JPH07219498A - Video data forming device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To output many color video data with few AND circuits and memories. CONSTITUTION:The font data fed from a font memory 3 are expanded/shrunk by a font processing circuit 4 and outputted to AND circuits 16, 17. Specified patterns are outputted to the AND circuits 16, 17 from pattern memories 14, 15 storing multiple pattern data. AND operations are applied to the output signals from the pattern memories 14, 15 and the font processing circuit 4 in the AND circuits 16, 17. The outputs of the AND circuits 16, 17 are developed in image memories 18, 19 provided in response to the AND circuits 16, 17. A decode circuit 20 decodes the output data from the image memories 18, 19 and outputs the video data.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a video data forming apparatus, and more particularly to a video data forming apparatus capable of outputting character or image information modified by a plurality of colors and patterns as video data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Some printers and display devices such as laser printers and thermal printers are capable of printing and displaying not only single color characters but also characters modified with a plurality of colors and patterns. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a video data forming apparatus for multicolor printing. Here, video data in which a character font is modified with color information of three colors set as pattern data is formed and output. Here is an example: The apparatus shown in the figure has a host processor 1, a character processor 2, a font memory 3, a font processing circuit 4, pattern memories 5-7 storing pattern data for each color, and a logical product of the pattern data and the font data. AND circuits 8 to 10 for capturing and image memories 11 to 13 for each color of black, red and blue for accumulating the image data output from the AND circuits 8 to 10 are provided.

In the above configuration, the host processor 1
Performs primary processing so that the character processing processor 2 can understand print data supplied from an external input device (not shown) such as a host computer. Character processor 2
Calculates the font address, the character modification information, the pattern address, etc. based on the print data supplied from the host processor 1, and the font memory 3, the font processing unit 4, the black pattern memory 5, the red pattern memory 6, and the blue pattern. The instruction signal is output to the memory 7.

Here, the font processing circuit 4 performs processing such as enlargement / reduction of characters on the font data output from the font memory 2 according to the font address according to an instruction supplied together with the print data, and AND
Output to the circuits 8 to 10. Also, each pattern memory 5-7
Outputs the pattern data instructed according to the pattern address to the corresponding circuit among the AND circuits 8-10. The logical product data of the pattern data and the font data output from the AND circuits 8 to 10 are output to the image memories 11 to 13. That is, the font data to which the color information of each color is added is expanded as bitmap data in the image memories 11 to 13 corresponding to each color.

The position in the image memories 11 to 13 where the data output from the AND circuits 8 to 10 is to be expanded is determined by the data expansion address output from the character processor 2 to each of the image memories 11 to 13. . The data expansion address is also supplied to each pattern memory 5-7. When the data expansion address is supplied, the pattern memories 5 to 7 are controlled by the image memories 11 to 11 according to the addresses.
The pattern data is output from the position corresponding to the data development position on 13. The data developed in the image memories 11 to 13 in this way is output as video data of each color in response to a request from a printing device (not shown).

For example, when the character "Kan" is to be printed in blue, the pattern data of "0" is output from the black pattern memory 5 and the red pattern memory 6, and the pattern data of "0" is output from the blue pattern memory 7 only. The pattern address is set so that the pattern data of "1" is output. Then, the logical product of the pattern data and the font data of "Kan" is obtained, and as a result, the font data of "Kan" to which the color information is added is expanded only in the blue image memory 13.

When printing with a mixed color of red and blue,
The pattern "0" is output from the black pattern memory, and the data "0" and "1" corresponding to the planned mixed pattern are output from the red pattern memory 6 and the blue pattern memory 7. Mixed pattern is character processor 2
It is selected by the pattern address supplied from

By storing a modified pattern such as a shaded pattern in the pattern memories 5 to 7, it is possible to shade characters with a desired color. An apparatus having the above structure is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-29858.

[0009]

The above-mentioned conventional device has the following problems. That is, the above-mentioned conventional apparatus requires the pattern memories and image memories for the number of colors used and the AND circuits corresponding thereto. Therefore, it is necessary to secure a space for accommodating these memories and AND circuits, which is an obstacle to downsizing of the device and causes a problem of cost increase.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a video data forming apparatus which can solve the above problems and can be downsized and reduced in cost.

[0011]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above problems and achieve the object, the present invention provides a font processing circuit for applying a predetermined process to font data supplied from a font memory, and a plurality of types of pattern data. With a plurality of pattern memories storing the AND, AND circuits provided corresponding to the respective pattern memories for obtaining the logical product of the outputs of the respective pattern memories and the font processing circuit, and an image provided corresponding to the AND circuits. It is characterized in that it is provided with a memory and a decoding circuit for outputting the decoding of the data output from the image memory.

[0012]

In the present invention having the above characteristics, the logical product outputs of the plurality of pattern memories and the font processing circuits are obtained by the number of pattern memories and are expanded in the corresponding image memories. That is, the bitmap data corresponding to the font data modified by each pattern data is expanded in each image memory. When this bit map data is supplied to the decoding circuit, video data of colors corresponding to these data is output from the decoding circuit.

