JPH0754552B2 - Method and apparatus for filling outline font composed of characters by element - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a point having a closed contour line, a vertical bar, a horizontal bar,
Character information composed of halves, flutters, etc. (hereinafter, the element in this specification does not include a bias, a stroke (creation), a fluff, or an image composed of two sticks) is represented by a digital signal. The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for filling an outline font for each element in a character generator for storing and assembling characters in an image display device or a printing device based on the digital signal.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, there are a dot method, a run length method, and a vector outline method as a method of storing character information by a digital method. When importance is attached to high quality of characters, enlargement or reduction of display size, and freedom of transformation, a vector outline type character information storage method is generally adopted.

Since Japanese characters have more characters and are more complicated than Western characters, dots, vertical strokes, horizontal strokes, and halves composed of closed contour lines are assembled to form one character. In the character thus configured, it is easier to move, add, or delete a dot or an image, etc., than an outline character in which the outlines of the entire character are collectively configured.

If one character is composed in advance of a point, a vertical image, a horizontal image, and a horizontal line, which have closed contours, there is an advantage that many points or images can be used in common.

On the other hand, the dot signal is output according to the even-odd method (Applicant: JEOL Co., Ltd.) in which the characters composed of the contour line information are filled in black as dot characters, and the vector direction of the scanning line and the contour line intersecting the scanning line. Non-
There is a zero winding method.

In the even-odd method, the contour line information is converted into a dot signal “1” in the storage device before the contour line information of the character is output, and the dot signal is converted to the first “1” on the scanning line.
All the "0" s up to the next dot signal "1" are converted to "1" to generate a character by the dot signal.

However, in the even-odd method, in the case of a character in which contour lines such as different points or strokes may intersect, an unpainted portion is generated at the intersection, which is not desirable as a character. That is, in the case of a character based on contour line information such as a point or an image, when the contour lines of different points or images contact or intersect with each other, the scanning line intersects with the contour line of another point or image for the second time. It is mistaken for crossing. Therefore, although it is necessary to continuously output the dot signal “1”, the dot signal changes to “0” and becomes white, and as a result, an unpainted portion occurs.

If there is only one vertex such as a point or an image,
Since only the dot that changes the dot signal to "1" is present and there is no second dot that changes the dot signal to "0", an accurate dot signal cannot be generated. Therefore, when there are vertices at points or images, it is necessary to forcefully arrange two dot signals while ignoring the viewpoint of character design.

In this regard, the even-odd method is not suitable for generating a dot signal by forming one character with a point having a closed contour line, a vertical image, a horizontal image, and a horizontal line.

In the non-zero winding method, the vector direction of the outer contour line of the character is opposite to the vector direction of the inner contour line of the character. This character is scanned from an arbitrary direction, and the vector direction of the intersection of the scanning line and the outline of the character is obtained.

At this time, if the vector direction of the intersection is positive, 1 is added to the register. If the vector direction of the intersection is negative, -1 is added to the register and the value of the register is 0.
The dot signal "1" continues to be generated until.

According to the non-zero winding method, a dot signal can be generated even when the contour lines of characters intersect with each other, so that no unpainted portion is left in the contour lines of characters.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

However, in the case of a character composed of a simple contour line consisting of dots, vertical strokes, horizontal strokes, and halves, it is necessary to slightly move the dots or halves of the letters when the characters are modified in design.

In such a case, in view of the balance of the entire character, if there are intersections or contact points of points or images, there is a problem that even points or images that do not need to be moved must be corrected.

When the amount of movement of one point or image is large, the movement must be performed after separating from the other point or image which was in contact. In the case of complicated Japanese kanji that is crowded, there is a problem that there are many inconveniences in character creation when the characters are modified, a new inner contour line is generated or the inner contour line disappears. It was

In the case of the even-odd method, the intersection or contact part of points or images is left unpainted, and only one dot exists at the vertex of points or images, so the dot signal is set to "0". Since it has to be provided with, there is a problem that it is difficult to obtain good characters in terms of design.

In the case of the non-zero winding method, the vector directions of the outer contour line and the inner contour line such as points or strokes must be correctly given in opposite directions, but in the case of Japanese characters with complicated shapes, At first glance, there is a problem that it is difficult to distinguish the outer contour line from the inner contour line.

