JPH0690611B2 - Character font generator - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a character font generation device,
The present invention relates to a dot matrix type character font generation device used in an information processing device, and more particularly to a device which efficiently generates a large-angle font using a large number of dots.

(Prior Art) Generation of a dot matrix type character font used in an information processing apparatus includes a conventional camera type image input device, a device for correcting the obtained digital image, and a file device for recording the digital image. Has been done on the device.

FIG. 6 describes the configuration and processing steps of this conventional apparatus.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes an image input device, which is an optical image forming unit 1a such as a camera or a CCD image input device, a photoelectric conversion unit 1b for converting the formed image into an electric signal, and electric information of a photoelectrically converted image. It is composed of an AD conversion section 1c for converting into a digital signal and a binarization section 1d for binarizing the digital signal. 2 is 2
A recording device for recording the binarized image information, a display control device 3 for displaying the image information recorded in the recording device on the display 4, and an image correction device 5 for correcting the image displayed on the display 4. , 6 are file devices in which the corrected image information is stored. The image is corrected by using a pointing device such as a cursor key or a mouse.

When a character font is generated by using this device, a character written on paper is read by using the optical image forming unit 1a, and the character information is converted into an electric signal by the optical converting unit 1b.
Next, the electric signal is converted into a digital signal by the AD conversion unit 1c, binarized by the binarization unit 1d, and then recorded in the recording device.

Then, the character information is read from the recording device 2 and displayed on the display 4. When the character information is corrected, the image correction device 5 is used to perform processing such as correction of unevenness in the black and white boundary portion of a character graphic, correction of line width irregularity, and blackout. The corrected character information is temporarily stored in the recording device 2 and then transferred to the file device 6 for storage.

As described above, according to the conventional apparatus, it is possible to generate a character font by using a character written on paper as an original form.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) In this conventional apparatus, it is possible to perform processing such as correction of unevenness of a black and white boundary portion of a character graphic, correction of line width irregularity, and black crushing using a pointing device such as a cursor key and a mouse. However, there is a problem that it strongly depends on the quality of the character graphic before the image input.

When creating a Japanese font, it is difficult to design a character graphic with a consistent design over thousands of characters because of the large number of characters and complicated character shape. This problem is remarkable.

In the case of small-width fonts with a small number of dots, even if the design of the character graphic to be input into the image is slightly different from other characters, the design can be easily modified at the image modification stage.
In the case of large-width fonts, this kind of processing requires a considerable amount of work and is difficult to realize.

Therefore, the character graphic before the image input must be designed accurately and consistently, which requires a lot of man-hours.

The present invention has been made in view of the problems of the above-described conventional device, and a character font is generated by giving the device a characteristic in character and graphic design and expressing the character and graphic with a small number of parameters. The purpose is to reduce the design man-hours.

(Means and Actions for Solving Problems) The present invention relates to a character graphic formed by combining one or a plurality of strokes characterized by a type of stroke, a starting point, an intermediate point, an end point, and a bending degree of a line stroke. Means for image-inputting and digitalizing the digital image, display means for displaying the digitized character / graphics, start point, intermediate point of a stroke forming the character / graphics, which is designated on the display means, and Feature point acceptance means for accepting the position of the end point as the coordinates of the feature points of the stroke, and calculation means for determining the type of stroke of the stroke, line width, and degree of curve of the stroke based on the coordinates of the feature points of the stroke. ,
A means for holding the coordinates of the characteristic points, the type of the stroke, the line width, and the degree of bending of the stroke as the constituent parameters of the stroke, and a character font generation including the stroke generated based on the constituent parameter of the stroke. Character generation means, and display control means for performing display control so that the difference between the digital image-formed character graphic and the generated character font is combined and displayed on the display means in a form that can be visually discriminated. And a constitution parameter correcting means for correcting the constitution parameter of the stroke based on an operator's input, so that a character graphic is represented by a small number of parameters, and a design man-hour for generating a character font is reduced. There is a feature in the point.

(Example) Below, this invention is demonstrated with reference to an Example. FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, reference numerals 1 to 6 are the same as or have the same functions as those in FIG. 10 to 15 show the main part of the present invention, 10 is a feature point click unit, 11 is a temporary parameter calculation unit, 12 is a parameter correction unit, 13 is a parameter recording unit, 14 is a character synthesis unit, 15 is a parameter It is a file device. 16 is a mouse and 17 is a keyboard.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described.

First, a character written on paper is read using the optical image forming unit 1a, and the character information is converted into an electric signal by the photoelectric conversion unit 1b.
Next, the electric signal is converted into a digital signal by the AD conversion unit 1c, binarized by the binary writing unit 1d, and then recorded in the recording device 2. Then, the character information is read from the recording device 2 and displayed on the display 4 via the display control device 3. On the other hand, the character information recorded in the recording device 2 is recorded and stored in the file device 6.

By the above operation, the description will be continued assuming that the constituent elements of the character as shown in FIG. 2 are displayed on the display.

A brush stroke, which is a constituent element of a character, is composed of a combination of brush strokes, line brush strokes, folding strokes, and brush strokes, and the typeface is characterized by each form. As an example, in the case of Mincho type, there is no noticeable brush stroke, the line width in the horizontal direction is thinner than that in the vertical direction, and the scale is a scale.

Therefore, if you describe in software what form each of brush, line, folding, and writing has, you can specify the type of stroke, the coordinates of the start point, the middle point, and the end point, the line width, and the line stroke. With only the parameters that determine the degree of bending, it is possible to easily compose a brush stroke to write.

Therefore, the operation of determining the parameter will be further described with reference to FIG.

