Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Tatsushi Nakajima

Yoshiyuki Nakai

Seido Kawanaka

Kazuo Maruta

By an image processing method, a contour of a figure is represented with a series of clockwise outline vectors, a sense of each vector being set such that the figure be painted out by painting a left side of the vector, then, an outline is created from the outline vectors, and the figure is painted through a scanning operation in an x-axis direction by starting a painting operation at an odd-numbered intersection of the outline and a horizontal scanning line and suspending the painting operation at an even-numbered intersection thereof, thus painting pixels between the odd-numbered intersection and the even-numbered intersection, inclusive of the pixel at the odd-numbered intersection but exclusive of the pixel at the even-numbered intersection. In order to create the outline, plotting points for the outline are first calculating from the outline vectors through use of Bresenham algorithm. Then, a positional relation of a current plotting point to the previous one and the next one is obtained. A positional variation in the y-axis direction between the current plotting point and the previous one calculated based on the positional relation is stored in a flag. In creating the outline, outline components are plotted one after another based on the positional relation of the current plotting point to the previous one and to the next one, or based on the positional variation in the y-axis direction.

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Yamatokooriyama, Japan

Tatsushi Nakajima