JPH04287268A - Image data processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate the need of an image data expansion and contraction calculating processes in the main body of a document preparing device by reading image data from a picture input device with the arbitrary optimum resolution in accordance with the resolution of the printing device used for printing the image data. CONSTITUTION:By providing an external storage device 14 which has a function for storing the dot resolution of a connectible printing device 2 before inputting image data from a picture input device 3 and stores the image data corresponding to designated plural or single dot resolution, adaptive image data are printed by discriminating the dot density of the printing device connected at the printing time, directly reading the image data having the discriminated dot density from the device 3, adding the printing-time dot resolution corresponding to the image data, and discriminating the dot resolution of the printing device at the printing time.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an image data processing method using a document creation device such as a Japanese word processor or a personal computer, and in particular reads the entire image from an image input device and extracts a necessary part from it. The present invention relates to an image data processing method when extracting image data, importing the image data into an arbitrary location in a created document to complete a final document, and printing it with an unspecified printing device having a different resolution.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Document creation devices using personal computers or special-purpose machines were initially intended to input and edit characters, and to create and print text-only documents on a page-by-page basis. Since then, it has become possible to create complex documents, and it has become possible to mix figures, graphs, images, etc. onto a single page that is primarily text.

[0003] Methods for inputting images into documents include a method in which a portable image input device called a handy scanner is used to manually move over the printed material to read the image, and a stationary image input device. There is a method in which the entire page of the image to be read by the device is placed on the document table of the image input device, and the image input device reads the entire page at once. When trying to read an image, either method reads a certain range of the image, displays the entire image on the display device of the document processing device, extracts the necessary part of the entire image, and then displays it. By inserting images into the document you are creating, you can mix images into the document. When reading an image from a stationary image input device, it is usually A4
Since it is possible to read images as large as the
The image input device reads the entire image at a coarse resolution in the first reading, displays the entire image on the display device, the operator specifies the frame of the desired image part on the screen, and then reads the second image. A method is used in which only the area specified by reading from the input device is read at the final resolution. As an example of such a system, a specific operating method is described in the operating manual of the Hitachi Japanese language word processor "WordPal TH900" published in 1999.

0004

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In the above-mentioned prior art, the resolution of the final image read the second time is generally read at a constant resolution determined by the optical resolution performance of the image input device. Met. In this case, the resolution of the printing device when printing a document including the created image is generally not taken into account. therefore,
When printing image data that has been read with a constant resolution as described above, if the resolution of the read image data and the resolution of the printing device are different, the document creation device calculates the ratio of the two and prints the image data. There is a problem in that it is necessary to perform enlargement or reduction processing to adjust the size of the image area when printing to a specified size. Furthermore, even if the resolution of the printing device is recognized in advance and image data is read from an image input device at the same resolution as the printing device, the image data may not be printed using the printing device that was connected when the image data was read. If a discrepancy between the resolutions during reading and printing occurs, the image data must be enlarged or reduced in the document creation device. Please note that enlarging and reducing these data requires complex calculation processing.
If calculations are performed on a CPU without special hardware, the calculations take time and operability deteriorates, and when image data that has been subjected to pseudo-halftone processing such as dithering is enlarged or reduced, the image quality deteriorates. There were problems such as a large drop.

An object of the present invention is to read image data from an image input device at an optimal arbitrary resolution according to the resolution of a printing device, thereby eliminating the need for image data enlargement and reduction calculation processing in the document creation device itself. There is a particular thing.

[0006]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The above object is to provide a document creation device with a function of storing the dot resolution of a printing device that may be connected before inputting image data from an image input device, and It is equipped with a storage device capable of storing image data corresponding to multiple or single dot resolutions, and has a function to identify the dot density of the connected printing device at the time of printing. This is achieved by reading directly from the input device.

[0007]

[Operation] The document creation device uses the printing dot resolution l/m of multiple printing devices at the initial stage of document creation before image reading.
(mm/dot), and this value l/m is temporarily stored in the document production device.

[0008] The image original to be inserted into the created document is input in multiple steps. The first time is to input the entire image of the image document and display it on the display device.
The operator specifies the position of the image area necessary for the created document on this display screen. The dimensions As of the designated image area are temporarily stored in the document creation device.

