JPH0215910B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Technical Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for searching and processing graphic data in a specified area of a graphic displayed on a display screen.

(b) Prior art and its problems Conventional graphic processing methods include a method in which the contents of all graphic data are sequentially searched under conditions in detail, and search key information that approximates the occupied area of each graphic by a rectangle. There is a method in which a rough conditional search is performed using a search key, and then a detailed conditional search is performed on the contents of the graphic data for items that meet the conditions, but the former method has the disadvantage that the search time is extremely long. The latter is an improvement over the drawbacks of the former, but it has the drawback of requiring successive conditional searches for all search keys. For further improvement, it is necessary to devise a search key that further narrows down the graphic candidates included in the designated area.

(c) Purpose of the Invention The present invention eliminates such problems and enables searching only the area where the graphical data to be searched exists, thereby reducing invalid search processing and realizing a high-speed search method. The purpose is to

(d) Structure of the Invention In order to achieve this object, the present invention provides a graphic data retrieval system of a graphic processing system that handles two-dimensional figures, which uses graphic data that stores various graphic data arranged in a two-dimensional coordinate system. It is composed of a storage section and a graphic data search section that retrieves only graphic data that satisfies certain conditions from the storage section, and limits the data search range by dividing the effective coordinate area in which graphics exist in the graphic data storage section. The present invention employs a configuration in which search key information is provided for searching, and a graphic data search section is further provided that makes it possible to search all or a portion of graphic data contained within a specified area based on the search key information.

(e) Embodiments of the Invention Next, an embodiment of a graphic data retrieval method in graphic processing according to the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the system of the present invention. 1 is a graphic data storage section, 2 is a graphic data search section, and 3 is a display. The graphic data storage section 1 stores segmented area data as shown in FIG. 2B, graphic data addresses as shown in C, and graphic data as shown in D. That is, the graphic data retrieval system of the graphic conversation process is based on the graphic data storage unit 1 in which the graphic data in FIG. It is comprised of a graphic data search section 2 that searches for and outputs graphic data within the area, and a display 3 that accepts instructions for displaying graphic data and graphic search.

FIG. 2A shows an example of the screen display of the display 3, in which the effective coordinate area in which all the figures are arranged is divided into, for example, six areas in a grid pattern on the memory. Then, pointers I ₁ to I ₆ are set for each division as shown in (b) and registered in the graphic data storage unit 1. For example, the screen coordinate values (1,
The area surrounded by 1) and (2, 2) is a pointer
The area surrounded by I ₁ and the coordinate values (2, 2) and (3, 3) is set as a pointer I ₅ , and the corresponding area is represented by a certain pointer.

Then, graphic data addresses J ₁ to _{J 6} are set for each graphic displayed on the display as shown in C, and registered in the graphic data storage section 1. For example, there is only one figure in categories (1), (2), and (6), so
There is only one figure data address, but category (3),
When two figures exist as in (4) and (5), an address is also prepared for each figure. For each of these graphic data addresses, corresponding graphic data is registered in the graphic data storage section 1 as shown in (D).

In this way, the present invention has the characteristic that a figure has a two-dimensional spread and divides the effective coordinate area in which all the figures are arranged into a lattice shape, so that each figure is entirely or partially located in one of the divided areas. As a means of limiting the range of graphic data search in a graphic search process within a specified area by utilizing the property of belonging to the specified area, search key information such as the address of graphic data belonging to that division is collected for each segmented area. By simply registering the data into the graphic data storage unit 1 and searching for segmented areas that match the specified area conditions at the time of search, detailed conditional searches can be performed focusing only on graphic data that are likely to satisfy the specified area conditions. This is what I tried to do.

The graphic data search unit 2 includes a segmented area determination unit 4,
It includes a graphic data address extraction section 5 and a graphic data detailed search section 6. Next, a case will be described in which a search area is specified with a light pen on the display. The figure search instruction from the display section is based on the coordinate values Sl and Sh as the specified search area.
It is given in the form of Then, the segmented area determination unit 4 in the search processing unit 2 determines the coordinates indicating each segmented area.
PAl and PAh are compared with the search area (Sl, Sh), and a segmented area that includes the entire or part of the search area is sequentially determined. When one segmented area is determined, the graphic data addresses J ₁ to _{J 6} within the area are determined from the segmented area data.
The graphic data address extractor 5 extracts the graphic data, and based on the address, the graphic data detailed search unit 6 extracts the contents of the graphic data and determines whether part or all of the graphic data exists in the search area (Sl, Sh). Only the graphic data that satisfies this condition is output. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing details of the above processing operation.

As described above, according to the present invention, search key information that is a collection of addresses indicating the location of graphic data, etc. is registered in the graphic data storage unit 1, and by focusing on search keys for each category that satisfy the designated area condition, By performing a detailed search for graphic data, the search range is limited, invalid search processing is reduced, and graphic data search processing is performed at high speed.

FIG. 4 shows another embodiment of the present invention. The difference from FIG. 1 is that, as shown in FIG. That's true. Second, stop registering graphic data addresses for each segmented area,
As shown in Fig. 5C, graphic data search key data is provided which is a combination of a graphic data address and bit strings for the number of segmented areas, and each bit position corresponds to a segmented area to indicate to which the figure indicated by the graphic data address belongs. The corresponding bit of the segmented area is “1”, the others are “0”
is set.

In this case, the search procedure is such that the segmented area determination unit 4 determines which segment the specified search area belongs to, and the graphic data address extraction unit 5 extracts the bits of the graphic data search key data corresponding to the already determined segmented area. Only the position is checked, and only if it is "1", the figure data address is extracted and the figure data detailed search unit 6
to do the final search.

In this embodiment, although the search speed is slightly lower than that in the first embodiment, processing such as updating search key information is simplified, so that there is an effect of shortening the processing time in another sense.

(g) Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the present invention, the figure data retrieval system of a figure processing system that handles two-dimensional figures uses a figure data storage that stores various figure data arranged in a two-dimensional coordinate system. and a figure data search unit that extracts only figure data that satisfies a certain condition from the figure data search unit, and limits the data search range by dividing the effective coordinate area in which figures exist in the figure data storage unit. The present invention has a configuration in which search key information is provided and a graphic data search section is further provided that allows searching for all or a portion of graphic data contained within a designated area based on the search key information. Therefore, it is necessary to search only a certain limited area, so the search speed is improved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the graphic data retrieval method according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram explaining the format of data stored in the graphic data storage section of FIG. 1, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart explaining the procedure of the search processing unit in the figure, FIG. 4 is a diagram explaining another embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a diagram explaining the format of data stored in the graphic data storage unit in FIG. 4. It is a diagram. In the figure, 1 is a graphic data storage unit, 2 is a graphic data search unit, 3 is a display, 4 is a segmented area determination unit, 5 is a graphic data address extraction unit, 6 is a graphic data detailed search unit, B is segmented area data, C indicates a graphic data address, and D indicates graphic data.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. In a graphic processing system that handles two-dimensional figures, graphic data is stored for segmented area area data that divides the effective coordinate area displayed on a display screen and for each figure displayed within the segmented area. a graphic data storage section 1 in which graphic data addresses of the designated storage section and actual graphic data are stored; means for designating a designated search area on a display screen; and means for designating a designated search area on the display screen; means for determining an area; after determining the area; means for extracting the address of the graphic data existing within the area; The graphic data retrieval unit 2 includes a graphic data detailed search unit that checks whether the graphic data exists in the graphic data storage unit and retrieves only graphic data that satisfies this condition from the graphic data storage unit. A graphic data retrieval method in graphic processing.