JP2000175025A - Image processing method and apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To compress and store data of an image part designating a boundary line and an area surrounded by the boundary line in image data obtained by reading a document image, and store the compressed data. The extracted data is expanded to extract an image data portion indicating an edit target area included inside the boundary line. SOLUTION: A boundary data detection unit 102 extracts a boundary part included in an input image signal, and extracts an image part included in the image signal for specifying an editing area divided by the boundary part. Marker data detection unit 101
A data compression unit 103 for compressing data representing the image portion and the boundary line portion; an area memory 104 for storing the compressed data; and a compressed data stored in the area memory 104 based on the compressed data. A drawing IC 111 for generating compressed edit area data, an area for expanding the compressed edit area data, and generating edit target area data based on the expanded edit area data and the boundary line data BI signal. And an extraction processing unit 106 for adding the color selected by the color selection unit 109 to the edit target area data and outputting the data.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image processing method and apparatus for generating a signal corresponding to a specified editing area in an input image signal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a copying machine, there is known an apparatus capable of designating a region of a document image and instructing a user to perform desired image processing on the designated editing region. As a method of specifying such an editing area, for example, a method of specifying using a pointing device such as a digitizer, or a method of specifying an area surrounded by a boundary line on a manuscript with a marker or the like, thereby A common method is to specify an area.

In this way, information on a point designated by a pointing device, a marker, or the like is read by an image reading device such as a CCD and written into an image memory, or directly sent to a CPU controlling a copying machine. Then, the data is stored in the memory by writing data to a memory address corresponding to the position of the designated point on the document. After that, using a drawing IC or the like, the editing area surrounded by the boundary line is set as the editing target area.

FIGS. 10A and 10B show the state. FIG. 10A shows a case where the area surrounded by the boundary line 1001 is designated by the marker 1002 to set the area surrounded by the boundary line 1001 as the editing target area. Same boundary line 1
A case is shown in which a point indicated by 1003 in an area surrounded by 001 is designated by a pointing device or the like, and an area surrounded by the boundary 1001 is set as an edit target area.

[0005]

In order to store the editing area specified in this way, image data indicating a document image and image data of an image portion specified by a marker or a digitizer are stored in a memory. Must be stored in However, there is a problem that a large-capacity memory is required to store all data of the document image, and the cost increases.

The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional example, and compresses and stores, in image data obtained by reading a document image, data of an image portion designating a boundary line and an area surrounded by the boundary line. It is another object of the present invention to provide an image processing method and apparatus for decompressing the compressed and stored data and extracting an image data portion indicating an editing target area included inside the boundary line.

Another object of the present invention is to store designated area information with a small memory capacity and to have a simple configuration.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an image processing method and apparatus capable of extracting information indicating a region to be edited by expanding the region information.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, an image processing apparatus according to the present invention has the following arrangement.
That is, a boundary line extraction unit for extracting a boundary line portion included in the input image signal, and an extraction unit for extracting an image portion included in the image signal and specifying an editing area partitioned by the boundary line portion Compression means for compressing data representing the image portion and the boundary portion; storage means for storing data compressed by the compression means;
Generating means for generating compressed editing area data based on the compressed data stored in the storage means; and expanding the editing area data generated by the generating means; An editing target area data generating means for generating editing target area data based on the data and the boundary part extracted by the boundary extracting means.

In order to achieve the above object, the image processing method of the present invention comprises the following steps. That is, a boundary line extraction step of extracting a boundary line part included in the input image signal, and an extraction step of extracting an image part included in the image signal and specifying an editing area divided by the boundary line part A compression step of compressing the data representing the image portion and the boundary line portion, a storage step of storing the data compressed in the compression step in a memory, and a step of storing the compressed data stored in the memory. Generating a compressed edit area data, expanding the edit area data generated in the generation step, and extracting the expanded edit area data and the boundary line portion extracted in the boundary line extraction step. And an edit target area data generating step of generating edit target area data based on the above.

[0010]

[First Embodiment] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of an image processing unit of an image editing apparatus (for example, a copying machine) according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 101 denotes a marker data detection unit which detects a portion designated by a marker or the like on a document and outputs a marker signal based on RGB signals input from an image input unit such as a CCD. I do. In the present embodiment, red, green, and blue marker signals are detected, respectively, and marker signals MK-R, MK-G, and MK- corresponding to each color are detected.
B is output.

