JP2008153764A - Image processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To avoid too much processing time during conducting a rendering of a tile-divided vector data. <P>SOLUTION: When a closed area painting object in a page vector data is divided into a tile vector, a rectangular area painting object to express an own whole area is added to the tile vector in the case that a tile to be completely connoted in the object exists. When a rasterizing processing of the tile vector is conducted, a processing time during rendering is reduced without conducting a complex processing like conducting a clipping processing by an outer frame to form the tile by painting the closed area thereby as original image data are restored by simply conducting a painting processing of the rectangular area. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an MFP (Multi Function Peripheral) capable of handling vector data.

  FIG. 12 shows a controller 100 of the MFP. The controller 100 is connected to a CPU 102, a memory controller (MC) 103, a general-purpose bus 105, an image processing unit 110, and an image data development unit (RIP) 113 by a system bus bridge (SBB) 101.

  A hard disk controller (HDDCont) 106 and a LAN I / F 109 are connected to the general-purpose bus 105, and image data in a page vector format (PDL (page description language), PDF, SVG, etc.) is transferred from the network 108.

  An HDD 107 is connected to the end of the HDDCont 106 and is used as a storage medium for image data. Similarly, a system memory (Memory) 104 is connected to the tip of the MC 103, and is used as a medium for temporarily storing image data. Generally, a DIMM is used for the system memory 104.

  A scanner 111 and a printer 112 are connected to the image processing unit 110. The image data input from the scanner is subjected to predetermined image processing by the image processing unit 110 and then input to the controller, and the image data stored in the controller is subjected to predetermined image processing by the image processing unit 108. And output to the printer 112.

  The image data handled by the controller 100 is interfaced with a page vector (PDL, PDF, SVG, etc.) for input / output with an external device via a network, and with a raster data format for input / output with a scanner or printer. A page vector input from an external device is interpreted into a primitive object by the CPU 102, converted into intermediate data called DL (DisplayList), and input to the RIP.

  Since these image data are temporarily stored in the system memory 104 inside the controller 100, there are various types of data such as raster data, page vector data (PDL, etc.), DL data, etc. on the system memory 104.

The HDD 105 stores image data input from the scanner as image data and raster image data rendered by the RIP 113.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-120639

  In general, raster image data has a large data size. Therefore, many system resources such as the memory size of the system memory 104 and the bandwidth between the general-purpose bus 105 and the HDDCont 106 and the HDD 107 in FIG. 12 are consumed.

  In addition, vector images such as PDL data are interpreted in the system and expanded into a DisplayList (DL) that generates drawing objects. At this time, since DL data is spooled in the system memory 104, the amount of memory resources consumed thereby is enormous.

  Recently, there is an increasing demand for image quality of output images from users, and higher resolution of raster images is being promoted. In addition to the image quality, an improvement in system processing speed is also required.

  For this reason, the system resources necessary to satisfy the required specifications are enlarged if the MFP having the conventional configuration is used. Therefore, it is an issue to make a compromise in terms of cost.

  Furthermore, apart from the above-mentioned issues related to the cost performance of products, the problem of human resources for developing complicated and diversified systems must also be solved. To that end, it is a challenge to efficiently maintain the product lineup by configuring one basic system in a scalable form for various required specifications.

  For example, a system in which a plurality of modules such as the image processing unit 110 and the RIP 113 shown in FIG.

  On the other hand, paperlessness is progressing in offices, and there is a demand for seamlessly handling paper output and electronic data. For this purpose, MFPs, which are I / F devices for paper and electronic data, also support improved POD printing, for example, improving the searchability of stored documents, and converting rasterized images into objects after scanning. In addition, it is necessary to have more intelligent functions such as speeding up image processing.

To solve the above problem,
1. In order to speed up the data processing in the MFP, the system is handled with vector data.

  2. By tiling the vector data in the MFP, the data processing time is increased and it is adapted to parallel processing.

  3. When outputting to an external device, reusability is improved by returning the tile vector to the page vector and then outputting. I am thinking about an MFP system like this.

  On the other hand, in order to generate tile vector data for handling inside the MFP, a process of dividing the page vector data into tiles is necessary. At that time, a method of copying and holding the object data to all the divided tiles including some or all of the objects included in the page vector data is conceivable.

  In the vector data dividing method in the previous method, the circular filled object shown in FIG. 10 is copied to a total of nine tiles including part or all of the circular filled object. At the time of output, each of these tile vector data is rasterized, but all the tile vector data are subjected to a circular filling process and a clipping process using a tile outer frame.

  By the way, for example, when attention is paid to tile (X, Y) = (2, 4) in FIG. 10, it is equivalent to rectangular area filling in terms of tile units, and the area filling process is executed with simpler processing at the time of rendering. Is possible. Nevertheless, at the time of rasterization processing for this tile, since the clipping processing of the outer frame of the tile with respect to the circular fill is performed, there is a problem in that wasted time is spent on the rendering processing.

Therefore, as means for solving the above problems, the MFP of the present invention is configured with the following requirements. That is,
An image processing system comprising at least image data input means, image data output means, and image data control means;
The image data control means is at least
First conversion means for converting the raster image read by the image input means into vector image data for each block of a predetermined size;
Network I / F means,
A second conversion for converting a vector image of a block of a predetermined size into vector image data representing the entire page, or converting a vector image data representing the entire page into vector image data of a block of a predetermined size Means,
Expansion means for expanding the vector image of the block of the predetermined size into raster image data;
With
In the image data control means, an image processing system is characterized in that internal data transfer is performed after conversion into a vector image of one page or a vector image for each block of a predetermined size.