By recognizing these values, the document creation device can determine the dot density of the image area required at the time of printing. 2 from image input device
In the subsequent readings, the image data of the required portion specified in the first reading is read at a plurality of already set resolutions Is. The data read at this time includes the dot density required for printing. Therefore, if the image input device can read image data at any resolution, the document creation device can read the image at the optimal resolution for the printing device, and the document creation device can read the image at the resolution that is optimal for the printing device. There is no need to perform enlargement or reduction processing of the image data in accordance with the document creation device, and it becomes possible to reduce the processing load on the main body of the document creation device.

0010

Embodiments Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the general configuration of a document creation system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 2, 1 is a document creation device such as a Japanese word processor or a personal computer, 2 is a printing device for printing a document created by the document creation device, and 3 is a document created by the document creation device, such as a photo or other document. This is an image input device for reading images of photographs and drawings when inserting hand-drawn drawings.

The document creation device 1 includes a main body 11 that performs processing for document creation such as kana-kanji conversion, a keyboard 12 for inputting characters, a display device 13 as a display section, and a floppy disk for storing created documents. It is composed of an external storage device 14 for storing data on a disk or the like. The operator uses the document creation device to create a target document while checking it on the display device 13. If an image input is required depending on the content of the document, the image is input from the image input device 3, this image is displayed on the display device 13, and necessary parts are extracted. When saving the created document, encoded data is stored in an external storage device 14 such as a floppy disk.
If you want to print the document, you can print it as an image document using the printing device 2. In addition, the main body is the printing device 2
Control commands can be exchanged with the printer via the interface cable 15, and the printing dot resolution (units such as dots/mm) of the printing device can be detected in advance. Further, the image input device 3 is capable of inputting an image at any resolution,
By exchanging control commands via the interface cable 16 before reading, it is possible to set the dot resolution of the read image to an arbitrary value.

FIG. 3 shows a specific example of movement of an image area when an original image is read from an image input device and the image is inserted into a created document. document 2
1 is an example of an original image to be read from an image input device. An operator usually extracts only the parts necessary for a created document from an original image such as a printed matter on which a photograph or picture is drawn. Original images for printed matter, etc. are generally A.
In many cases, photographs or pictures are drawn on sheets of paper of a fixed size of about 4 sizes. In such a case, the image input device can read the image of the entire sheet, and the read image 21 is displayed on the display device 12 shown in FIG.
The entire image is displayed, and the operator specifies the required rectangular portion of the image area 21A by interacting with the display device. The image input device has a function that allows reading only a portion of the image area 21A at a specified arbitrary position at an arbitrary resolution. On the other hand, the read data of part 21A will be inserted into the document 22 being created. Document 22 shows an example of a document being created that will eventually be printed, and generally the image part 22A, the figure part 22C, the graph part 22B, etc. are allocated to the characters. The document will be created as a whole. In the example of FIG. 3, the size of the portion 21A in the entire original image 21 is reduced and inserted into the portion 22A in the created document 22.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an overview of the process for creating a document containing the image shown in FIG. First, in step 40, the dot density of a printing device that may be connected is set. Next, in process 41, the operator reads the entire original image 21 using the image input device 3. In this case, since the resolution of the display device that displays the read original image is generally coarser than the resolution of the printing device, the image input device that can read the image at any resolution reads the image original image 21 at a low resolution. The loaded data is 4
2 is displayed on the display device. Next, in step 43, the operator selects the portion 21A of the entire original image necessary for document creation as shown in FIG.
Specify the position of the part. Once the position designation data has been temporarily stored, the document creation device changes the operation mode and performs process 44.
The entire image of the created document 22 is displayed on the display device. At 45, the operator specifies the position and dimensions of the area 22A in which the image of the portion designated at step 43 is to be inserted into the created document 22. Here, the dimension of the area 22A is particularly 2
It does not have to be the same as the size of 1A, and the size can be enlarged or reduced. In operation 46, the document production device automatically determines the reading resolution value from the image input device. Details of the method for determining this value will be described later. In process 47, only the portion 21A in the original image 21 is read at the automatically determined resolution from the image input device. In process 48, the read data is added with information about the dot density corresponding to printing and the location where it is taken into the document as printing data for the image area 22A in the created document. Next, in process 49, it is determined whether the image data with the reading resolution corresponding to all the dot densities of the printing device set in process 40 has been read, and if the reading has not been completed, the process returns to process 46. Since the extraction area 21A is constant regardless of the dot resolution of the printing device, the document creation device calculates each dot resolution and continues reading until the reading of the image data corresponding to the set dot resolution is completed.

