JPS6315617B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a display device that displays graphics or characters using data sent from a host computer.

In conventional display devices, when a part of the image being displayed is to be redrawn, the host computer reconfigures all the data necessary for display, including the portion that will not be redrawn, and sends it to the display device's buffer memory. was. The display device that has received the data uses the image editing processor to perform scaling, movement, rotation, etc. on portions of the buffer memory that are unchanged from the previous image, as well as when displaying a completely different image. Since the conversion is performed and stored in the refresh memory, responsiveness deteriorates when a part of the image changes rapidly, and the image editing processor has the disadvantage of being burdened unnecessarily.

An object of the present invention is to reduce the amount of data transferred between a host computer and a display device when changing a part of the screen being displayed, and at the same time reduce the internal processing of each of the host computer and display device. An object of the present invention is to provide a display device that improves responsiveness.

A memory area in a host computer that stores edited image data is divided into n blocks, a buffer memory in a display device corresponding to the memory area is also divided into n blocks,
The refresh memory is divided into n blocks, each block having a size corresponding to one block of the buffer memory. If you want to redraw a part of the currently displayed screen, edit only the data necessary for redrawing in the host computer,
The edited data is stored in the corresponding memory block, and the contents of the memory block storing the edited data are sent to the buffer memory with data indicating the number of the corresponding block in the buffer memory in the display device added. When data is stored in the block specified by the block number, the image processing processor performs necessary processing only on the specified block. Store data in the corresponding block of refresh memory. When redrawing part of the screen using the above method, only the block corresponding to the change can be edited in the host computer, and only the corresponding block and block number can be transferred from the host computer to the buffer memory of the display device. Processing and transfer to the refresh memory only need to be performed for the relevant block and block number.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the basic configuration of a display device according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, a display device 2 is connected to a host computer 1, and image data edited by a program of the host computer 1 and stored in an internal memory 3 of the host computer is transferred to the display device 2 under the control of the program. is transferred to the buffer memory 4. The data in the buffer memory 4 is reduced by the image processing processor 5.
Processing such as enlargement, rotation, and movement is performed, and the results are stored in the refresh memory 6. The graphic character generating circuit 7 reads out the contents of the refresh memory 6 at a constant cycle (refresh cycle), and displays the figures or characters corresponding to the contents on the display section (CRT). The internal memory 3, buffer memory 4, and refresh memory 6 of the host computer explained in FIG. 1 are each divided into n blocks as shown in FIG. That is, the internal memory 3 of the host computer is divided into a first block 9, a second block 10, a third block 11, a fourth block 12, and an n-th block 13, and the buffer memory 4 and refresh memory 6 are also divided into n blocks. Divide into blocks. Data stored in the first block 9 of the internal memory 3 of the host computer is transferred to the first block of the buffer memory 4 and further stored in the first block of the refresh memory 6. Similarly, it is assumed that the data in each block of the internal memory 3 of the host computer is stored in blocks with the same number in each of the buffer memory and refresh memory. The internal memory 3 of the host computer is a buffer area for sending image data edited by a program to the display device 2, and the buffer memory 4 is a buffer area for temporarily storing data received from the host computer, so they are generally the same. capacity memory. Since the refresh memory is an area in which the results of processing by the image processing processor 5 are stored, the refresh memory generally does not match the capacity of the internal memory 3 and buffer memory 4 of the host computer.

Next, the operation of the display device according to the present invention will be explained using FIG.

FIG. 3a shows the movement of data in each memory when the entire screen that is already displayed is to be redrawn. In the figure, the image data edited by the program of the host computer 1 is stored in diagonal lines (from top left to bottom right) of the first block 9 and second block 10, and is stored in the entirety of each block (including blank areas). are transferred to the first block 14 and second block 15 of the buffer memory 4, and after being processed by the image processing processor, are stored in the first block 19 and second block 20 of the refresh memory 6, and the contents of the refresh memory 6 are The display is performed according to the following. The operation when redrawing a part of the screen displayed in FIG. 1a will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1b and 1c. The part of the screen to be changed is stored in the second part of the internal memory 3 of the host computer.
This corresponds to the data stored in block 10, and when the amount of data in the diagonally shaded area (from top right to bottom left) is small compared to the data previously stored in second block 10 (see Figure 3b). case), the data in the diagonal line (from top right to bottom left) is transferred to the second block 1.
At the same time, the difference from the previous data indicated by the diagonal line (upper left to lower right) is erased, and the entire second block is sent to the buffer memory 4 together with the block number. The buffer memory 4 determines the sent block number and stores the data in the block (second block 15) of the buffer memory 4 that matches the designated number. The image processing processor 5 also determines the block number, processes the data of the necessary block in the buffer memory 4, and stores it in the corresponding block of the refresh memory. As shown in FIG. 3c, the rewritten data shown in the diagonal line (from upper right to lower left) is better than the data in the shaded area (from upper left to lower right) that was previously stored in the second block 10 of the internal memory 3 of the host computer. If there are many blocks, the data to be rewritten is the second block 1.
If all of the data is within 0, the second block and block number can be transferred to the second block 15 of the buffer memory 4. However, if all the data to be rewritten does not fit into the second block 10, the unused blocks, For example, the overflowing portion is written in the n-th block 13, a block number is added thereto in the same way as the second block 10, and the data is sent to the buffer memory 4.

