JP2901742B2 - Kanji font generation method - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a kanji font generation method.

[Conventional technology]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a field requiring high quality and various types of characters such as a DTP (desktop publishing) system, a so-called outline font obtained by mechanically processing scan data of an analog font and converting the data into an outline vector is generally used.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

However, this outline font has the following problems.

First, conventional outline fonts cannot utilize the essential characteristics of Chinese characters, such as the “hi” and “next” hierarchies, and the commonality of the “stroke” stroke that is a constituent unit thereof, and A large amount of redundant data is generated due to the generation of an intersection vector due to the intersection of and the continuity of the outline. Therefore, the amount of font data is large and the amount of memory for storing the font data is large.

Second, since the conventional outline font does not have an index for character deformation, it is not easy to modify the font design. In other words, font design modifications
There are various levels of character skeleton correction, "drawing" stroke unit pattern correction, "bystander" element pattern unit correction, and line diameter (brush thickness) correction. For example, on the CRT screen, Although it is necessary to cut out the outline of the correction unit, such a conventional outline font cannot cut out the outline, so that it is practically impossible except for correction in units of characters.

An object of the present invention is to provide a new kanji font generation method capable of solving the above-mentioned problems.

[Means for solving the problem]

According to the kanji font generation method of the present invention, the "stroke" stroke primitive, which is the normalized structure data of the "stroke" stroke, the line diameter data of the "stroke" stroke, the size, angle and position of the "stroke" stroke A kanji font is generated by using parameter values of an affine transformation matrix that defines a character, and parameter values of an affine transformation matrix that defines the size, angle, and position of a “parallel” element composed of an “image” stroke And

(Operation)

The kanji font pattern is a projection of a plurality of “drawing” stroke patterns including intersections and touches. According to the present invention, “drawing” stroke primitives, line diameters, and affine transformations of “drawing” strokes (enlargement / reduction) , Rotation, and displacement), the degree of freedom in the design of the kanji font can be ensured, and its correction is extremely easy. Also, since the "image" stroke primitive is common to many characters, the amount of data, and thus the amount of font memory, can be significantly reduced as compared to conventional outline fonts.

As for the stroke stroke primitive, the outline is separated into a linear part with respect to the stroke progression (virtual center line) and non-linear parts such as "line", "bounce", and "clasp". The data may be directly converted into data, and the linear portion may be converted into data using the virtual center line and the line diameter (line width). By doing so, the data amount can be further reduced, and the wire diameter can be varied by specifying the wire diameter.

Further, the kanji has a unit element (“parallel” element) composed of a combination of unique “drawing” strokes called “pan”, “parallel”, etc. According to the present invention, this “parallel” element is Perform affine transformation with unit. Although there are some restrictions on the degree of freedom in character design in this “side by side” element unit, in most cases, the degree of freedom in character design is sufficient,
Character designs of sufficient quality are possible, and the merit that the data amount can be significantly reduced is great.

It should be noted that, if there is no hindrance in font quality, the “byspan” element pattern can be shared by a plurality of characters as a primitive, and the data amount can be further reduced.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing a functional configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 1 denotes a data memory for storing font data as a table organized hierarchically for each of, for example, "character", "drawing", and "parallel"elements; 2, an input unit for inputting character codes and the like; A drawing unit for reading font data necessary for drawing a character corresponding to the generated character code from the data memory 1 and drawing (generating) a font;
Reference numeral denotes an output unit that displays, prints, or stores the font pattern generated by the drawing unit 3. FIG. 3 shows a configuration example of the font data stored in the data memory 1.

FIG. 2 specifically shows the font generation (drawing) processing by the drawing unit 3 by taking the Chinese characters “cedar” and “matsu” as examples. This process basically consists of four processes:
Consists of

The process is a processing part that defines an “image” stroke primitive that constitutes a designated kanji. Specifically, a character code is input from the input unit 2 and the content of the font data corresponding to the character code is read from the data memory 1. Here, the stroke stroke primitive is outline data of the stroke of the stroke, which is the minimum unit element of the kanji, and is plotted on normalized unit coordinates, and is conceptually a unit length.

In the example of “cedar”, four “drawing” stroke primitives, S1 (horizontal line), S2 (vertical line), S3 (leftward payment), and S4 (rightward), are defined. In the example of “pine”, an “image” stroke primitive called S5 required “beside” is defined in addition to S1 to S4.

The process is based on the line diameter (thickness of the brush) of the linear part (excluding the pattern part at the start point, middle point, and end point of the stroke skeleton such as serif, bouncing, and closing) defined in the previous process. This is the processing part that defines wi.
Specifically, the thickness processing (quantification) is performed using the line diameter parameter of the “image” stroke primitive included in the font data.

The process is a processing part for defining an affine transformation matrix (quantifying the parameters of the matrix) for the “image” stroke that has passed through the process. This affine transformation matrix is a homogeneous matrix The size, the angle, and the position occupied by the “image” stroke on the “nearby” element plane normalized by the six parameters Mmn are determined. Specifically, this is performed using the “image” matrix parameter included in the font data.

The process is the processing part that defines the affine transformation matrix MXi for the “bystander” element. The size and angle occupied by each stroke of the “bystander” element that has been processed on the “character” plane that has been normalized in the same concept as the process ,
Determine the position. Specifically, this is performed using the “parallel” matrix parameter also included in the font data.

The above generation process is based on the design items of the kanji font, ie, 1) the qualitative commonality of the “stroke” stroke in each character (for example, all horizontal outlines have the same number of plot points and the same line type) and At the same time, there is quantitative non-commonality (eg, all horizontal outlines have different point locations).

2) When the pattern of the stroke primitive (for example, a serif pattern) is changed, the pattern has a hierarchical structure in which the pattern of all characters using the same stroke primitive is changed.

To be satisfied. Further, since there is no interference of stroke intersection and contact, the font memory is greatly reduced.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to greatly reduce the amount of data of a kanji font, reduce the size of a font memory, and easily modify the design of a kanji font.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a kanji font generation process, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration example of font data in a data memory. 1 data memory, 2 input unit, 3 drawing unit, 4
... Output section.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. An "image" stroke primitive which is normalized structure data of an "image"stroke;
The data of the line diameter of the “image” stroke, the parameter values of the affine transformation matrix that defines the size, angle, and position of the “image” stroke, and the size, angle, and A kanji font generation method for generating a kanji font using a parameter value of an affine transformation matrix that defines a position.