Method, system and record medium for generating wide-area high-resolution image

Abstract

A capture devicefirst captures the whole of a documentand thereby obtains a total image of the documentA structure analysis sectionconducts image structure analysis to the total image, and thereby extracts structural elements (text, figure, picture, etc.) of the documentand obtains position information of the structural elements. For each of one or more selected structural elements, a sub-image acquisition process is conducted, in which a control information generation sectiondetermines one or more partial areas and a resolution to be used for capturing the selected structural element and an image acquisition control sectionacquires sub-images of the partial areas of the structural element by use of the capture devicewith the determined resolution. An image connection sectionconnects the sub-images together and thereby obtains a high resolution image (synthesis target image) of the structural element. For each of the other (not selected) structural elements to which the sub-image acquisition process has not been conducted, part of the total image corresponding to the structural element is extracted as a synthesis target image. An image reconstruction sectionsynthesizes the synthesis target images of the structural elements maintaining relative position relationship between the structural elements, thereby a wide-area high-resolution image of the documentis obtained even if relatively large blank areas existed in the document