In order to solve the problems as described above, the present invention, even in the case of a complicated character shape in which a point consisting of a closed contour line, a vertical bar, a horizontal bar, a hail, a hem, etc. An object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for filling an outline font by element that is simple and requires a small amount of information.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an element-based outline font filling method and apparatus in which characters can be easily moved or modified and no unpainted portion remains.

[Means for Solving the Problems]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the method for filling an outline font for each element of the present invention is an outline for each element that constitutes one character only by a point consisting of a closed contour line, a vertical bar, a horizontal bar, a line, a line, etc. One character is read from the outline font information storage unit that stores font information, all the outer contour lines of the character are set to the same vector direction, the contour line of the character is scanned from an arbitrary direction, and the contour line and the scanning line are combined. The positive / negative of the vector direction of the contour line of the intersection is analyzed, 1 is output when the vector direction is positive, -1 is output when the vector direction is negative, and the result of adding the outputs by the adder is Unless it becomes 0, dot signal "1" is output. If it is 0, dot signal "0" is output, and this operation is repeated for one character or all elements. When it is impossible to determine the vector direction of the character or element in the outline font filling method for each element, the contour line of the character or element is multiplied by 4, and the 4n + 1th scanning line and 4n-
After selecting the first scanning line and the scanning line separately, the positive and negative in the vector direction are analyzed for each scanning line to form a dot signal, and the dot signal of each scanning line is combined to output one character or element. To do.

According to the outline font filling method for each element of the present invention, regardless of whether the vector direction of the character or element can be determined or not, the character or element is converted into a dot signal after the contour line of the character or element is multiplied by four. Is characterized by.

The outline font filling device for each element of the present invention includes a closed contour point, a vertical bar, a horizontal bar,
A character storage device 3 that stores coordinate point data of outline fonts for each element that constitutes one character only by characters such as a line and a line as an arbitrary same vector direction, and the vector direction of the intersection of the scanning line and the contour line is positive. Vector direction determining unit 21 for the contour line that determines whether the direction is negative or negative, and outputs 1 in the positive direction and -1 in the negative direction.
An adder 22 for adding the outputs of the contour vector direction determiner 21, a comparator 23 for comparing the addition result of the adder 22 with 0, and unless the comparison result of the comparator 23 is 0,
A quadrupling process of a contour line that quadruples a contour line that outputs a dot signal "1" and outputs a dot signal "0" when it is 0 vessel
25, and a scanning line selector 26 that selects the 4n ± 1st scanning line,
27 and 4n + selected by the scanning line selectors 26, 27
For the first scanning line and the 4n−1th scanning line, the contour vector direction determining unit 21, the adder 22, the comparator 23, and the dot signal generator for generating dot signals, respectively
24, and a dot signal synthesizer 28 for synthesizing characters by taking the logical sum of the dot signals for each scanning line.

[Action]

The applicant of the present invention can compose a single character with only a point having a closed contour line, a vertical bar, a horizontal bar, a halo, a hem, etc. It was discovered that the amount of character information can be reduced.

That is, the contour vector direction determiner 21 determines whether the vector direction of the contour is positive or negative. The vector direction determining unit 21 for the contour line outputs +1 when the vector direction at the intersection of the contour line and the scanning line is positive, and when the vector direction is negative,
It outputs -1. The adder 22 adds the output +1 or -1 in the contour vector direction determiner 21, and then compares the addition result with 0 by the comparator 23.

The dot signal generator 24, when the comparison result is other than 0,
Output the dot signal "1" and fill the outline with black. Further, the dot signal generator 24 has a value of 0 in the comparator.
In the case of, the dot signal “0” is output and the outside of the contour line is painted white.

Next, when the vector direction of the contour line cannot be determined, the contour line quadrupling processor 25 multiplies the scanning line of the contour line X by four.

4n ± 1st scanning line selector 26, 27
Only those on the 4n ± 1st scanning line are selected, and the processing for outputting the dot signal is performed only on those on this scanning line.

Then, in order to output the dot signal, the contour vector direction determining unit 21, the adder 22, the comparator 23, and the dot signal generator 24 perform exactly the same processing as before quadrupling the contour scanning line. After that, the dot signal synthesizer 28
The logical sum of the dot signals obtained by the first scanning line and the (4n-1) th scanning line is calculated to fill the contour line.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram for explaining the present embodiment. A keyboard 1 is used to input a desired character and display the character on an image display device or print it on a printer.

