Abstract: In a printing system constituted by a host computer and a printer, in an operating system of the host computer, a GDI module receives a drawing command from an application, and converts this drawing command into another drawing command which can be understood by a printer device driver. In the device driver, first, a preprocessor receivers the drawing command from the GDI module, and detects black areas contacting with color areas in figures or characters in a page on the basis of this received drawing command. Next, the preprocessor revises the drawing command so that the color of black areas contacting with color areas is changed from pure black to composite black. After this, the revised drawing command is sent to a rasterizer and a half toning portion sequentially, and converted into bit map data which can be understood by the printer. This bit map data is supplied to the printer through a print manager.

Abstract: Automatic detection of defective pixel locations from digital images of scanned documents is provided. A list of tentative defect locations is kept, and as each document is scanned, entries are added to the list. As subsequent documents occur with the same color pixel in the same location, a count for that tentative defect location is incremented, but if the color of the pixel in that location changes, the count is reduced or zeroed. If a count for a location is incremented above a threshold, the tentative defect is flagged as an actual defect and a defect detector outputs or flags that pixel location as being an actual defect location. If memory size is constrained, the number of entries in the defect list is capped at some maximum size and a tentative defect location is added to the list only if an entry is available.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for checkerboard printing by a liquid ink printing apparatus. A liquid ink printing apparatus, such as a thermal ink jet printer, includes circuitry for reducing video data clocking in checkerboard printing by controlling the odd and even vertical print strokes of a reciprocating printhead mounted to a scanning carriage. The amount of bitmapped imaged data, also known as video data, is reduced by one half or more and sent to the printhead for printing checkerboard patterns. Reduction of the bitmapped image data is accomplished by a data packer circuit which selects certain bits of the bitmapped image data for printing by the printhead in a checkerboard pattern. At the printhead, the bitmapped image is reconstructed by a data unpacker circuit to cause selective ejection of ink from the appropriate nozzles of the printhead. Two or more passes information are printed to complete printing of the bitmapped image data.

Abstract: In an image processing apparatus, a plurality of substantially corresponding points are designated on a reference image and a peripheral image. The degree of coincidence is detected between a window in the peripheral image with a corresponding point as the center, and windows successively cut from the reference image, whose center is a corresponding point. The corresponding point at the center of the window having the highest degree of coincidence in the reference image is moved and an offset between this corresponding point and the corresponding point on the peripheral image is detected. When a corresponding point whose offset is greater than a threshold exists, the peripheral image is subjected to an affine transformation using a corresponding point on the reference image whose offset is less than the threshold. The processing is repeated by using the corresponding point on the transformed peripheral image.

Abstract: An image recording apparatus for setting an edit region by preliminary scanning of an original and recording an edited image by main scanning of the original includes a designation input device; a bit map memory; an edit information processing device; an image processing device; a recording device; and a control device. The image recording apparatus permits the same edited image data that is used for a test record to be used for a final record.

Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes a joining-portion processing section for combining partial images that have been read in a divided manner. Focused on partial document data predeterminately specified among a plurality of partial document data stored in an image memory, the joint-portion processing section performs a recognizing operation on the joints, a positioning operation and other operations beginning with the proximity of the specified partial document data. The partial images are then combined together to form one complete image. For example, in the case of copying an original document, which is of a size too large to be copied in one operation, on one sheet of paper in a reduced manner, it becomes possible to eliminate time consuming tasks such as trimming and pasting of the partial documents as well as calculating of the reduction rate.

Abstract: A program storage device is readable by a machine, which tangibly embodies a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for modifying color of an image captured in a digitized, color form. The method comprises the steps of sequentially modifying each portion of the image by a color matrix; determining when a portion of the modified image contains a predetermined fluorescent level; and further modifying only the portion of the image containing the predetermined fluorescent level by varying a fluorescent modification factor until a desired fluorescent level is obtained.

