JPH06340199A - Control method in pen plotter painting - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Abstract] [Purpose] To provide a pen plotter drawing control system that allows a pen plotter to perform a large amount of drawing at a sufficiently high speed even on a so-called personal computer class computer. [Structure] 1: Set the grid table that shows the drawing range of the pen. 2 to 4: For each drawing item, calculate the number position of the corresponding grid in the grid table from the coordinates and set the number of that drawing item. 5: Calculate the distance between the grids having the item numbers in the grid table in which the item numbers are set, and set the distance table recorded in association with the grid numbers. 6
~ 10: In the grid table where the item numbers are set, if there is one item number in a certain grid, the corresponding drawing item is output to the plotter. If there are multiple item numbers, the drawing item corresponding to each item number is sequentially plotted. Then, the lattice table having the closest distance to the lattice is detected by referring to the distance table, and the drawing item is output to the plotter in the lattice in the same manner for all lattices having item numbers.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a pen plotter drawing control system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The control system for drawing with a pen plotter is
A computer, which is a control device, executes a predetermined drawing program to form drawing data indicating drawing items such as lines, figures, and characters, gives it to a pen plotter, analyzes the drawing data with the pen plotter, and analyzes the X- Convert to Y position data,
In this method, the pen is moved to that position to draw the specified drawing item.

In such a pen plotter image drawing control system, the moving speed of the pen is generally slow because drawing accuracy is required. Therefore, as a method of increasing the speed, a method of reducing the moving distance of the pen to reduce the moving time is used. Is adopted.

Concretely, for example, in FIG.
The frame shows the drawing range of the pen plotter. When the drawing items A to I are scattered in this drawing range as shown in the figure, if the start position of the pen is the upper left corner, the pen is moved from A to B. The overall movement distance becomes the shortest if the movement is performed in the order of C → D → E → F → G → H → I.

In order to realize this, conventionally, for example, A
While drawing the drawing item of, between A and B, between A and C,
The distance between A and D, ..., A and I is calculated respectively, the drawing item B located at the closest position is detected, B is decided as the drawing item for the next execution, and the drawing of the drawing item A is completed. Then, the process moves to the drawing of the drawing item B, and in parallel with the drawing, similarly, the distance between each drawing item C to I is calculated based on the drawing item B, and the drawing item C closest to the drawing item C is selected next time. High-speed drawing is realized by repeatedly determining the drawing item to be executed.

The distance r between the drawing item having the XY coordinate value (x ₁ , y ₁ ) and the drawing item having the XY coordinate value (x ₂ , y ₂ ) is expressed by the equation 1.

[0007]

[Number 1] _{r = {(x 1 -x 2} ) 2 + (y 1 -y 2) 2} 1/2

[0008]

In recent years, with the spread of personal computers, it has become more common for a personal computer to draw an image on a pen plotter in design work, but on the other hand, the design structure becomes more complicated. Due to this, the number of drawing items is increasing, and in the design process, it is often the case that part of the diagram is changed and the drawing is performed again.Therefore, it is desirable to be able to draw at high speed and to repeat the drawing rapidly one after another. ing.

However, in the above-described conventional pen plotter drawing control system, the number of calculations for obtaining the relative distance between drawing items increases as the number of drawing items increases, and the distance calculation includes calculations including floating point. Therefore, when the number of drawing items becomes large, the calculation time and the detection time of the minimum movement distance will increase in the personal computer class computer due to the relation with the processing capacity, and it will take a considerable time to decide the next drawing item. Will be done.

This means that it takes a long time to output the drawing data to the pen plotter. Therefore, the pen has an idle time during which the operation is stopped from the current drawing item to the next drawing item. However, since this idle time occurs for each drawing item, there is a problem in that the time until the end of drawing is eventually increased and the purpose of high-speed drawing is not met.

The present invention has been made in view of such a conventional problem, and an object thereof is to provide a pen plotter image forming control system which enables a pen plotter to execute a large amount of image forming sufficiently fast even on a personal computer class computer. To provide.

[0012]

In order to achieve the above object, the pen plotter drawing control system of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, the pen plotter drawing control system of the present invention is a means for setting a grid table that divides the pen plotter's drawable range into a grid shape; and for each drawing item, the coordinates of the corresponding grid in the grid table (grid table). Number) and records the identification code of the drawing item in the lattice of the calculated grid number; the distance between the lattices in which the identification code of the drawing item exists in the lattice table in which the identification code of the drawing item is set. And a distance table in which the distance is recorded in association with a grid number; and in the grid table in which the identification code of the drawing item is set, the identification code existing in a certain grid is 1
In the case of one, the drawing item corresponding to it is output to the plotter, and in the case of multiple, the drawing item corresponding to each identification code is sequentially output to the plotter, and then the distance table is referred to and the grid whose distance is the closest For detecting all the grids having the identification code, and outputting the drawing item to the plotter in the grid in the same manner.

