JP2001357392A - Image reading system, data processor, its method and computer readable storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To perform transferring to an image processing application, etc., after an image processing is set at each original even in the case of the plurality of originals. SOLUTION: An image reading system is constituted by connecting an image scanner having an original feeder 12 to a host computer. In the system, a user is allowed to set the image processing such as tone correction setting, tone inversion setting, rotation setting, mirror image setting or area designation setting at each original through a user interface before the image processing application obtains image data of the original which is transferred from the image scanner by the host computer. When the user indicates transferring, image data is converted in accordance with image processing setting and transferred to the image processing application.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image reading system, a data processing apparatus, a method, and a computer-readable storage medium, and more particularly to an image reading apparatus for sequentially feeding a document and reading an image. It is something.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, image scanners which optically scan a document, digitize the image, and take it into a computer have become widespread. Generally, a driver software for controlling an image scanner is called from an image processing application, and data of an image read by the image scanner is obtained to the image processing application through the driver software.

Some image scanners include a document feeder for sequentially feeding a plurality of documents, which contributes to improvement in efficiency in reading images of a large number of documents.

[0004]

However, in reading an image of a document using a document feeder, the setting for reading cannot be performed independently for each document. Operation must be performed again, or reading must be performed while changing settings one by one without using the document feeder, which is inefficient and consumes a large amount of computer resources such as memory and disks. Would.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems. Even when there are a plurality of originals, images of the plurality of originals are read in advance, and image data is obtained for each original based on the obtained image data. It is an object of the present invention to be able to transfer to an image processing application or the like after performing processing settings.

[0006]

According to the present invention, there is provided an image reading system comprising: an image reading device for reading an image of a document; and a data processing device for obtaining image data of the document transferred from the image reading device. The reading system is characterized in that an image processing setting unit is provided for enabling image processing setting for each document with respect to image data of the document.

A data processing apparatus according to the present invention is a data processing apparatus for obtaining image data of the original transferred from an image reading apparatus for reading an image of the original. The feature is that an image processing setting means for enabling processing setting is provided.

A data processing method according to the present invention is a data processing method for obtaining image data of the original transferred from an image reading apparatus for reading an image of the original. It is characterized by having an image processing setting procedure for performing processing setting.

The computer readable storage medium of the present invention is a computer readable storage medium storing a program for obtaining image data of the document transferred from an image reading device for reading an image of the document, It is characterized in that a program for executing image processing setting processing for performing image processing setting for each document with respect to image data is stored.

In the present invention as described above, even when there are a plurality of originals, image correction such as tone correction settings, tone inversion settings, rotation settings, mirror image settings, and area designation settings are performed for each image document. Processing settings can be made. Therefore, there is no need to perform another operation on the read image data on the image processing application side or to read while changing the settings one by one without using the document feeder.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a host computer and an image scanner according to the present embodiment.

The host computer includes, for example, a CPU (central processing unit) 1 of a microprocessor type, and
Each device connected via the bus line 8 is controlled by executing and executing the contents of programs and data stored in the M3 and the ROM 4. 2 is an external storage device,
5 is a keyboard, 6 is a mouse, and 7 is a display.

The image scanner has an external appearance as shown in FIG. 2, for example, and has a configuration in which a control unit 10, a document reading unit 11, and a document feeder 12 are connected via a bus line 13. Connected to a computer. The control unit 10 receives an instruction from the host computer, sends an instruction to the original reading unit 11 and the original feeder 12, and notifies the host computer of the state of the original reading unit 11 and the original feeder 12.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a functional configuration of software of the host computer in the present embodiment. Image processing application 21, driver manager 2
2, device driver 24, user interface 2
3 is read from the external storage device 2 and is executed by the CPU 1 after being transferred to the RAM 3. In the present embodiment, the CPU 1 of the host computer that executes the above software executes image processing setting means according to the present invention,
Functions such as user interface means are realized.

The image processing application 21 is software for processing image data read by an image scanner (indicated by reference numeral 25 in FIG. 3) by a user operation.

The driver manager 22 is started by the image processing application 21 and sends instructions from the image processing application 21 to the device driver 24 and sends image data taken from the image scanner 25 to the image processing application 21. At the same time as having a user interface 23,
Through this, an instruction from the user is transmitted to the device driver 24.
And the status of the device driver 24 and the image scanner.

The device driver 24 is software for controlling the image scanner 25 in response to an instruction from the driver manager 22.