FIG. 2 shows a marker detecting unit 10 according to the present embodiment.
1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of FIG. In FIG. 2, 40
1 represents the input R (red), G (green), and B (blue) data as R
This is an RGB → HSL conversion unit that performs GB → HSL conversion and outputs H (hue) S (saturation) L (brightness) data.

Reference numeral 402 denotes a comparison circuit, which outputs an H signal output from the RGB → HSL conversion unit 401 and a register value “RH”.
H ”, and the comparison circuit 403 compares the RGB → HSL
The H signal output from the conversion unit 401 and the register value “R
HL ”. The comparison circuit 402 outputs “1” when H signal <RHH, and outputs “0” when H signal ≧ RHH. Further, the comparison circuit 403 determines that the H signal> R
It outputs "1" when HL, and outputs "0" when H signal ≤ RHL. The AND circuit 404 is connected to the comparison circuit 40
The AND circuit 404 outputs a logical AND between the outputs of the AND circuit 403, whereby the AND circuit 404 outputs “1” when RHL <H signal <RHH, and outputs “0” otherwise. That is, the AND circuit 404 outputs “1” when the value of the H data is located between the smaller threshold “RHL” and the larger threshold “RHH”, and outputs “0” otherwise. Is output.

Similarly, comparison circuits 405, 406 and AN
The D circuit 407 outputs “1” when RSL <S signal <RSH, and outputs “0” otherwise. The comparison circuits 408 and 409 and the AND circuit 410
Accordingly, "1" is output when RLL <L signal <RLH, and "0" is output in other cases.

As a result, the AND circuit 411 receives the outputs of the AND circuits 404, 407, and 410 and takes the logical product of them. From the above description, RHL <H signal <RHH RSL <S signal <RSH "1" is output when RLL <L signal <RLH, and "0" is output otherwise.

Here, the register values "RHH", "R
SH ”and“ RLH ”, the upper limit of each of H, S, and L determined to be a red marker is set to a register value“ RHL ”,
Each of “RSL” and “RHL” is H, S, L
, The AND circuit 411 outputs “1” for the red marker portion and outputs “0” for the other portions. As a result, a signal MK-R indicating the red marker signal is output.

The red marker signal MK-R has been described above, but the register values "GHH" and "GH
L "," GSH "," GSL "," GLH "," GL
L, H of each signal determined to be a green marker,
The upper and lower limits of S and L are set, and the comparison circuits 412, 4
13, 415, 416, 418, 419 and AND circuits 414, 417, 420 and AND circuit 421,
A signal MK-G indicating a green marker portion is output. Similarly, register values “BHH”, “BHL”, “BS
H, “BSL”, “BLH”, and “BLL” are set with respective values for determining the blue marker, and the comparison circuits 422 and 4 are set.
23, 425, 426, 428, 429 and AND circuits 424, 427, 430, 431 output a signal MK-B indicating a blue marker.

Reference numeral 102 denotes a boundary data detection unit which detects original data (black data) serving as a boundary for marker editing by referring to the input RGB data, and outputs the result as a BI signal. The boundary line data detection unit 102 of the present embodiment sets the BI signal to “1” when (R + G + B) / 3 <TH using the RGB data and a predetermined register value TH, and otherwise sets the BI signal to “1”.
The signal is output as "0".

Reference numeral 103 denotes a data compression unit which compresses data output from the marker data detection unit 101 and the boundary data detection unit 102 before storing the data in the area memory 104. In the data compression unit of the present embodiment,
By compressing the input 400 dpi data into, for example, four pixels in a pixel arrangement direction (hereinafter, main scanning direction) and its vertical direction (hereinafter, sub-scanning direction) by a CCD to 1/16, Data compression is being performed. MK-R, M input to data compression section 103
The KG, MK-B, and BI signals are output as MK-R ', MK-G', MK-B ', and BI' signals after data compression.

FIG. 3 shows one of the data compression units according to the present embodiment.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the third embodiment.

