JP2005348080A - Image composition device and image composition method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To hold an original image used for image composition processing so that it is reusable also for another image processing without requiring a great number of memory for the image composition processing. <P>SOLUTION: A composite address formed by replacing an address of a predetermined region of a second piece of image data specified by a region specification means with an address of a predetermined region of a first piece of image data specified by the region specification means is managed, a predetermined tile image corresponding to the composite address is extracted from first and second storage means based on the composite address to be managed and a composite image is created. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image synthesizing apparatus and an image synthesizing method for performing inlay synthesis of an image of a predetermined area between a plurality of input image data.

  Conventionally, in an image composition process for compositing a plurality of image data, such as N-UP for laying out a plurality of image data on a single sheet or inset composition for compositing different image data to a part of the image data, In addition to the image data memory, image synthesis processing is realized by preparing a memory for synthesized images.

FIG. 6 shows an example of conventional image composition processing.
This conventional example shows a method for obtaining a composite image 305 in which a region image 302 in an image 301 is embedded in a region 304 of an image 303.

  First, as one method, a memory 309 for the synthesized image 305 is prepared on the memory 310, and the synthesized image is obtained from the memory 307 for the image 301 and the memory 308 for the image 303, which are source images. There is a technique for realizing image composition processing by copying image data corresponding to 305 to the memory 309 (see Patent Document 1).

  As another technique, there is a technique for realizing image composition processing by allocating the memory 308 and the memory 309 to the same area and overwriting the image 301 on the image 303 that is the composition original image.

JP 2000-358151 A

  However, in such a conventional image composition method, the image memory 307 that is the composition source and the image memory 308 after the composition must be secured at the same time, and there is a problem that a large amount of memory is required for image composition processing.

  In addition, when the composite image is obtained by overwriting the composite image 301 on the memory 308 for the image 303, the composite image 303 cannot be reused for another image processing due to the overwrite. There is a problem that it ends up.

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an image composition device that does not require a large amount of memory for image composition processing and can reuse the original image used for image composition processing for another image processing, Another object is to provide an image composition method.

  The present invention is an image composition apparatus for synthesizing at least a predetermined region image of first image data with a predetermined region of second image data, and each of the first and second image data has M × N pixels. A dividing unit for dividing the image into unit images; a first storage unit for storing the first image data divided by the dividing unit; and a second storage unit for storing the second image data divided by the dividing unit. Two storage means, tile image address management means for managing the addresses of the respective divided image data stored in the first and second storage means for each of the storage means, and based on the addresses, the first An area designation for designating an address of a predetermined area of the second image data stored in the second storage means and an address of the predetermined area of the first image data stored in the first storage means hand And a composite address obtained by replacing the address of the predetermined area of the second image data specified by the area specifying means with the address of the predetermined area of the first image data specified by the area specifying means. Based on the composite address management means to be managed and the composite address managed by the composite address management means, a predetermined tile image corresponding to the composite address is extracted from the first storage means and the second storage means Thus, an image synthesizing device is configured by comprising image synthesizing means for creating a synthesized image.

The present invention is an image composition method for synthesizing at least a predetermined region image of first image data with a predetermined region of second image data, wherein each of the first and second image data is M × N pixels. A division step of dividing the image into unit images; a step of storing the divided first image data in a first storage unit; and a second storage of the second image data divided by the division unit. Storing in the means, managing the address of each divided image data stored in the first and second storage means for each of the storage means, and the second storage based on the address Designating an address of a predetermined area of the second image data stored in the means and an address of a predetermined area of the first image data stored in the first storage means; and the designation The second picture made Managing a composite address in which an address of a predetermined area of data is replaced with an address of a predetermined area of the designated first image data, and the first address based on the managed composite address An image composition method is provided by including a step of extracting a predetermined tile image corresponding to the composite address from the storage means and the second storage means to create a composite image.

