Image processing apparatus and image processing method

• US 20060056660A1
• Filed: 09/13/2005
• Published: 03/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Tojo, Hiroshi
• Granted Patent: US 7,623,259 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/112
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/993 Evaluation of the quality of the acquired pattern
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/414 Extracting the geometrical structure, e.g. layout tree; Block segmentation, e.g. bounding boxes for graphics or text

Abstract

From an already registered image data group, image data similar to image data input as a query are retrieved (S3190). When image quality of one of the retrieved image data is lower than that of the input image data, the input image data is registered in place of the one image data (S3163).

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus for managing image data, comprising:

holding means for holding at least one image data;

input means for inputting image data as a query;

retrieval means for retrieving image data similar to the image data input by said input means from an image data group held by said holding means;

comparison means for comparing image quality of the image data retrieved by said retrieval means, and image quality of the image data input by said input means; and

storage control means for, when the image quality of the image data input by said input means is higher than the image quality of the retrieved image data, storing the image data input by said input means in said holding means as the retrieved image data.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said holding means further holds information associated with image qualities of held images,

said comparison means compares the image quality of the retrieved image data and the image quality of the image data input by said input means using information associated with the image quality of the retrieved image data and information associated with the image quality of the image data input by said input means, and

when the image quality of the image data input by said input means is higher than the image quality of the retrieved image data, said storage control means stores the information associated with the image quality of the image data input by said input means in said holding means in place of the information associated with the image quality of the retrieved image data.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the information associated with the image quality of the retrieved image data is input by said input means.

4. The apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising image quality information collecting means for collecting information associated with image quality from the image data input by said input means.

5. The apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising:

list display means for, when the image quality of the image data input by said input means is higher than the image quality of the retrieved image data, displaying the image data input by said input means and the information associated with the image quality of that image, and the retrieved image data and the information associated with the image quality of that image in a list; and

correction means for correcting one of the information associated with the image quality of the image data input by said input means, and the information associated with the image quality of the retrieved image data.

6. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein when the image quality of the image data input by said input means is higher than the image quality of the retrieved image data, said storage control means stores the image data input by said input means and the information associated with the image quality of that image data in said holding means to function in place of the retrieved image data and the information associated with the image quality of that image data.

7. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image data retrieved by said retrieval means is image data most similar to the image data input by said input means of the image data group held by said holding means.

8. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising selection means for making a user select one image data from the image data retrieved by said retrieval means.

9. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising command input means for inputting a command by a user,

wherein said storage control means stores the image data in said holding means in response to the command from said command input means.

10. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information associated with the image quality of the image data includes at least one of a resolution of the image, a layout, a size of a sheet of a scan source of the image, paper quality of the sheet, a print scale setting of the image on the sheet, the number of times of copy of an original to obtain the sheet, a gray-scale setting upon printing, and a setting indicating a color or gray-scale print mode.

11. An image processing method to be executed by an image processing apparatus which has a memory for holding one or more image data, comprising:

an input step of inputting image data as a query;

a retrieval step of retrieving image data similar to the image data input in the input step from an image data group held in the memory;

a comparison step of comparing image quality of the image data retrieved in the retrieval step, and image quality of the image data input in the input step; and

a storage control step of storing, when the image quality of the image data input in the input step is higher than the image quality of the retrieved image data, the image data input in the input step in the memory as the retrieved image data.

12. A program making a computer implement an image processing method of claim 11.

13. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program of claim 12.