This invention relates to anti-aliased font translation, including the generation of an anti-aliased font that is shifted along a horizontal axis from and relative to, a source font.

A problem associated with the generation on a display screen of images having edges aligned other than vertically and/or horizontally is the effect of aliasing. That is, a diagonal edge will appear to exhibit a number of discrete jumps or "stairsteps" instead of a straight line. An aliased image is generally considered to be unsatisfactory. The size and number of the jumps is a function of the resolution of the display, that is, on the number of pels per unit area. As the resolution of the display increases the effect of aliasing is made less noticeable. However, high resolution displays are generally costly and their use may not be justifiable for a number of character display applications.

The generation of an anti-aliased horizontally shifted font, such as an italic font, from a source font can be a computationally expensive task. However, the generation of the italic font reduces the overall font storage requirements and may thus be desirable.

Accordingly, the present invention provides a method of generating a second, substantially anti-aliased, representation of an image object from a first representation, the second representation having horizontal lines comprised of dots that are shifted horizontally relative to dots of the first representation, each dot of the first representation having a value DOT1 associated therewith, the method comprising the steps of:

for each horizontal line (1-m) within the first representation of a character and for each dot (1-j) within a horizontal line,

determining a modifying value (DOT1k) associated with a dot(k) of the first representation, DOT1k being a function of DOT1 of the dot(k); and

determining a value (DOT2k) of a corresponding dot for the second representation, the value of the corresponding dot being determined in accordance with the expression:

DOT2k = (( DOT1 - DOT1k ) + DOT1(k-1) ),

where DOT1(k-1) is a modifying value of an adjacent dot on the horizontal line.

As disclosed hereinafter by way of example, a second italic representation of a bit mapped character, is generated from a first roman representation thereof. Each dot of the second representation is shifted by a fractional amount (a/b) of a dot width from a corresponding dot of the first representation. A carry-value table is generated and has a number of rows (R) equal to (b) and a number of columns (C) equal to possible values (DOT1) of a pel. The value of the individual table entries (R,C), that is pel modifying values DOT1(k), are found in accordance with the expression:

DOT1(k) = (( DOT1 / b ) * a),

where * denotes multiplication, / denotes division and wherein (a) has a value of zero for the first row, one for the second row and a value of (b-1) for the last row.

Next, for each horizontal line (1-m) within the first, or source, character and for each dot (1-j) within a horizontal line there is determined from the carry-value table the modifying value (DOT1k) of a dot (k). The dots of the input horizontal line are processed from left to right for a right-leaning slant. The value of the source character dot (DOT1) and the row number is used to reference the table to retrieve the value of DOT1k. DOT1k is saved as a "next carry value". For the first dot (dot(1)) of a row a "last carry value" term (DOT1(k-1) is set to zero. A value (DOT2k) of a corresponding dot for the second character is determined in accordance with the expression:

DOT2k = (( DOT1 - DOT1k + DOT1(k-1) ).

After determining DOT2k for input character dots 1-j the method determines a value for an additional output dot (DOT2(j+1)) as being equal to DOT1(k-1).

This is thought to be a practical way of generating an anti-aliased second font from a first, or source, font where the second font is an anti-aliased italic sloping font and the first, a standard uncompressed upright source font.

The present invention will be described further by way of example with reference to an embodiment thereof as illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which

• Fig. 1 illustrates a first character represented in a source font;
• Fig. 2 illustrates a second character generated from the first character; and
• Fig. 3 shows the contents of a look-up table employed in so doing.

Fig. 1 illustrates an uncompressed first, or source character 10, in this case an "H", comprised of a number of displayable dots or pels each of which has a four bit intensity value between 0 and F₁₆. The character 10 may be displayed on a visual display such as a well known raster scan CRT. The individual pel values are stored within a memory of a data processing system and are accessible to a CPU. It is understood that the background pel values, not shown, may be all set to zero or to some value that provides a desired degree of contrast with the value of the pels of the character 10. In some embodiments each pel may have a range of values that is less than or greater than zero to F₁₆. Although the ensuing description is made in the context of alphanumeric characters it should be appreciated that the teaching of the invention is applicable in general to a large number of different types of image objects.