The data compression section 103 includes the marker signals MK-R and MK output from the marker data detection section 101.
KG, MK-B and the BI signal output from the boundary data detection unit 102 are input. Reference numeral 501 denotes a line memory capable of storing data for 5120 pixels (hereinafter, referred to as FIF).
O), the marker signal and the BI signal input from the terminal D are delayed by one line by the FIFO 501,
Output from 502 is a flip-flop (hereinafter F /
F), an isolated point removing circuit having an AND circuit and a selector 502a removes an isolated point of one pixel in the main scanning direction of the signal input to the data compression unit 103. Here, the illustrated RG_MBTR <3. . 0> is a register value set by a control unit (CPU) of the image editing apparatus. By operating a select signal of the selector 502a, whether to remove an isolated point for each signal (B of the selector 502a) It is possible to set whether or not (input terminal selection) or not (selection of the A input terminal of the selector 502a).

The isolated point removing circuit 503 also has
This is a circuit for removing an isolated point of one pixel of data output from the terminal Q of the FIFO 501, and RG_MBTR <
7. . Using the 4 bits of 4>, whether or not to remove isolated points is set for each signal.

The outputs of the isolated point removing circuit 502 and the isolated point removing circuit 503 based on the signal delayed by one line are A
The signal is input to the ND circuit 504 to detect an isolated point in the sub-scanning direction. The selector 505 determines that RG_MBTR <1
1. . 8>, whether to remove isolated points in the sub-scanning direction for each signal (select output of AND circuit 504) or not (select output of isolated point removal circuit 502) for each signal Settings are being made.

The logical sum circuit 506 is a circuit for calculating the logical sum of signals for four pixels in the main scanning direction, and includes three F / Fs and one OR circuit. The output of the OR circuit 506 is input to the OR circuit 507, and the output of the OR circuit 507 is input to the flip-flop 510 and the line memory 509. The AND circuit 508 masks the output of the line memory (FIFO) 509 with the signal V4S. The line memory 509 is a FIFO for delaying the data output from the OR circuit 507 by one line. Here, the signal V4S is set to "0" for the first line of the four lines, and set to "1" for the remaining three lines, and AND
Input to the circuit 508. Thereby, the OR circuit 506
Is processing the second line, the OR circuit 507 outputs data of the logical sum of the first line and the second line, and the result is stored in the line memory 509. In this way, the logical sum of the data of four lines is obtained by the line memory 509, the AND circuit 508, and the OR circuit 507, and is output from the OR circuit 507. Reference numeral 510 denotes an F / F with an enable input, and an enable input terminal E
For N, "1" is input for only one pixel every four pixels. As a result, one pixel is output for every four pixels in the main scanning direction.

With the above configuration, the data compression unit 103
Is used to remove the isolated points in the main scanning direction and the sub-scanning direction from the input 400 dpi marker data and the BI signal, and then perform the logical operation of the data of four pixels in the main scanning direction and four lines in the sub-scanning direction. The sum is obtained, and as a logical sum output (100 dpi data) of the image signals for 16 pixels, the signals MK-R ′,
MK-G ', MK-B', and BI 'are output.

Reference numeral 104 denotes an area memory, which is a data compression unit 1
03 is stored, and an edit area signal is generated. Reference numeral 111 denotes a drawing IC, and the area memory 10
4 can perform various operations. In this embodiment, the drawing IC 111 divides the memory area of the area memory 104 into arbitrary blocks, and sets data (writes “1”) to each of the divided blocks.
/ Reset (write "0"), invert data, AND (logical product) / OR for data in multiple blocks
An operation such as (logical sum) can be performed. In addition, calculations such as detection (search) of specified data, and filling (filling) of an area from a specified position to the appearance of boundary data with the set data can be performed.

FIG. 4 shows that the drawing IC 111 uses the marker signals MK-R ', MK-G', MK-B 'and the boundary signal BI' stored in the area memory 104 to cause the editing area signal AREA- FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining an arithmetic process for generating R ′ to −B ′.

Referring to FIG. 4, the area memory 104 has its memory area divided into eight blocks PL0 to PL7. Of these blocks, each of the blocks PL0 to PL3 has its own MK-R ', MK-G. ', MK-B',
BI ′ is stored. Here, each block has a capacity capable of storing data compressed by the data compression unit 103 by a data amount corresponding to A3 size.

Reference numeral 440 denotes MK-R 'stored in PL0, and 441 denotes boundary line data BI' stored in PL3.
Is shown. Hereinafter, a method of generating an edited rice area signal using the data of PL0 and PL3 will be described.