[0013]

Next, the operation of the pen plotter image forming control system of the present invention constructed as described above will be described. In the present invention, as preprocessing of drawing control, a lattice table is set, identification codes of drawing items are set in the lattice table, and a distance table is created, and all the identification codes in the lattice table exist while referring to the distance table. You can access the grid and output the drawing items to the pen plotter without interruption.

Therefore, even if the number of drawing items increases, the pen plotter can continuously perform a predetermined drawing operation and pen movement without stopping the operation of the pen, and the moving distance between the drawing items can be reduced. Since it is considered, the time required for drawing can be shortened significantly compared to the past.

Particularly, in the pre-processing, there is no complicated calculation including floating point, and the calculation amount does not increase so much even if the number of drawing items increases. Therefore, the processing amount in the pre-processing is a personal computer class computer. However, it is only capable of sufficiently high-speed processing, and even a personal computer-class computer can allow a pen plotter to perform large-scale drawing at sufficiently high speed.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a flowchart of a drawing process of a pen plotter drawing control system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, the personal computer sets a grid table in which the image plottable range of the pen plotter is divided into grids in the first step 1. Specifically, for example, FIG.
Shows a case of dividing into 9 × 9 lattices, but in the horizontal direction (X direction), A, B, C, D, E, from left to right.
The numbers F, G, H, and I are attached, and in the vertical direction (Y direction), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 are sequentially arranged from top to bottom.
Numbers are assigned, and one lattice is specified by a combination of horizontal and vertical, and a lattice table of a two-dimensional array is set in such a format.

On the other hand, in the personal computer, the drawing data is formed by the conventional method. The drawing items and the drawing positions indicated by the drawing data have 20 items and are scattered in the drawing range as shown in FIG. 3, for example. Suppose Each item is assigned a corresponding number from 1 to 20. In the example shown in the figure, numbers are shown in the circles,
In the description, only numbers will be used for description.

In the next step 2, the coordinate values (X, Y) of the drawing item and the size (Δ) of one grid in the grid table.
The lattice numbers (A to I) in the horizontal direction and the lattice numbers (1 to 9) in the vertical direction are obtained from (X, ΔY) (equation 2).

[0019]

[Equation 2] Horizontal grid number = X coordinate value of drawing item / size of one grid ΔX Vertical grid number = Y coordinate value of drawing item / size of one grid ΔY

Next, in step 3, the numbers of the drawing items are recorded in the lattice specified by the obtained horizontal and vertical lattice numbers, and the process proceeds to step 4, where the processes of steps 2 and 3 are performed for all the drawing items. Determine if it is finished.

While the determination in step 4 is negative (NO), the processes in steps 2 and 3 are repeatedly executed, and when the determination is positive (YES), the process proceeds to step 5.

Here, as is clear from the comparison between FIG. 2 and FIG. 3, the case where one drawing item number is recorded and the case where a plurality of drawing item numbers are recorded in one grid are shown. There is. To facilitate understanding of this relationship, step 3
Table 1 shows the result of the grid number assigning operation of the drawing items performed by the table.

[0023]

[Table 1]

Therefore, in the assigning operation in step 3, when a plurality of drawing item numbers are assigned to one grid, they are connected to each other by a pointer of a list structure. That is, for example, in the lattice of number G-6, three drawing item numbers “5”, “7”, and “11” are assigned, so that as shown in FIG. Is designated and "11" is designated by the pointer of "7". It should be noted that in the lattice of this number G-6, since it ends with "11", "-1" indicating the end is set in the pointer portion of "11".

Therefore, the grid in which the drawing item numbers are recorded in the grid table shown in FIG. 2 is the grid marked with * in FIG. 5, and only these grids are targets for drawing. The distance between the grids to be drawn is calculated with the horizontal distance or the vertical distance between the grids being 1, and the distance table is created by associating the distance with the grid number (FIG. 6). In addition, in FIG.
“−1” indicates that the data is not the distance but the target data.

When the above pre-processing is completed, the drawing processing is executed as follows. The start position grid of the pen is not particularly limited. For example, if the grid of number A-1 is the start position grid, the grid of number A-1 is the grid to be drawn as shown in FIG. . Therefore, the drawing process is started with the grid having the number A-1 as the leading grid to be drawn.

In step 6, the corresponding grid number in the grid table is accessed to extract the drawing item number from the grid. Since the top grid is the grid of number A-1, the drawing item number "6" is extracted from the grid.

In step 7, the drawing item (specifically, drawing data) corresponding to the taken-out drawing item number is output to the pen plotter by a normal method.

