JPH10293832A - Image processing support system and image processing support method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Problem] To provide a system and a method capable of increasing the efficiency and accuracy of color information addition work and performing the color information addition work regardless of the difference in operator experience. An image processing support system for adding color information to a material including a mount and characters, a logo, an illustration, etc., a display means for displaying data and a work screen, and digital data using the mount and the material as mount image data Reading means for converting and reading the image data, status table creating means for creating and initializing a status table corresponding to the mount image data, color information adding means for adding color information to the mount image data, and color information added. An image processing support system comprising: a registration unit that registers an area in a status table; an area determination unit that determines an area other than the registration area; and a screen moving unit that moves a screen to the determined area. This is an image processing support method used in the system.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a support system used in a halftone printing process in a design system or a plate making system using a computer, and a method used in the support system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, for example, catalogs, flyers, books,
In the field of printing and plate making of magazines and the like, computer systems have been widely used for image processing and the like. A CEPS (color) that consistently performs processes from an input scanner for inputting color-separated images such as photographs, mounts provided with materials such as characters, character strings, logos, and illustrations to plate making and output. electronic
Prepress system) has been used, and the complicated and redundant conventional plate making process has been simplified, and many effects have been achieved.

Further, for example, in order to enhance the display effect of the printed matter on paper, characters, logos,
For materials such as illustrations, collect the work of changing the color of the material to not only black (K) but also other colors, applying a flat screen, applying a gradation, pasting images such as photographs, etc. The display effect is higher than that of black only.

[0004] In a conventional plate collecting operation in a conventional design system or plate making system, a work operator adds color information to a mount displayed on a display based on an allocated mount. Specifically, the plate collecting operation will be described. First, the operator displays the entire surface of the mount on a display, and checks an unprocessed area to which color information has been added.
Next, the unprocessed area is enlarged and displayed on the display. Next, color information is added according to the layout sheet. Next, the entire surface of the mount is redisplayed on the display to check the unprocessed area, color information is added to the unprocessed area by the above procedure, and the same operation is repeated until there is no unprocessed portion.

[0005] The mount is provided with materials such as characters, logos, and illustrations, and with line drawings indicating layout positions of images such as photographs. The layout designation sheet is an instruction sheet for determining the position of an image to be laid out, such as color information such as flat screen and gradation, with respect to a layout area of a material and an image indicated by a line drawing on a mount.

[0006]

However, in the conventional color information adding operation, since each operation such as reduction, enlargement, and reduction of the mount is repeatedly performed on the display to add the color information, the accuracy of the operation is reduced, and the color information is added. It did not add color information to the material that had to be done. In addition, if the work of confirming the addition status of the color information is increased in order to increase the accuracy, the work efficiency is reduced.

Further, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, each operator plans a work sequence before starting the work to reduce useless work, but the work plan largely depends on individual differences such as the experience of the operator and physical condition. As a result, work efficiency could not be improved as a result.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is possible to increase the efficiency and accuracy of a color information adding operation, and to perform an image adding operation irrespective of an operator's experience difference. An object of the present invention is to provide a processing support system and an image processing support method.

[0009]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image processing support system for adding color information to a material including a mount and characters, logos, illustrations, and the like. Display means for displaying a screen, reading means for converting a mount and a material into digital data as mount image data and reading the data, status table creating means for creating and initializing a status table corresponding to the mount image data, and mount image First color information adding means for adding color information to data, registration means for registering the area to which the color information has been added in the status table, area determination means for determining an area other than the registered area, and An image processing support system comprising a screen moving means for moving a screen.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a second color information adding means for adding color information to the mount image data moved and displayed by the screen moving means. This is the image processing support system.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an additional area determining means for determining an additional area to be displayed on the display means for adding color information to the mount image data. This is the image processing support system described above.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image processing support method for adding color information to a mount and a material including characters, logos, illustrations, etc., wherein the mount and the material are mounted on a mount image data. A process of converting and reading into digital data, a status table creating process of creating and initializing a status table corresponding to the mount image data, a process of adding color information to the mount image data, and a mount having the color information added A registration step of comparing the image data with the status table and registering a color information addition area to which the color information is added in the status table;
An image processing support method, comprising: an area determination step of determining an area other than the color information addition area; and a step of moving a screen to the determined area and displaying the area.

[0013] The invention according to claim 5 is the image processing support method including a step of adding color information again to the displayed mount image data.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided the image processing support method, further comprising an additional area determining step of determining an area to be displayed and to which color information is added.

