APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR GENERATING SEGMENTATION DATA OF A SCANNED IMAGE

• US 20090323134A1
• Filed: 06/30/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Toshiba Tec Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation), Toshiba Tec Corporation (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Megawa, Shunichi
• Application Number:
  US12/164,763
• Publication Number:
  US 20090323134A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/474
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1297 Printer code translation, conversion, emulation, compression; Configuration of printer parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/41 Bandwidth or redundancy reduction by scanning H04N1/17 ; methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/00

Abstract

An apparatus and method for processing image data generates image data from a scan of an original image, and creates segmentation data from the generated image data. The segmentation data includes information regarding image types present in the image data corresponding to the scanned original image. Each of the image data and the segmentation data is stored in a storage medium along with a link between the image data and the segmentation data.

Claims

1. A method for processing image data, comprising:

generating image data from a scan of an original image;

creating segmentation data from the generated image data, the segmentation data including information regarding image types present in the image data corresponding to the scanned original image; and

storing each of the image data and the segmentation data in a storage medium, and providing a link between the image data and the segmentation data.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of storing includes:

generating a first file for the image data;

generating a second file, different from the first file, for the segmentation data; and

storing the first file and the second file in the storage medium,

wherein the link includes information associating the first file with the second file.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein the steps of generating the first file and generating the second file further include:

providing a common file name to the first file and the second file; and

providing a different suffix to the first file and the second file.

4. A method according to claim 2, wherein the first file and the second file have different formats.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the segmentation data includes information identifying an image type for each of a plurality of regions of the image data.

6. A method according to claim 5, further comprising compressing the image data prior to storing the image data in the storage medium.

7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the step of compressing includes:

compressing a first region of the plurality of regions of the image data identified as a first type according to a first compression algorithm; and

compressing a second region of the plurality of regions of the image data identified as a second type, different from the first type, according to a second compression algorithm, different from the first compression algorithm.

8. A method according to claim 6, wherein the step of compressing further includes:

determining image type for each of the plurality of regions of the image data based on the segmentation data;

identifying a compression algorithm for each of the plurality of regions of the image data according to its determined image type; and

compressing each of the plurality of regions of the image data according to its identified compression algorithm.

9. A method according to claim 6, where the step of compressing further includes compressing the segmentation data.

10. A method according to claim 5, wherein the identified image type is one of text, photo, table, or graph.

11. A method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request to print the image data;

loading the image data and the segmentation data from the storage medium;

processing the image data based on the segmentation data; and

printing the processed image data.

12. A method according to claim 11, further comprising decompressing the loaded image data.

13. A method according to claim 11, wherein the step of processing the image data includes:

applying one or more image processing functions to a first image type region of the image data; and

applying one or more image processing functions to a second image type region, different than the first image type region, of the image data,

wherein at least one of the one or more image processing functions applied to the second image type region of the image data is not applied to the first image type region.

14. A method according to claim 1, wherein the step of storing the image data and the segmentation data includes:

storing the image data in a first storage medium; and

storing the segmentation data in a second storage medium, different from the first storage medium.

15. A method according to claim 1, further comprising generating a table that identifies the link between the image data and the segmentation data.

16. A method for processing image data, comprising:

generating image data from a scan of an original image;

creating segmentation data from the generated image data, the segmentation data including information regarding image types present in the image data corresponding to the scanned original image;

compressing the image data; and

storing the compressed image data and the segmentation data in a storage medium.

17. An apparatus for processing image data, comprising:

a scanner that generates image data from a scan of an original image;

a segmentation unit that creates segmentation data from the generated image data, the segmentation data including information regarding image types present in the image data corresponding to the scanned original image; and

a storage medium that stores each of the image data and the segmentation data and stores a link between the image data and the segmentation data.

18. An apparatus according to claim 17, wherein the segmentation data includes information identifying an image type for each of a plurality of regions of the image data.

19. An apparatus according to claim 18, further comprising a compression unit that compresses the image data before the image data is stored in the storage medium.

20. An apparatus according to claim 17, further comprising:

an image processing unit that performs one or more image processing functions on the image data based on the segmentation data in response to receiving a request to print the image data; and

a printer that prints the processed image data.