, the process returns to step S33.

FIG. 7 shows how the display device 4 displays the three corresponding image windows when three window information is set in the image management table 40 as shown in FIG. 6 based on the process described above. This is an example of a screen.

In FIG. 7, image windows 52 to 54 corresponding to entry numbers 1 to 3 of 41 in FIG. 6 are displayed on a bit map display screen 51. The image windows 52 to 54 each have an image display starting point position on the bit map display screen 51 (x1, y
1), (x2, y2), (x3, y3), and their sizes are (w1, h1), (w2, h2), (w3,
h3). Further, the value of the entry number 41 indicates the vertical relationship of the windows, and the larger the number, the higher the window is. Therefore, when the image windows 52 and 53 overlap, a portion of the image window 52 having the smaller entry number 41 is hidden. When the display state of the image window changes, an event is generated from the window process 23 to the management process 22.
The value of entry number 41 in image management table 40 is rewritten. Rewriting is performed by the management process. Note that in addition to the image window, a normal window 55 is displayed in FIG. Any number of image windows and regular windows may exist as long as they do not exceed the limits of the window system.

Next, consider the case where the request issued by the client process 21 is a print request to the printer 8. In this case, details of the request processing executed in step S33 are shown in FIG.

First, in step S51, it is confirmed that the requested event is a print request, and the process proceeds to step S52, where a dump of the screen of the display device 4 is created using the existing hard copy method. Next, in step S53, window information is requested from the window process 23, and the image management table 40 is updated based on the obtained information. In step S54, the image data of the file name 45 of the original image is transferred to the hard disk device 3 in the area defined by the display position starting point coordinates 43 and window size 44 corresponding to the window identifier 42 in the image management table 40 corresponding to the screen dump data. , and combine it directly with the screen dump data as an uncompressed image. At this time, the screen dump data is expanded and converted to 8 bits each for RGB.

In step S55, the combined image data is transferred to the image memory 7, and in step S56, a printout request is issued to the printer control unit 6, so that the data is printed out by the printer 8.

According to the present embodiment, a process is provided to manage the original image data file of the image compressed and displayed on the bit map display, the display position and size of the image window, the number of gradations of the original image, etc. According to
While the image window coexists with a window displaying an application other than a full-color image, it is possible to simultaneously and automatically obtain a hard copy with the number of gradations of the original image.

In this embodiment, it is assumed that the original image data is 8 bits each for RGB, but it may be a different number of bits or a different color system (CMY system, etc.), and the original image may be a color image such as a gray image. It may be one gradation image.

[0023]Also, in this embodiment, the case where the image management program is configured as a process has been explained. It doesn't matter if it is incorporated into.

[0024]

As explained above, according to the present invention, it is possible to automatically capture an original image with fine gradation expression, combine it with another image with coarse gradation expression, and output it at the same time.
This has the effect of freeing the operator from complicated work.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a block diagram of a typical embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the relationship between each process of image management.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an overview of the image management process.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing image display request processing.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing print request processing.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the structure of an image management table.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a display of an image window screen when the information shown in FIG. 6 is set in the image management table;

[Explanation of symbols]

8 Full color printer 22 Image management process 40 Image management table 52-54 Image window

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An image forming apparatus comprising: a printer section capable of outputting image data in color to a recording medium at a high gradation; and a display section capable of outputting image data in color at a relatively low gradation. In the processing device, a display means for simultaneously displaying image data having a high gradation level and data other than an image having a relatively low gradation level compared to the image data on the display unit; a storage means for storing the image data while retaining the image; a display control means for controlling the display of the image data and the data other than the image; and a display control means for controlling the display of the image data and the data other than the image displayed on the display means. a management means for managing control information for controlling display of the display means; and a management means for reading out image data from the storage means when the image data displayed on the display means and data other than the image are simultaneously printed on the print section. and print control means for controlling the displayed part of the image data to be replaced with original image data having a high gradation level, combined with data other than the image, and printed. Device. 2. When displaying image data having a high gradation level exceeding the maximum number of displayable gradation levels that can be displayed by the display section, the display means displays the image data according to the maximum number of displayable gradation levels. 2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image processing apparatus displays the image by reducing the gradation level of the image. 3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control information managed by the management means includes a display position and display size for displaying the image data on the display section.