[0015]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an example of an image processing support system and an image processing support method according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram showing the configuration of an image processing support system according to the present invention. 1 is an external storage device such as a hard disk, a magneto-optical disk drive,
Alternatively, it is a storage device including an internal storage device such as a memory, and stores the mount image data, the status table, the material, and the like of the present invention as digital data. Reference numeral 2 denotes a display device including a display and the like, which displays data of the image processing support system of the present invention and data necessary for performing color information addition work. Further, the display device 2 corresponds to the display unit of the present invention. Reference numeral 4 denotes an instruction input device including a keyboard, a mouse, a tablet, and the like, which is used when color information is added to the mount image data. The instruction input device 4 corresponds to the first color information adding unit and the second color information adding unit of the present invention.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a processing device comprising a CPU or the like, which stores a program for controlling the image processing support system of the present invention in a storage device 1 such as a memory, and reads, calculates, and controls the program in accordance with a processing operation. It is. Further, the processing device 3 corresponds to the status table creating means, the area determining means, the screen moving means, and the additional area determining means of the present invention.
Reference numeral 5 denotes a mount input device from a color scanner or the like, which converts the mount into digital data such as bitmap data and reads and inputs the digital data. Further, the mount input device 5 corresponds to a reading unit of the present invention.

Next, the flow of the processing steps of the image processing support system of the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Step 101 (S101) First, the mount input device 5 composed of a color scanner
The mount 21 is read and stored in the storage device 1 as mount image data which is digital data. This storage device may be an internal storage device such as a memory of the processing device 3 or an external storage device such as a hard disk. The mount image data, which is digital data of the mount, can be read from the storage device 1, a magneto-optical disk drive, or a network and used.

It is assumed that characters, logos 22, illustrations, and the like are provided on the mount 21 to be read and input (FIG. 2).
reference). The mount 21 is read and input as a bitmap by the mount input device 5, and in this processing step, the mount image data is stored as bitmap data.
Is to be processed.

Step 102 (S102) Next, the status table 2 for the mount image data
Create 3. This status table is created with bitmap data of the same size as the mount image data (see FIG. 2). The area to which the color information is added is 1,
By setting the area where no color information is added to 0,
The presence / absence of the color information added state in the status table is confirmed and displayed. By increasing the resolution of the bitmap data of the mount image data, a highly accurate status table can be created. A preferred resolution is 48 dots / mm to 98 dots / mm, and in this example, 48 dots / mm is used.

Step 103 (S103) Next, the status table is initialized. The initialization is a state in which the status table is all 0, that is, a state in which no color information is added.

Step 104 (S104) Next, an area is designated to the mount image data by the mouse of the instruction input device 4, and color information is added by the keyboard. The color information to be added to the mount image data is, specifically, Y30%, M60%, C
Add color like 30%, K12%. This addition method uses a number of existing methods.

Step 105 (S105) Next, the area to which the color information of the mount image data is added is registered in the status table. By registering the color information, the portion where the color information is added becomes 1 in the status table, and the area where the color information is not added remains 0. Then, by checking the area of 1 or 0 in the status table, it is possible to grasp the area to which the color information is added.

Step 106 (S106) Then, an XOR operation is performed on the mount table image data of the area displayed on the display device such as the display 2 and the registered status table to calculate the cumulative area of the area to which the color information is added. The XOR operation uses the expression described in Expression 1 and is an expression for calculating that it is necessary to add color information to a portion where the operation is 0. Can be searched for.

[0025]

(Equation 1) (1: color information is added, 0: color information is not added)

Step 107 (S 107) Next, it is calculated using the mathematical expression 2 whether or not the cumulative area occupies a ratio with respect to the area area displayed on the display 2.

The area area is the size of the mount image data displayed on a display device such as a display.
Before starting the operation, the operator designates the contents of the operation and the size of the display. The reason for determining the ratio using the area area displayed on the display instead of the entire area of the mount image data in order to process the area size that is easy for the operator to work is to improve the operability. This has the effect of improving productivity.

[0028]

(Equation 2)

Step 108 (S108) Next, the above-mentioned ratio and the determined value (α) determined before the start of the work.
If the value is larger than the fixed value (α), the process proceeds to step 104 to add the color information again. If the value is smaller than the fixed value (α), the process proceeds to step 109.

The fixed value (α) is a value indicating the remaining non-color information added area, and a small value means that there is almost no area to which color information is added. The preferred value of the fixed value (α) is 5 to 10%.
This is because an effect of preventing forgetting to attach color information can be obtained.