In addition, when the second conversion means converts vector image data representing the entire page into vector image data of a block of a predetermined size, the entire area of the vector image data of the block represents a vector representing the entire page. A determination means for determining whether or not a closed area to be filled by a closed area filling command of image data is included,
When it is determined that it is included, a rectangular area filling command indicating the entire area is added to the vector image data of the block.

  Further, the closed region painting command for vector image data representing the entire page is a circle or convex polygon painting command.

  In addition, when the determination unit determines that the four points forming the rectangular region of the vector image data of the block are included in the closed region to be filled by the vector region data closed region fill command representing the entire page, It is judged that it is done.

  According to the present invention, in the MFP apparatus that converts and handles page vector data to tile vector data for efficient internal processing of vector data, when dividing the closed region fill object in the page vector data into tile vectors, When there is a tile that is completely contained in the object, a rectangular area filling object representing the entire area of the tile is added to the tile vector.

  Thus, when performing rasterization processing of tile vectors using μRIP, simply performing rectangular region fill processing without performing complicated processing such as clipping the closed region and clipping with the outer frame forming the tile. Since the original image data can be restored, the processing time during rendering can be shortened.

(Example 1)
[Outline of MFP equipment]
Hereinafter, the apparatus of the present invention and its operation will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of an MFP controller according to the present invention.

  The MFP controller 1 is connected to the CPU 3, the memory controller (MC) 4, the general-purpose bus 6, the tile tile page vector conversion unit 13, the raster → tile vector conversion unit 14, and the tile vector development unit (RIP) 18 through a system bus bridge (SBB) 2. Has been. The RIP 18 is composed of a plurality of small development parts (μRIPa to d).

  A system memory (Memory) 5 is connected to the tip of the MC 4 and is used as a medium for temporarily storing image data.

  The general-purpose bus 6 includes a hard disk controller (HDDCont) 7 that controls the HDD 8 for storing image data, an operation unit controller (LCDC) 9 that controls the operation unit (LCD) 10, and a network 12 to which the MFP is connected. The LAN I / F 11 serving as an interface for transferring image data between external devices is connected.

  An image processing unit 15 is connected to the tip of the raster → tile vector conversion unit 14, and a scanner 16 and a printer 17 are connected to the image processing unit 15.

  In addition, a RIP 18 is connected to the SBB2, and a local memory (LocalMemory) 19 for storing data output from the RIP 18 is connected to the SBB2.

  The image data handled by the controller 1 is interfaced with page vectors (PDL, PDF, SVG, etc.) for input / output with an external device, and raster data for input / output with a scanner or printer. In the controller 1, unlike the conventional MFP, the scanned image is converted into a tile vector by the raster → tile vector conversion unit 14. The DL data is stored in the local memory 19 connected to the RIP 18. Therefore, only two types of images of page vector and tile vector data are stored on the system memory 5. That is, since it is not necessary to store raster data and DL data having a large image size in the system memory 5, it is possible to reduce an image data area that must be secured on the system memory.

  In addition, since the DL data output from the RIP 18 is stored as DL data divided into tile units, it can be stored with a very small memory capacity compared to conventional DL data in page units. Therefore, the local memory 19 can be mounted on-chip, and the memory latency can be reduced. As a result, the tile data development speed can be increased. In addition, since only the tiled data needs to be stored on the HDD 8 as image data, the bottleneck of the access speed to the HDD is alleviated and the data processing can be speeded up. At the same time, the cost of RIP can be reduced by tiling.

  When a higher processing capability is required, the processing capability can be varied by mounting a plurality of μRIPs provided in the RIP in parallel. That is, since the processing capacity of the controller can be simply adjusted, a system that can easily ensure scalability can be constructed.

  Hereinafter, each image processing flow when the MFP according to the present invention is operated will be described.

[copy]
FIG. 2 shows a data flow in the MFP when the copy operation is performed. The arrows drawn in FIG. 2 represent the flow of data. An arrow drawn with a solid line means a raster image, an arrow drawn with a broken line means a tiled vector image, and an arrow drawn with an alternate long and short dash line means that a vector image describing the entire page flows. The page vector and tile vector image will be described in detail in a tile-page vector conversion unit described later.

(S21):
When the user gives an instruction to start copying from the operation unit (LCD) 10, the scanner 16 starts a document image reading operation.

  The image (R, G, B) input from the scanner 16 to the image processing unit 15 is subjected to the following processing after being frequency-converted to clock synchronization of the image processing block.

  Correction of scanner characteristics such as CCD sensor line pitch and chromatic aberration.

Image quality correction of input image data such as color space correction and sharpness.
Image processing such as erasing input image data and erasing book frames.

(S22):
When the image processing is completed, the image data output from the image processing unit 15 is input to the raster-to-tile vector conversion unit 14 to perform tile vector conversion processing. That is, the image data is divided into blocks of a predetermined size, and a vectorization process is performed on the raster image in each block to generate a vector image in units of blocks.

The generated vector image is subjected to bus arbitration by the SBB 2, acquires the bus right to the system memory 5, and stores the tile vector in the system memory 5 through the MC 4. (Note that when a data path is connected via SBB2, the procedure for acquiring the bus right is basically received after bus arbitration, but this is omitted in the subsequent flow description.)
(S23):
The tile vector image stored in the system memory 5 is stored in the HDD 8 via the SBB 2 via the HDDCont 7 and the MC 4. By storing image data in the HDD 8, sorting can be performed when a plurality of copies of an original is copied, and the pages can be output in a different order or stored as a saved document in the MFP.

