JPH05216203A - Design information converter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To dispense with platemaking knowledge for a designer and with data input usable in platemaking so that load of design work is lightened and the efficiency of the work can be remarkably improved. CONSTITUTION:The addition, processing, and correction of the data are executed at a graphic aligning processing part 14A, and a cutting size processing part 14B, etc., in a state where they can be used at a platemaking system 12 considering difference between design data and printing data with respect to layout and the design information (design data) of an image outputted from a design system 10, and the design data is converted into the printing data which can be used in the system 12.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing technique and a plate making technique, and more particularly, to an apparatus for converting layout and image design information output from a design system into information used in the plate making system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a film original plate for printing has been actively made by a system (plate making system) having an editing function called a layout scanner. In this platemaking system, the layout computer performs layout, trimming, various corrections, and other work necessary for printing platemaking on image data captured by a scanner from a transparent document or a reflection document, and creates image data for platemaking. Then, the plate is produced by outputting the data to a film original plate.

Conventionally, the layout of images such as images and characters captured by the scanner is designed by a print designer (hereinafter simply referred to as a designer) on a designated sheet of paper before using the plate making system. The design work such as the layout is referred to as a layout work), and thereafter, the printing plate is made according to the layout designated paper.

At present, due to the progress of computer technology, CAD (Computer Aided) capable of processing image data is available.
Design workstations such as Design) have been put into practical use, and the layout work described above may be performed using such workstations (the workstations used in this way are hereinafter referred to as design systems). In this design system, in addition to graphic image layout instructions, the image data read by the scanner is displayed according to the specified layout, and layout work is performed while viewing the image laid out in a shape similar to the print format on the screen. You can Such layout data and image data are called design data, and this design data is digital data.

As shown in FIG. 9, the plate making is performed by a plate making system using the design data. Normally, the design data is displayed on the screen, and the operator refers to this display screen instead of the designated sheet for layout. The plate making data is created by inputting images and layout instructions necessary for the plate making system. The correction of plate making data is done by proof printing.

It is also possible to use the design data as it is as plate making data.

Further, when the design data is different from the data format of the plate-making data, it is possible to use the format-converted design data.

[0008]

In order to use the design data created by the designer for plate making without modification in the above-mentioned conventional technique, the design data is composed of design data and print data. It is necessary that the design data is designed so that it can be used as plate-making data in consideration of the difference. That is, the plate-making data requires conditions that are not required by the design data. For example, in order to align the figures, it is sufficient for the design data to be aligned on a pixel-by-pixel basis, whereas for the plate-making data, the dot size is required to be aligned. Also, while design data is created with the finished size of printed matter,
The print data needs to be created in consideration of the cut size after printing (cutting margins on the four sides of the printed matter before commercialization) and the like.
Therefore, the designer needs to have knowledge of plate making and also needs to create design data that can be used in plate making.

However, since it is often difficult for the designer to fully acquire the above-mentioned knowledge of plate making, it is difficult to secure human resources for the designer who has the knowledge. Further, it is troublesome for the designer to carry out the design that can be used during plate making, which causes a problem such as a work load.

Further, if the format of the design data is simply converted into plate-making data, the plate-making system needs to convert the data in consideration of the difference between the design data and the plate-making data, which reduces the labor for creating print data. There is a problem that is not.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems. The present invention eliminates the need for the print designer to have knowledge of plate making, makes it easy to secure human resources for the designer, and can be used by the designer in plate making. An object of the present invention is to provide a design information conversion device that can reduce the burden of design work and significantly improve the work efficiency by eliminating the need to create data.

[0012]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, with respect to layout or image design information output from a design system, information is added, processed, or modified in consideration of the difference between design information and print information. In order to solve the above problems, a means for converting the design information into print information usable in the plate making system is provided.

[0013]

In the present invention, in the design information converting apparatus, the difference between the design information (design data) and the print information (print data) is taken into consideration with respect to the layout and image design information output from the design system. Information is added, processed, or modified to convert the design information into print information usable in the plate making system.

Therefore, it is not necessary to create the design information while considering the difference between the design information and the print information. Therefore, since the print designer does not need to have knowledge of plate making, it is easy to secure human resources for the designer, and since it is not necessary for the designer to create data that can be used in plate making, the burden of design work is reduced and The efficiency of can be significantly improved. In addition, since the operator does not have to operate the printing system to use the design information as the print information, and the repair is also reduced, the work efficiency is also significantly improved.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

In this embodiment, the data flow shown in FIG. 1 is used for the layout and image design data output from the design system 10 in consideration of the difference between the design data and the print data. A design data conversion device 14 that adds (processes) or corrects (information) and converts design data into print data usable in a plate making system.

