Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Hitoshi Hirohata

Masakazu Ohira

Atsuhisa Morimoto

Yohsuke Konishi

Akihito Yoshida

Kazuhisa Kubota

Naoto Fukushima

Haruo Yamamoto

Katsumi Amakawa

Hiroshi Kawamura

Makoto Ohtsu

Takahiro Daido

Masakazu Ohyama

An image forming apparatusincludes (i) an image input apparatus, (ii) a control section, (iii) a document detecting sectionincluding a blank page detecting section and a separator sheet detecting section, and (iv) a file creating sectionfor creating a file of image data. The image input apparatushas a double-side reading function. The file creating sectionhas a blank page skipping function and a separating function. The control sectionincludes a function setting sectionfor enabling the double-side reading function and the blank page skipping function when enabling the separating function.

Control device for controlling image processing system, image forming apparatus, image reading apparatus, control method, and computer-readable recording medium

When displaying a N-up image view in which a plurality of thumbnail images displayed in given windows are grouped and displayed in a single window by using a detecting section for detecting a contact position on a display screen of a display section, position specifications for the N-up image view of thumbnail images in the windows are received based on a contact position in the window in selecting thumbnail images to be displayed in the N-up image view by making contact with the thumbnail images, and the thumbnails images are displayed in the N-up image view based on the received position specifications.

Image display apparatus which displays an N-up image generated from a plurality of thumbnail images by a touch operation of a display screen

Disclosed is an image processing apparatus which (i) determines whether or not characters to be subjected to a character recognition process in image data have a size larger than a predetermined size, (ii) in a case where the characters is determined as larger than the predetermined size, reduces at least a region including the characters so that the size of the characters fits within the predetermined size, and (iii) performs a character recognition process of the characters with use of the reduced image data.

Image processing apparatus, image reading apparatus, image forming apparatus, and image processing method

An object area containing a text or a graphic is extracted from a document image containing the text or the graphic. Then, on the basis of the extracted object area and stored size information, a cropping area is determined that surrounds the object area with given margins. Further, setting of margins is received. Then, on the basis of the object area and the received setting of the margins, the cropping area is determined. Then, the cropping area determined on the basis of the object area and the size information or alternatively the cropping area determined on the basis of the object area and the setting of the margins is cropped from the document image.

Image processing apparatus, image reading apparatus, image forming apparatus, image processing method, and recording medium

Document data corresponding to each page included in a document is stored, and furthermore, feature data indicative of a feature of the document data and a document index indicating the document are associated with the document data. A document extracting apparatus obtains input document data, calculates feature data from the input document data, judges similarity between the input document data and the document data based on the feature data, obtains a document index associated with document data similar to the input document data, and extracts a plurality of pieces of document data associated with the document index. Thus, document data concerning the document including a page corresponding to the document data similar to the input document data is extracted for a plurality of pages.

Document extracting method and document extracting apparatus

In an image data output processing apparatus of the present invention, an image matching section is capable of determining whether a similarity exists between each image of an N-up document and a reference document when input image data is indicative of the N-up document. An output process control section is capable of regulating an output process of each image in accordance with a result of determining whether the similarity exists between each image of the N-up document and the reference document. This allows detecting with high accuracy a document image under regulation on the output process and regulating the output process, when the input image data is indicative of an N-up document and includes the document image under regulation on the output process.

Image data output processing apparatus and image data output processing method

At least two infrared light-emitting areas are displayed within a display screen of a liquid crystal display apparatus. The infrared light-emitting areas are areas for emitting light having a wavelength in the infrared region. Then, an image is captured by an operating device in the direction of a position pointed by the operating device. A position on the display screen that is pointed by the operating device is calculated based on the positions of the infrared light-emitting areas that are included in the captured image. This arrangement makes it possible to appropriately calculate the position on the display screen that is pointed by the operating device, independently of the distance between the operating device and the display screen of the liquid crystal display apparatus.

Display system and method for detecting pointed position

An image processing apparatus includes a feature point calculating section for extracting two or more connected components from a document image of interest and calculating the feature point from the centroid defined in each of the connected components, a features calculating section for calculating the features of the document image from the distance between the feature points, a voting processing section for voting one of the registered images which is similar to the document image as reviewing the features, and a similarity judging process section for judging the similarity from the result of the voting, wherein the description of the processing to be executed for the output is determined from the result of the similarity judgment.

Image processing apparatus, image forming apparatus, image processing system, computer program and recording medium

A plurality of infrared-light-emitting areas are displayed in a display screen of a liquid crystal display apparatus in a method that allows each of the infrared-light-emitting areas to be distinguished. Then, an image in a direction of a pointed position is captured by an operating device. Based on a result of distinguishing each of the infrared-light-emitting areas and a position of each of the infrared-light-emitting areas, a pointed position on the display screen is calculated. This makes it possible to properly detect the pointed position on the display screen pointed by the operating device, regardless of (i) a distance between the operating device and the display apparatus and (ii) a rotation angle of the operating device around an axis in an image capture direction of the operating device.

In an image matching apparatus of the present invention, only a connected region in which the number of pixels included therein exceeds a threshold value, among connected regions that are specified by a labeling process section, is sent to a centroid calculation process section from a threshold value processing section, and a centroid (feature point) of the connected region is calculated. When it is determined that a target document to be matched is an N-up document, the threshold value processing section uses, instead of a default threshold value, a variant threshold value that varies depending on the number of images laid out on the N-up document and a document size that are found and detected by an N-up document determination section and a document size detection section. This makes it possible to determine a similarity to a reference document with high accuracy even in a case of an N-up document, i.e., a case where each target image to be matched is reduced in size from an original image.

Image matching apparatus, image matching method, and image data output processing apparatus

In an image matching apparatus of the present invention, when a document type discrimination section that discriminates a document type determines that a target document is an N-up document on which plural document images are laid out, a resolution conversion section that converts a resolution of image data into a default resolution before features are extracted from the image data converts a resolution of image data of the target document into not the default resolution but a resolution which varies depending on the number of document images laid out on the target document and a document size of the target document. This makes it possible to determine a similarity to a reference document with high accuracy even in a case where each document image included in the target document to be matched is reduced in size from its original document image, i.e., in a case of an N-up document.

In a card serving as an external storage device to be inserted into a digital color multi-function printer, features of a reference image and processing rule information indicating processing content to be applied to input image data judged to be similar to the reference image are prestored. Then, in cases where the input image data is judged to be similar to the reference image, the content of a process to be performed on the input image data is controlled in accordance with the processing rule information corresponding to the reference image. This makes it possible to save users the trouble of setting the content of a process to be performed on input image data, and to prevent a shortage of memory capacity of a memory of the image processing apparatus even in cases where there is an increase in the number of reference images.

Image processing apparatus, image processing system, image processing method, and image forming apparatus

In the image processing apparatus of the present invention, when a document is read, a document matching process section determines whether the document is similar to a reference document or not. When the document is similar to the reference document, the document matching process section further determines whether the document has been zoomed (size of the document has been changed). When the document has been zoomed, an editing process section restores the size of the document to the size of the reference document. This provides an image processing apparatus capable of restoring the changed size of a document in a predetermined format such as a form document and an application document to its original size.

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Hashimoto, Japan

Hitoshi Hirohata