Image processing apparatus and method for dividing an image into component images

• US 7,684,620 B2
• Filed: 03/21/2006
• Issued: 03/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/22/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Alavi; Amir
• Application Number:
  US11/384,419
• Publication Number:
  US 20060215910A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,463 Days
• Field of Search: 358 112- 1115, 358/1.5, 358/407, 358/438, 358/468, 358/501, 382/173, 382/176, 715/201, 715/209, 715/513, 707/1, 707/3, 707/E17.124, 707/E17.094, 235/487, 235/494
• US Class Current: 382/176
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/3871 the composed originals being of different kinds, e.g. low- and high-resolution originals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/3872 Repositioning or masking

Abstract

The image particulars of a document image or a part thereof are analyzed and the image particulars of the image are determined according to the outcome of the analysis. Then, the analyzed image particulars of the image are converted to the determined image particulars. Additionally, the analyzed image is divided into component images contained in the image. The image particulars of the image are converted as a result of these processes so that information of the component images for making them as objects of easy viewing with an appropriate data size are output.

Claims

1. An image processing apparatus comprising:

an image input device configured to input information of a document image;

an image analyzing device configured to analyze the image particulars of the input document image obtained by the image input device or component images contained in the input document image;

an image dividing device configured to divide the input document image into the component images according to the outcome of the analysis by the image analyzing device;

an image particulars determining device configured to determine the image particulars of the image or each of the images analyzed by the image analyzing device according to the outcome of analysis of the image analyzing device;

an image particulars converting device configured to convert the image particulars obtained by the analysis by the image analyzing device to the image particulars determined by the image particulars determining device; and

a device configured to output the information of the component images having the image particulars converted by the image particulars converting device.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image analyzing device includes:

an image region analyzing section configured to analyze the input document image or image regions included in the input document image for type and position;

an image characteristic quantities computing section configured to analyze the characteristic quantities of the input document image or the component images included in the input document image including the total area of character regions, the minimum value of character size, the number of color pixels and the total area of the original or the total number of pixels of the original;

or

a space assignment determining section which determines if the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages or not and, upon determining that the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages, then determines the image dividing positions and the number of the assigned pages.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the image particulars determining device determines the image particulars including the resolution, the type that is either color or monochrome, the color depth and the image data compression system of the image.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the image analyzing device analyzes the type and the position of each of the image regions that are component images included in the input document image,

the image particulars determining device determines the image particulars of each of the image regions including the resolution, the type that is either color or monochrome, the color depth and the image data compression system, and

the image particulars converting device converts the image particulars of each of the image regions to the image particulars determined by the image particulars determining device.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the image analyzing device determines if the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of page images that are the component images or not and, upon determining that the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages, then the image analyzing device determines the image dividing positions and the number of the assigned pages,

the image particulars determining device determines the resolution of the input document image as image particular according to the outcome of the analysis by the image analyzing device, and

the image particulars converting device converts the image particulars to the resolution as determined by the image particulars determining device.

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

a page setting input device configured to receive setting information indicating if same image particulars and same image dividing positions are to be used for a group of document images or not, and

a memory device configured to store the outcome of determination of image particulars by the image particulars determining device and the outcome of determination of space assignment by the space assignment determining device, wherein,

when setting information indicating that same image particulars and same image dividing positions are to be used for the group of document images is input from the page setting input device, the outcome of determination of image particulars by the image particulars determining device and the outcome of determination of space assignment by the space assignment determining section are stored in the memory device for one of the group of document images and the image particulars are converted by the image particulars converting device for the remaining document images of the group of document images according to the outcome of determination of image particulars by the image particulars determining device as stored in the memory device while each of the document images is divided by the image dividing device according to the outcome of determination of space assignment by the space assignment determining section as stored in the memory device.

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

an output mode specifying device connected to the image particulars converting device to receive output mode specifying information as input, and

the image particulars converting device further having a functional feature of erasing the frame of each of the page image or adding a page number to each of the page images according to the output mode specifying information input to the output mode specifying device.

8. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the image analyzing device determines if the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of page images that are the component images or not and, upon determining that the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages, then the image analyzing device determines the image dividing positions and the number of the assigned pages, and

also analyzes the image characteristic quantities of the input document image including the total area of character regions, the minimum value of character size, the number of color pixels, the total area of the original and the total number of pixels of the original,

the image particulars determining device determines the image particulars of the input document image including the resolution, the number of colors and the color depth by using the image characteristic quantities output from the image analyzing device, and

the image particulars converting device converts the image particulars of each of the page images to the image particulars determined by the image particulars determining device.

9. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the image analyzing device determines if the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of page images that are the component images or not and, upon determining that the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages, then the image analyzing device determines the image dividing positions and the number of the assigned pages, and

also analyzes the image characteristic quantities of each of the page images obtained by dividing the input document image by the image dividing device including the total area of character regions, the minimum value of character size, the number of color pixels, the total area of each of the page images and the total number of pixels of each of the page images according to the outcome of the determination,

the image particulars determining device determines the image particulars of each of the page images including the resolution, the number of colors and the color depth according to the image characteristic quantities output from the image particulars determining device or the image analyzing device, and

the image particulars converting device converts the image particulars of each of the page images to the image particulars determined by the image particulars determining device.

10. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the image analyzing device determines if the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of page images that are the component images or not and, upon determining that the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages, then the image analyzing device determines the image dividing positions and the number of the assigned pages and also analyzes the type and position of each of the image regions in each of the page images,

the image particulars determining device determines the image particulars of each of the image regions in each of the page images including the resolution, the type that is either color or monochrome and the color depth or the image data compression system according to the outcome of the analysis of the image regions by the image analyzing device, and

the image particulars converting device converts the image particulars of each of the page images to the image particulars determined by the image particulars determining device.

11. An image processing apparatus comprising:

an original reading device configured to read information of a document image;

an image analyzing device configured to analyze the image particulars of the input document image acquired for the first time by the original reading device;

an image particulars determining device configured to determine the image particulars of the input document image according to the outcome of analysis of the image analyzing device;

an input mode selecting device configured to select an input mode for the original reading device according to the image particulars determined by the image particulars determining device;

an image dividing device configured to divide the input document image into page images according to the outcome of the analysis made by the image analyzing device of the document image acquired for the second time by the original reading device in the input mode selected by the input selecting device; and

a device configured to output the information of the page images produced by the image dividing device.

12. The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the image analyzing device includes:

an image characteristic quantities computing section configured to analyze the characteristic quantities of the input document image including the total area of character regions, the minimum value of character size, the number of color pixels and the total area of the original or the total number of pixels of the original, or

a space assignment determining section which determines if the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages or not and, upon determining that the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages, then determines the image dividing positions and the number of the assigned pages.

13. The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein

the image particulars determining device determines the resolution, the number of colors or the color depth of the image.

14. The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein

the image analyzing device determines if the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages or not and, upon determining that the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages, then the image analyzing device determines the image dividing positions and the number of the assigned pages, and

the image particulars determining device determines the resolution as a function of the number of the assigned pages of the input document image as determined by the image analyzing device as image particular.

15. The apparatus according to claim 14, further comprising:

a space assignment confirming device connected to the space assignment determining section to confirm the image dividing positions as determined by the space assignment determining section.

16. The apparatus according to claim 14, further comprising:

a page-to-be-extracted specifying device connected to the image dividing device to receive information specifying the page to be extracted as input,

the image dividing device being adapted to divide the image and output the page images obtained by the division according to the information input to the page-to-be-extracted specifying device to specify the page to be extracted.

17. The apparatus according to claim 14, further comprising:

an output mode specifying device connected to the image particulars determining device to select the output device or the output medium that utilizes the component images included in the input document image as a customized destination and receives information for specifying either a high speed mode or a high image quality mode as output mode,

the image particulars determining device being adapted to determine image particulars according to the information for specifying the output mode as input to the output specifying device.

18. The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein

the image analyzing device determines if the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages or not and, upon determining that the input document image is produced by assigning a plurality of pages, then the image analyzing device determines the image dividing positions and the number of the assigned pages, and

also analyzes the characteristic quantities of the input document image including the total area of character regions, the minimum value of character size, the number of color pixels and the total area of the original or the total number of pixels of the original, and

the image particulars determining device determines the resolution, the number of colors or the color depth of the input document image as image particular according to the characteristic quantities analyzed by the image analyzing device.

19. An image processing method comprising:

using a computer to perform the steps of;

inputting information of a document image;

analyzing the image particulars of the obtained input document image or those of each of the component images contained in the input document image;

dividing the input document image into the component images according to the outcome of the analysis;

determining the image particulars of the image or each of the images according to the outcome of analysis of the image particulars;

converting the image particulars obtained by the analysis of the image to the determined image particulars; and

outputting the information of the component images having the image particulars converted according to the outcome of the determination.

20. An image processing method comprising:

using a computer to perform the steps of;

reading information of an original document image;

analyzing the image particulars of the input document image acquired for the first time by the reading;

determining the image particulars of the input document image according to the outcome of analysis;

selecting an input mode for reading the information of the original document according to the determined image particulars;

dividing the input document image into page images according to the outcome of the analysis of the information of the input document image acquired for the second time as read in the selected input mode; and

outputting the information of the page images acquired as a result of the above.