Patent ID: 7187381

Claim:
An apparatus for drawing a dotted line having a width wider than that of a single line, said width being achieved by drawing a plurality of straight lines side by side in a number corresponding to the width, the apparatus comprising: a memory configured to store therein data of a dotted-line pattern that includes a series of data pieces stored at respective reference positions, each of the data pieces indicating an on/off state of a corresponding pixel; a unit configured to identify successive pixels on a straight line to be drawn with respect to each line of the plurality of drawn straight lines; a pattern reference unit configured to refer to the data of a dotted-line pattern while changing a reference address for accessing a corresponding one of the data pieces, the reference address being incremented one by one when drawing the successive pixels on the straight line to be drawn, and the reference address for accessing a data piece corresponding to a first one of the successive pixels being responsive to a slope of the dotted line and a position of the straight line to be drawn among the plurality of straight lines; and a drawing unit which draws said successive pixels with respect to each line of the plurality of straight lines in response to the data of a dotted-line pattern referred to by said pattern reference unit.