JPH0486789A - Font-free raster image processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain the raster image processing system which does not depend on fonts by including a raster image processing means, font managing means and interface means in the processing system. CONSTITUTION:The raster image processing means, the font managing means and the interface means are included in the processing system. The raster image processing means forms the font data assignment information for obtaining the font data of the characters included in the data when the data is inputted to the raster image processing system. The font managing means fetches the font data by accessing to the data base in which the font data is accumulated in accordance with the font data assignment information. The raster image processing means forms the raster image from the font data obtd. in such a manner and outputs this image to an output device and communication device. The font data does not depend on the raster image output device, such as printer and display device and the common access of the system is possible.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a raster image processing system, and more specifically, to a raster image processing system that processes data written in a page description language to form a raster image. It is something.

(Prior Art) Command data including text and image data is created, for example, by a publishing application block and converted into an intermediate stream written in a page description language. This intermediate stream is converted into a raster image by an interpreter using a raster image processing (RIP) method, and output in the form of a page to an image output device such as a printer or a display device.

In systems that handle characters, there are various fonts for different languages and countries, and therefore there are various requirements for fonts. For example, there are various types of fonts, such as not only fonts, fonts, and sizes, but also horizontal writing, vertical writing, left-to-right writing, right-to-right writing, italic type, and bold type. Furthermore, when handling a font as a single character string, that is, a document, there are various requirements regarding the way the character strings are arranged, such as proportional printing. Furthermore, various character code series are used by font suppliers as codes for specifying characters.

Raster image processing schemes must at least partially satisfy these diverse requirements. Note that in this specification, the term "font" is interpreted in a broad sense, including not only character capitals and fonts, but also various requirements as described above.

The character data is provided in a format specific to the font supplier, such as a hitmap format or an outline format. Font data is generally stored in an external file or memory, such as an RO, in the form of digitized data that defines the straight lines and curves of character outlines. 1 when a font with a specific character code is specified by the host
The corresponding font data is read from the file, subjected to scaling processing such as enlargement or reduction,
Finally, it is converted into a rask and converted into an image.

The process of developing original data in hitmap format or outline format into a raster image often differs depending on the font format. Furthermore, the hinting process that corrects length and roundness after scaling the original data to create an appropriate glyph shape may differ depending on the font format.

Conventionally, in such a publishing environment, a raster image processing method unique to each font type, that is, a font-oriented processing method has been used. For example, a conventional printer includes a raster image processing system and a font cheat file, such as Centronics or R
It is connected to a host such as a personal computer or workstation using a general-purpose interface such as 5-232C:. In other words, the raster image processing system and font data in the printer are unique to a particular printer, and the host uses them via a general-purpose printer interface. In addition, image display devices such as CRT,
Although it is connected to a host, the font data files used by the display device and the raster image processing system that handles them are contained within the host, so the configuration is dependent on the host.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) As will be described hereinafter, conventionally, a single raster image processing system that can adaptively meet the various requirements described above has not been available. More specifically, command data used by specific application software requires its own raster image processing system. for example,
Command data streams in page description languages such as Po5tScript(TM)
It is used as a pt interpreter or raster image processing system. That is, a specific raster image processing system has a specific font format, font processing, and font reading functionality built into it.

Generally, multiple command data streams are used in document processing systems such as publishing. Therefore, in the conventional method, in order to be able to handle multiple data streams, a font had to be prepared for each command stream. This led to the creation of duplicate font processing and management systems, leading to duplicate investment in fonts.

It is an object of the present invention to overcome these drawbacks of the prior art and provide a raster image processing system that does not depend on fonts.

(Means for Solving the Problems) According to the present invention, a raster image processing system that processes data written in a page description language to form a raster image receives the data and converts characters included in the data. A raster image processing means that creates font data specification information for obtaining font data and forms a raster image from the obtained font data, and accesses a database in which font data is stored based on the font data specification information. , font management means for taking in font data related to font data designation information, and interface means for interfacing between the raster image processing means and the font management means using font data designation information and font data.