Step 109 (S109) Next, the screen of the display is scrolled to an area adjacent to the display area displayed on the display and displayed on the display, thereby ending the processing operation of this step.

When the new screen is scrolled, the operator repeats the above operations such as adding the color information again. When the color information has been added to the necessary parts of the mount image data, the operator replaces the mount image data with the next process. , And paste image data such as photos.

If the screen scrolled after the above operation is smaller than the fixed value (α), the screen is scrolled to the next screen. In other words, since the scroll is sequentially performed to the area where the color information needs to be added, the color information can be easily added without fail.

Hereinafter, an example of a process of scrolling to an area to which color information is added will be described in detail with reference to an automatic scroll state. First, when color information is added to the mount image data, a size at which work is easy (area area) is determined, and is displayed on the display 23. Next, the mount image data displayed on the display is divided, and
(See FIG. 3). Since the area division of the mount image data is performed centering on the position displayed on the screen of the display, the edge of the screen of the display is narrowed and the size of the block 24 may be different, but this does not cause any problem.

Next, color information is added to the mount image data shown on the display, the mount image data is registered in the status table, and the area of the area to which the color information is added is determined. The area of the region is determined value (α = 10
%), A block larger than the left, right, top, and bottom fixed values of the block to which the color information is added is searched, and scrolling is performed to a block having a larger value. That is, scrolling to a block having a value larger than the final value scrolls to a block to which color information is added. Further, when the operator does not perform an operation such as adding color information, a setting can be made to scroll to another block.

When there is no target area in an adjacent block, the XOR operation of the mount image data and the status table is performed on all areas. This is to search for an area where the color information addition work is not performed the most in the current state. Then, a histogram of the area to which the color information of the vertical direction and the horizontal method are added is created by the XOR operation (see FIG. 4).

Then, the total cumulative value of the vertical histogram and the horizontal histogram is obtained, and scrolling is performed centering on the highest cumulative value. Further, the total accumulated value indicates an area where the color information adding operation remains. By performing scrolling in this way, it is possible to obtain the effects of reducing the zoom / scroll processing time and reducing the determination of finding a work area.

[0038]

As described above, according to the image processing support method of the present invention and the image processing support system using the method, when color information is added to the mount image data, the color information is added separately from the area to which the color information is added. Scroll to the area of
Instructions such as enlargement, reduction, and scrolling of the screen are reduced,
The workload of the operator can be reduced, and the working time can be reduced.

Further, since the user scrolls to the area to which the color information is added as needed, the color information can be added regardless of the operator's experience.

Further, since the color information can be added to all the areas without error, the possibility of correction is reduced and the quality of the product can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image processing support system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a comparison image diagram of mount image data and a status table.

FIG. 3 is an image diagram displayed on a display when the mount image data is divided into blocks.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the calculation of the vertical and horizontal histograms of the mount image data.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a flow of a work process of the image processing support system of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, storage device 2, 23, display 3, processing device 4, instruction input device 5, mount input device

Claims (6)

[Claims] An image processing support system for adding color information to a material consisting of a mount and characters, logos, illustrations, etc., a display means for displaying data and a work screen, and a digital format for the mount and the material as mount image data. Reading means for converting and reading the data; status table creating means for creating and initializing a status table corresponding to the mount image data; first color information adding means for adding color information to the mount image data; Registering means for registering an area added with に in the status table; area determining means for determining an area other than the registered area; and screen moving means for moving a screen to the determined area. Image processing support system. 2. The image processing support system according to claim 1, further comprising second color information adding means for adding color information to the mount image data moved and displayed by the screen moving means. 3. The image according to claim 1, further comprising an additional area determining means for determining an additional area to be displayed on the display means for adding color information to the mount image data. Processing support system. 4. An image processing support method for adding color information to a material including a mount and characters, logos, illustrations, and the like,
Converting and reading the mount and material as digital image data as mount image data, creating a status table corresponding to the mount image data and initializing the status table, adding color information to the mount image data, A registration step of comparing the mount image data to which the color information is added with the status table and registering the color information addition area to which the color information is added in the status table; and an area determination step of determining an area other than the color information addition area. And moving the screen to the determined area to display the area. 5. The image processing support method according to claim 4, further comprising the step of adding color information to the displayed mount image data again. 6. An additional area determining step for determining an area to which the displayed color information is to be added.
Alternatively, the image processing support method according to claim 5.