The parameters for determining the type of brush stroke, the coordinates of the start point, the intermediate point and the end point, the line width, and the degree of curve of the line brush shown in FIG. 2 are the coordinates of the position shown by * in FIG. If
It can be calculated. Therefore, the device 16 composed of a pointing device such as a mouse and the feature point click section 10 shown in FIG. The temporary parameter calculation unit 11 calculates the parameters.
This parameter is temporarily stored in the parameter recording unit 13 via the parameter correction unit 12. This parameter recording unit 13
In order to reproduce the character from the parameter stored in, the parameter can be sent to the character synthesizing unit 14 so that the synthesized character graphic can be displayed on the display 4.

As described above, the parameters necessary to form the character graphic can be easily obtained, but if the position clicked with the mouse 16 is bad, the character graphic synthesized from the calculated parameters will be the original image input It will not match the letters. In this embodiment, the following measures are taken to solve this problem.

That is, the original character is displayed on the display 4 based on the information of the original character sent from the recording device 2, and the combined character combined by the character combining unit 14 is displayed on the original character. When the composite character does not match the original character, the keyboard
Data is sent from 17 to the parameter correction unit 12 to correct the parameters. When the parameter is corrected, the character graphic synthesized based on the corrected parameter is displayed on the display 4, so that the parameter can be corrected while watching the display.

For example, the character graphic obtained by inputting an image displayed on the display, that is, the character graphic "I" of the original character is indicated by reference numeral 21 in FIG.
And the code 22 of the character figure obtained by the synthesis method.
In this case, both character figures are simultaneously displayed on the display as indicated by reference numeral 23 in the figure. At this time, the character and graphic obtained by image input and the character and graphic obtained by the synthesizing method are displayed in different colors on the CRT, and the XOR operation is performed on both screens so that the coincident portion can be highlighted.
A procedure for increasing the number of matching portions may be taken by correcting the parameters stepwise by using the keyboard 17 and the parameter correcting unit 12 with reference to the matching portions.

The parameter data thus obtained is recorded in the parameter file device 15 using the parameter recording unit 13. FIG. 5 shows an example of a conceptual diagram of parameters recorded in the parameter file device 15. The conceptual diagram includes a stroke composition of a character required for character composition (stroke 1, stroke 2, etc.), an element configuration of each stroke (writing, writing, writing, etc.), a program No. of each element (writing program No. Etc.) and parameters required for each program. The parameters are obtained as described above according to this embodiment.

By the above operation, it is possible to obtain the parameters that determine the type of the strokes forming the character graphic, the coordinates of the start point, the intermediate point and the end point, the line width, and the bending degree of the line brush, and record them in the parameter file device 15.

There are many thousands of kanji, but in the typeface, all the characters can be generated with only 44 kinds of strokes (See Table 1 on page 894 of the IEICE Transactions '86 / 6 Vol.J69-D NO.6. ). Therefore, for example, if the 44 types of strokes are obtained with the parameters as described above and stored in the file device, the strokes represented by the parameters can be combined to perform character synthesis, and thus any kanji Can be generated with the same design. In addition, the file device for storing the parameter can be less required.

The character font generated by the
When used in T etc., the parameters obtained in the present invention are input to the character synthesizing unit 14 and character synthesizing is performed, and then this is temporarily expanded in an image memory (not shown), and this is printed by a printer, a CRT.
Etc., or the character synthesizer may be incorporated in the printer or CRT.

(Effects of the Invention) As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, the following effects are achieved.

(1) Since the character font is expressed by parameters, the capacity of the file device for recording data is small and an inexpensive device can be provided.

(2) The character font is not recorded as image data as it is, but is recorded with a small number of parameters, so that the shape and quality of brush strokes, such as brush strokes, writing brushes, etc., which characterize the character font design, are made uniform. You can As a result, by supporting the consistency of the character font design from the device side, the addition of the character design over thousands of characters is significantly reduced.

(3) Character fonts of any font size can be created by scaling the same data, so once you create data with a certain size, you do not need to design character font sizes of other sizes, and character design Man-hours can be significantly reduced.

(4) Since the basic character graphic and the generated character font are combined and displayed, and the composition parameter of the stroke can be corrected while seeing the difference between them, there is an effect that the character font can be generated interactively.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a brush stroke, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing mouse click positions, FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a parameter correction method, and FIG. The figure is a conceptual diagram of the data recorded in the parameter file device,
FIG. 6 shows a block diagram of a conventional device. 1 ... Image input device, 4 ... Display, 10 ... Feature point click unit, 11 ... Temporary parameter calculation unit, 12 ... Parameter correction unit, 13 ... Parameter recording unit, 14 ... Character combining unit, 15 ...... Parameter file device

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A means for digitally converting a character graphic formed by combining one or a plurality of strokes characterized by the type of stroke, starting point, intermediate point, end point, and curvedness of line stroke and converting it into a digital image. Display means for displaying the digitized character graphic, and positions of the start point, the intermediate point, and the end point of the stroke forming the character graphic designated on the display means as the characteristic points of the stroke. Feature point receiving means for receiving the coordinate as a coordinate, and the type of the stroke of the stroke based on the coordinates of the feature point of the stroke,
Line width, a calculating means for obtaining the bending degree of the stroke, a means for holding the coordinates of the feature points and the calculated type of the stroke, the bending degree of the stroke of the line width as a constituent parameter of the stroke, Character generating means for generating a character font composed of strokes generated on the basis of configuration parameters; and a difference between the digital image-formed character figure and the generated character font is visually distinguishable on the display means. A character font generation device, comprising: a display control unit for controlling display so as to be combined and displayed on the screen; and a configuration parameter correction unit for correcting the configuration parameter of the stroke based on an input by an operator. .