(S24):
The tile vector image stored in the HDD 8 is read out by the HDDCont 7 in accordance with the printer ready timing sent from the CPU (not shown) in the printer 17 and temporarily stored in the system memory 5 via the SBB 2 and MC 4. Is done.

  If the read image data is directly read from the HDD 8 to the printer, it cannot be guaranteed that the access speed of the HDD 8 becomes regular, or that it is output in synchronization with the printer due to the degree of congestion of the general-purpose bus 6. Therefore, spooling page data in the system memory 5 before data transfer in synchronization with the printer guarantees real-time throughput.

(S25):
The tile vector image stored in the system memory 5 is read by the MC 4 in accordance with an activation signal sent from the printer 17 to the controller 1 and transferred to the RIP 18 via the SBB 2.

  First, the RIP 18 analyzes a tile vector and generates (interprets) a drawing object (tile DL data) in units of tiles. The generated tile DL data is temporarily stored in the local memory 18.

  The RIP 18 reads the tile DL data from the local memory, develops it into a raster image in units of tiles, and outputs it.

  In this embodiment, as described above, the RIP 18 includes four μRIPa to μRIPd. The controller 1 operates μRIPa to μRIPd in parallel, thereby expanding the tile vector at high speed. The system performance is dominated by the vector expansion time, and the performance can be improved by increasing the μRIP. Therefore, it is possible to easily construct a scalable system by using the configuration of the present invention.

(S26):
The image data rasterized in tile units by the RIP 18 is transferred to the image processing unit, and the following processing is executed.

  Conversion processing from a tile unit raster image to a page unit raster image.

  Output color and density correction processing that matches the printer characteristics.

  Halftone processing that quantizes image data and performs tone conversion of the output image.

  Frequency conversion processing to output images in synchronization with the printer I / F clock.

  The raster image data subjected to the image processing by the image processing unit 15 is transferred to the printer 15, printed on a recording medium, and output.

[Print]
FIG. 3 shows a data flow in the MFP when the printing operation is performed.

(S31):
The LAN I / F 11 connected to the general-purpose bus 6 receives page vector format image data from an external device connected to the network 12. Then, the data is transferred to the system memory 5 via the MC 4 connected to the end of the SBB 2.

(S32):
The page vector image stored in the system memory 5 is read out from the tile / page vector conversion unit 13 and performs tile vector conversion processing. That is, an object existing in a page vector is divided into objects that can be contained in a block (tile) having a predetermined size, and a vector image in units of tiles is generated.

(S33):
The generated vector image is stored again in the system memory 5 via the SBB 2.

(S34):
The tile vector image stored in the system memory 5 is stored in the HDD 8 via the SBB 2 via the HDDCont 7 and the MC 4. By storing image data in the HDD 8, sorting can be performed when copying a plurality of originals, and the pages can be output in a different order or stored as a saved document in the MFP.

(S35):
The tile vector image stored in the HDD 8 is read out by the HDDCont 7 in accordance with the printer ready timing sent from the CPU (not shown) in the printer 17 and temporarily stored in the system memory 5 via the SBB 2 and MC 4. Is done.

  When the read image data is read directly from the HDD 8 to the printer, it cannot be guaranteed that the access speed of the HDD 8 becomes regular, or that the output is synchronized with the printer due to the degree of congestion of the general-purpose bus 6. Therefore, before transferring data in synchronization with the printer, the tile vector data for one page is spooled in the system memory 5 to guarantee real-time throughput.

(S36):
The tile vector image stored in the system memory 5 is read by the MC 4 in accordance with an activation signal sent from the printer 17 to the controller 1 and transferred to the RIP 18 via the SBB 2.

  First, the RIP 18 analyzes a tile vector and generates (interprets) a drawing object (tile DL data) in units of tiles. The generated tile DL data is temporarily stored in the local memory 19.

  The RIP 18 reads the tile DL data from the local memory, develops it into a raster image in units of tiles, and outputs it. In the present embodiment, the RIP 18 includes four small development portions μRIPa to μRIPd.

  The tile vectors are developed at high speed by operating the μRIPa to μRIPd in parallel. The system performance is dominated by the vector expansion time, and the performance can be improved by increasing the μRIP. Therefore, it is possible to easily construct a scalable system by using the configuration of the present invention.

(S37):
The image data rasterized in tile units by the RIP 18 is transferred to the image processing unit, and the following processing is executed.

  Conversion processing from a tile unit raster image to a page unit raster image.

  Output color and density correction processing that matches the printer characteristics.

  Halftone processing that quantizes image data and performs tone conversion of the output image.

  Frequency conversion processing to output images in synchronization with the printer I / F clock.

  The raster image data that has been subjected to the image processing by the image processing unit 15 is transferred to the printer 17 and printed and output on a recording medium.

  FIG. 4 shows the data flow in the MFP when it is transmitted over the network. The flow until image data is stored in the HDD 8 is omitted because it is the same as [Copy] for a scanned image and [Print] for an image input from an external device on the network.

(S41):
The tile vector image stored in the HDD 8 is read from the HDDCont 7 connected to the general-purpose bus 6 via the SBB 2 and temporarily stored in the system memory 5.

(S42):
The tile vector image stored in the system memory 5 is read from the tile / page vector conversion unit 13 and performs tile vector conversion processing. That is, the objects divided into blocks are combined to generate a page vector image describing the object in the entire page.

(S43):
The generated page vector image is stored again in the system memory 5 via the SBB 2.

(S44):
The page vector image stored in the system memory 5 is read from the LAN I / F 11 connected to the general-purpose bus 6 and transferred to an external device connected to the network 12.