Further, according to the present invention, there is provided a raster image processing module that has the functions of such a raster image processing system and can be connected to a host.

(Operation) According to the present invention, when data written in a page description language is input from a host to a raster image processing system, the raster image processing means performs processing for obtaining font data of characters included in this data. Create font data specification information. The font management means accesses a database in which font data is stored based on the font data specification information, and imports font data related to the font data specification information.The raster image processing means uses the font data obtained in this way to Form a raster image. The formed raster image is finally output to a raster image output device or a communication device.

(Example) Next, an example of a raster image processing system according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, this embodiment basically includes a host IO consisting of a processing system such as a personal computer or a workstation, and a module package or RIP processing module 12 for performing raster image processing (RIP). Both are interconnected by connectors 14 and 16. The host 10 creates command data including text and image data using, for example, a publishing application program 50 (FIG. 2) and converts it into an intermediate stream described in a page description language. This is a processing device.

An image display device 18 such as a CRT that visually displays characters and images is connected to the host 10 . Further, a printer 20 is connected to the host 10 and/or the RIP processing module 12. printer 20
is an image output device that visibly records characters and images on a recording medium. Of course, the host IO also includes input/output devices such as a keyboard like a normal processing system, but since these are not directly relevant to understanding the present invention, illustrations and explanations of these will be omitted.

A feature of the present system is that the font data commonly used for character visualization on display 18 and printer 20 is stored in an external file 22, such as on a fixed disk, floppy disk, or integrated circuit board. In other words, these font data do not depend on one display device 18 or printer 20, and can be commonly used as a database. Of course, the external file 22 is
0-specific storage device, but also one that can access a distant database through a communication line, for example. Therefore, on the one hand, the font does not depend on the RIP processing system and can be extended over a wide range, from Roman characters to Kanji, for example. On the other hand, the RIP processing system is made independent of the character encoding system.

As will be detailed later, the RIP processing module 12
This point, which includes an IP processing system, is also one of the important features of this embodiment. The host 10 can execute various publishing application software 50. Therefore, various types of command data streams 24 are input to the RIP processing module 12 depending on the application software 50. Furthermore, the font data in the external file 22 is dynamically read out as required by the RIP processing module 12.
It is loaded into the RIP processing module 12. The RIP processing module 12 performs appropriate raster image processing on the command data stream 24 according to its type, and outputs it as raster image data 26 to the host IO or printer 20. This data 26 may be in data compressed or uncompressed form.

As the specific configuration of the RIP processing module 12 is shown in FIG. interfaced.

RIP processing 52 is performed using specific application cage software 50.
Creates the font data specification information necessary to extract the font data of the character specified by .

In this embodiment, this font data designation information includes the font, character code system, character code, character size, etc. based on the font supplier's designation. In terms of typefaces, for example, Kanji can be used in Mincho or Gothic, while in character encoding systems, Japanese can be used in Jl583 or Shift JIS.
etc. are specified.

The interface 58 between the RIP processing 52 and the font management 54 is a standardized interface that does not depend on fonts. Interface 58 includes the font data specification information described above and font data that is loaded into area 60 within module 12 from a database of external files 22 on demand. Therefore, the font access path in the font management 54 can take an optimal bus depending on the character code system. The font management 54 is the font data 6
0 as is in the form of font data, or perform font processing such as enlarging or reducing it to the size required by character size data and RIP the font data.
Output to process 52.

In this embodiment, the font management 54 is desirably based on management of one character type or so. This means that the font data access mechanism, which in the prior art had a command stream depending on each application software, is In this embodiment, this is to be absorbed by the font management 54. When font data is scaled, the lengths of the line segments that form the outlines of characters may become uneven, and the roundness may lack smoothness. In such a case, the font management 54 also performs hinting processing to correct the length and roundness to create an appropriate character shape.