First, in STEP 1, a portion where the data is "1" (the portion where the marker is painted on the document) is detected with respect to the red marker signal MK-R 'stored in PL0, and the detection is performed. The part which is "1" is sequentially written to PL7. Next, in STEP2, PL4 is cleared ("0" is written). Next, in STEP3, with the data position detected in STEP1 and written in PL7 as a start point, PL4 is filled with "1" until PL3 = 1 (boundary data is "1") and PL4 = 0. (442 in FIG. 4). Next, in STEP 4, ST
With the position detected in EP1 as a start point, PL4 is painted with “1” until PL3 = 0 and PL4 = 0 (443 in FIG. 4).

By the above operation, the edit area signal ARE designated by the red marker is stored in PL4 of the area memory 104.
AR ′ is generated.

Similarly, instead of PL0, PL1 is replaced by
By performing the same operation using PL5 instead of PL4, the edit area signal AREA-
G ′ is generated in PL5 of the area memory 104, and P ′
By using L2 and PL6, the edit area signal AREA-B 'specified by the blue marker is stored in the area memory 104.
(See 444 in FIG. 4).

The editing area signal generated here is:
This is an editing area signal including a boundary portion.

A boundary line memory 105 stores the boundary line data BI signal detected by the boundary line data detection section 102. The boundary memory 105 has a capacity of 400 d.
It has a capacity to store binary data of pi for the size of A3 size.

Reference numeral 106 denotes an area extraction processing unit which responds to a 100 dpi edit area signal output from the area memory 104 by 400 dpi stored in the boundary memory 105.
Of the edit area using the boundary line data BI of 400 dp
i, and the data of the edit target area included inside the boundary line is extracted from the converted data.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the area extraction processing unit 106 in the present embodiment. However, FIG.
Shows only a portion related to the interpolating process for the signal AREA-R. The signal AREA-R is output only once for four pixels in the main scanning direction and four lines in the sub-scanning direction, and is held as it is during the other three lines.
Corresponding to AR ′.

In FIG. 5, reference numerals 301 and 302 denote FIFOs.
In the FIFO 301, an editing area signal generated by a calculation unit described later is input to a terminal D, and is output from a terminal Q with a delay of one line. Similarly, FIFO
At 302, the BI output from the boundary memory 105 is output.
A signal is input to a terminal D, and this BI signal is output from a terminal Q after being delayed by one line. In addition, FI
The FOs 301 and 302 have a capacity of 400 dpi to hold data of A3 size width.

The flip-flops 303 to 310 output predetermined data to the arithmetic unit 311. For example, a j-th line as a BI signal and an AREA-R signal,
When the (i + 1) th pixel data is input, the j-th line and the i-th BI from the F / F 305 at the same timing.
From the F / F 306, a BI signal of the (i-1) th pixel on the j-th line is output. In addition, FIFO30
2. From the F / Fs 303 and 304, the (j-1) th line, (i + 1), i,
The (i-1) th pixel data is output.

Similarly, the F / F 310 outputs an AREA-R signal corresponding to the i-th pixel on the j-th line,
From the IFO 301 and the F / Fs 307 and 308, the subsequent edit area signal AREA corresponding to the (j-1) th line, the (i + 1), i, and (i-1) th pixels is further outputted by F
/ F309 outputs the interpolated edit area signal AREA corresponding to the (i-1) -th pixel in the j-th line.
Incidentally, when the above-described signal is input to the arithmetic unit 311,
The operation unit 311 performs an operation on the i-th pixel on the j-th line and outputs the result from the terminal Y.

The calculation unit 311 performs a calculation process (decompression process) for converting the image data into the original image data using the peripheral pixel data of the target pixel. As described above, the terminal S0 outputs j
Line, BI signal of (i-1) th pixel, terminal S
From (1, S2, S3) the (j-1) th line,
The BI signal of the (i−1), i, (i + 1) th pixel is input. Also, the j-th line from the terminal D0, (i-1)
Input the edit area signal AREA of the pixel
(J-1) th line from (1, D2, D3), (i
-1), i, edit region signal AR of (i + 1) th pixel
EA is input, and the AREA-R signal of the j-th line and the i-th pixel is input from the terminal D4, whereby the calculation of the j-th line and the i-th pixel is performed.

