JPH03263975A - Picture transmitter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To attain accurate picture transmission by dividing an area into an area where a character graph is recognized and coded and an area where no recognition is implemented as a picture, sending the data of the coded area in a form of code data and sending the generating itself of the other area. CONSTITUTION:At first a document picture is read from a scanner 21 and stored in an image memory 22. The content of the image memory 22 is displayed on a screen of a display device 28. Then an area of a pattern displayed on the screen desired for character graph recognition is selected by using a pointing device 27 so as to move a cursor on the pattern. After the selection operation for the entire area, the designated area is handled as image data, which is compressed by an image compressor 24. Moreover, a character graph recognition device 23 recognizes character and graph as to areas not designated. When the processing for both the character and the image is finished, two kinds of data are converted into one format.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an image transmitting device, such as a facsimile machine, that can transmit image data of a document.

F. Prior Art] With recent advances in communication technology, it has become common to transmit data containing characters and images to other parties using communication devices such as modems.

Therefore, the problem has been shortening the communication time. To solve this problem, a method is generally used to compress the image data, but it is also possible to reduce the size of the transmitted data by converting the transmitted document image into character codes using a character recognition device. It became so.

In the conventional image transmitting device, as shown in FIG. 5, image data such as a document inputted from an image input device 51 is sent to a character recognition device 52, and the characters are recognized. Non-character data is ignored and not recognized. The recognized character code is transmitted by a communication device 53 such as a modem. Further, in the example shown in FIG. 6, image data such as a document inputted from the image input device 61 is sent to the image compression device 62 and compressed, and the result is transmitted by the communication device 63.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] A problem with the conventional example described above is that the size of the data to be transmitted cannot be made sufficiently small in the method shown in FIG. With text/image recognition technology, it is difficult to completely separate text and images (figures and photographs), and even if it looks like a text, such as a logo, its shape has meaning and cannot be processed as an image. In some cases, it is difficult to determine whether the image is a character or an image, such as when the character is a Chinese numeral "-" or a ruled line. Also, since the image data is not processed, it becomes incomplete data. For the above reasons, conventionally, the document image data to be transmitted has been significantly degraded from the original image.

Means for Solving 1 Problem 1 In order to solve this problem, the present invention provides a display means for displaying an image of a read document, and a display means for displaying the displayed image data.
It has an area setting means that divides one area into two areas, and a recognition means that performs character/figure recognition on one area divided by this area setting means and converts it into code data. Configure it to send .

E-action] With this configuration, when the operator sets a part that can be coded, such as characters or figures, that part is sent as code data.

[Embodiment] Hereinafter, an image transmitting device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail. FIG. 1 is a simple configuration diagram of an image transmitting device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

1 is an image input device for inputting document images, 2 is a character recognition device for converting character patterns in input image data into character codes, and 3 is an area specification device for specifying an area for input image data. The device 4 is a communication device for transmitting recognized character data. FIG. 2 is a more detailed configuration diagram of the image transmitting device according to the embodiment of the present invention. 21 is an image input device for reading document images; 22 is an image memory for storing image data read from the image input device 1; 23 is a recognition device for character and figure recognition; 24 is an image memory; 25 is a character/figure recognition device 23 and an image compression device 2.
4 and a communication device for transmitting the data obtained to other devices, 26 is an input interface for specifying an area on the screen, 27 is a pointing device connected to it, and 28 is a device for transmitting the contents of the image memory. It is a display device for displaying information. In the above configuration, the character/figure recognition device 23 and the image compression device 24 are configured by the central processing unit, and the third
It performs processing according to the flowchart in the figure, and also controls other processing devices such as the image memory 22 and communication processing 25.

Next, the process flow of the present invention will be explained step by step using the flowchart shown in FIG.

First, in sl, a document image is read by a scanner 21 and stored in an image memory 22. The contents of the image memory 22 are displayed on the screen of the display device 8. Next, in 62,
The area is selected by moving the cursor on the screen with the pointing device 7 to the area in the image displayed on the screen where character/figure recognition is desired. After selecting all the areas, the area specified in s4 is treated as image data, and the area specified in s4 is processed by the image compression system T.
Compression is performed with l24. In addition, for areas other than the specified
In step 6, characters and graphics are recognized by the character and graphics recognition device 23. When both text and image processing are completed, the two types of data are converted into one format at the sl stage. FIG. 4 shows an example of the data format. In FIG. 4, parts 41 and 43 are ID parts representing the type of data.

In this example, character data is represented by Olh, and image data is represented by 02h. Data corresponding to the ID code is stored in parts 42 and 44. The document format created in sl is sent to another system via a communication means such as a modem in s8, and the process is completed.

[Effect of the Invention 1 As described above, according to the present invention, the area is divided into an area where characters and figures are recognized and coded, and an area where the image is not recognized as is, and the area to be coded is sent as code data. Other than that, since the image data itself is sent, it is possible to perform accurate image transmission.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

11ffl is a schematic diagram of the configuration of an image transmitting device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of this embodiment, FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the control procedure of this embodiment, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of transmission data in this embodiment, and FIGS. 5 and 6 are block diagrams showing the configuration of a conventional image transmitting apparatus. Vice, 23...Character/figure recognition device, 24...Image compression device

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) An image reading means for reading an image of a document, a storage means for storing image data read by the image reading means, and a display means for displaying the image data stored in the storage means. , an area setting means for dividing the image displayed on the display means into two areas, and a recognition unit for converting the image data of the first area divided by the area setting means into code data for performing character/figure recognition. An image transmitting apparatus comprising: means; and output means for creating image data of a second area divided by the area setting means and code data obtained by the recognition means. 2) The image transmitting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image data of the second area divided by the area setting means is compressed and transmitted.