  According to the present invention, the composite address obtained by replacing the address of the predetermined area of the second image data specified by the area specifying means with the address of the predetermined area of the first image data specified by the area specifying means Since a predetermined tile image corresponding to the composite address is extracted from the first storage means and the second storage means based on the managed composite address, a composite image is created. There is no need to allocate a new memory area for image creation, so that not only a large amount of memory is required for image composition processing, but also an inexpensive configuration can be obtained, and image data before composition can be reused. can do.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
(Constitution)
FIG. 1 shows a configuration of an image composition apparatus according to the present invention.
Reference numeral 501 denotes an image scanner unit as image input means, which outputs image data 503 and attribute data 504.

  Reference numeral 502 denotes a PDL rendering unit as image input means, which outputs image data 505 and attribute data 506.

  These image scanner unit 501 and PDL rendering unit 502 include a well-known image area separation processing unit. For example, attribute data for identifying pixels constituting a black character part in an image is generated in units of pixels. The attribute data 504 and 506 are output.

  Reference numeral 507 denotes a selector that switches input of image data.

  Reference numeral 508 denotes a line buffer that stores input image data for a plurality of lines.

  Reference numeral 509 denotes a tile dividing unit that divides image data into tile images. The tile dividing unit 509 reads an image from the line buffer 508 in units of M × N pixels and generates a tile image in units of M × N pixels.

  As the tile image, a tile image for the image data 503 input from the image scanner unit 501 and a tile image for the image data 505 input from the PDL rendering unit 502 are generated.

  Reference numeral 511 denotes a first image memory as a discrete memory, which stores the generated tile image for the image data 503.

  Reference numeral 514 denotes a second image memory as a discrete memory, which stores the generated tile image for the image data 505.

  The tile dividing unit 509 outputs image data for one page on the discrete memories 511 and 514 in tile image units.

  Reference numeral 512 denotes a first address management table corresponding to the first image memory 511.

  Reference numeral 515 denotes a second address management table corresponding to the second image memory 514.

  The first and second address management tables 512 and 515 manage tile image data discretely arranged on the discrete memories 511 and 514.

  The area designation unit 510 is a part for designating an area in the input image data, and generates area data indicating the coordinates of the designated area.

  Reference numeral 513 denotes a first image area storage unit that stores area data generated by the area designating unit 510 corresponding to image data stored in the first image memory 511.

  Reference numeral 516 denotes a second image area storage unit that stores area data generated by the area designating unit 510 corresponding to image data stored in the second image memory 514.

  Reference numeral 518 denotes a first address management table 512, region data stored in the first image region storage unit 513, a second address management table 515, and a region stored in the second image region storage unit 516. It is a 3rd address management table which inputs data.

  A memory controller 519 sequentially reads each row of the third address management table 518, accesses the addresses of the discrete memories 511 and 514 described in each row, and sequentially reads the image data.

  Reference numeral 520 denotes a line buffer, which creates a composite image by storing image data sequentially sent from the memory controller 519.

  A printer unit 521 sequentially reads the contents of the composite image stored in the line buffer 520 and prints it out. As the configuration of the printer unit 512, an image forming technique such as an electrophotographic system or an inkjet system can be used.

(Operation)
Next, the operation of this apparatus will be described.
First, an outline of the image composition process will be described.

  FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an outline of the image composition processing. When there is no special description, the processing of each step in this flowchart is executed by a control unit (not shown).

  First, when synthesizing an image of a predetermined area between a plurality of input image data, a plurality of input image data for a synthesized image are prepared. For example, the image data 503 from the image scanner unit 501 can be used as background image data indicated as 303 in FIG. In addition, the image data 505 from the PDL rendering unit 502 can be used as image data that is partly extracted as 301 in FIG. 6 and is combined with the image indicated by 303. Of course, the present invention is not limited to this, and the plurality of image data may be in any combination. Needless to say, this includes synthesis of image data input from the image scanner unit 501 and synthesis of image data converted from PDL.

  In the following description, in order to simplify the description of the invention, an image obtained by combining a part of the image data cut out at the time of combining processing is referred to as a second image or a second image. This is referred to as image data. In addition, an image from which data of a partial area is cut out is referred to as a first image or first image data.

  In step S1, a plurality of input image data is input.

  In step S2, each stored input image data is divided into tile images in units of M × N pixels.