With the above arrangement, the BI signal of the (j-1) th line and the (i-1) th pixel is input to the terminal S0, and the edit area signal AREA is input to the terminal D0.
Similarly, terminals S1 and D1, terminals S2 and D2, terminal S
3 and D3 receive the BI signal and the edit area signal AREA of the same pixel, respectively.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining the correspondence between the input and output for the data input to the arithmetic unit 311. still,
In FIG. 6, the names of the signals input to the terminals of the arithmetic unit 311 are represented by the names of the terminals.

In FIG. 6, S0 = S1 = S2 = S3 =
When 0 is input, D0, D1, D
The result of the AND of D2 and D3 is output. That is, D0, D
Only when all of the input signals of D1, D2, and D3 are "1", "1" (indicating that the area is an edit area) is output from the terminal Y. In other cases, "0" (which indicates that the area is not an edit area). Is output.

When S0 = 1, S1 = S2 = S3 = 0 are input, the result of the logical product of D1, D2 and D3 excluding D0 is output. In the same manner, an editing area signal AREA corresponding to a pixel whose BI signal is not "1" is output from the output terminal Y of the arithmetic unit 311 as shown in FIG. However, when S0 = S1 = S2 = S3 = 1, the AREA-R signal input from the terminal D4 is output as it is.

Returning to FIG. 5, reference numeral 313 denotes a NOT circuit.
When the calculation result of the j-th line and the i-th pixel is output from the calculation unit 311, the BI signal of the j-th line and the i-th pixel is input. Reference numeral 312 denotes an AND circuit.
The logical product of the calculation result of the i-th pixel on the j-th line and the output of the NOT circuit 313 (inversion of the BI signal of the i-th pixel on the j-th line) is output. This allows
The BI signal of the i-th pixel on the j-th line is “1”, that is,
If it is a boundary line, the operation result of the operation unit 311 is AND
Masked by the circuit 312, the editing area signal AREA outputs "0", that is, a signal indicating that the area is outside the editing area. If the BI signal of the i-th pixel on the j-th line is “0”, that is, if the BI signal is not a boundary line, the arithmetic unit 311
Is output as the edit area signal AREA.

The editing area signal AR generated here
The EA is input to the FIFO 301 and the F / F 309,
Thereafter, the calculation unit 311 is used as reference data for performing the calculation.

Returning to FIG. 1, reference numeral 107 denotes a light-density converter (LOG converter) which converts the input R, G, and B light signal by logarithmic conversion into cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y). ) Is converted to a density signal. An output masking unit 108 extracts black density signals from the density signals of the three colors C, M, and Y by a known UCR process (under color removal process), and removes the color turbidity of the developer corresponding to each density signal. A known masking operation for removal is performed. 1
A color selection unit 09 selects a color signal corresponding to the developer to be used from among the M, C, Y, and K density signals generated by the output masking unit 108. Thereby, the data of the color to be recorded is selected and output to the subsequent blocks.

Reference numeral 110 denotes an editing processing unit which performs an area extraction processing unit 106 on the data sent from the color selection unit 109.
In accordance with the editing area signal AREA output from, desired editing processing such as painting and coloring is performed.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a state of each data until an editing area signal is generated when a document whose editing position is designated by a marker is read. The operation will be described below in the order of the operation of the present embodiment.

First, FIG. 7A shows an example of original data to be read. In this figure, for simplicity of explanation, data of 400 dpi and 24
The operation for reading data of 24 lines in the pixel and sub-scanning directions will be described.

In FIG. 7A, each square represents one pixel of the input image data.
This is 0 dpi data. Further, it is assumed that a portion 701 shown in black is painted black, and a portion 702 shown in oblique lines is painted red marker.

Now, when image data obtained by reading the original is input, a marker portion is detected by the marker data detecting section 101, and an MK-R signal corresponding to the portion is, for example, shown in FIG. Output as shown. Also,
A boundary line is detected by the boundary line data detection unit 102,
The result is output as a BI signal as shown in FIG.