  As in the present invention, when transmitting to an external device, the tile vector image is returned to the page vector image and the number of objects is reduced, so that the amount of transmission data can be reduced. In addition, it can be easily converted to general-purpose formats such as PDF and SVG.

[Raster-Tile Vector Converter]
Details of the raster-to-tile vector conversion unit 14 in the controller 1 will be described. FIG. 5 shows an internal processing flow of the raster tile conversion unit 14.

  The raster → tile vector conversion unit 14 is executed by the following steps.

(S51) BS (block selection):
The raster image data input from the image processing unit 15 is divided into a character / line drawing area including characters or line drawings, a halftone photo area, an irregular image area, and the like. Further, with respect to the character / line drawing area, a character area mainly including characters and a line drawing area mainly including tables and figures are separated, and the line drawing area is separated into a table area and a graphic area. In the present embodiment, connected pixels are detected and separated into regions for each attribute using the shape, size, pixel density, etc. of the circumscribed rectangular region of the connected pixels.

  The character area is segmented into rectangular blocks (character area rectangular blocks) using a cluster of each character paragraph as a block. In the line drawing area, each object (table area rectangular block, line drawing area rectangular block) such as a table or a figure is segmented into rectangular blocks.

  A photo area expressed in halftone is segmented into rectangular blocks for each object such as an image area rectangular block and a background area rectangular block.

  Each separated region is further divided into regions (tiles) of a predetermined size, and vectorized in the next vectorization step in units of tiles.

(S52) Vectorization step:
Image data of each attribute area is converted into vector data by vectorization processing. The vectorization methods include the following (a) to (f).

  (A) When the attribute area is a character area, the character image code conversion is further performed by OCR, or the character size, style and font are recognized, and the character obtained by scanning the document is visually faithful. Convert to font data.

  (B) When the attribute area is a character area and cannot be recognized by OCR, the outline of the character is traced, and the outline information (outline) is converted into a format that represents the connection of line segments.

  (C) When the attribute region is a graphic region, the contour of the graphic object is tracked and converted into a format in which the contour information is expressed as a connection of line segments.

  (D) Fitting the outline information in the line segment format of b and c with a Bezier function or the like to convert it into function information.

  (E) The shape of the figure is recognized from the contour information of the figure object of c, and converted into figure definition information such as a circle, a rectangle, and a polygon.

  (F) When the attribute area is a graphic area and the object is a tabular object in the specific area, the ruled line and the frame line are recognized and converted into form format information of a predetermined format.

(S53) Tile vector generation:
For the data converted into the command definition information such as format code information, graphic information, function information (a) to (f) in S52, the vector type for determining whether it is a page vector or a tile vector in the controller 1 Header information for discriminating the coordinate position in the tile page is added. In this way, tile vector data packed in units of tiles is output to SBB2.

[Tile tile page vector conversion part]
Details of the tile tile page vector conversion unit 13 in the controller 1 will be described.

  FIG. 8 shows a document created by an application of an external device on the network. For convenience, the short direction of the document is defined as the 'X' direction, and the long direction is defined as the 'Y' direction.

  FIG. 9 is a description example of a page vector (PDL command) that instructs printer output of the document of FIG.

  In FIG. 9, reference numeral 901 denotes a document setting command for setting the entire document, 902 denotes a drawing command for a character string 802, and 903 and 904 denote drawing / painting commands for figures 803 and 804, respectively.

  Details of the drawing / painting commands 901 to 904 will be described.

  C1 to C5 are commands related to the entire document. Therefore, these commands C1 to C5 have only one place for one document. These commands related to the entire document include, for example, character set commands (font specification commands), scalable font commands (commands that specify whether or not to use scalable fonts), and hard reset commands (reset the previous printer environment) Command), etc. C1 is a document setting start command. C2 is a command representing the output paper size of the document, and in this case, A4 is set. The next C3 indicates the direction of the document. There are portrait and landscape, but in this case, portrait (PORT) is shown. C4 is a command representing a document type, which indicates whether the document is a page vector or a tile vector. In this case, it is a page (PAGE). C5 is a document setting end command.

  902 to 904 (C6 to C23) in FIG. 9 are commands for outputting the document 801.

  Reference numeral 902 denotes a command string for drawing the character string 802 in FIG. C6 is for indicating the start of a page. C7 is a command for selecting the font type of the character, and in this case, the font set numbered "1" is selected. C8 sets the font size, and the size of “10 points” is selected. C9 is a command for setting the color of the character, and indicates the brightness of each color component of R (red), G (green), and B (blue) in order. It is assumed that this luminance is quantized in 256 steps from 0 to 255. Therefore, the color of the character string described after the command C9 is red. C10 indicates the coordinates of the start position for drawing the character. The coordinate position is specified with the upper left corner of the page as the origin. In this case, the drawing of characters is set to start from the position of the X coordinate 10 and the Y coordinate 2 (hereinafter referred to as {10, 2}). C11 indicates a character string (to be drawn) actually drawn.

  Reference numeral 903 denotes a command string for drawing the arc and the internal fill 803 in FIG. C12 indicates the fill color of the surface at the time of drawing the figure. The color specification is the same as the character color. C13 designates the line color of the graphic drawing. That is, the line of the figure drawn after these commands and the fill color are both green. C14 indicates the coordinates of the start position for drawing the figure. C15 is a command for designating a center coordinate and a radius for drawing an arc, and C16 is a command for designating a drawing start angle and an end angle for drawing an arc. The command column 902 represents a command for filling the inside by drawing an arc of 0 degree to 360 degree with a center coordinate {25,45} and an arc of radius 10 as a starting point and a coordinate {40,45} as a starting point. Yes.