Abstract: An image processing system includes an image reader, a first image storing memory, a second image storing memory arranged in an external device, and a unit for synthesizing an image read by the image reader with the image stored in the first image storing memory on the basis of data read out from the second image storing memory.

Abstract: A system for generating voice activated computer data entry forms includes a scanner to scan an existing data entry form and to generate a digitized representation of the data entry form. Stored in the system's computer memory is a database for storing information, a voice dictionary and voice syntax files representing voice recognition information. A set of form definition procedures include an imaging procedure for displaying the scanned data entry form on the display and a region definition procedure for enabling a user to indicate regions of the displayed data entry form. Object definition procedures enable a user to define a multiplicity of objects, including form sections, text boxes, and checkbox buttons, and for specifying properties of the defined objects.

Abstract: A system that allows a user to apply image processing functions to localized regions of a photographic or negative image supplied by a photographer. The image is displayed on a touch sensitive display and the user can, by touching the display, maneuver a window to pan, zoom-in and zoom-out on particular portions of the image to designate a region to be processed. The operator can precisely indicate where the artifact to be removed is located and will know precisely the area of the image that will be processed. Only the portion of image seen by the user in the window is processed when the user indicates a function should be applied to the image. That is, what the user sees is what is processed. The processed image can be printed or otherwise reproduced.

Abstract: This invention provides a method for transforming an input color space to an output color space where each of a plurality of specified colors and/or color regions are constrained to be transformed by any one of a plurality of explicitly specified color calibration or color enhancement strategies. The method involves a two step process: 1) constraints are applied to some subset of the points in the input color space explicitly specifying the transform into the output color space; 2) the reminder of the points are then transformed by a mapping strategy which preserves color continuity. The mapping strategy used in the preferred embodiment is based on a computer graphics geometric morphing technique. In the preferred embodiment, multi-dimensional look-up tables are used to implement the color transformation.

Abstract: There is provided a color image processing apparatus such as a color copier having the function to automatically discriminate whether each original is a black and white original or a color original. Such an apparatus has a discriminating circuit to discriminate the attribute of each original image, a memory to store the discrimination results by the discriminating circuit every original image in correspondence thereto, and a processor to process the relative original images in accordance with the discrimination results stored in the memory. The discrimination result is read out of the memory a plurality of times for the same original and the same original is processed a plurality of times by the processor on the basis of the discrimination result. The apparatus may also has an RDF to sequentially feed originals one by one to the image processing position by the processor.

Abstract: High density portions of images are preferentially expressed when a plurality of images constructed by multivalue image data are synthesized. A plurality of different images are synthesized, wherein overlapped multivalue image data of pixels among multivalue image data constructing the images are compared and the multivalue image data of which one of the images should be preferentially used is determined in accordance with the comparison result.

Abstract: A color-image processing method is provided in which a two-color image can be formed in accordance with three color-image signals obtained by scanning a color original without having a color shear. A designated color is selected. A pixel is determined as the designated color by comparing the color-image signal with a sum of another color-image signal and a correction value. The pixel is determined as black when the color of the pixel has not been determined as the designated color. The pixel is determined as white by comparing intensity of the three color-image signal with predetermined threshold values. A color of a focus pixel is corrected by comparing linear patterns of colors of four consecutively arranged pixels including the focus pixel with a plurality of reference color patterns.

Abstract: An optical character recognition system which can extract information from documents into machine readable form for selected inclusion into a data base uses human classification through the use of translucent ink pens of colors which correlate to field designations. The ink pens, commonly known as highlighters, are used to mark the selected text. An optical scanner reads the marked document and converts it to electronic data which is stored into data base fields according to the color marked regions.

Abstract: In an image processing system, there are provided a plurality of plane memories for setting edit commands, a user interface for inputting edit functions, designation of area and instruction for execution, and an edit processing unit for setting and reading the edit commands to plane memories based on the edit functions, designation of area and instruction for execution. The edit processing unit collectively processes extraction and deletion areas after setting the other areas. Further, after depicting an area on a plane for work, the edit processing unit develops content for work for a plane memory for area command setting by logic processing with priority on later designation. By this arrangement, procedures are simplified in edit processing which requires many extractions and deletions, and the time for processing can be reduced.