The MK-R signal output from the marker data detecting section 101 and the BI signal output from the boundary data detecting section 102 are compressed by the data compressing section 103 and then written to the area memory 104. Be included. FIGS. 7D and 7E respectively show the MK-R ′ signal and the BI ′ signal that have been compressed from 400 dpi to 100 dpi by the data compression unit 103 shown in FIG. 3 and stored in the area memory 104. . The data compression unit 1
At 03, as described above, the logical sum of a total of 16 pixels of 4 pixels in the main scanning direction and 4 lines in the sub-scanning direction is obtained. Here, isolated point removal by the isolated point removing circuits 502 and 503 in FIG. Not.

The BI signal is stored in the boundary memory 105 as it is. This is shown in FIG.

The area memory 104 includes a drawing IC 111.
Is used to generate an edit area signal AREA for the data shown in FIGS. 7 (d) and 7 (e). This drawing IC 111
FIG. 7 (g) shows the edit area signal AREA generated as a result of the calculation shown in FIG.

When the generation of the editing area signal AREA by the drawing IC 111 is completed, the data shown in FIG. 7G is read from the area memory 104, and the data shown in FIG. Data is input to the region extraction processing unit 106 in synchronization. FIG. 7H shows the edit area signal AREA output from the area memory 104 in a form corresponding to pixels of 400 dpi.

As shown in FIG. 7 (h), the area extraction processing unit 106 responds to the BI area signal output from the boundary memory 105 in response to the edit area signal AREA output from the rice area memory 104. 7 (f)). This is shown in FIGS. 7 (i) and (j).

FIG. 7 (i) shows the output of the calculation unit 311 when the area extraction processing unit 106 shown in FIG. 5 is used. In FIG. 7I, a hatched portion indicates an edit area signal AREA input from the area memory 104.
In FIG. 7, a portion of a pixel that was "1" (representing an edit area) has been replaced by "0" (representing that it is not an edit area) in the computation performed by the computation unit 311. By this operation, the editing area is set to the editing area signal ARE outside the boundary line indicated by the BI signal.
A is deleted, and the area corresponds to the pixel position on the boundary line and inside the boundary line as shown in black.

FIG. 7 (j) shows the AND circuit 3 in FIG.
12 indicates the output of the area extraction processing unit 106.

In FIG. 7 (j), the hatched portion indicates the edit area signal ARE output from the arithmetic unit 311.
A portion where the editing area signal AREA on the boundary line is masked by the AND circuit 312 using the BI signal for A is shown.

With the above configuration, the edit area signal output from the area extraction processing unit 106 is, as shown in FIG.
With respect to the input document image data, an edit area signal is output to all pixels inside the boundary line.

In the first embodiment, the area extraction processing for the editing area of the AREA-R signal specified by the red marker has been described. However, the marker specified in green or the marker specified in blue In the same way, the same region extraction processing can be performed based on the AREA-G and AREA-B signals.

In the first embodiment, the case where the editing area is specified by the marker has been described as an example. However, when the position of the editing area is specified by using a pointing device such as a digitizer, the area memory is also used. By performing the same region extraction processing on the edit region signal output from 104, the edit region signal can be output to all pixels inside the boundary line. However, at this time, the marker data is not detected by the marker data detection unit 101, and the editing position is specified by directly writing the position data specified by the control unit (CPU) to the PL7 of the area memory 104. .

Further, in the first embodiment, the output of the boundary memory is used as the 400 dpi boundary data for the area extraction processing unit 106.
The image signal is input again in synchronization with the editing area signal output from the area memory 104, and the BI signal indicating the boundary generated by the boundary data detection unit 102 is used. May be omitted.

[Second Embodiment] In the first embodiment, the area extraction processing is performed on all the pixels included in the image data. However, such an area extraction processing is performed only at the boundary of the editing area. Just do it. Therefore, in the second embodiment, the boundary portion of the editing region is detected, and the region extraction processing is performed only on the detected portion. FIG. 8 shows the configuration of the region extraction processing unit 106 in that case. However, FIG. 8 shows only the area extraction processing for the AREA-R signal indicating the red marker, and the parts common to FIG. 5 described above are indicated by the same numbers.