  Reference numeral 904 denotes a command string for drawing the triangle 804 in FIG. C17 to C19 specify the surface and line colors, specify the drawing start point, and the like in the same manner as the commands from C12 to C14. C20 to C21 are command strings for designating two vertices other than the start point for forming the outer shape of the triangle 804. That is, a triangle having three vertices with coordinates {20, 80}, {60, 90}, {50, 60} is designated by C19 to C21. C22 is a command for forming a polygonal closed region having the vertices designated by C19 to C21, whereby a line connecting the last designated vertex {50,60} and the starting point {20,80} and The interior of the triangle 804 is filled.

  Finally, C23 specifies the end of the command.

  FIG. 11 shows an example in which the document of FIG. 8 is described by a tile vector in block units as shown in FIG. Two arrows in FIG. 10 indicate the short direction “X” and the long direction “Y” of the document. In the figure, the number sequence arranged in the X direction represents the tile ID in the X direction, the number sequence arranged in the Y direction represents the tile ID in the Y direction, and each tile ID is represented in the form of (Y, X). And That is, the tile IDs representing the tile vectors A, B, C, D, and E are tile IDs (0, 0), (0, 1), (0, 2), (3, 1), (6, 3), respectively. ) Etc.

  In FIG. 11, reference numeral 1101 denotes a document setting command relating to setting of the entire document, 1102 denotes the entire drawing command, and 1103 to 1107 denote drawing commands for tiles A, B, C, D, and E.

  Details of the drawing commands 1101 to 1107 will be described below.

  C1 to C5 constituting the command string 1101 are commands related to the entire document. Therefore, these commands C1 to C5 have only one place for one document. These commands related to the entire document include, for example, character set commands (font specification commands), scalable font commands (commands that specify whether or not to use scalable fonts), and hard reset commands (reset the previous printer environment) Command), etc. C1 is a document setting start command. C2 is a command representing the output paper size of the document, and in this case, A4 is set. The next C3 indicates the direction of the document. There are portrait and landscape, but in this case, portrait (PORT) is shown. C4 is a command representing a document type, which indicates whether the document is a page vector or a tile vector. In this case, it is a tile (TILE). C5 is a document setting end command.

  C6 to C400 constituting the command string 1102 are commands for outputting the document 1001. C6 is for indicating the start of a page.

  C7 to C8 constituting the command sequence 1103 are drawing command sequences for the tile A in FIG. C7 indicates the start of the drawing command for tile A in FIG. The two parameters indicate tile IDs in the page in the order of Y direction and X direction. C8 represents the end of the tile A drawing command. When there is no object as in tile A, only the start and end of the tile are described.

  C9 to C16 constituting the command string 1104 and C17 to C24 constituting the command string 1105 are drawing command strings for the tile B and the tile C in FIG. C9 indicates the start of the drawing command for tile B in FIG. C10 is a command for selecting the font type of the character. In this case, the font set numbered “1” is selected. C11 sets the font size, and the size of “10 points” is selected. C12 is a command for setting the character color, and indicates the luminance of each color component of R (red), G (green), and B (blue) in order. It is assumed that this luminance is quantized in 256 steps from 0 to 255. C13 indicates the coordinates of the start position for drawing the character. The coordinate position is specified with the upper left corner of the tile as the origin. C14 indicates a character string (that is) to be actually drawn. The coordinate position is specified with the upper left corner of the tile as the origin. In this case, the character drawing is set to start from the position {0, 2}. C15 is an ID for identifying which of the character strings of the page vector data before being tiled is the character string indicated by C10 to C14. C16 indicates the end of the drawing command for tile B. Similarly to the commands C9 to C16, C17 to C24 constituting the command sequence 1105 representing the drawing command sequence for the tile C also specify the font set, font size, character color, and the like.

  C100 to C106 constituting the command sequence 1106 are drawing command sequences for the tile D in FIG. C100 indicates the start of a drawing command for the tile D in FIG. C101 indicates the fill color of the surface when drawing a figure. The color specification is the same as the character color. C102 designates the line color of the figure drawing. C103 indicates the coordinates of the start position for drawing a figure. As described above, the coordinate position is designated with the upper left corner of the tile as the origin. C104 is a command for designating the center coordinates and radius for drawing an arc, and C105 is a command for designating a drawing start angle and an end angle. As a result, the fill object corresponding to 803 in FIG. Clipping by frame is performed.

  C200 to C207 constituting the command sequence 1107 are drawing command sequences for the tile E in FIG. C200 indicates the start of the drawing command for tile E in FIG. C201 to C203, like the commands from C101 to C103, specify the surface and line colors, specify the drawing start point, and the like. C204 to C205 are command strings for designating two vertices other than the start point for forming a triangular outline included in the tile E. That is, a triangle having three vertices with relative coordinates {−10, 20}, {30, 30}, {20, 0} with respect to the origin of the tile E is designated by C203 to C205. C206 is a command for forming a polygonal closed region having the vertices designated by C203 to C205, and by this, clipping processing is performed on the object corresponding to the triangle 804 in FIG.

  As can be seen by comparing the command sequence 903 in FIG. 9 and the command sequence 1106 in FIG. 11 and the command sequence 904 in FIG. 9 and the command sequence 1107 in FIG. The object information of the vector data is basically copied to the tile vector data including it. That is, the only difference is the coordinate information of the drawing figure that has been coordinate-converted from the page vector coordinate system to the coordinate system of each tile vector.