An address generation circuit 2 outputs an address signal for each element of one character from the input code based on the input of the keyboard 1.

A character storage device 3 outputs one character or one element in response to an address signal from the address generation circuit 2. A buffer memory 4 for one character stores one character output from the character storage device 3. A buffer memory 5 for one element stores one element output from the character storage device 3.

Reference numeral 6 denotes an arithmetic circuit, which fills the one character or one element with a dot signal. At this time, the arithmetic circuit 6 has a function of determining whether the vector direction of the intersection of the character or element contour line and the scanning line is positive or negative, an addition function, a comparison function, a dot signal generation function, and the like.

Reference numeral 7 is a buffer memory for one character, which stores one character or one element painted by the arithmetic circuit 6.

Reference numeral 8 denotes an output device, for example, an image display device or a printer, which outputs the one-character buffer memory 7
One character is displayed on the image display device or printed on the printer.

First, for a character or element typed in with the keyboard 1, the address generation circuit 2 generates the coordinate point data forming the outline of the character or element according to the code. Based on this coordinate point data, the character or element previously stored in the character storage device 3 is stored in the buffer memory 4 for one character or the buffer memory 5 for one element.

In this embodiment, the buffer memory 4 for one character is
Since it is equipped with a buffer memory 5 for one element, one character can be made into a dot character all at once, and from an educational point of view, one element is dot by element in the order of writing (writing order). Characters can also be displayed.

The characters or elements stored in the buffer memories 4 and 5 are processed as follows by the function of the arithmetic circuit 6. That is, it is determined whether the vector direction of the intersection of the contour line of the character or element and the scanning line is positive or negative.

Then, +1 is output when the vector direction is positive, and -1 is output when the vector direction is negative, and this value is added by the adder. Unless the added result is 0, the dot signal "1" is output and the inside of the outline of the character or element is painted black. If the added result is 0, the dot signal "0" is output and the outside of the outline of the character or element is painted white.

Further, in the case of a line parallel to the apex or scanning line of a character or element, the vector direction of the contour cannot be determined, so the contour of the character or element is multiplied by four. Select the 4n ± 1st scan line and select this scan line and
Whether the vector direction is positive or negative at the intersection with the doubled character or element outline is determined.

The subsequent operation outputs the dot signal in the same manner as described above. Finally, the logical sum of the dot signal output from the (4n + 1) th scanning line and the dot signal output from the (4n-1) th scanning line is ORed to synthesize a character or element.

According to the present embodiment, it is not necessary to store the character information of the outer and inner contour lines for a complicated character, and it is possible to accurately fill the vertex of a character or element or a line parallel to a scanning line with a dot signal. .

Next, another embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 to 5.

FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of the arithmetic circuit in FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of dot signals when the contour line is quadrupled, and FIGS. 4 and 5 are vector direction explanatory diagrams of the contour line. .

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 21 is a contour vector direction determiner.
It is determined whether the vector direction of the contour line is positive or negative. If the vector direction at the intersection of the character or element contour line and the scanning line is positive, +1 is output, and the vector direction at the intersection is negative. In the case of, -1 is output.

An adder 22 adds the +1 or -1 output by the contour vector direction determining unit 21.

A comparator 23 compares the addition result stored in the register (not shown) of the adder 22 with 0.

Reference numeral 24 denotes a dot signal generator which outputs a dot signal "1" when the comparison result of the comparator 23 is other than 0 to blacken the outline of the character or element. When the value of the comparator is 0, the dot signal “0” is output,
Paint the outside of the outline of the character or element white.

As shown in FIG. 3, for example, with respect to the contour line X having a vertex or a line parallel to the scanning line, the positive / negative of the vector direction cannot be determined.

Therefore, the contour quadrupling processor 25 multiplies the scanning line of the contour X by 4 to obtain the contour Y shown in FIG. 26 and 27 are 4n ± 1st scanning line selectors, which have four times the outline
Select only those on the 4n ± 1st scan line. That is, in the example of FIG. 3, the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth scanning lines are selected. After that, the process for outputting the dot signal is performed only for those on the scanning line.

Then, in order to output the dot signal, the contour vector direction determining unit 21, the adder 22, the comparator 23, and the dot signal generator 24 perform exactly the same processing as before quadrupling the contour scanning line. To do.

28 is a dot signal synthesizer, which is the 4n + 1st scanning line and 4n
The logical sum of the dot signals obtained with the -1st scanning line is taken to fill the outline.