The flip-flop 701 is used to synchronize the BI ′ signal, which is 100 dpi boundary data input from the area memory 104, with another input signal.
/ F. 702 is an AND circuit, which outputs a BI ′ signal and an AR signal.
The logical product with the EA-R signal is output. Where B
The I ′ signal is a signal indicating a boundary line for generating an area for editing by the area memory 104. In the document image, a portion which is black data is represented by “1”, and other portions are represented by “0”. The AREA-R signal indicates an editing area including a boundary line, and the editing area is represented by "1", and the other areas are represented by "0". Accordingly, the BI 'signal is "1" and the AREA-R signal is "1" from the AND circuit 702.
A signal which becomes "1" is output at the portion where. That is, A
The AND circuit 702 outputs "1" at the boundary of the REA-R signal and "0" at other portions.

When the output of the AND circuit 702 is “1”, the selector 703 selects and outputs the result of the region extraction processing output from the AND circuit 312, and outputs the result.
Is "0", the AREA-R signal output from the flip-flop 310 is selected and output.

From the above configuration, at the boundary of the AREA-R signal at which "1" is output from the AND circuit 702,
The result of the region extraction processing by the arithmetic unit 311 and the AND circuit 312 is output, and in other parts, the AREA-R signal is output as it is.

FIG. 9 is a configuration diagram of a copying apparatus 80 showing an example of the image editing apparatus according to the present embodiment.

The copying apparatus 80 has a reader unit 100 and a printer unit 200, and the image processing unit of FIG. 1 is included in the image processing block 88.

An original scanning unit 83 moves and scans in the direction of arrow A to read the image of the original 84 on the original table, and simultaneously turns on an exposure lamp 85 in the original scanning unit 83. The light reflected from the document is guided to the converging rod lens array 86 and collected on the contact type color CCD sensor 87. Contact type color CCD sensor 87
Corresponds to 62.5 μm (1/16 mm) as one pixel.
Twenty-four pixel chips are arranged in a staggered pattern with five chips. Each pixel is divided into three parts of 15.5 μm × 62.5 μm, and C, G, and Y color filters are attached to each of them.

The optical image collected on the contact type color CCD sensor 87 is converted into an electric signal for each color. These electric signals are processed by the image processing block 88 as described above. The color separation image electric signal formed by the image processing block 88 is transmitted to the printer unit 200 and printed.

The color image data from the reader unit 100 is subjected to PWM processing and the like, and finally drives the laser. The laser light modulated according to the image data is scanned at high speed by a polygon mirror 89 rotating at high speed, and is reflected by the mirror 90 to perform dot exposure corresponding to the image on the surface of the photosensitive drum 91. One horizontal scan of a laser beam corresponds to one horizontal scan of an image, and has a width of 1/16 mm in this embodiment. On the other hand, since the photosensitive drum 91 is rotating at a constant speed in the direction of the arrow, the plane image is successively exposed by the laser beam scanning in the main scanning direction and the constant rotation of the photosensitive drum 91 in the sub-scanning direction. The photosensitive drum 91 is uniformly charged by the charger 97 prior to exposure, and forms a latent image by exposing the charged photoconductor to light.
A latent image based on a predetermined color signal is visualized by developing units 92 to 95 corresponding to a predetermined color.

For example, considering the first document exposure scanning in the color reader, first, the photosensitive drum 9 is scanned.
A dot image of a yellow component of the document is exposed on the surface 1 and is developed by a yellow developing unit 92. Next, a yellow toner image is transferred and formed on the paper wound on the transfer drum 96 by a transfer charger 98 at a contact point between the photosensitive drum 91 and the transfer drum 96. The same process is repeated for M (magenta), C (cyan), and BK (black), and each image is superimposed on a sheet to form a color image using four color toners.

Even if the present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), an apparatus (for example, a copying machine, a facsimile, etc.) Device).

Another object of the present invention is to supply a storage medium storing a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or an apparatus, and to provide a computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or the apparatus. Is also achieved by reading and executing the program code stored in the storage medium.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the function of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention.

As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-ROM, CD
-R, a magnetic tape, a nonvolatile memory card, a ROM, or the like can be used.

When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (Operating System) running on the computer based on the instruction of the program code. ) Performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instruction of the program code, The case where the CPU of the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing and the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing is also included.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the boundary data included in the image signal and the image data portion for specifying the region to be edited are identified, and the identified data is compressed and stored in the memory. , The capacity of the memory for storing the area data can be reduced.

