Image analysis – Image segmentation
Reexamination Certificate
1997-02-28
2001-04-03
Couso, Jose L. (Department: 2624)
Image analysis
Image segmentation
C382S174000, C382S175000, C382S177000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06212294
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing method and an image processing apparatus for appointing an area in a supplied image.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hitherto, wide use of image reading apparatus, such as image scanners, result in known image processing apparatus (image processing software included) which are capable of using or processing an image read photoelectrically.
In order to appoint a partial area of an image formed by a conventional image processing apparatus of the foregoing type, there has been a most usual method that appoints, i.e. designates or assigns, an area within a rectangular shape. The method comprises the steps of displaying an image on a display, and acquiring coordinates of the diagonals of an area in the image to be appointed by using a pointing device, such as a mouse.
There is another method for appointing an area within a polygon. The foregoing method comprises the step of sequentially appointing vertexes of an appointed polygon. Thus, an area in the form of a further complicated shape can be appointed.
For example, the following portions can be appointed from an original image formed on a display device as shown in FIG.
21
: a character image
2101
which is a portion of a document, a table image
2102
, an image
2103
of a graph and its title and a portion
2104
of a half tone image, such as a photograph.
However, appointing of the character image
2101
with the foregoing conventional image processing apparatus using a polygon to appoint an area because the area cannot be appointed within a rectangle has a problem that a large number of operations must be performed to appoint the area because the polygon has 8 vertexes, thus resulting in requiring an excessively long time to complete the appointing process.
When an image is displayed on the display device, the original image is thinned to make the overall area of the image to be included in the display. If an area is appointed on the displayed screen, an accurate position cannot easily be appointed. Therefore, an image adjacent to the boundary, which must be positioned on the outside of the appointed area, is undesirably introduced into the appointed area, and therefore a problem arises that an area cannot accurately be appointed.
In order to overcome the foregoing problems, there is a technology having an arrangement that an original image or an image having a changed thinning magnification is displayed to appoint an accurate position. However, the foregoing case results in a necessity of additional operations exemplified by an operation of switching the displaying magnification of a displayed image and an image scrolling operation and the like. As a result, the number of operations required to complete the area appointment increases and thus a problem arises in that the operation of appointing an area becomes too complicated.
That is, although the appointment of an image can be considered as a selection of pixels, there are many cases that the minimum unit of an appointed area does not need to be the pixel unit. For example, one character image unit is the minimum unit of the character image
2101
, the line and the array or cell unit is the same as the table image
2102
, the graph portion and the title portion are the same as the image
2103
of the graph and its title. In the foregoing circumstance, the conventional image processing apparatus enables only the appointment in a pixel unit to be performed, and accordingly the foregoing problems arise.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to overcoming the problems experienced with the foregoing conventional technology, and therefore an object of the present invention is to provide an image processing method and an apparatus which are capable of easily appointing a portion of a supplied image with a decreased number of operations or by easily making a subject image visible.
In order to achieve the foregoing object, according to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image processing method capable of receiving an image and appointing a position of an arbitrary pixel in the image, the image processing method comprising: an image block taking process for taking an image block from the received image; a start position acquiring process for acquiring a start position of an appointed area; an end position acquiring process for acquiring an end position of the appointed area; and an appointed image block determining process for determining an appointed image block in the taken image block in accordance with the start position of the appointed area and the end position of the appointed area.
As a result, the area appointment of a portion of an image can be performed in image block units, and therefore the area appointment operation can easily be performed.
In order to achieve the foregoing object, according to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image processing method having a plurality of image area appointing processes, the image processing method comprising: a switching process of switching the image area appointing process.
As a result, the area appointment operation can easily be performed.
In order to achieve the foregoing object, according to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image processing apparatus capable of receiving an image and appointing a position of an arbitrary pixel in the image, the image processing apparatus comprising: image block taking means for taking an image block from the received image; start position acquiring means for acquiring a start position of an appointed area; end position acquiring means for acquiring an end position of the appointed area; and appointed image block determining means for determining an appointed image block in the taken image block in accordance with the start position of the appointed area and the end position of the appointed area.
As a result, the area appointment of a portion of an image can be performed in image block units, and therefore the area appointment operation can easily be performed.
In order to achieve the foregoing object, according to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image processing apparatus having a plurality of image area appointing means, the image processing apparatus comprising: switch means for switching the image area appointing means.
As a result, the area appointment operation can easily be performed.
In order to achieve the foregoing object, according to another aspect of the present invention, it is preferable that an image processing method according to the first aspect further comprises: a connection process for connecting the image block taken in the image block taking process to one image block array; a start image block determining process for determining an appointment area start image block in accordance with the start position of the appointed area; an end image block determining process for determining an appointed area end image block in accordance with the end position of the appointed area; and an appointed image block determining process for determining image blocks in the image block array existing from the appointed area start image block to the appointed area end image block as the appointed image blocks.
In order to achieve the foregoing object, according to another aspect of the present invention, it is preferable that an image processing method according to the first aspect further comprises: a connection process for connecting an image block taken in the image block taking process to one unit of an image block matrix; a start image block determining process for determining the start image block in the appointed area in accordance with the start position of the appointed area; an end image block determining process for determining the end image block in the appointed area in accordance with the end position of the appointed area; and an appointed image block determining process for determining, as the appointed image blocks, image blocks in t
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Couso Jose L.
Do Anh Hong
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
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