Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Yuetsu Ochiai

Kazufumi Suzuki

Hiroaki Kotera

Akira Mizoguchi

Katsura Kawakami

Shigeo Shimazaki

Etsuko Hirokami

Shumi Kumagai

An apparatus for expanding or contracting image data includes an input for storing the image data to be processed, a first barrel shifter for shifting the output data of the input register, a control register for storing a mapping pattern which indicates a position of the image data bits to be extracted in the expansion mode or which indicates the number of times when the image data are to be copied, an expansion and contraction circuit for expanding or contracting the image data by referring to the mapping pattern, and a second barrel register for shifting the output image data of the expansion and contraction circuit before the data are loaded in an output data register.

Image data expanding and/or contracting method and apparatus

An original image field is successively scanned along each of parallel line paths to detect the image density of the scanned elemental picture area. A plurality of recurring sequences of binary digits or pulses is generated for each of the scanned line paths in synchronism with the scansion of each elemental picture area, thereby forming dot pattern conversion matrices corresponding in number to the number of discrete gradation steps or image densities with the pulses representing the dots in each matrix. The detected image density is used to select a corresponding one of the dot pattern matrices to represent the scanned area with a dot if the latter is present in a specified position in the corresponding matrix by allowing the selected recurring pulse sequence to be delivered to a recording unit which is moved with respect to a recording field in synchronism with the scansion of the original field.

Method of and system for reproducing or transmitting half-tone images

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Kawasaki, Japan

Yuetsu Ochiai