Further, the data stored in the memory can be expanded and read, and the data of the portion surrounded by the original boundary line can be properly extracted from the read data with a simple circuit configuration.

[0083]

As described above, according to the present invention, of image data obtained by reading a document image, data of an image portion for designating a boundary line and an area surrounded by the boundary line is compressed and stored. The compressed and stored data can be decompressed to extract an image data portion indicating an editing target area included inside the boundary line.

Further, according to the present invention, the designated area information is stored with a small memory capacity, and with a simple configuration,
There is an effect that the information indicating the editing target area can be extracted by expanding the area information.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a functional configuration of an image processing unit of an image editing device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a marker data detection unit according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a data compression unit according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a calculation procedure by the drawing IC according to the first embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an area extraction processing unit according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating input / output correspondence in a calculation unit according to the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a process of a process performed by an area extraction processing unit according to the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an area extraction processing unit according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a configuration diagram of a copying apparatus illustrating an example of an image editing apparatus according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a process of specifying an edit target area in a document image.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 5B047 AA01 AB04 CA14 CB09 CB22 5B050 BA06 BA10 DA04 DA06 DA08 EA03 EA06 EA09 EA10 5B057 AA11 CC03 CE09 CG01 CH11 DA08 DB02 DB06 DC16 5C076 AA01 AA33 AA07 BA03

Claims (14)

[Claims] 1. A boundary line extracting means for extracting a boundary line portion included in an input image signal, and extracting an image portion included in the image signal and specifying an editing area divided by the boundary line portion. Extraction means for performing compression; compression means for compressing the data representing the image portion and the boundary line portion; storage means for storing data compressed by the compression means; and the compressed data stored in the storage means. Generating means for generating compressed editing area data based on the above, and expanding the editing area data generated by the generating means; and extracting the expanded editing area data and the boundary extracted by the boundary line extracting means. An edit target area data generating unit that generates edit target area data based on the line portion. 2. The editing target area data generating means converts the data, which is surrounded by the boundary part extracted by the boundary extracting part and does not include the boundary part, from the expanded editing area data. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data is edit target area data. 3. The image portion is an image portion corresponding to a marker marked using a red, blue or green color, and the extracting means determines whether any one of red, blue and green is a predetermined color. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when the color is a color, a signal indicating an image portion corresponding to the color is generated. 4. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the compression unit compresses the data in each of a main scanning direction and a sub-scanning direction to 1 / N (N is an integer of 2 or more). apparatus. 5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a processing unit configured to perform predetermined image processing on the edit target area data generated by the edit target area data generating unit. An image processing apparatus according to claim 1. 6. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the image signal is an image signal obtained by reading a document image, and the marker is a marker written on the document image. 7. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the editing area data includes a compressed boundary portion. 8. A boundary line extracting step of extracting a boundary line portion included in the input image signal, and extracting an image portion included in the image signal and specifying an editing area divided by the boundary line portion. An extracting step, a compressing step of compressing the data representing the image portion and the boundary line portion, a storing step of storing the data compressed in the compressing step in a memory, and the compressed stored in the memory. A generating step of generating compressed editing area data based on the data, and expanding the editing area data generated in the generating step, and extracting the expanded editing area data and the boundary line extracting step. An edit target area data generating step of generating edit target area data based on the boundary portion. 9. In the editing target area data generating step,
9. The data of the expanded edit area data, which is surrounded by the boundary part extracted in the boundary extraction step and does not include the boundary part, is set as the edit target area data. The image processing method according to 1. 10. The image portion is an image portion corresponding to a marker marked using red, blue, or green color, and in the extraction step, any one of red, blue, and green colors is specified. 9. The image processing method according to claim 8, wherein when the color is a color, a signal indicating an image portion corresponding to the color is generated. 11. The image processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein in the compression step, the data is compressed to 1 / N (N is an integer of 2 or more) in each of a main scanning direction and a sub-scanning direction. Method. 12. The apparatus according to claim 8, further comprising a processing step of performing predetermined image processing on the edit target area data generated in the edit target area data generation step. The image processing method according to 1. 13. The image processing method according to claim 10, wherein the image signal is an image signal obtained by reading a document image, and the marker is a marker written on the document image. 14. The image processing method according to claim 8, wherein the edit area data includes a compressed boundary portion.