As shown in FIG. 1, the design data conversion device 14 is a graphic alignment processing unit for aligning layout design graphics in the design data in dot units so that they can be used in the plate making system. 14A
When the design data is laid out in the finished size, a bleed size processing unit 14B for changing the layout of the design data into a layout in consideration of the bleed size after printing, and in color printing, each color plate, for example, yellow. (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), and black (Bk) should be thickened so that Y, M, and C sizes overlap so as to overlap with Bk in order to prevent color misregistration during retouching and so-called white spots from occurring. Duplicate (overlap) processing section 14C for thickening the line and a live ruled line processing section 14D for correcting the color and thickness of the live ruled line (line displayed during printing) as desired
And a rectangular data processing unit 14E for automatically recognizing a rectangle in the design data, and a cutout processing unit 14F for automatically cutting out.

Between the design system 10 and the design data conversion device 14, and between the design data conversion device 14
A storage unit 16 is provided between the plate making system 12 and the design data and the plate making data. The storage unit 16 has a design data storage area 16A for storing the design data and a plate-making data storage area 16B for storing the converted plate-making data. Therefore, the design data output from the design system 10 is
The data is temporarily stored in the design data storage area 16A and is output to the design data conversion device 14 as needed. or,
The converted plate-making data is output from the design data conversion device 14, stored in the plate-making data storage area 16B, and output to the plate-making system 12 as necessary.

Next, the detailed functions of the processing units 14A to 14F of the design data conversion device 14 will be described.

In the figure alignment processing section 14A, it is assumed that the input design data does not have the upper sides of the figures 20A to 20C aligned as shown in FIG. This design data is laid out by the designer recognizing that the upper sides are aligned in the design system. However, in reality, as shown in FIG. It is assumed that the sides have a deviation in dot units. Each of these figures 20A-
Alignment processing is performed on 20C as follows.

First, an average value of the position data of the upper side of each of the figures 20A to 20C is taken, and the grid line 22 is drawn at the target position where the upper side should be aligned. The state in which the grid lines 22 are drawn is as shown in FIG. Next, the upper side of each of the figures 20A to 20C is drawn to the grid line 22. As a result, as shown in FIG. 2C, the upper side is aligned in dot units along the grid line 22. The data of the figures 20A 'to 20C' arranged in dot units on the upper side is output as platemaking data.

Further, in the cutting size processing section 14B,
It is assumed that the input design data is created as shown in FIG. 3 (A), for example. This design data is laid out according to the size of the printed matter (finished size). If this design data is input to the plate making system 12 as it is, the printed matter does not have the margins of the four sides which are dimensioned after printing. Therefore, in printing plate making, the image data of the finished size is usually enlarged to a size in consideration of the trimming margin (this enlarged size is called the trimming size). The bleed size processing unit 14B performs enlargement processing on the input design data and corrects the layout in consideration of the cut size. In this correction, the enlargement width is set in advance. Further, since the origin of the design data and the modified origin are different due to the enlargement, the origin is moved. For example, FIG. 3B shows an example of a layout image processed into a trimming size. Further, in FIG. 3B, the origin is moved from the origin of the design data of the lower left base to the lower left corner of the processed image.

Further, the double processing section 14C carries out the following processing. That is, first, the input design data is set to the figure 24 as shown in FIG. In this figure 24, an area 24B surrounded by a black border 24A is painted in a color formed by a combination of Y, M, and C. This design data is created in a state where there is no overlap between the border 24A and the Y, M, and C color sizes in the area 24B. In this case, no problem occurs in the state of the design data, but this design data is used as it is as print data, and Y, M, C, and B are used.
When plate-making and printing with each color of k, depending on the retouched state, misalignment occurs after printing of each color, and in this case,
As shown in FIG. 4B, there is a possibility that a white portion (color missing portion) 26 that is not printed and remains between the border 24A and the area 24B. Therefore, in order to prevent the occurrence of the color loss portion, in the deburring unit 14C, as shown in FIG.
Inflate so that it overlaps with A. In this case, the bulged portion 28 is set to be black when printed in each color of Y, M, and C, and even if a slight color shift occurs in the printing of each color, the bulging portion The above-described color loss portion 26 does not occur due to the overlap.