During printing, the dot resolution of the connected printing device is identified in step 50 as shown in the flowchart of FIG. 5, and character type data is developed in accordance with the dot resolution. Next, in process 50, it is determined whether the document includes an image area or not, and if the document does not include image data, it is printed as is and the process ends. If an image area exists, in step 53 the image data corresponding to the identification result of the dot resolution of the printing device is determined based on correlation data with the image data sprayed in step 48 of FIG. 4, and a development location is determined. The characters are pasted onto the image area in other data and printed in step 54, completing the printing. Since the dot resolution of the printing device is identified and image data suitable for the printing device is used, no scaling processing of the image data occurs during printing.

As described above, this process reads image data from an image input device for only the types of dot resolution of the printing device that is likely to be used, so that the image data is finally output at the data resolution required for printing. Even if the original image size 21A and the size 22A of the area in which it should be fitted are different,
Another feature is that even if the document is printed by another document creation device connected to a printing device with a different dot resolution, the document creation device does not need to perform calculation processing for enlargement or reduction.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the relationship between the reading dot resolution of a general image input device and the printing dot resolution of a printing device. Figure 6A shows part of the data when the image area 22A portion of the created document 22 in Figure 3 is read from the image input device. Specifically, this is an example in which triangular image data is read. be. 6
Figure B shows an example of dot resolution during printing when the printing resolution of the printing device is different from the dot resolution of the image data read from the image input device shown in Figure 6A. 6A
6B and 6B are examples in which the reading resolution from the image input device is 1/n (mm/dot) and the dot resolution of the printing device is 1/m (mm/dot), which are different from each other. The size of the area occupied by the triangle must be the same as the size 22A of the image area in the created document when it is printed, and in the case of this figure, one side is the size l. Even though the dimensions are the same, the resolution of the two is different, so the number of dots in the unit length l of Figure 6A read from the image input device is n, and the number of dots in the unit length l that must be developed to the printing device is n. The number of dots must be m. Note that when the dot resolution of the read data from the image input device and the dot resolution of the printing device are different, as in the example shown in FIG. 6, conventionally, the dot row read from the image input device as shown in FIG. Basically, calculations for reducing or enlarging dot rows as shown in Figure 6B had to be performed on the main body of the document creation device. Similarly, if the dot resolution of the printing device and the dot resolution of the printing device are different when creating a document, the dot row read from the image input device as shown in Figure 6A is used as the basis, and the dot row as shown in Figure 6B is changed. The reduction or enlargement processing calculation had to be performed on the document creation device itself.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the relationship between the dimensions of the original image and the dimensions of the image area in the created document. Figure 6A shows the dimensions of the portion 21A extracted from the original image 21 shown in Figure 3, and Figure 6B shows the dimensions when the data in Figure 6A is to be printed, that is, the image area in the created document 22 in Figure 2. The dimensions of section 22A are shown. In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 7, the dimension D1 of the original image is
x×D1y and the size of the image area in the created document D2x×
D2y does not have to be the same, and the operator can specify the size of the image area to any value according to the layout of the created document.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the relationship between the read dot resolution and print dot resolution of the image input device when the data of the image area 6B shown in FIG. 7 is printed by the printing device. Figure 8A shows the second input from the image input device in order to make the dimensions D1x x D1y of the image extraction area in Figure 6A shown in Figure 7 and the dimensions D2x x D2y of the image area in the created document in Figure 6B shown in Figure 7. Read dot data 7
1A and a specific example of dot data 72B of the printing device. The resolution of the printing device is l as shown in Figure 6.
/m (mm/dot), then in the second and subsequent readings after determining the area 21A in Figure 2 to be sampled in the first image input from the image input device, the original image will be the area 21A in Figure 8A. Like image data 71A
/m. This dot density is the same as the dot resolution of the printing device, and since the reading resolution of the image input device and the printing dot resolution of the printing device are the same, the designated area 21A in the original image shown in FIG.
can be printed at the same size. Similarly, by capturing image data with a dot density corresponding to the initially set dot resolution, there is no need to enlarge or reduce the image data during printing.

