The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 15, 2001
Filed:
Oct. 16, 1995
Yoshihiro Ishida, Kawasaki, JP;
Shinichiro Koga, Kawasaki, JP;
Nobuyuki Shigeeda, Yokohama, JP;
Takeshi Kawazome, Utsunomiya, JP;
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
Contour vectors are extracted by an outline extraction unit from a binary image acquired by a binary image acquisition unit. An outline smoothing/zooming unit smoothes and zooms the image expressed by the contour vectors. The zoom ratio at this time is controlled by a zoom controller in such a manner that a zoom ratio obtained by combining this zoom ratio with the zoom ratio of a second zooming unit will become a desired zoom ratio. The smoothed and zoomed image data is converted to a binary image by a binary image reproducing unit. This binary image is zoomed by the second zooming unit. The zoom ratio here preferably is selected in such a manner that the zoom ratio of the smoothing zoom unit becomes unity or greater. As a result, zooming of image data expressed by vectors is no longer limited to enlargement, images can be reduced in size while still remaining faithful to the original image, and it is unnecessary to process extra data.