Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing – Shape generating
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-24
2004-07-27
Bella, Matthew C. (Department: 2676)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
Shape generating
34, 34, 34, C382S190000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06768488
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an image processing technique. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image filling method, an apparatus and a computer readable medium storing the program.
2. Description of the Related Art
First, the related art which corresponds to the after-mentioned first object will be described. Conventionally, a line drawing on a sheet of paper is transferred to a cell which is colored manually with a paintbrush when producing animation. Recently, this work is being replaced by digital painting in which the line drawing is digitized by a scanner and is filled by using a computer. Therefore, it becomes easy to fill the line drawing which was very difficult conventionally. However, it is necessary to fill the digitized line drawing data manually one by one even after the digital painting is introduced.
As conventional techniques, Japanese patent No.2835752 and Japanese laid open patent application No.9-134422 disclose a technique for filling a plurality of line drawings at a time by specifying coordinates (a seed point) from which the filling is started, wherein the coordinates are common for regions where a plurality of line drawings are superimposed and filled with the same color.
In the technique of the Japanese patent No. 2835752, the barycenter position of each closed region, and lateral and vertical lengths of a circumscribed rectangle of each closed region are extracted from an unfilled image and the filled image as features. Then, the unfilled image is filled by referring to the corresponding region of the filled image by using the features. According to the above invention, a region which has relatively small movement can be filled with the same color of the corresponding region of the filled image.
In the Japanese laid open patent application No.9-134422, when filling closed regions of a line drawing, a point determined in the closed region and a color selected according to the point are correlated and stored. When the point is located in the same closed region of next images that follows, the color corresponding to the point is called and added to the closed region. Accordingly, filling images which moves successively can be performed speedily and effectively.
However, in the invention of the Japanese patent No.2835752, since only the barycenter position of each closed region and lateral and vertical lengths of a circumscribed rectangle of each closed region are extracted, and used as feature data, there is a problem that the calculation amount for obtaining the barycenter position is large.
In the invention of the Japanese laid open patent application No.9-134422, when overlapping closed regions of a plurality of unfilled line images should be filled with the same color, the closed regions can be filled in a stroke with a seed point which has the same coordinates in the plurality of line drawings. Thus, the invention is built on a premise that there are overlapping closed regions which have the same meaning and should be filled with the same color in a plurality of line drawings. Therefore, this method can be applied to only regions with relatively small movement, thereby there is a problem that many judgments by the operator are necessary.
Next, the related art which corresponds to the second object will be described. Conventionally, a boundary line of red, blue or the like (a colored line) is used as well as a black boundary line when producing animation. There is a following rule.
When a line drawing on a sheet of paper is transferred to a cell, only the black boundary lines are transferred. Then, if a red boundary line is specified when the transferred cell is put on the line drawing, the red boundary line is traced by the brighter color which is one of colors of sides which are divided by the boundary line. If a blue boundary line is specified when the transferred cell is put on the line drawing, the blue boundary line is traced by the darker color which is one of colors of each side which is divided by the boundary line.
In recent years, the line drawings are digitized and digital painting becomes widespread, in which the line drawing is transferred to the cell and is filled on a computer. Thus, the color of the colored line (boundary line) of red or blue should be changed sooner or later on a computer.
FIG. 1A
shows the line drawing drawn by the colored line and
FIG. 1B
shows the filled image of the line drawing. The colored line in the filled image needs to be filled with a proper color as shown in FIG.
1
C. For this purpose, there are conventional technologies such as a paint bucket tool, a filling process method with function of filling the colored line and the Japanese patent No.2762753.
The paint bucket tool is a common name of a filling tool widely used for a general painting system and the like. When a pixel is specified by a pointing device such as a mouse, pixels which are connected to the pointed pixel and have the same color as the color of the pointed pixel are filled with a predetermined color by the paint bucket tool.
FIGS. 2A-2D
show a general example for filling a colored line by using the paint bucket tool. When filling a closed region enclosed by a colored line and the colored line shown in
FIG. 2A
by using the paint bucket tool, the closed region is filled by the paint bucket tool first (FIG.
2
B), then the colored line is filled with the same color (FIG.
2
C). As a result, the image shown in
FIG. 2D
is obtained. The order in which the processing shown in FIG.
2
B and the
FIG. 2C
can be reverse.
On the other hand, the filling process method with function of filling the colored line is adopted by software specialized for animation filling. According to the method, the colored line is filled with the color used for filling the region enclosed by the colored line at the same time when the region is filled.
FIGS. 3A
,
3
B shows the example. As shown
FIGS. 3A
,
3
B, the closed region enclosed by the colored line and the colored line are filled at the same time when the inside of the closed region is filled. As a consequence, the colored line is filled with the color which is used first for filling each region enclosed by the colored line.
In the method of the Japanese patent No.2762753, every closed region is labeled and a filter of a size is defined, in which the filter is centered by a target pixel on a boundary line when the boundary line is the colored line. Then, the maximum label number within the filter is provided to the target pixel. The processing will be described with reference to
FIGS. 4A-A
c
. As shown in
FIG. 4A
, a label number
5
is assigned to the upper closed region of the colored line and a label number
23
is assigned to the lower closed region. As shown in
FIG. 4B
, by applying the filter which is wider than the thickness of the colored line, the maximum label number within the filter is assigned to the label number of the colored line. As a result, as shown in
FIG. 4C
, the label number of the colored line becomes
23
.
However, in the case when a colored line should be filled with a plurality of colors, there is a following problem. As shown in
FIGS. 5A and 5B
, by using the paint bucket tool, the same color pixels which are connected successively to a pixel on which the paint bucket tool is applied are filled with a color. Therefor, for filling such a colored line by using the paint bucket tool, the region on which the paint bucket tool is applied should be specified in advance as shown in
FIG. 6A
such that the paint bucket tool is applied in the specified region as shown in FIG.
6
B. Such a case occurs very frequently in which a colored line should be divided and filled with a plurality of colors. However, there is a problem in that it takes much time to specify the regions to which the paint bucket tool is applied in a shape of the colored line.
FIG. 7
shows the problem of the filling tool with filling function to the colored line. The filling tool has a rule in which the colored line i
Aoki Masakatsu
Kotani Naoya
Teranishi Kyoko
Bella Matthew C.
Chen Po-Wei
Kenyon & Kenyon
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation
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