When n sets of pattern memories, AND circuits and image memories are prepared, an output represented by n-bit data is obtained from the decoding circuit. For example, with data input from two image memories, 4-color video data represented by 2-bit data is obtained, and with data input from three image memories, 8-color video data is obtained by 3-bit data. Is obtained. That is, it suffices to prepare only a smaller number of image memories, pattern memories and AND circuits than the types of colors to be obtained.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of a main part of a video data forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 5 indicate the same or equivalent portions. The apparatus of FIG. 1 is configured so that video data of four colors including white can be obtained as an output. That is, the device includes first and second pattern memories 14 and 15 and ANs corresponding to these.
D circuits 16 and 17, and first and second image memories 18 and 19 are provided. First and second pattern memory 1
A plurality of patterns are stored as bitmap data in 4 and 15, respectively. Furthermore, AND circuit 1
A decode circuit 20 is provided in the subsequent stage of the circuits 6 and 17, and the first circuit
The output signals of the second image memories 18 and 19 are input to the decoding circuit 20.

Output signals of the image memories 18 and 19, and
FIG. 2 shows the relationship with the output signal of the decoding circuit 20 corresponding to this, that is, the video output. As shown, the output of the first image memory 18 (first image output) and the second image memory 1
The decoding circuit 20 is configured so that colorless (white), red, blue, and black video outputs can be obtained in combination with the 9 output (second image output).

Next, a specific video data forming operation will be described with reference to FIGS. Here, an example will be described in which video data for modifying font data with pattern data coded and accumulated in the first and second pattern memories 14 and 15 is output to a printer for three colors. .

The character processor 2 of FIG. 1 gives an instruction to read the font data 21 of FIG. 3 to the font memory 3 in accordance with an instruction from the host processor 1, and the same is given to the first pattern memory 14 and the second pattern memory 15. First of
It is assumed that an instruction is issued to read the pattern 22 and the second pattern 23, respectively.

Then, the font data 21 is read by the font processing circuit 4, subjected to processing such as enlargement and reduction according to the instruction, and output to the AND circuits 16 and 17. On the other hand, the first pattern 22 is applied to the AND circuit 16 and the second pattern
The pattern 23 is output to the AND circuit 17, respectively.
The AND circuit 16 takes the logical product of the font data 21 and the first pattern 22, and the AND circuit 17 takes the logical product of the font data 21 and the second pattern 23. As a result, the first image data 24 and the second image data 25 are obtained as bitmap data. Note that in FIG. 3, the data is schematically shown and the contour is drawn by a dotted line for easy understanding, but the dotted line is not obtained as data. The same applies to FIG. 4 described later.

The respective bitmap data are expanded in the first image memory 18 and the second image memory 19, respectively. The position on the image memory where the bitmap data is to be expanded is determined by the character expansion address given from the character processor 2. For example, the image memory is a plane defined by X and Y coordinates, and the X-
The development position is determined by giving a shift amount indicated by the number of bits from the origin of the Y coordinate to the bitmap data (bit shift).

Further, the first and second patterns 22 and 23
Is a pattern of, for example, 16 dots × 16 dots, and the patterns 22 and 23 are patterns memory 1
The tiles are spread on 4 and 15, respectively. Therefore, the first image data 24 and the second image data 24
The image data 25 is the outline of the font data that has been subjected to processing such as enlargement by the font processing circuit 4, and corresponds to a pattern obtained by cutting out the pattern spread in the pattern memories 14 and 15.

First image memory 18 and second image memory 19
The bitmap data output from the decoding circuit 20
To the black, decoded according to the logic of FIG.
Red and blue video data are created. When this video data is supplied to a printing device (not shown) for printing, a print result 26 is obtained. The colors of the data and the print results shown in FIG. 3 are the patterns 27a, 27b and 2 as color samples.
7c. That is, the pattern 27a is black,
27b indicates blue, and 27c indicates red.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a printing result when a pattern obtained by modifying the second pattern 23 is used. In the figure, the same reference numerals as those in FIG. 3 indicate the same or equivalent parts.
In this example, the first pattern 22 and the second pattern 28 are data having opposite values. Then, the data obtained by modifying the font data 21 with the second pattern 28 becomes the second image data 29, and the output data of the decoder circuit 20 which receives the second image data 29 and the first image pattern 24 as shown in the figure. The print result 30 is modified by the blue and red stripes.

[0023]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, it is possible to obtain a printing result of a character or the like modified with a color larger than the number of sets of the mounted pattern memory, AND circuit and image memory. Therefore, the memory and the AND circuit can be accommodated in a space small for the number of colors to be printed, and as a result, the device can be downsized and the cost can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of a video data forming apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a relationship between an input of a decoding circuit and a video output.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of data showing a process of forming video data.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of data showing a process of forming video data.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of a video data forming device according to a conventional technique.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Upper processor, 2 ... Character processor, 3
… Font memory, 4… Font processing device, 14…
First pattern memory, 15 ... Second pattern memory,
16, 17 ... AND circuit, 18 ... First image memory,
19 ... Second image memory, 20 ... Decoding circuit

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display location H04N 1/46

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A font memory, a font processing circuit for applying predetermined processing to font data supplied from the font memory, a plurality of pattern memories storing a plurality of pattern data, and each of the pattern memories and the font processing circuit. An AND circuit provided corresponding to each pattern memory to obtain the logical product of the outputs, an image memory provided corresponding to the AND circuit, and a decoding for decoding the data output from the image memory A video data forming apparatus comprising a circuit.