Fig. 2 illustrates a second, target character 20 that is generated from the source character 10. Character 20 has a plurality of dots or pels that are shifted along a horizontal x-axis by some fractional portion of a pel, in this case 1/4 of a pel. Other shifts of, for example, 3/8 or 7/14 of a pel are also possible. The shift is applied on a row by row basis such that an overall vertical slant is imparted to the character 20. As illustrated the target character 20 is the italic form of the source character 10.

It can be noticed that certain of the edge-related pels of the target character 20 have been assigned different intensity values. The overall effect of this assignment of intensity values is to cause the diagonally disposed edges of the displayed character to be visually smoothed and straightened. That is, the character 20 is anti-aliased.

An initial step of the translation process creates a carry-value table of the type shown in Fig. 3. The table has a number of rows (n) equal to the denominator of the pel shift, for example, four rows for a pel shift of 1/4 or eight rows for a pel shift of 3/8. The pel carry values associated with the first row are made all zeros. The pel carry values associated with the next row are set equal to 1/n of the pel value. For example, for the pel value of 8, the carry value is 8(1/4) or 2. Non-integral results are rounded up or down as necessary to an integral value. The pel carry values associated with the next row are set equal to 2/n of the associated pel value, those of the next row to 3/n of the associated pel value, etc.

That is, each dot of the second character representation is shifted by a fractional amount (a/b) of a dot width from a corresponding dot of the first representation. The carry-value table has a number of rows (R) equal to (b) and a number of columns (C) equal to possible values (DOT1) of a pel. The value of the individual table entries (R,C), that is the modifying values DOT1(k), are found in accordance with the expression:

DOT1(k) = (( DOT1 / b ) * a),      (1)

where * denotes multiplication, / denotes division and wherein (a) has a value of zero for the first row, one for the second row and a value of (b-1) for the last row.

Thereafter, the carry-value table so generated is used to parse the input character 10 to generate the output character 20. At the start of a particular row of display pels, or scan line, the appropriate row of the carry-value table is selected. It can be seen that for a pel shift having a denominator of four that the four rows of the table are repetitively applied in a bottom to top fashion over the input character 10 in the manner shown. It should be noted that the the input character could have been parsed from top to bottom.

For each horizontal line (1-m) within the source character 10 and for each dot (1-j) within a horizontal line, there is determined, from the carry-value table, the modifying value (DOT1k) of a dot (k). The dots of the input horizontal line are processed from left to right for a right-leaning slant. The value of the source character dot (DOT1) and the row number is used to reference the table to retrieve the value of DOT1k. DOT1k is saved as a "next carry value". For the first dot (dot(1)) of a row a "last carry value" term (DOT1(k-1) is set to zero. A value (DOT2k) of a corresponding dot for the second character 20 is determined accordance with the expression:

DOT2k = (( DOT1 - DOT1k + DOT1(k-1) ).      (2)

After determining DOT2k for input character dots 1-j the method determines a value for an additional output dot (DOT2(j+1)) as being equal to DOT1(k-1).

As an example, and referring to the Figures, the first dot (dot1(1)) of lower-most row 1 of input character 10 has a value of A₁₆. In that this is the first dot of the line DOT1(k-1) is set to zero. The entry of the table corresponding to row 1 and a character value of A₁₆ results in DOT1k being assigned a value of 3. Solving for dot2(1) results in DOT2 = (( A₁₆ - 3 ) + 0 ) = 7. Next, dot1(2) has a value of F₁₆ which results in DOT1k being assigned a value of 4 from the table. DOT1(k-1) was assigned a value of 3 after the processing of the first dot of the scan line. Solving for dot2(2) results in DOT2 = (( F₁₆ - 4) + 3 ) = E₁₆. After processing all of the input dots of row 1 a value of DOT2(j+1) is made equal to DOT1(k-1), or 3 in this case. In that a pel is normally added at the end of every scan line, for italic characters a value of one is added to a calculated character width to prevent adjacent characters from overlapping.

The generated character set resulting from the above may be stored in a character generator device for supplying variable intensity pels to a display screen in a known manner.

A routine written in the C programming language that implements the above operations is set forth below.