In step 8, it is determined whether or not there is a drawing item number to be extracted in the grid. this is,
It is determined whether or not the pointer (FIG. 4) of the drawing item number extracted in step 6 is "-1". For example, in the grid of number A-1, since there is no drawing item number other than the number "6" and the pointer is "-1", the determination is affirmative (YES) and the process proceeds to step 9.

On the other hand, in the case where a plurality of drawing item numbers are recorded, such as the grid of number E-5 or G-6,
This step 8 is executed until "-1" is detected in the pointer.
Is negative (NO), and steps 6 → 7 → 8
→ The process of 6 is repeatedly executed, and the drawing items for all the drawing item numbers in the grid are sequentially output to the pen plotter. When the end for all drawing item numbers is confirmed by the detection of "-1" of the pointer,
The determination in step 8 becomes affirmative (YES), and step 9
Proceed to.

In step 9, the closest lattice number is obtained by referring to the distance table. At that time, the ending process for the finished lattice number is performed.

That is, in FIG. 6, data "-1" irrelevant to the distance is set at the position of each grid number, but for example, the most numerical value set in the lateral direction from the position of number A-1. The grid number B-1 at the position where the small value "1.0" exists is detected. Then, since the drawing item set in the grid of number A-1 has already been drawn, the horizontal and vertical arrangement at the position of number A-1 is arranged in the distance table so that the drawing item of A-1 is not detected again. Set "-1" (FIG. 7) and perform termination processing.

In step 10, it is determined whether or not the drawing process has been completed for all the lattice numbers depending on the state of the ending process of the setting of "-1". If it has not been completed, the determination is negative (NO), the process proceeds to the previous step 6, and the above-described drawing process is continued.

That is, the output processing of the drawing item is performed in the grid of number B-1, but when it is completed, next, in the distance table, the most of the numerical values set in the horizontal direction from the position of number B-1. The lattice number F-2 at the position where the small value "4.1" exists is detected, and the ending process of the "-1" setting is performed.

Similarly, the grid number H-4 at the position where the smallest value "2.8" among the numerical values set in the lateral direction from the position of the grid number F-2 is detected is set to "-1". Perform termination processing.

Similarly, by the detection operation in the lateral direction,
The lattice numbers are detected in the order of G-7, H-7, G-6, E-5, D-9, B-8. It should be noted that, in the detection operation in the vertical direction, almost the same order, that is, A-1, B-1, F-2, H-
4, H-7, G-7, G-6, E-5, D-9, B-8
The lattice numbers are detected in the order of.

In other words, it can be understood from the above description that the pen moves substantially the shortest distance as in the conventional case to draw an image, but at that time, the pen continuously draws and moves without stopping. .

[0038]

As described above, according to the pen plotter drawing control method of the present invention, the grid table is set, the identification code of the drawing item is set in the grid table, and the distance table is created as the preprocessing of the drawing control. Then, while referring to the distance table, all grids having the identification code in the grid table are accessed to output the drawing items to the pen plotter without interruption. Therefore, even if the number of drawing items increases, the pen plotter can perform the predetermined drawing operation and pen movement continuously without stopping the operation of the pen, and consider that the movement distance between the drawing items becomes small. Therefore, there is an effect that the time required for drawing can be significantly shortened as compared with the conventional method.

In particular, in the preprocessing, there is no complicated calculation including floating point, and the amount of calculation does not increase so much even when the number of drawing items increases. Therefore, the amount of processing in this preprocessing can be performed by a personal computer class computer. This is a high speed processing. Therefore, there is also an effect that it is possible to provide a pen plotter image drawing control system that enables a pen plotter to perform a large amount of image drawing at a sufficiently high speed even with a personal computer class computer.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of a drawing processing procedure of a pen plotter drawing control system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a lattice table.

FIG. 3 is a relationship diagram between a drawing item and a drawing range.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a list structure adopted in a lattice (for example, a lattice having a number G-6) in which a plurality of drawing item numbers are set.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a lattice table in which drawing item numbers are set.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a distance table.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of “−1” setting processing (end processing) performed after detection of the lattice number A-1.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional drawing operation.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A means for setting a grid table obtained by dividing an imageable range of a pen plotter in a grid pattern; calculating coordinates (grid number) of a corresponding grid in the grid table from the coordinates of each drawing item, A means for recording the identification code of the drawing item in the grid of the calculated grid number; calculating the distance between the grids in which the identification code of the drawing item exists in the grid table in which the identification code of the drawing item is set; Means for setting a distance table recorded in association with a grid number; in the grid table in which the identification codes of the drawing items are set, when there is one identification code in a certain grid, the corresponding drawing item is output to the plotter, In the case of more than one, the drawing items corresponding to each identification code are sequentially output to the plotter, and then the distance table is referred to and And a means for executing the output of the drawing item to the plotter in that grid for all the grids having the identification code, and the pen plotter drawing. control method.