That is, as shown in FIG. 3, the logical sum of the dot signals of the third scanning line and the fifth scanning line is calculated. But 3
Since the dot signal is not generated on the scanning line No. 9, the dot signal synthesizer 28 outputs the dot signal on the scanning line No. 5. Then, this dot signal is used as the dot signal of the first scanning line of the contour line X. Next, the logical sum of the dot signals generated by the 7th and 9th scanning lines is calculated.

Then, this dot signal is used as the dot signal of the second scanning line of the contour line X. The same is done for the eleventh and thirteenth scanning lines, and this is used as the dot signal of the third scanning line of the contour line X.

As described above, the contour line having the vertex or the parallel line is 4
By multiplying, the accurate dot signal in this portion is obtained, but needless to say, 4 times is merely an example, and 3 times or more is possible. However, a multiplier is required to perform the triple processing, but in the case of 2 to the n-th power, it is only necessary to shift the register by n digits, and thus it is the easiest to multiply by four.

It is also possible to perform a process for obtaining a dot signal by quadrupling the outline of a character or element from the beginning. Furthermore, all processing can be performed by software.

Next, specific characters will be described using the above device.

FIG. 4 shows contour lines for each element of the letter “material”. This "material" is composed of elements from, unlike the case of writing by hand. Elements or outlines are all outer outlines,
It has no inner contour. Then, a clockwise or counterclockwise vector direction is set for all the elements or contour lines. The vector direction of the “material” shown in FIG. 4 is set counterclockwise.

First, the case of painting an element will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 4.

When the element is scanned by the scanning line A, the contour vector direction determining unit 21 determines that the intersection 41 of the scanning line A and the contour line
The vector direction of is determined to be a positive direction, +1 is output and input to a register (not shown) of the adder 22.

Next, since the vector direction of the intersection 42 between the scanning line A and the contour line is opposite, the vector direction determining unit 21 for the contour line determines that the vector direction of the intersection 42 is negative and outputs -1. Input to the register of the adder 22.

When the result of the register input to the adder 22 is compared by the comparator 23, and when it is determined that the result is not 0, the intersections 41 to 42 of the elements are changed to the dot signal "1" to be black.

When the comparator 23 determines 0, the dot signal "0" is changed to the white after the intersection 42 of the elements.

Further, the scanning lines are sequentially moved down and the same processing is performed. As a result, the inside of the contour line is converted into a dot signal, and is filled in with black.

The scanning line B passing through the element and will be described.

Since the vector direction of the intersection 43 of the scanning line B and the contour of the element is the positive direction, 1 is added to the register (not shown) by the adder 22. At this time, the content of the register is 1.

Since the vector direction of the intersection 44 of the scanning line B and the contour of the element is also the positive direction, 1 is added to the register (not shown) by the adder 22 to set the content of the register to 2.

Since the vector direction of the intersection 45 between the scanning line B and the contour of the element is the negative direction, the adder 22 adds -1 to the register (not shown) to set the content of the register to 1.

Since the vector direction of the intersection 46 of the scanning line B and the outline of the element is the positive direction, 1 is added to the register (not shown) by the adder 22 and the content of the register is set to 2.

Since the vector direction of the intersection 47 between the scanning line B and the contour of the element is the opposite negative direction, the adder 22 adds -1 to a register (not shown) to set the content of the register to 1.

Since the vector direction of the intersection 48 between the scanning line B and the contour of the element is the negative direction, -1 is added to the register (not shown) by the adder 22 to set the content of the register to 0.
And

The comparator 23 compares 0 of the comparator with the contents of the register,
When the content of the register is other than 0, that is, from the intersection 43 to the intersection 48, the dot signal generator 24 generates a dot signal "1", and the area between them is painted black.

In addition, the intersection before 43 and the intersection where the contents of the register are 0
After 48, the dot signal generator 24 generates a dot signal “0” and fills the space with white.

Even if the scanning line is at the position C, even if elements such as and overlap intricately, if the vector direction of the contour line of each element is fixed, dot signals are generated in the element as described above. It can be turned into black and painted black.

Furthermore, as another embodiment of the present invention, the character "A"
An example of is shown in FIG.

