Image processing device

• US 20040136597A1
• Filed: 09/22/2003
• Published: 07/15/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Hara, Junichi, Kodama, Taku, Tokuda, Shousaku
• Granted Patent: US 7,319,792 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/232
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/10 using adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/136 Incoming video signal characteristics or properties
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/162 User input
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/174 the region being a slice, e.g. a line of blocks or a group of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/40 using video transcoding, i.e. partial or full decoding of a coded input stream followed by re-encoding of the decoded output stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/48 using compressed domain processing techniques other than decoding, e.g. modification of transform coefficients, variable length coding [VLC] data or run-length data motion estimation in a transform domain H04N19/547; processing of decoded motion vectors H04N19/513
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/63 using sub-band based transform, e.g. wavelets
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/645 by grouping of coefficients into blocks after the transform
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/85 using pre-processing or post-processing specially adapted for video compression

Abstract

An image processing device is disclosed that is capable of increasing processing speed with a simple configuration and without increasing required memory capacity when editing a compressed image.

The image processing device includes an image dividing unit, an encoding unit, and an editing unit. The image dividing unit divides an input image into image sections. The encoding unit encodes individual image sections independently, and generates a code stream; the code stream includes code sections corresponding to the image sections. The editing unit edits an individual code section, for example, deletes or extracts an image section, or replaces an image section with another image, and outputs the resulting code stream.

Claims

1. An image processing device, comprising:

an image dividing unit configured to divide an input image into a plurality of image sections;

an encoding unit configured to independently encode each of the image sections, and generate a first code stream including a plurality of code sections corresponding to the image sections; and

an editing unit configured to edit one of the code sections in the first code stream, and generate a second code stream based on the edited code section.

2. The image processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein

said editing unit comprises a deletion unit configured to delete at least one of the code sections from the first code stream and output the second code stream including the remaining code sections in the first code stream.

3. The image processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein

said editing unit comprises an extraction unit configured to extract at least one of the code sections from the first code stream and output the second code stream including the extracted at least one code section.

4. The image processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein

said editing unit comprises:

a selection unit configured to select at least one of the code sections from the first code stream; and

a replacement unit configured to replace the selected code section with predetermined coded data, and output the second code stream including the unselected code sections in the first code stream and the predetermined code data.

5. The image processing device as claimed in claim 2, wherein said deletion unit allocates information data indicating that the deleted code section is out of the input image to a header of the deleted code section, and outputs the second code stream including the remaining code sections in the first code stream and the deleted code section.

6. The image processing device as claimed in claim 3, wherein

said extraction unit assigns allocates information data indicating that each of the unextracted code sections is out of the input image to a header of each of the unextracted code sections, and outputs the second code stream including the extracted code section and the unextracted code sections.

7. The image processing device as claimed in claim 4, wherein the predetermined coded data includes a plurality of pixels each having a predetermined pixel value.

8. The image processing device as claimed in claim 4, wherein

said editing unit further comprises:

a decoding unit configured to decode the selected code section and generate first image data corresponding to the selected code section;

an image data generation unit configured to generate second image data based on the first image data; and

a compression unit configured to encode the second image data and generate coded data, and output the coded data to the replacement unit as the predetermined coded data.

9. The image processing device as claimed in claim 8, wherein

said editing unit further comprises a detection unit configured to determine a texture pixel value of the first image data output from the decoding unit;

and

the image data generation unit assigns the determined texture pixel value to pixels of the first image data and outputs the pixel-value assigned first image data as the second image data.

10. The image processing device as claimed in claim 4, wherein the replacement unit replaces image data of the selected code section with image data of the predetermined coded data and maintains a header of the selected code section unchanged.

11. The image processing device as claimed in claim 4, wherein the replacement unit replaces a header and image data of the selected code section with a header and image data of the predetermined coded data, respectively.

12. The image processing device as claimed in claim 4, wherein when replacing the selected code section with the predetermined coded data, the replacement unit replaces a data length of the selected code section or a data length of image data of the selected code section with a data length of the predetermined coded data or a data length of image data of the predetermined coded data.

13. The image processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the encoding unit encodes each of the image sections by using one of entropy coding with two-dimensional discrete wavelet transformation and arithmetic coding.

14. The image processing device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the encoding unit encodes each of the image sections by using JPEG 2000 algorithm;

and

each of the image sections corresponds to a tile according to the JPEG 2000 algorithm.

15. The image processing device as claimed in claim 14, wherein a height and a width of the tile are multiples of a quantity d=2^L, where L is the wavelet decomposition level.

16. An image forming apparatus, comprising:

an image reading unit configured to read an image on a manuscript;

an image processing device, comprising;

an image dividing unit configured to divide an input image into a plurality of image sections;

an encoding unit configured to independently encode each of the image sections, and generate a first code stream including a plurality of code sections corresponding to the image sections; and

an editing unit configured to edit one of the code sections in the first code stream, and generate a second code stream based on the edited code section; and

a printer engine configured to form an image on a sheet of paper based on the second code stream.

17. A program executable by a computer for processing an input image, comprising the steps of:

dividing the input image into a plurality of image sections;

independently encoding each of the image sections, and generating a first code stream including a plurality of code sections corresponding to the image sections; and

editing one of the code sections in the first code stream and generating a second code stream based on the edited code section.

18. A storage medium that stores a program executable by a computer for processing an input image, the program comprising the steps of:

dividing the input image into a plurality of image sections;

independently encoding each of the image sections, and generating a first code stream including a plurality of code sections corresponding to the image sections; and

editing one of the code sections in the first code stream and generating a second code stream based on the edited code section.