  In step S3, the divided tile images are sorted for each input image data, and the sorted tile images are stored in the discrete memory.

  In step S4, the address of the tile image stored in the discrete memory is managed for each input image data.

  In step S5, an address of a predetermined image area is designated from the first image data stored in the discrete memory based on the address of the managed tile image, and the second image stored in the discrete memory is specified. For the data, an address of a predetermined area where the predetermined image data specified for the first image data is combined is specified.

  In step S6, the address of the designated second image data area is replaced with the address of the designated first image data area, and predetermined address in the second image data corresponding to the replaced address is obtained. The composite address of the composite image when the image data of the area designated by the first image data is composited at the address position is managed.

  In step S7, a composite image is created by extracting and outputting a predetermined tile image from each discrete memory based on the composite address of the managed composite image.

Hereinafter, a specific example of the image composition process will be described.
FIG. 3 shows tile division processing of image data.

  Reference numeral 101 denotes an image of X direction Px pixels and Y direction Py pixels. When the image 101 is divided into tiles of M pixels in the X direction and N pixels in the Y direction, the tiles are divided into an X direction Tx tile and a Y direction Ty tile.

  Tile coordinates (y, x) are assigned to tiles located at the xth in the X direction and the yth in the Y direction from the upper left origin of the image 101. The value of Tx takes the smallest integer value that is a value obtained by multiplying Tx and N by Px or more.

  In the example of FIG. 3, since Px is not a number that is an integer multiple of N, a portion of the tile whose x coordinate is Tx−1 and that protrudes from the image 101 is filled with white pixels. The same applies to a tile whose Ty value and tile y-coordinate are Ty−1 as in the case of a tile whose Tx value and tile x-coordinate is Tx−1.

  Each tile is image data composed of a pixel set of M × N pixels, and each pixel is composed of color data based on a plurality of color spaces such as RGB, RGBA, CMYK, and LAB.

  In the example of FIG. 3, the tile 102 indicated by the tile coordinates (1, 3) includes M × N pixels including the pixels 103, and the pixels 103 include RGB color data 104.

  In this example, the tile image is described as being uncompressed image data. However, the present invention does not limit the format of the tile image to an uncompressed image, and is a compressed image such as JPEG. May also be included.

  FIG. 4 shows the correspondence between the tile image and the first and second address management tables 512 and 515.

  Here, the arrangement of tile images on the discrete memories 511 and 514 and the first and second address management tables 512 and 515 for managing the discrete memories 511 and 514 when the image 101 is divided into tiles will be described.

  The discrete memories 511 and 514 are memories for storing image data divided into tiles.

  Tile blocks 211, 212, 213, 214, and 216 are memory blocks that store tiles 111, 112, 113, 114, and 116, respectively. The arrangement of each tile on the discrete memories 511 and 514 is discretely arranged independently for each tile block.

  These discretely arranged memory blocks are managed by the first and second address management tables 512 and 515.

  The address management tables 512 and 515 are configured by a tile block start address 230 corresponding to each tile block and a tile length 231 representing the size of the tile block.

  When the tile image is compressed data, the tile length may be different for each tile.

  Each element 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226 of the address management table 512, 515 corresponds to the tile block 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, respectively.

  Each element constituting the address management tables 512 and 515 is stored in the table in the order of tile coordinates.

FIG. 5 shows an image composition process using the third address management table 518.
Here, the area 401 of the first image in the tile image 400 stored in the first image memory 511 is fitted into the area 411 of the second image of the tile image 410 stored in the second image memory 514. An example of processing to be combined will be described.

  The first address management table 512 manages the address and size of each tile of the tile image 400.

  Reference numerals 403, 404, and 405 denote address row elements in the first address management table 512 corresponding to the area 401 of the first image in the tile image 400.

  The second address management table 515 manages the address and size of each tile of the tile image 410.

  Reference numerals 413, 414, and 415 denote row elements of addresses in the second address management table 515 corresponding to the area 411 of the second image in the tile image 410.

  The third address management table 518 is a table for a composite image after fitting and is newly generated when an image composition process is performed.