The character "a" shown in FIG. 5 has a contour line that cuts into the inside of its own contour line. Even in such a case, the scanning line D
The vector directions of the intersections between the contour lines and the contour lines are as shown in the figure. Therefore, the contents of the register are 1 at the intersection 51, 2 at the intersection 52, 1 at the intersection 53, 2 at the intersection 54, and so on. It becomes 1 at the portion 55 and becomes 0 at the intersecting portion 56, and it is possible to form a dot signal between these portions and paint it black.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the invention, a point consisting of a closed contour line, a vertical bar,
A single character is composed only of elements such as horizontal bars, halves, and dots, and characters are not composed using biases, strokes, and drawings, so the amount of character information can be reduced. , Even a complicated character does not have an inner contour line and can be a simple character having only an outer contour line.

According to the invention, a point consisting of a closed contour line, a vertical bar,
Since one character is composed only of elements such as horizontal bars, halves, and dots, the outline information does not change even if elements are modified, added, or deleted when producing characters. Therefore, even in a complicated character, the inner contour line does not occur, so that the character can be easily corrected, added, or deleted.

According to the invention, a point consisting of a closed contour line, a vertical bar,
Since a character is composed only of elements such as horizontal bars, halves, and dots, it is possible to obtain accurate dot signals by making the vector directions of all elements the same.

According to the present invention, since the contour line of the element is processed four times, even if the contour line of the element includes a vertex or a parallel line, that portion can be correctly converted into a dot signal.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining the present embodiment, FIG. 2 is a block diagram for an arithmetic circuit in the present invention, FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining dot signals when a contour line is quadrupled, and FIG. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of the vector direction of the contour line, and FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of another embodiment of the present invention. 1 ... keyboard, 2 ... address generation circuit 3 ... character storage device 4 ... buffer memory for 1 character 5 ... buffer memory for 1 element 6 ... operation circuit 7 ... buffer memory for 1 character 8 …… Output device 21 …… Contour line vector direction determiner 22 …… Adder, 23 …… Comparator 24 …… Dot signal generator 25 …… Contour line quadrupling processor 26 …… 4n + 1st scan Line selector 27 …… 4n-1st scanning line selector 28 …… Dot signal synthesizer

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A character is written from an outline font information storage means for storing information of an outline font for each element which constitutes one character only by a point consisting of a closed contour line, a vertical bar, a horizontal bar, a line, a line, etc. Read, all the outer contour lines of the character are in the same vector direction, the contour line of the character is scanned from an arbitrary direction, and the positive / negative of the vector direction of the contour line at the intersection of the contour line and the scanning line is analyzed.
When the vector direction is positive, 1 is output, when the vector direction is negative, -1 is output, and the dot signal "1" is output unless the result of adding the outputs by the adder is 0, For dot signal “0”
Is output, and this operation is repeated for one character or all elements, in the outline font filling method for each element, if the vector direction of the character or element cannot be determined, the outline of the character or element is multiplied by four. ,
After selecting the 4n + 1th scanning line and the 4n−1th scanning line separately, the positive / negative of the vector direction is analyzed for each scanning line to form a dot signal, and the dot signal of each scanning line is combined to generate one character or Element outline font filling method characterized by outputting elements. 2. The character or element is converted into a dot signal after the contour line of the character or element is multiplied by 4 regardless of whether or not the vector direction of the character or element can be determined.
How to fill the outlined outline font for each element. 3. A character for storing coordinate point data of an outline font for each element that constitutes one character only by a point having a closed contour line, a vertical bar, a horizontal bar, a line, a line, etc., as an arbitrary same vector direction. It is determined whether the vector direction of the storage device and the intersection of the scanning line and the contour line is the positive direction or the negative direction.
, A vector direction determining unit for the contour line that outputs −1 in the case of a negative direction, an adder that adds the outputs of the vector direction determining unit for the contour line, and a comparator that compares the addition result of the adder with 0. And the dot signal "1" unless the comparison result of the comparator is 0.
Is output, and when it is 0, a dot signal generator that outputs a dot signal “0”, and an outline font filling device for each element consisting of
Quadrupling processor for contour line to be doubled, scanning line selector for selecting 4n ± first scanning line, 4n + 1th scanning line and 4n−1th scanning selected by the scanning line selector For each line, a vector direction determiner, an adder, a comparator, and a dot signal generator for generating dot signals, respectively, and dot signal synthesis for synthesizing characters by taking the logical sum of the dot signals for each scanning line An outline font filling device for each element, which is equipped with a container.