JPS6163884A - Graphic character pattern generator - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a figure/character pattern generation device in a device that displays or outputs figures and characters.

[Technical Background of the Invention] Generally, in devices that display or print figures/characters, when a code corresponding to a figure or character to be displayed or printed is given, a figure/character that generates a pattern of said figure or character is used. A character pattern generator is provided. However, when a figure or character pattern is generated by this figure/character pattern generator, if the size and direction of the same character are different, the corresponding figure or character pattern is generated by the method described below. .

Problems with Background Art] The first method is to provide a graphic/character pattern generator with fonts (character patterns) having various sizes or rotations for the same character. With this method, the quality of displayed or printed characters is good, but it requires a large number of fonts, so creating fonts is time-consuming and requires a large amount of memory to store the fonts. There was a drawback that the cost of the device was high. Moreover,
Since the number of fonts prepared in advance is determined,
There was a drawback that the characters to be displayed or output lacked flexibility. The second method is to prepare one or several types of fonts for the same character in the figure/character pattern generator, and when the size and rotation direction of the characters are different, use the appropriate algorithm to select the font. This is a method of converting and generating a desired pattern. Although this method improves the flexibility of the characters to be displayed or printed, the above conversion process must be performed on the font into which characters that require font conversion are input, and this process takes time. There was a drawback that pattern generation could not be performed at high speed.

[Object of the Invention J] An object of the present invention is to provide a graphic/character pattern generation device that is highly flexible and capable of performing font conversion processing at high speed, in view of the drawbacks of the above.

"Summary of the Invention" The present invention includes a pattern memory that stores basic character patterns, a font conversion processing circuit that converts the basic character pattern to satisfy character attribute information, and a font conversion processing circuit that stores the converted character pattern. a page memory that holds the image display pattern to be sent to an external device; and, if the basic pattern corresponding to the input character code is in the font memory, it is read out and stored in the page memory. If not, the cache memory is checked to see if there is a character pattern that satisfies the attributes of the character code, and if there is, the character pattern is expanded to the page memory, and if not, the font conversion process is performed. A configuration comprising: a microprocessor that controls setting parameters regarding the attributes of the character code in a circuit, converting the basic pattern into a character pattern that satisfies the attributes, and expanding this into the page memory and the cache memory. By doing so, the above objective is achieved.

[Embodiment of the Invention] An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the graphic/character pattern generating device of the present invention. A microprocessor 1, which controls the entire operation of the device, reads out the character patterns from the pattern memory 2 and converts them to other sizes or rotations as required! (a font conversion processing circuit 3 that converts into a font, a font cache memory 4, a page memory 5 that holds images to be displayed or printed on an external device, and an interface 7 that sends images in the page memory 5 to an external device 6) is connected to bus 8).

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained. When the microprocessor 1 receives data 100 indicating a character code and its attributes (size, rotation direction, etc.) from the outside, it generates a pattern corresponding to the character code from the attribute, which matches the basic pattern in E2. If they match, the basic pattern is read out from the pattern memory 2, stored immediately in the page memory 5, and pattern development is started.The basic pattern developed in the page memory 5 is If the external device 6 that is sequentially read out and sent to the external device 6 via the interface 7 or the like is a display device, characters corresponding to the character code 100 are displayed.

By the way, if the character pattern of the input character code does not match the basic pattern based on its attributes, the microprocessor 1 checks whether a character pattern that satisfies the attribute data exists in the cache memory 4. do. If the corresponding character pattern exists in the cache memory 4, the microprocessor 1 directly reads this character pattern from the cache memory 4, stores it in the page memory 5, and starts developing the pattern. If the corresponding character pattern does not exist in the cache memory 4, the microprocessor 1 converts the font conversion processing circuit 3
Against this: Set appropriate parameters based on the Wi-written attributes, and use the font conversion processing circuit 3 to transform the basic pattern corresponding to the character code read from the pattern memory 2 into a character pattern that satisfies the attributes. After conversion, this character pattern is stored in the page mail 5 and cache memory 4. The character pattern read from the page memory 5 is sent to the external device 6 via the interface 7, and if this external device 6 is a display device, the character code and its attribute data 1oot
Satisfied characters are displayed. Incidentally, the management formula for the cage memory 4 is similar to that for the cage 7 memory in a general information processing device.

[Effects of the Invention] Therefore, in this embodiment, when the basic pattern of the input character ]-do has to be converted, the character pattern obtained by converting the corresponding basic character pattern according to the attribute data is Cage-1MeE4. If the character pattern is found in the cache memory 4, immediately pull out the corresponding character pattern from the cache memory 4,
By expanding this to the page memory 5, high-speed font conversion processing can be performed. In addition, the pattern memory 2 has one type or several types of noonts prepared for one character code, and the font conversion processing circuit 3 converts the noonts into characters that satisfy the attributes according to the attribute data input together with the character code. Since it is configured to convert into a pattern, it is possible to give high flexibility to characters to be displayed or printed.

Note that if the corresponding character pattern is not found in the cache memory 4, the font conversion processing circuit 3 converts the basic character pattern into a character pattern that satisfies the given attributes. If the corresponding character pattern is found in the t-yash 14, it can be processed at a high speed, so that the font conversion process as a whole can be performed at a higher speed than in the past.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the graphic/character pattern generating device of the present invention. 1--Microprocessor 2--Pattern memory 3--Font conversion processing circuit 4--Font cache memory 5--Page printing 6--External equipment attorney
Noriyuki Noriyuki (and 1 other person) Figure 1

Claims (1)

[Claims] A pattern memory that stores basic character patterns, a font conversion processing circuit that converts the basic character pattern to satisfy character attribute information, a cache memory that stores the converted character pattern, and sends it to an external device. If the basic pattern corresponding to the input character code is stored in the page memory that holds the image expansion pattern to be input and the basic pattern corresponding to the input character code is in the font memory, it is read out and expanded in the page memory, and if not, the attribute of the character code is Checks the cache memory to see if there is a satisfying character pattern, and if there is, develops the corresponding character pattern in the page memory, and if not, sets parameters regarding attributes of the character code in the font conversion processing circuit. and a microprocessor for controlling the conversion of the basic pattern into a character pattern that satisfies the attributes, and the development of this into the page memory and the cache memory.