Abstract: A half-tone mask is characterized by an N.times.M array of mask value locations associated with at least a portion of the pixels of the digital image. The size of the mask array may contain a relatively small number of pixel locations, which is applied spatially to mutually contiguous subsets or sub-arrays of pixels of a relatively high resolution digital image. Although the mask may also be made large enough to encompass the entire image of interest, respective threshold values of the mask may be computed `on the fly`, so as to obviate the need to prestore all of the threshold values of the mask. Each of the locations of the mask array is assigned a respectively different grey scale/half-tone conversion threshold value. These threshold values are distributed among the locations of the mask array such that as one proceeds through the mask array, the next sequential location is specified in accordance with fractional parts of integral multiples of a two-dimensional analog of the Golden Mean.

Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes an image input unit for inputting monochromatic image information and a recognition unit for recognizing color assigning information for assigning a color and a region in the monochromatic image information. A synthesis unit is provided for synthesizing the color in the region in the monochromatic image information according to the color assigning information recognized by the recognition unit, and an output unit outputs an image having a plurality of colors synthesized by the synthesis unit.

Abstract: A multi-color marker editing system for editing a color image by reading a designated marker. The multi-color marker editing system includes an image reading unit for reading color image data, a color-coordinate converting unit for converting the read image data into color data in a color coordinate system defined by optical density, hue and saturation, a color detecting unit for detecting a designated marker color from the read color image data, an image density converting unit for converting a density of the detected marker color image data, and a marker editing unit for making a marker color editing for each color to the density-converted marker color image data.

Abstract: When determining areas, a data for determining area Ds, including bit data D.sub.0 which shows whether the area to be processed or not, is stored in a frame memory for determining area 5. When carrying out image processing, the frame memory 5 outputs the data Ds in synchronization with the output of image data D form a A/D converter 3. A gate 4 outputs the image data D only when the bit data D.sub.0 is a value [1] representing the area to be processed. In Synchronization with the output of the data D, bit sequence D.sub.1 .about.D.sub.n is output as the additional data regarding to the area. In an image processing system(not shown), although the image processing is carried out for the whole of a frame memory, the image data D is not supplied except for the area shown by the bit data D.sub.0 so as not to be carried out the image processing. Therefore, only for the area shown by the bit data D.sub.0, the image processing is carried out in accordance with the bit sequence D.sub.1 .about.D.sub.n.

Abstract: There is disclosed an image processing apparatus capable of identifying and converting a predetermined color in the input image into a predetermined density, whereby the color in the original image can be identified in a monochromatic image by the density. The apparatus is provided with a discrimination unit for identifying a predetermined color in the input image, a first image processing unit for applying a first image processing to the input image according to the result of discrimination by the discrimination unit, a second image processing unit for applying a second image processing to the input image, and a control unit for invalidating the second image processing in an area in which the image processing is conducted by the first image processing unit.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus capable of identifying a color or colors which may be entered on a document. The apparatus automatically manipulates an image representative of a document only if the document is marked in any desired color. With the apparatus of the invention, the image forming time is reduced, and the image forming procedure is simplified.

Abstract: A reproduction apparatus such as one having an electronic electrophotographic marking engine includes an image scanning device for scanning and outputting signals representing image density data on a document. An area designating device such as a digitizing tablet is provided for generating signals representing information relative to a selected image area of the document containing both foreground and background density. A processor is responsive to the density and area signals for operating on the image data in the area to define clipping signals representing parameters for substantially eliminating the background density while substantially preserving information with foreground density.

Abstract: An area recognition apparatus is provided with a mark detecting device for detecting a mark portion drawn on an original document to designate a specific area, on the basis of image data read from an original document, crossing portion detecting device for detecting the portion where the mark portion crosses an image portion on the original document, on the basis of the image data, and a closed loop recognizing device for recognizing a closed loop formed by the mark portion and the crossing portion, on the basis of the results of detection by the mark portion detecting device and the crossing portion detecting device.

