JPH0239151B2 - GAZOJOHOKIOKUSOCHI - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Technical Field The present invention relates to an image information storage device in a memory that stores image information.

PRIOR ART Recently, a scanner has been used to extract and read only the necessary image information from a document image, and the extracted image information is temporarily stored in a dynamic random access memory D/RAM as fluctuation information. It synthesizes fixed information such as formats and other fixed patterns that are stored in advance in ROM, or new information such as sentences written externally using a character generator, etc., and based on the synthesized information. Image editing systems that record images are being actively developed.

In such a memory editing system, the size of the image extracted from the manuscript is not constant (usually
(It is now possible to arbitrarily specify the image area to be extracted by placing an extraction mark at a predetermined location in the document.) Therefore, conventionally, it is possible to specify the image area to be extracted by placing an extraction mark at a predetermined location in the document. The capacity of the image memory to be stored is made sufficiently large to prevent the amount of information stored therein from overflowing.

However, if such a method is adopted, the capacity of the image memory becomes much larger than the amount of image information extracted multiplied by the average compression rate, and there is a large amount of area that is not used for storing information at all. As a result, the utilization rate of image memory is poor. In addition, even if image information with an extremely low data compression rate is written to the image memory and the storage area of the image memory overflows, there is no guarantee that the image information in the overflowed portion will be destroyed and a part of the information will be destroyed. There is a problem with being exposed.

For example, as shown in FIG. 1, when extracting three image parts A, B, and C from a document 1, and storing each image information of each extracted image part in an image memory, , when the usage rate of the image memory is low, as shown in Fig. 2, blank areas 2 are generated in the areas where information D _A , D _B , D _C of each image part A, B, C are stored, respectively. Put it away. Furthermore, when the amount of information in image area A is large, as shown in Figure 3, the information D _A will exceed the area and overflow into the area (3 in the figure indicates the overflow area). .

Purpose The present invention was made in consideration of the above points, and
An object of the present invention is to provide an image information storage device that improves the utilization rate of an image memory while effectively guaranteeing against overflow.

Configuration In the image information storage device according to the present invention, for each image portion extracted from a document, a storage start address and a storage stop address are respectively assigned to each storage area in the image memory in which the information is stored, respectively. When writing the information of each image part extracted from the manuscript into the corresponding storage area,
When the amount of information in a certain image area overflows beyond the corresponding storage area, each area is configured so that the amount of information corresponding to the overflow is detected and the area of the overflowed storage area is expanded based on the detected amount. After correcting the storage start address and storage stop address in the storage area, the information of each image portion is rewritten.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a configuration for concretely implementing the image information storage device according to the present invention. image signal BS
A compression circuit 4 compresses the data, and sends the compressed image information of each image part to a predetermined storage area in the image memory 5 for storage, and when a certain storage area overflows, it compresses the amount of information corresponding to the overflow. A memory controller 6 that detects a RAM7 for start address management and stop address management where address contents can be optimally rewritten
It is composed of RAM8.

With such a configuration, in the image information storage device according to the present invention, the image signal BS from each image portion appropriately extracted and read from the original image is data-compressed by the compression circuit 4, and the data is The compressed image information is sent to the image memory 5 through the data bus, and the image of each image portion is stored in a storage area managed by the memory controller 6 and determined according to the address instructed to the image memory 5 through the address bus. Information may be stored sequentially or simultaneously.

Note that the image information stored in the image memory 5 does not necessarily have to be data compressed.

At that time, prior to storing the image information, the address information in the start address management RAM 7 is transferred to the memory controller 6.
starts storing image information in the storage area of the image memory 5 from the given start address, and then the memory controller 6 stores the address contents in the storage area currently being accessed and the address information given from the stop address management RAM 8. If the storage of the image information is completed by the time the stop address is reached, the storage operation in that storage area is stopped at the stop address position.

In addition, as shown by D _A in FIG. 7, when the amount of image information is large, storage information D is transferred from the storage area of the image memory 5 determined by the start address and stop address respectively given from the RAMs 7 and 8. When _A overflows, the memory controller 6 performs the number of memory accesses from the time when the address contents of the image memory 5 currently being accessed match the contents of the stop address until all of the image information D _A is stored. is counted to detect the amount of information that has overflowed from the storage area, and at the time of counting up, the storage operation of the image memory 5 is stopped.

Next, the memory controller 6 sends a correction command for each address to the start address management RAM 7 and the stop address management RAM 8 based on the count value, and updates the image so that the storage area is expanded by the count value. Start and stop addresses in all storage areas in the memory 5 are corrected as appropriate.

In the meantime, in the memory controller 6, all the image information previously written in each storage area of the image memory 5 is erased, and the image memory is again read according to the corrected start address and stop address. The same image information D _A , D _B , D _C in the document read again by the scanner in each storage area ′, , 5.
memory storage.

Therefore, by the image information storage operation that is repeatedly performed at the time of overflow, the image information D _A that previously overflowed can be stored in the newly expanded and set storage area' of the image memory 5.

Note that the start address and stop address may be values obtained by multiplying the extracted image information amount by the average compression rate.

FIG. 5a shows the memory contents of the start address management RAM 7 and FIG. 5b shows the storage contents of the stop address management RAM 8, and FIG. Image information D _A , D _B , D _C extracted from the document 1 is stored in each storage area of the image memory 5 thus set.
Figure 7 shows a state in which the image information D _A has overflowed and the contents of the start address management RAM 7 and the stop address management RAM 8 have been rewritten, and the storage area ' Image information inside D _A
Each shows the state in which it is accumulated. Note that in FIG. 7, numeral 9 indicates a storage area expanded due to overflow.

Effects As described above, in the image information storage device according to the present invention, a plurality of storage areas are provided in the image memory by assigning a plurality of start addresses for starting storage and a plurality of stop addresses for stopping storage to the image memory, and means for storing image information extracted from a document for each image portion in each storage area; and address contents of the storage area currently being accessed when the image information overflows beyond each storage area; means for detecting the amount of overflowed image information by counting the number of memory accesses from the time when the contents of the stop address and the contents of the stop address match, and a start address of each storage area in the image memory according to the count value; and means for correcting the stop address, and the image information is repeatedly stored for each image part in a storage area reset by the corrected start address and stop address, This method has an excellent advantage of being able to improve the utilization rate of the image memory while effectively guaranteeing against overflow.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of an image portion extracted from a document, FIGS. 2 and 3 are diagrams each showing the storage state of image information stored in a conventional image memory, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of an image part extracted from a document. A block diagram showing an example of a configuration for concretely implementing an image information storage device, FIGS. 5a and 5b respectively show the storage states of a start address management RAM and a stop address management RAM in the same embodiment. 6 and 7 are diagrams each showing the storage state of image information in the image memory stored according to the present invention. 1... Original document, 4... Compression circuit, 5... Image memory, 6... Memory controller, 7... RAM for start address management, 8... RAM for stop address management.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of storage areas are provided in the image memory by assigning a plurality of start addresses for starting storage and a plurality of stop addresses for stopping storage to the image memory, and image information extracted from the document is stored in each storage area. means for accumulating each image part, and when the image information overflows beyond each storage area, memory access is performed from the point when the address content of the storage area currently being accessed matches the content of the stop address. comprising means for detecting the amount of image information corresponding to the overflow by counting the number of times, and means for correcting the start address and stop address of each storage area in the image memory according to the count value, An image information storage device that repeatedly stores the image information for each image portion in a storage area reset by the corrected start address and stop address.