Graphic drawing apparatus

• US 5,712,656 A
• Filed: 07/10/1995
• Issued: 01/27/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 08/08/1994
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Kuno, Michiaki, Ikeda, Kazunori
• Primary Examiner(s): Powell, Mark R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Luu, Matthew
• Application Number:
  US08/500,327
• Time in Patent Office: 932 Days
• Field of Search: 345/113, 345/115, 345/118, 345/119, 345/120, 345/133, 395/132, 395/134, 395/135, 395/140, 364/710.01, 364/710.14
• US Class Current: 345/642
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/0225 User interface arrangements, e.g. keyboard, display; Interfaces to other computer systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04845 for image manipulation, e.g. dragging, rotation, expansion or change of colour
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/00 Control arrangements or circuits for visual indicators common to cathode-ray tube indicators and other visual indicators image data processing or generation, in general G06T

Abstract

Depiction of graphics which are displayed in combination with function graphs is accelerated. Graphics to be displayed on a display device in combination with function graphs are selected and drawn according to the graphic information stored in the graphic information storage area of the data storage RAM memory. The selection is executed based on whether the rectangular region of interest is even partially within the region to be displayed on the screen. The selected graphics are written to the display RAM as bit images by a CPU which operates under the direction of programs set in the program ROM, and displayed on a display device. The data in the graphic information storage area is displayed on a display device upon pressing an EDIT MODE key, edited by operation with an EDIT key, DELETE key, character keys, etc., and the display device is switched to the graphic screen with the modified graphic thereon, upon repressing the EDIT MODE key.

Claims

1. A graphic drawing apparatus which allows drawing of a graphic on a graphic drawing plane and allows displaying of a part of the drawing plane on a screen, the apparatus comprising:

a screen storage memory for storing a region to be displayed on the screen and contents to be displayed;

a graphic information memory for storing information related to a graphic to be drawn on the screen, the stored information for the graphic to be drawn including a graphic shape type and two coordinates of a graphic frame rectangle, the graphic frame rectangle having the graphic totally circumscribed therein, the two coordinates being coordinates of both endpoints of a diagonal of the graphic frame rectangle; and

a graphic selection processor which performs a comparison of the two coordinates of the graphic frame rectangle and the region to be displayed on the screen, and which, in accordance with the comparision, includes the graphic to be drawn on the screen by adding the graphic to be drawn to the contents to be displayed.

2. The graphic drawing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus further comprises:

graphic drawing means for setting the information related to a graphic in response to the movement of a cursor on the screen; and

editing means capable of editing the information related to a graphic which is stored in said graphic information memory.

3. The graphic drawing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the diagonal has a positive slope.

4. The graphic drawing apparatus of claim 2, wherein parameters of each graphic stored in the graphic information memory are represented by relative coordinates within the drawing range.

5. The graphic drawing apparatus of claim 2, wherein graphic information converted to numerical information on the basis of display information representing a display state of a region to be displayed on the screen can be edited by the editing means.

6. The graphic drawing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the graphic information memory has information related to a plurality of graphics stored therein for which the graphic shape type is at least two of the following:

point, line, polygon, series of connected lines.