Abstract: Apparatus for detecting edges of black text in an original image. An edge detector which low pass filters the image signal to blur and widen any edges in the original image, and then high pass filters the low pass filtered signal to produce a first output signal which represents the blurred edges in the original image. The non-edge blurred signal is high pass filtered to produce a second output signal which represents the non-blurred edges in the original image. The first and second output signals are combined to create a first edge control signal that encompasses any edges in the original image. Halftone areas of the original image are identified by detecting dots in the original image, a second edge control signal that excludes areas in the original image identified as containing dots is created. Color pixels in the original image are detected, and a neutral color signal that represents the non-color portions of the original image is created.

Abstract: An image processing apparatus includes a synthesizing unit for synthesizing a color image and a binary image, a processing unit for performing multigradation processing of the color image and high-resolution processing of the binary image, and a control unit for controlling the processing unit to preferentially execute the high-resolution processing for an area where the color and binary images overlap each other.

Abstract: An apparatus for producing area signals in a digital video image processing system comprising memory means for storing start and end addresses of areas designated and function numbers representing the kind of editing functions of the areas designated, address generator means for generating addresses needed for accessing the memory means, buffer means for opening or closing data transferring path between the memory means and buses in accordance with the memory accessing operation effected by the address generator means and the memory accessing operation effected by a central processing unit (CPU), counter means for counting the number of video clock signals corresponding to a scanning line, address comparator means for comparating upper 8 bits of the output of the counter means and area addresses from the memory means, function number analyzer means for producing a predetermined bit number 2.sup.

Abstract: An image processing apparatus determines an image data of a selected area to be an image such as of characters having no halftone or an image such as of a photograph having halftones. An image processing mode optimal to the image data of the selected area is assigned to this area as attribute data. Based on the attribute data, the image data of the selected area is processed in the optimal mode. Each of such area includes at least one pixel, and an overall result of image processing carried out in respective optimal modes is output.

Abstract: A marker dot detecting device for a color image recording apparatus such as a color copying machine, color facsimile, or color printer. The marker dot detecting device includes a marker dot detecting unit for detecting a marker dot by detecting a plane size of binary image data having a preset marker color. Further, the marker dot detecting unit includes a template mask unit having a first template mask in a predetermined first size and a second template mask in a predetermined second size larger than the first size, the second template mask including the first template mask. The template mask unit outputs a marker dot detecting signal when a detected size of the marker dot is larger than that of the first template mask and smaller than that of the second template mask.

Abstract: Color video display apparatus with built-in color decompression includes, in one embodiment, a first holding buffer for storing compressed video data representative of a color video image. A decompression means decompresses the stored image data into a frame buffer. A video monitor provides for displaying a representation of the color video image from the frame buffer.

Abstract: An apparatus for editing color image capable, by having a desired color in an original designated and an editing mode selected, of image editing for an image in the designated color in such an editing mode as trimming, masking, erasing, and conversion to another color. A desired color in an original image is designated by a designated color input portion and thereby designated color data for separated colors are obtained. Thereafter, the original image is scanned and image data for separated colors are obtained. The thus input image data are electrically edited in the selected edit mode based on the designated color data and the edited image data are output to an image forming unit and thereby an edited color image is obtained.

Abstract: An apparatus identifies the type of a document from color image signals either a color document, a black and white document or a marked document, the marked document having a image processing region designated with a color marker differing in color from possible colors of the document to be read, thereafter applies one of a plurality of processing modes to the color image signals in accordance with the type of the document.

Abstract: An image processing apparatus comprises a device for designating a desired color; a device for discriminating a desired color in an objective color image; and a device for color converting portions other than the desired color in the objective color image which was discriminated by the discriminating device, wherein the color converting device color converts the portions other than the desired color which was discriminated by the discriminating device.