The RIP processing 52 converts the font data received from the font management 54 into a rask. The rasterized image data is stored in the image/frame memory 62 and assembled into page-by-page image data. The image/frame memory 62 is a storage area that temporarily stores raster image data in units of pages, for example.

Image/frame memory 62 is interfaced with printer 20 and display device 18 via video interface 64. Furthermore, an output device such as a printer 20a or a facsimile 66 that is interfaced with a compressed data format is interfaced with an image compression 68. RIP processing module 1 for host 10
2 are connected by a bus, and this bus connection is made via a hardware bus interface 70.

Command data including zero characters and image data that describe the operation is created by the application software 50 and converted into an intermediate stream written in a page description language. This intermediate stream is input to RIP processing 52 via software interface 56 . R
The IP processing 52 creates font data designation information necessary to access the font data of the characters included in this command stream, and provides this to the font management 54 .

The font management 54 accesses the font data pace of the external file 22 based on the font data specification information and imports necessary font data into the area 60. The font management 54 stores the font data 60 as it is in the form of font data, or It is enlarged or reduced to the required size and output to the RIP processing 52.

In the RIP processing 52, the font data received from the font management 54 is converted into a rask and then stored in the image/frame memory 62. In this way, page-by-page image data is assembled in the image/frame memory 62. When the raster image stored in the image/frame memory 62 is output to the printer 20 or the display device 18, it is output via the video interface 64.
When outputting to a communication device such as the printer 20a or the facsimile 66, the image is encoded and compressed by the image compression 68. In this way, the command data stream from the application software 50 is converted into a raster image by the RIP processing module 12, such as the printer 2.
0 or an image output device such as the display device 18 in the form of a page.

(Effects of the Invention) According to the present invention, RIP processing and font management are separated in terms of structure as described above, and the interface between the two has a common format that does not depend on fonts. The font data is also provided to the system in the form of a data base that can be commonly accessed by the system, depending on the raster image output device such as a printer or display device. Therefore, according to the conventional technology, R was forced to adopt a configuration that depended on publishing application software.
In the present invention, the IP processing system can have a common configuration without depending on them. Thus, on the one hand, the font is independent of the RIP processing system and has wide extensibility, from Roman to Kanji, for example, and on the other hand, the processing system is independent of the character encoding system. This makes it easier to design software that imprints fonts,
It is possible to avoid wasteful investment in providing individual fonts for each type of application software as in the prior art.

[Brief Description of the Drawings] Fig. 1 is a functional block diagram showing the overall configuration of an embodiment of the font-free raster image processing method according to the present invention, and Fig. 2 shows the RIP processing module in the embodiment shown in Fig. 1. FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration example. Explanation of symbols of essential parts 10, , host 12, , RIP processing module +8. , Display device 20 , Printer 22 : Font database 50 , Application software 52 , RIP processing 54 , Font management 56 , Software interface 62 , Image/frame memory

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a raster image processing system that processes data written in a page description language to form a raster image, the system receives the data and converts font data of characters included in the data. Create font data specification information to obtain
a raster image processing means that forms a raster image from the obtained font data; and a font that accesses a database in which font data is stored based on font data specification information and imports font data related to the font data specification information. A font-free raster image processing system comprising: a management means; and an interface means for interfacing the raster image processing means and the font management means with font data designation information and font data. 2. The raster image processing system according to claim 1, wherein the system includes database means for storing the font data and outputting font data related to the font data designation information upon receiving the font data designation information. . 3. The raster image processing system according to claim 1, wherein the system includes a host that creates data written in the page description language and supplies the data to the raster image processing means. 4. A connection means connectable to a host that creates data written in a page description language, and receiving the data from the connection means and creating font data specification information for obtaining font data of characters included in the data. a raster image processing means for forming a raster image from the obtained font data; and a raster image processing means for accessing a database in which font data is stored based on font data designation information to generate font data related to the font data designation information. A font-free raster image processing module, comprising: a font management means for importing fonts, and an interface between the raster image processing means and the font management means is made by font data designation information and font data.