Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing – Graphic manipulation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-15
2001-11-27
Brier, Jeffery (Department: 2672)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
Graphic manipulation
C358S452000, C399S183000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06323876
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a digital copying machine, in particular, a technique of specifying a region in an image and processing it.
BACKGROUND ART
In the conventional image processing, a scanner provided in a digital copying machine reads an image on an original document. A user designates a region of the image thus read, by specifying at least two coordinates. The image designated is subjected to processing such as edition or insertion.
To designate the region of the image, the coordinates must be specified very precisely, however. Hence, the user needs to spend much time and labor to specify the coordinates if the region has a complicated shape.
In stead of specifying the coordinates of the image region, there is provided another method by which a desired image region in an original document is specified with a marker or the like in advance, and then the original document is read by a scanner to recognize the specified image region. According to this method, however, it is very troublesome when a plurality of original documents are given for a user to manually specify each of image regions in each of the original documents.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to provide an image region specifying method by which a user can easily specify a desired image region on the basis of the image discrimination result of a read original document (by one action, for example), an image processing apparatus for processing the image of the specified image region, and an image forming apparatus.
In order to solve the aforementioned problem, according to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided image processing apparatus comprising: image region determination means for determining a plurality of image regions in input image of the original document on the basis of input image data of the original document; display means for displaying positions of the image regions determined by the image region determination means in the image of the original document; specifying means for specifying at least one position of a point on the basis of contents displayed by the display means; determination means for determining an image region corresponding to the specified position as a specified region on the basis of coordinates of the position specified by the specifying means and relative positions of the image regions; and image processing means for processing an image in the specified region determined by the determination means.
Image region determination means has means for determining more than one non-image region located between the determined plurality of image regions. The determination means determine the non-image region as the specified region when the specified position is located in the non-image region determined by the image region determination means. The display means has means for displaying the specified region determined by the determination means so as to be discriminated from the other image regions, for example, by changing the brightness therein.
The display means has means for displaying a contour of each of the image regions determined by the image region determination means at a corresponding position in a frame of the image of the original document.
The image region determination means comprises means for calculating a position and a size of each of objects constituting the image of the original document in order to supply them as a featuring amount; and means for determining a plurality of image regions by unifying each of collections of the objects having the same attribute on the basis of the featuring amount.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4896208 (1990-01-01), Moriya et al.
patent: 5406389 (1995-04-01), Hasegawa et al.
patent: 5831590 (1998-11-01), Ikedo
patent: 5937232 (1999-08-01), Taguchi et al.
patent: 1-212072 (1989-08-01), None
patent: 2-59880 (1990-02-01), None
patent: 3-172073 (1991-07-01), None
Kanno Hiroki
Rao Gururaj
Brier Jeffery
Foley & Lardner
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
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