Abstract: A scanner useful as an input device for a computer is operable in two scanning modes: a prescanning mode in which subsampled images are rapidly output to the computer for substantially real-time display, and an input scanning mode in which three successive high resolution color scans are obtained. A fixed image is supported on a movable, hand-manipulated stage that interactively controls the conjugate distances of the optical system so that zooming and cropping is obtained without losing focus. By situating the control buttons for the scanning modes on the movable stage, a single hand can control zooming, cropping, and prescanning without having to interact with a keyboard or like input device to the computer.

Abstract: An image area discriminating system for an image processing apparatus which discriminates between a character area and a halftone area on an original document containing the character and halftone areas, selects parameters for each discriminated area, and adjusts and generates image data. The image area discriminating system comprises: a block color discriminating unit for grouping pixels into blocks and determining block colors on the basis of the formed pixel blocks; a determining unit for detecting the run lengths of block colors other than white, for comparing the detected run lengths with a predetermined threshold value, and for determining whether the document area is the character area or the halftone area; and an area signal output unit for outputting a signal to select an image area signal on the basis of an output signal outputted from the determining unit.

Abstract: There is provided a color image processing apparatus in which, by making use of an image reading apparatus of a digital full-color copying apparatus, the designated color to be obtained after conversion is input and stored as component ratio of color-separated image data, and monochromatic image data proportional to the gradation levels, e.g., density, lightness, luminance and so forth are obtained from the color separated image data produced from the original image, the monochromatic image data thus obtained being converted into the color separation data corresponding to the component ratio of the designated color to be obtained after conversion, thereby making it possible to preserve the hue of the designated color and to effect color conversion to the designated color having gradation proportional to the gradation of the original image.

Abstract: Video ID photo printing apparatus corrects the complexion of a person serving as an object into a desired color without any influences caused by controlling an illumination light source and the various control section of a video image pickup apparatus, printer characteristics, and the like. In order to extract the complexion data of the person serving as an object photographed by a color TV camera, a skin-color portion in a face image is detected by a detection point setting unit. A comparator compares the detected data value with a data value of a desired standard skin color formed in advance and stored in a standard color memory. The skin color of the picked up face image is converted into a desired skin color by a look-up table in accordance with a comparison result, and the data of the desired skin color is written in a frame memory. Thereafter, the face image which is subjected to color conversion is printed by a full-color printer.

Abstract: Disclosed is an automatic contrast correction method and apparatus for optimizing contrast of a picture screen. There is included an effective picture screen extractor for extracting video data corresponding to the effective picture screen among video data in the picture screen, a plurality of amplifiers for receiving the video data and amplifying the received video data for output, and a microcomputer for comparing the average value which is calculated from the video data of the effective picture screen with a previously set reference value and regulating an amplification factor by supplying a control signal to the amplifiers according to the comparison result. Even if video images photographed toward the sun are printed, it can be prevented from being printed in a dark state, thereby obtaining a good quality of picture.

Abstract: A color image processing apparatus in which the background color of an original image to be read is determined by reading the color of a designated position on the original image, by selecting data on one of a plurality of colors previously stored in memory, or by automatically performing background color detection while reading the original image. When outputting the read original image, any of the individual read pixels of the original image coincident with the background color is output as a white pixel.

Abstract: A color image recognition apparatus capable of judging whether an original is monochromatic or color comprises an image reader for rapidly scanning the original to develop image data and a color display coordinate system for converting the image data to luminance data and color difference data. A pixel color judging unit judges the color of each pixel based upon the luminance data and the color difference data, and a block color judging unit compares the number of color pixels with the number of black pixels contained in each of the plurality of blocks of pixels. An original color judging unit then counts the number of color blocks in the original to judge the color of the original.

Abstract: An image processor converts white areas displayable on a video display screen to white areas outlined in black and suitable for printing on white paper. In addition, black areas that are displayed on a video screen are converted to white for printing on white paper.