  However, in the embodiment of the present invention, the tile X (tile ID (4, 2)) of FIG. 10 completely included in the circle fill object 803 of the page vector data and the triangle fill object 804 are completely included. For tile Y (tile ID (7, 4)), the drawing vector based on the circle filling object drawing command 903 and the triangle filling drawing command 904 is not copied, but replaced with another command string to generate tile vector data. To do.

  Hereinafter, the above-described command sequence which is the main point of the present invention will be described.

  The command strings 1301 and 1303 in FIG. 13 are tile vectors generated by the same method as the other tile vectors shown above, for tile vectors X and Y including a circle fill object 803 and a triangle fill object 804. Also, the command strings 1302 and 1304 are tile vectors generated by a technique that forms a tile vector of tiles X and Y including a circle fill object 803 and a triangle fill object 804 by a method that characterizes the present invention to be described later.

  The C100 to C106 constituting the command string 1301 and the C200 to C207 constituting the command string 1303 are the same as the C100 to C106 constituting the command string 1106 and the C200 to C207 constituting the command string 1107, and thus description thereof is omitted. .

  A command string 1302 and a command string 1304 are rectangular fill objects for filling all areas of the tiles X and Y, respectively. C303 and C403 indicate the coordinates of the start position for drawing a figure. C304 and C404 are objects for drawing 10 rectangles in the right direction and 10 rectangles in the downward direction from the start point set in C303 and C403. C305 and C405 are objects that fill the rectangular closed area formed in C304 and C404.

  The replacement process of these command strings is performed in a tile / vector conversion unit to be described later.

  The tile tile page vector conversion unit 13 converts the page vector and the tile vector as described above. FIG. 6 shows an internal processing flow of tile-page vector conversion.

  The tile-page vector conversion is executed in the following steps.

(S601):
First, a command sequence corresponding to the header portion is read from the vector image stored in the system memory 5, and the command portion relating to the entire document is analyzed. This corresponds to C1 to C5 in FIG. 9 or FIG.

(S602):
As a result of the analysis, if the document type is a page vector (PAGE), the process proceeds to step S603 and subsequent steps, and page vector → tile vector conversion is executed. If the document type is (TILE), the process proceeds to step S610 and subsequent steps, and tile vector → page vector conversion is executed.

(S603):
Read a command sequence that describes an object.

(S604):
The command sequence read in S603 is analyzed, and it is determined whether or not the size of the described object exceeds the tile size to be divided. If the object is not divided, step S605 is skipped and the process proceeds to step S606. If the object is divided, the process proceeds to step S605.

(S605):
In this step, the input object is divided.

  For example, in FIG. 9, the drawing commands for all character strings including “A” are described in 902, but when tiled as shown in FIG. 10, the tile B includes characters other than “A”. I can't. Therefore, in the tile vector, the character string is divided in the middle, and the divided subsequent character string is described in the next tile as another character string. If the description does not fit in the next tile, it is similarly divided into character strings included in the tile, and the process is repeated until all the divided character strings fit within the tile size. To determine where to cut the character string, the number of characters that fit in the tile is calculated from the type and size of the font, and that many characters are extracted. In 902, the number of characters is four, and the character string of C11 in FIG. 9 is converted into a description like C14 in FIG.

  Further, according to the above method, there is no information on the continuity between the character strings of each tile, and the original character string information (examples of FIGS. 8 and 9) is obtained when the tile vector data is recombined with the page vector data. In other words, “Aioka Okikaku… Tatsuteto”) cannot be restored. Therefore, a unique character string ID = 0 is added to the original character string information “Aiue Okikaku ... Tatsuto” before the division, and it is stored in the system memory 5 or the like separately from the tile vector data to be generated. Then, by providing the character string ID in the tile vector data in pairs with the divided character string, it is possible to have character string information reproducibility at the time of subsequent recombination.

  On the other hand, although the drawing of a figure is described in the command string 903, the figure described in C12 to C16 in 903 corresponds to the circle fill object 803 in FIG. Since the object 803 does not fit in one tile in FIG. 10, the object information obtained by performing coordinate conversion of the command sequence 903 of the object 803 is copied to a plurality of tiles including the tile D including the object 803. Further, as described above, for a tile that is completely contained in the circle fill object 803, the command sequence of the rectangular fill object that represents the entire tile is applied instead of copying the command sequence of the circle fill object. Append to tile vector. The same applies to the command string 904.

  A more detailed flowchart of the above object division processing is shown in FIG. 14, and will be described based on this.

  First, when a drawing command needs to be divided into a plurality of tiles, it is determined whether the command relates to character string drawing or graphic drawing (S1401).

<When the command is character string drawing>
The processing when the command is related to character string drawing (Y in S1401) will be described by taking 902 in FIG. 9 as an example.

  If it is determined in step S1401 that the command 902 is related to character string drawing, a unique character string ID = 0 is assigned to the character string “Aioka Okikaku ... Tatsuto” included in the command, and the system memory 5 (S1402).

  Next, all tile IDs (0, 1) to (0, 4) and (1, 1) to (1, 4) of tiles including the character string “Aiue Okakikaku ... Tatsuteto” are extracted (S1403). ). Then, attention is paid to one of the extracted tiles, and only the characters included in part or all of the target tile are extracted from the character string “Aiue Okakiku ... Tatsuto” (S1404). For example, the character string “Aoi” is extracted for the tile with the tile ID (0, 1), and the character string “Ue” is extracted for the tile with the tile ID (0, 2). The drawing information of the extracted character string is added to the tile vector data of each tile ID (S1405), and the character string ID to which the character string belongs is further added to the tile vector data (S1406). In S1402, since ID = 0 is assigned to the character string “Aiue Okikiku ... Tatsuto” in FIG. 10, when the object dividing process of the character string drawing command is performed on the command 902 in FIG. The tile vector intermediate data of tiles B and C in FIG. 10 are as shown by 1104 and 1105 in FIG. 11, respectively.