As described above, according to this embodiment, when a part of the screen being displayed is changed, only the contents of the corresponding memory block are changed and internal processing is performed, resulting in a highly responsive display. It has the effect of

Next, the present invention will be explained in detail based on the relationship with actual images. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the relationship between the display image on the CRT screen and each memory block. The main memory 3 of the host computer is divided into n blocks, each block having a capacity of 100W. The display information in each block of this main memory 3 is edited by a program and is logical data. Similarly, the buffer memory 4 is divided into n blocks, and each block has a capacity of 100W. In other words, the main memory 3 and buffer memory 4 have a completely one-to-one correspondence. The refresh memory 6 is divided into n blocks, and one block is divided into n blocks.
It has a capacity of 150W. Each data in the refresh memory 6 is data created by the internal processor 5, and this data is physical data obtained by converting the logical data in the buffer memory 4 for CRT display.

In order to display the display image shown on the right end on the CRT, the first block is used for "title characters",
The second block is set for ``Graph Works'', the third block is set for ``Graph Plots and Curves'', and the fourth block is set for ``Vector'' display. Below, division is performed as necessary.

Next, the contents of each block of each memory will be explained using the fourth block as an example. FIG. 5a shows an example of the data structure of the fourth block of the main memory. Addresses are displayed as relative addresses, and address 0
and 1 indicate data examples regarding vector A in FIG. 4, and addresses 2 and 3 indicate data examples regarding vector B. Address 5 indicates the jump destination address for jumping to the top of the fifth block. Note that the starting point and ending point of addresses 1 and 3 are indicated by logical coordinates, such as latitude and longitude, or normalized coordinates.

FIG. 5b shows the data structure of the fourth block of the refresh memory, indicated by relative addresses of 150W. This value of 150W is determined by the conversion efficiency of logical data and physical data. Addresses 0-3 are information regarding vector A, addresses 3-3
5 indicates information regarding vector B. Furthermore, address 6 stores the jump destination address to the start address of the fifth block.

A flowchart for changing only the vectors A and B displayed on the CRT in such a data structure will be explained in comparison with a conventional example. FIG. 6 is a flowchart of the conventional example without block division, and FIG. 7 is a flowchart of the present invention with block division. Comparing both figures, the processes of creating position information for vector change on the display device side and sending the position information to the host computer side are the same in both figures. The difference is in the subsequent processing. In the conventional example, when a change instruction is given, the entire display information is re-edited after calculating the starting point and ending point of the vector in the coordinate system of the program. In this embodiment, re-editing is performed in blocks rather than in whole. Furthermore, when sending the edited data to the display device after re-editing, in the conventional example it is necessary to transfer all the data, that is, 100nW, but in this embodiment, the 100W for the fourth block is required.
Only. Furthermore, on the display device side that receives the re-edited data, in the conventional example, it is necessary to process the entire screen and convert it into physical data (this is done by the function of an internal processor), but this embodiment In this case, only the fourth block is to be processed and converted into physical data. Next, there is also a difference in transfer to the refresh memory between the whole and the block. FIG. 8 shows an example of the structure of data before and after re-editing in the main memory in this embodiment. In the figure, M is an additional item and N is a value after change.

FIGS. 9a and 9b show a comparative example of re-editing data in the main memory between the conventional example and this embodiment. M indicates additional information, and P indicates the symbol code and position. Furthermore, B3, B4, B5 are blocks 3, 4,
5 is shown. Figure a shows the conventional example, and figure b shows the present embodiment. Now, when adding an arrow display to the beginning of vector A, in the case of the conventional method, it is added to the memory location of , so the addresses of subsequent data will be shifted. Therefore, if the amount of data changes due to additions or changes, the entire displayed information must be reorganized. On the other hand, in the case of the method according to the present invention, only the fourth block needs to be reorganized.

According to this embodiment, the target of F3 and F4 processing (host computer) is 1/n (100nW → 100W)
Therefore, the time required to transfer display information between the host computer and the display device is also reduced to 1/n. Also,
Even within the display device, the data conversion processing target of the built-in processor and the transfer to the refresh memory are also reduced to 1/n. Therefore, there is an effect that the response of the screen to operator operations becomes faster. In particular, overshoot can be prevented when continuous operations are performed.

According to the present invention, when a part of the screen is changed, only the contents of the memory block storing the data corresponding to the changed part are rewritten, transferred and processed, and the data is reduced by up to 1/n compared to the conventional method. This has the effect of shortening the response time.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the basic configuration of a display device according to the present invention, FIG. Figure 3 is a diagram showing an example of changes in the contents of each memory when redrawing part of an image, Figure 4 is a diagram explaining each memory division in a specific display example, and Figures 5a and b are diagrams A diagram showing the data structure corresponding to the fourth block of the memory, FIG. 6 is a conventional flowchart, FIG. 7 is a flowchart in an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 8 is before and after data editing in the main memory. FIGS. 9a and 9b are diagrams for comparing data in the main memory between the conventional example and the present embodiment. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...Host computer, 2...Display device, 3...Internal memory of host computer, 4...
Buffer memory, 5... Image processing processor, 6...
Refresh memory, 7... Graphic character generation circuit, 8
...Display section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a display device that is connected to a host computer and displays images, a buffer memory that temporarily stores logical data for display from the host computer, and an image process that converts the logical data stored in the buffer memory into physical data. a processor, a refresh memory that stores physical data processed by the processor, a graphic character generation circuit that generates a display graphic signal based on the physical data stored in the refresh memory, and a graphic character generation circuit that generates a display graphic signal based on the physical data stored in the refresh memory. the main memory, buffer memory and refresh memory in the host computer are divided into n blocks with respect to the information area for displaying the image, and A display device that performs processing such as changing, modifying, adding, and deleting the screen of each of the above blocks.