The live ruled line processing section 14D creates data of a line having a desired width and a desired color along a live ruled line which cannot be specified by the design system 10. Designation of a line width and a color is previously input to the living rule processing unit 14D according to the living rule in the design data, and a line of a predetermined width and color is drawn according to the designation. Normally, in the design system 10, it is only possible to draw a line (or band) only on both sides of a living ruled line and only a certain limited color, but with the function of this living ruled processing unit 14D, for example, As shown in FIG. 5, a line (or band) having a desired line width and a desired width can be drawn on a desired side. This allows you to enter a wide line in association with the raw rule,
Unlike the conventional case, it is not necessary to draw a graphic having a line width separately from the raw ruled line, so that the drawing work is simplified. Further, when a graphic with a constant line width is created separately from the raw ruled line, the line width graphic cannot be moved along with the movement of the raw ruled line. However, in the present embodiment, this does not occur and the handling is not inconvenient. ..

The rectangle processing section 14E automatically recognizes the rectangle 32 on the design data and outputs the rectangle data as platemaking data. When the graphic data is, for example, as shown in FIG. 6A, four sides are opposed to each other and two sides are parallel to the horizontal direction (positive value), the rectangular data is position data of two opposed vertices. Can be represented. If the rectangle is diagonal as shown in FIG.
The rectangle can be represented by position data of three vertices. Thereby, the rectangle processing unit 14E detects the line segment data on the design data and recognizes that the figure surrounded by the line segment is a rectangle. Next, of the position data of each of the four vertices of the rectangle, the position data of the two vertices or the three vertices represents the rectangle as described above. Each position data becomes rectangular data.

In the embodiment, the data amount of the rectangle is small because it is represented by each position data in this way, therefore, the data amount to be handled at the time of printing plate making is compressed, and the plate making operation is speeded up.

The cut-out processing section 14F automatically creates a cut-out line of data to be cut-out in the design data. In the design system 10, the designer previously designates a rough cutout area 34 as shown in FIG. 7A, and includes the designation in the design data. A cutout line is automatically extracted from the cutout region 34 in the cutout processing unit 14F for the design data. The extracted cutout line is as shown by reference numeral 36 in FIG.

As a result, the designer can create a cutout line by simply specifying an appropriate cutout area without specifying an exact cutout line in the design system, and the work load is greatly reduced.

The design data conversion apparatus 1 according to the embodiment.
4, the processing of each of the processing units 14A to 14F is
Desired one or two or more of them can be combined as desired, and design data can be added, processed, or modified into plate-making data.

Further, in the above embodiment, each processing unit 1 in the design data conversion device 14 as shown in FIG.
4A to 14F exemplify performing various processes on the input design data. However, addition of information to design data (design information) that can be performed by the design information conversion apparatus (design data conversion apparatus) according to the present invention,
The processing or correction is not limited to that in the processing units 14A to 14F shown in the figure, and various other processing can be performed as long as it can appropriately process the design data so that it can be used in the plate making system. Can have the function of

For example, as shown in FIG. 8A, four straight lines (symbol a to
In the case where it is composed of d), the color painting in the area (X, Y) surrounded by the four straight lines may be automatically performed by designating the straight lines a to d and the color in the design system.
However, in the plate-making system, it is not possible to automatically paint the enclosed areas by only specifying the straight lines a to d and the color, and it is necessary to specify the areas individually and paint them. Therefore, a function that can be automatically performed by the design data conversion device can be added to this designation.

[0032]

As described above, according to the present invention,
When performing plate making using design information created by the design system, it is not necessary for the designer to have knowledge of plate making and it is not necessary to input data so that it can be used in plate making. Can be created. Therefore, it is possible to obtain an excellent effect that the load of the design work is reduced and the efficiency of the work is significantly improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a design data converter according to an embodiment of the present invention and a data flow of the converter.

FIG. 2 is a view for explaining the operation of the above embodiment,
It is a diagram which shows the procedure of a figure alignment process.

FIG. 3 is likewise a plan view for explaining the cut size processing.

FIG. 4 is a plan view for explaining the double processing, similarly.

FIG. 5 is likewise a plan view for explaining the live rule processing.

FIG. 6 is likewise a plan view for explaining rectangular data processing.

FIG. 7 is a plan view for explaining the cutout process, similarly.

FIG. 8 is a plan view similarly showing an example of automatic color painting processing.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing an example of a data flow from a conventional design system to a plate making apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 ... Design system, 12 ... Plate making system, 14 ... Design data conversion device, 14A ... Graphic alignment processing section, 14B ... Cut size processing section, 14C ... Double processing section, 14D ... Live rule processing section, 14E ... Rectangular data processing section , 14F ... Crop processing section, 16 ... Storage section, 16A ... Design data storage area, 16B ... Plate making data storage area.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A plate making of the design information is performed by adding, processing, or correcting information to the layout or image design information output from the design system in consideration of the difference between the design information and the print information. A design information conversion device comprising means for converting into print information usable in a system.