  The above processes of S1404 to S1406 are performed for all the tiles extracted in S1403, and the object dividing process for the character string drawing command is completed.

<When the command is drawing graphics>
If it is determined in S1401 that the command 903 relates to graphic drawing, it is next determined whether or not the command relates to a closed area filling command (S1408).

  If the command is not related to the closed region filling command (N in S1408), all tile IDs of tiles including the graphic are extracted (S1409). Then, for the extracted tile, the command is added to each tile vector data of the extracted tile (S1410).

  Next, the processing in the case where the command is related to the closed region filling command (Y in S1401), which is the main point of the present invention, will be described by taking the command 903 in FIG. 9 as an example.

  First, all tile IDs (1, 3) to (3, 5) of tiles including a circle to be drawn are extracted (S1412). Then, paying attention to one of the extracted tiles, it is determined whether or not the tile is completely included in the closed region filled with the command 903 (S1413). When it is not completely included as in the tile D of FIG. 10 (N in S1413), the command 903 is added to the tile vector data of the tile D. When the tile X is completely included (Y in S1413) as in the tile X of FIG. 10, the tile vector data of the tile X is an intermediate command that represents the filling of the rectangular area of the entire surface of the tile X, such as 1302 in FIG. Is added to the tile vector of tile X.

  After the above processing is performed for all the tiles extracted in S1412, the object division processing for the closed region filled object is terminated.

(S606)
In order to change the drawing description in the tile vector for the command description of the input object, the coordinate position is converted. The page vector describes the position from the upper left of the page, whereas the tile vector rewrites the position from the upper left of the tile. By describing the drawing position with the coordinates in the tile, the data length required for coordinate calculation can be reduced.

(S607)
When the command description conversion for one object is completed, it is determined whether or not the command description conversion for all objects in the page is completed. If not, the process returns to S603 and the next command is processed. The processing of S603 to S607 is repeated. When the command processing for one object is completed, the process proceeds to S608.

(S608)
When the description conversion of all the drawing commands is completed, the tile areas divided as shown in FIG. 10 are written to the system memory 5 as tile vectors in order from the upper left of the page. The tile vector is described in a format in which commands indicating the start and end of tiles are added to the commands described in S605 and S606 described above.

  First, at the time of writing the first command of the page, a tile vector in which no object is present in the system memory 5 is generated. A tile vector having no object, for example, tile A in FIG. 10 is described as C7 to C8 with only the start and end commands as shown in 1103. Next, a description of the object is added to the tile of the coordinate where the command processed in S603 to S607 exists. In the case of the tile B, the description is as C9 to C15 of 1104 in FIG. Similarly, for tile C, 1105 in FIG. 11, for tile D, 1106 in FIG. 11, for tile E, 1107 in FIG. 11, for tile X, 1302 in FIG. 13, and for tile Y, FIG. 13 is a description like 1304.

(S609)
When the writing of one object to the tile vector is completed, it is determined whether or not the description of all the objects on the page has been completed. If it is determined that the process has not ended, the process returns to S603. When all the processes in the page are finished, the page → vector tile conversion is finished.

  A process when it is determined in S602 that the document type is a tile (TILE) will be described.

(S610):
Read a command sequence that describes an object.

(S611)
The command sequence read in S610 is analyzed, and it is determined whether or not the described object can be combined with tiles read before that time. If the objects are not to be combined, S612 is skipped and the process proceeds to S613. If the objects are to be divided, the process proceeds to S612.

(S612)
Whether or not the objects can be combined is determined based on the coordinate position of the read command, the type of figure, and the like. In the case of a character string, the determination is made based on the font size and font type. Basically, the connection is performed in a manner that the flow of S605 is reversed.

(S613)
In order to change the drawing description in the tile vector for the command description of the input object, the coordinate position is converted. In the tile vector, the position from the upper left of the tile is described, whereas in the page vector, the position is described from the upper left of the page.

(S614)
When the command description conversion for one object is completed, it is determined whether or not the command description conversion for all the objects in the tile is completed. If not, the process returns to S610 and the next command is processed. The processes of S610 to S613 are repeated. When the command processing for one object is completed, the process proceeds to S615.

(S615)
When the drawing command description conversion is completed, the page vector is written to the system memory 5. The tile vector is described in a format in which commands indicating the start and end of tiles are deleted from the commands described in S605 and S606.

  First, when a command written in the first tile in the page is written, a page vector in which no object is present in the system memory 5 is generated. In FIG. 9, the page is described only by C1 to C6 and C23. Next, a description of the object processed in S610 to S613 is added. In FIG. 9, the description portion of C7 to C11 in 902 corresponds to it. In this case, the object represents the character string {Aiue Okiki ...}, but this is changed to an object description in which the character strings of the tiles described in 1104 and 1105 in FIG. ing.

(S616)
When the writing of one command to the page vector is completed, it is determined whether or not the description of all the objects of the tile has been completed. If it is determined that the process has not ended, the process returns to S610. When all the processes in the tile are completed, the process proceeds to S617.

(S617)
When the writing of one tile vector is finished, it is determined whether or not all the tile descriptions on the page are finished. If it is determined that the process has not ended, the process returns to S610. When the processing of all tiles in the page is completed, the tile → page vector conversion ends.

[Tile vector development (RIP)]
Details of the RIP 18 in the controller 1 will be described.