  In the third address management table 518, the row elements 421, 422, and 423 corresponding to the row elements 413, 414, and 415 in the second address management table 515 in the second image area 411 The contents of the row elements 403, 404, and 405 of the first address management data 512 in the area 401 of one image are written, and the addresses in the other areas are the same as the address contents of the second address management table 515. By writing, an address management table corresponding to the composite image 430 after the inset composition is completed.

  In the composite image 430, an area 440 corresponds to a composite area after the area 401 of the second image in the tile image 410 is combined with the area 401 of the first image in the tile image 400.

  Since the new third address management table 518 is created as described above, the composite image 430 can be generated by sequentially reading the addresses in the table. There is no need to allocate a memory area, thereby eliminating the need for a large amount of memory for image composition processing.

  In addition, since a predetermined image is directly extracted from the discrete memories 511 and 514 using the third address management table 518 and the image is synthesized, the original image is overwritten on the memory as in the past. As a result, the composition source image can be reused for another process.

  Note that in the above example, the inset composition is the tile data stored in the second image memory 514 from the image data of the area 401 in the tile image 400 (first image) stored in the first image memory 511. This is processing for fitting and replacing the area 411 of the image 410 (second image).

  In this replacement process, the tile images 400 and 410 may be compressed images, non-compressed images, multi-value images, binary images, or the like.

  Further, the number of image data to be combined is not limited to two. In addition, the area where data existing in a predetermined area of the first image designated as the second image is combined is not limited to one, and may be two or more.

It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the image synthesizing | combining apparatus which concerns on this invention. It is a flowchart of an image composition process. It is explanatory drawing which shows the tile division | segmentation process of image data. It is explanatory drawing which shows the correspondence of a tile image and the 1st and 2nd address management table. It is explanatory drawing which shows the image synthetic | combination process using a 3rd address management table. It is explanatory drawing which shows an example of the conventional image composition process.

Explanation of symbols

400 tile image (first image)
410 Tile image (second image)
501 Image scanner unit 502 PDL rendering unit 503 Image data 504 Attribute data 505 Image data 506 Attribute data 507 Selector 508 Line buffer 509 Tile division unit 510 Area designation unit 511 First image memory (discrete memory)
512 First address management table 513 First image area storage unit 514 Second image memory (discrete memory)
515 Second address management table 516 Second image area storage unit 518 Third address management table 519 Memory controller 520 Line buffer 521 Printer unit

Claims (2)

An image composition device for synthesizing at least a predetermined region image of first image data with a predetermined region of second image data,
Dividing means for dividing the first and second image data into images of M × N pixel units,
First storage means for storing the first image data divided by the dividing means;
Second storage means for storing the second image data divided by the dividing means;
Tile image address management means for managing the address of each divided image data stored in the first and second storage means for each of the storage means;
Based on the address, the address of the predetermined area of the second image data stored in the second storage means and the predetermined area of the first image data stored in the first storage means An area specifying means for specifying the address of
A composite address is managed by replacing the address of the predetermined area of the second image data designated by the area designating means with the address of the predetermined area of the first image data designated by the area designating means. Synthetic address management means;
An image for creating a composite image by extracting a predetermined tile image corresponding to the composite address from the first storage unit and the second storage unit based on the composite address managed by the composite address management unit An image composition device comprising composition means. An image composition method for compositing at least a predetermined region image of first image data with a predetermined region of second image data,
A dividing step of dividing each of the first and second image data into images of M × N pixel units;
Storing the divided first image data in a first storage means;
Storing the second image data divided by the dividing means in a second storage means;
Managing the address of each divided image data stored in the first and second storage means for each storage means;
Based on the address, the address of the predetermined area of the second image data stored in the second storage means and the predetermined area of the first image data stored in the first storage means A process of designating an address of
Managing a composite address in which an address of a predetermined area of the designated second image data is replaced with an address of a predetermined area of the designated first image data;
A step of extracting a predetermined tile image corresponding to the composite address from the first storage unit and the second storage unit based on the managed composite address to create a composite image. An image composition method characterized by the above.

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