FIG. 8B shows an example in which the size of the image area D2x×D2y in the created document is to be reduced to 1/2 of the size D1x×D1y of the extraction area of the image original shown in FIG. . The read data 71B from the image input device in Figure 8B is 1 compared to the case in Figure 8A.
/2 resolution. Here, the resolution of the printing device is l/m, which is the same as in the case of Figure 8A, so when the image data 71B read from the same image original 21 is printed, the same image content is reduced in size to 1/2 as shown in 72B. will be printed.

[0021] In the example of the data string at the time of image input and the print data string of the created document shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, an example is shown in which the original image is printed as an area reduced to 1/2, but this value No matter what value is set, the second reading resolution from the image input device is (l/m) in the x direction.
×(D1x/D2x), and the y direction is (l/m)×
It is clear that by specifying (D1y/D2y), the data string read from the image input device can be used as is as a data string for the printing device. Further, even if the resolution of the printing device changes, only the value of l/m changes, so the present invention is effective regardless of the magnification ratio during reading or the dot density of the printing device.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a detailed flow of a method for determining the reading resolution from an image input device in process 46 in the flow of image reading processing in FIG. The reading resolution of the image input device shown in FIG. 1 is determined by reading the entire image original image 21 shown in FIG.
This is the flow of the method for determining the resolution when only the 21A portion is read. Before starting the image editing process, the document creation device recognizes the dot resolution value l/m (mm/dot) of the printing device by communicating with the printing device in step 11. In the process 12, the process 43 shown in FIG.
D1x shown in FIG. 7, which is the x-direction dimension of the image extraction area designated by , is stored. In process 13, process 1
Similarly to 2, the y-direction dimension D1y of the original image extraction area is stored. In process 14, the dimension D of the image area specified in the created document specified in process 45 shown in FIG. 4, that is, the x-direction dimension of the image area 6B shown in FIG.
Remember 2x. In process 15, similarly to process 14, D2y, which is the y-direction dimension of the image area 6B, is stored. Based on the values stored in processes 11 to 15, process 1
In step 6, calculations are performed to determine the reading resolution for the second reading from the image input device. As shown in process 16, the reading resolution in the x direction is (l/m)×(D1x/
D2x) (mm/dot). Similarly, the reading resolution in the y direction is (l/m)×(D
1y/D2y). Processing 16 from the image input device
The image data read for the second and subsequent times at the resolution determined in step 17 and 17 will be converted to the specified image size as shown in Figure 8 using the same dot density without enlarging or reducing the value on the document creation device itself. D2x×D
It becomes possible to print with a printing device that has a size of 2y and a suitable dot density.

[0023]

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, the document creation device sets the printing dot resolution of the printing device that may be used in advance, and then reads in advance image data with the required dot resolution. This has the effect that even if the configurations of the document creation device and the printing device differ during printing, the document creation device does not have to perform arithmetic processing to enlarge or reduce dot density during printing, and also prevents deterioration in image quality. There is.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing a method for determining the resolution of read dots from an image input device in this embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the general configuration of a document creation system.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the relationship between an image original and an image area of a created document.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an overview of image reading processing.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an overview of image printing processing.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating the relationship between the read dot resolution of a general image input device and the print dot resolution of a printing device.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the relationship between the dimensions of an original image and the dimensions of an image area in a created document.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the relationship between the reading dot resolution of the image input device and the printing dot resolution of the printing device in the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1... Document creation device, 2... Printing device, 3... Image input device,
21... Original image, 22... Created document, 21A... Sampling area of the original image, 22A... Image area in the created document.

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim 1: A document creation system in which an image input device and a printing device can be connected to a document creation device, wherein the image input device is capable of reading at any resolution and reading any part of an entire image. It is a device that can read images of any size, and any printing device can be selected and connected from multiple printing devices with different printing densities, and the document creation device converts the image data obtained from the image input device into characters. In the image data processing method of a document creation system that is capable of creating and printing a document containing mainly data at specified locations in a created document, the document creation device is configured in advance to select a printing device that can be used for printing. The resolution is set, and in the first reading of image data from the image input device, the entire image of the original image is read at a resolution that matches the resolution of the display device, the entire image is displayed on the display device, and the necessary parts are read. It is possible to specify the position and area size of A, and the document creation device can specify the extracted portion A of the original image in the created document in parallel with the above processing, and the In the second and subsequent data readings, the extracted portion A is read using the preset resolution type of the printing device, saved in the storage device, and the resolution of the connected printing device is identified at the time of printing, and the resolution at the time of reading is An image data processing method characterized by printing image data that matches the image data.