  First, before starting image data processing such as copying, printing, and transmission, the local memory 19 is initialized and the resolution of a drawing object to be created is set. In this embodiment, the generation resolution is 600 dpi, and the print command specified in the unit system such as the point size or mm is converted into the number of dots using this value.

  The expansion of the tile vector is shown in FIG. 7 and is performed in the following steps.

(S71):
Tile vectors input from the system memory 5 to the RIP 18 through the SBB 2 by a certain size are temporarily stored in the tile vector area of the local memory 19.

(S72):
When the tile vector is taken into the local memory 19, μRIPa to d determine whether or not the tile development process has been completed. If μRIP is developing vector data, it waits in the state of S72 until it can be developed.

(S73):
If any of μRIPa to d can develop the vector data, the command analysis of the tile vector stored in the local memory 19 is performed according to a predetermined grammar.

(S74):
It is determined whether the interpreted command is a drawing command or a paper discharge command. If it is determined that the command is a drawing command, the process branches to S75, and if it is determined that the command is a paper discharge command, the process branches to S76.

(S75):
If it is determined in S74 that the data is a drawing command, a drawing object (DL) is generated. If the command in the tile vector is a character drawing command, a font object is generated based on the font type, character size, and character code specified by the command. If it is a non-character drawing command, it is specified by the command. A drawing object of the generated figure (line, circle, polygon, etc.) is generated and stored in the DL area of the local memory 19.

  If it is determined that the print data is not designated by the drawing command, the print position is moved and the print environment is set according to the print data, and the command interpretation for one unit is terminated.

  The above process is repeated until interpretation of all commands in the tile vector is completed.

(S76):
If the command is determined to be a paper discharge command, μRIP determines whether there is an empty area in the tile raster memory area on the local memory 19. If there is no free space, wait until the other RIP process is completed and free space is available.

(S77)
If there is an empty area in the tile raster memory, the drawing object generated in S75 is read out and drawn (rasterized) in the tile raster area. At this time, if the generation resolution is 600 dpi, the tile raster area is rasterized as a 600 dpi image. Then, the tile raster image that has been drawn is output to the image processing unit 15 via the SBB 2.

  The process that forms the main point of the present invention performed in the process S1415 of the flow in FIG. 14 has an effect of speeding up the drawing process in the present step S77.

(S78)
When command analysis or drawing processing for one tile vector is completed in S75 or S77, it is determined whether or not all of the read tile vector memory has been completed. If processing still remains, processing returns to S72. Continue processing the next tile vector. If completed, the process proceeds to S79.

(S79)
It is determined whether or not all the processes have been completed for one page of tile vectors. If unprocessed data still remains, the process returns to S71 to read the tile vectors from the system memory and continue the process.

  When all the processes for one page are finished, the tile vector development is finished.

  As described above, according to the present invention, in an MFP apparatus that converts and handles page vector data to tile vector data for efficient internal processing of vector data, the closed region fill object in the page vector data is converted to a tile vector. When there is a tile that is completely contained in the object at the time of division into two, a filled object of a rectangular area that represents the entire area of the object is added to the tile vector.

  Thus, when performing rasterization processing of tile vectors using μRIP, simply performing rectangular region fill processing without performing complicated processing such as clipping the closed region and clipping with the outer frame forming the tile. Since the original image data can be restored, the processing time during rendering can be shortened.

It is a system configuration diagram of the present invention. It is a figure explaining the copy operation | movement flow of the system of this invention. It is a figure explaining the operation flow of printing of the system of the present invention. FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining an operation flow of transmission of the system in the first exemplary embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure explaining the flow of the raster-> tile vector conversion part of this invention. It is a figure explaining the flow of the tile tile page vector conversion part of this invention. It is a figure explaining the flow of RIP (vector expansion | deployment part) of this invention. It is a figure showing the example of the image data handled by this invention. It is a figure showing the example of the page vector data handled by this invention. It is a figure showing the tile area | region of the tile vector handled by this invention. It is a figure showing the example of the tile vector data handled by this invention. It is a figure showing the example of the conventional MFP system. In the present invention, when a tile after division is completely included in a closed region fill object of a page vector, it is a diagram showing a rectangular region fill object to be added to a tile vector instead of copying the original closed region fill object . It is a figure explaining the operation | movement flow of the object division process in this invention.

Claims (4)

An image processing system comprising at least image data input means, image data output means, and image data control means;
The image data control means is at least
First conversion means for converting the raster image read by the image input means into vector image data for each block of a predetermined size;
Network I / F means,
A second conversion for converting a vector image of a block of a predetermined size into vector image data representing the entire page, or converting a vector image data representing the entire page into vector image data of a block of a predetermined size Means,
Expansion means for expanding the vector image of the block of the predetermined size into raster image data;
With
An image processing system characterized in that inside the image data control means, a vector image of one page or a vector image for each block of a predetermined size is converted, and then internal data transfer is performed. When the second conversion means converts vector image data representing the entire page into vector image data of a block having a predetermined size, the vector image data representing the entire page of the entire area of the vector image data of the block. A determination means for determining whether or not to be included in the closed area to be filled by the closed area filling command of
2. The image processing system according to claim 1, wherein when it is determined that the block is included, a rectangular area filling command indicating the entire area is added to the vector image data of the block.   3. The image processing system according to claim 2, wherein the closed region fill command for vector image data representing the entire page is a circle or convex polygon fill command.   The determination means is included when it is determined that the four points forming the rectangular region of the vector image data of the block are included in the closed region to be filled by the closed region fill command of the vector image data representing the entire page. The image processing system according to claim 3, wherein the image processing system is determined.

Images