Hereinafter, processing operations of the host computer and the image scanner according to the present embodiment will be described.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing operation on the host computer side. In the host computer, the image processing application 21 is activated (step S1), and the driver manager 22 is activated by the image processing application 21 (step S2). The activated driver manager 22 displays, for example, a user interface 23 as shown in FIG. 6 on the display 7 (step S3). The user performs reading settings such as document size setting, reading resolution setting, color, gray, and binary setting through the user interface 23 (step S4).

After the above setting, if there is a scan start instruction from the user (step S5), in the host computer, the device driver 24 converts the scan instruction into command data (step S6) and transfers the command data to the image scanner. (Step S7).

Upon receiving the command data, the image scanner executes a scan (step S8). Then, the image data read by the image scanner is transferred to the device driver 24 (step S9), transferred from the device driver 24 to the driver manager 22 (step S10), and the scanned image is displayed on the user interface 23 (step S11). ).

The host computer determines whether or not there is a read end notification from the image scanner (step S12), and determines whether or not it is an all end notification (step S13). The process of step S13 is repeatedly executed until the images of all the originals are read, and the scan is completed.

The scanned image is displayed on a user interface 23 as shown in FIG. 7, for example. In FIG.
The scan image of the first document is displayed, and the user performs image processing settings on the scan image displayed on the interface 23 while referring to the image (step S15).

In the example shown in FIG. 7, as the image processing setting section, a transfer area setting operation section 71, a rotation setting operation section 72, a mirror image setting operation section 73, tone correction for correcting the tone for each of R, G, B A setting operation section 74 and a tone inversion setting operation section 75 are displayed. The user may use the keyboard 5 and the mouse 6 to make these image processing settings.

The user interface 23 includes:
A transfer instruction operation unit 76 for transferring image data to the image processing application 21 is displayed. If the user has made image processing settings for the currently displayed document,
A transfer instruction is issued via the transfer instruction operation unit 76 (step S16). In steps S15 and S16, it is not necessary to set and give an instruction in the order of the read originals, and the user may set and give an instruction for an image of an arbitrary original.

The host computer converts the image data for which transfer has been instructed according to the image processing setting, and transfers the image data to the image processing application 21 (step S1).
7). Here, the image data is transferred to the image processing application 21, but the image data may be transferred to an external storage device such as a hard disk.

The user interface 23 includes:
An end instruction operation unit 77 for instructing the end of the image processing setting is displayed. After completing the image processing settings for all the originals, the user issues a termination instruction via the termination instruction unit 77. When the host computer detects that an end instruction has been issued (step S14), a series of processing ends.

The user interface 23 shown in FIG. 7 displays a scanned image of each original, and clicks a previous page display, a rear page display, or the like to switch the scanned image of another original. However, the scan images of a plurality of originals may be displayed at the same time.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the processing operation on the image scanner side. The image scanner waits until there is a read start instruction command from the host computer (step S31).

When a reading instruction is given, one document is fed from the document feeder (step S32), and the image of the document is read based on the reading setting (step S33). The image data is transferred to the host computer (step S34), and the end of reading is notified to the host computer (step S35).

In step S36, it is determined whether there is a document on the document feeder, and the processes in steps S32 to S35 are executed until there is no document. Then, when it is determined that there is no document on the document feeder and processing for all documents has been completed, a notification of all completion is sent to the host computer (step S37).

In the above-described embodiment, the reading completion notification is transmitted to the host computer every time the image of the document is read from the image scanner. However, the reading completion notification is transmitted when the transfer of the image data from the image scanner is completed. Notification may be used. Further, it is not always necessary to read all the documents on the document feeder.

As described above, image processing can be performed more efficiently than when image data is transferred to an image processing application or the like and then operated on the image processing application side. For example, OCR (Optical Characte
For applications that apply some sort of filter when inputting images, such as (r Reader) software, transferring image data takes a very long time. for that reason,
A long waiting time occurs after scanning until processing can be performed by the image processing application. On the other hand, if the device driver 24 and the driver manager 22 can perform image processing as described above,
The operator can allocate the image data transfer waiting time to other work.

When the image scanner has an image processing function, the device driver 24 can perform image processing using the function.

Further, when a transfer area is designated, only the necessary area needs to be transferred, which is advantageous in transfer time.

(Other Embodiments) In order to operate various devices in order to realize the functions of the above-described embodiments, an apparatus connected to the various devices or a computer in a system is used in the above-described embodiments. Supply the software program code to realize the functions of
The present invention also includes those implemented by operating the various devices according to programs stored in a computer (CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus.

Further, in this case, the program code of the software implements the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the program code itself, and means for supplying the program code to the computer,
For example, a recording medium storing such a program code constitutes the present invention. As a recording medium for storing such a program code, for example, a floppy (registered trademark) disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, C
D-ROM, magnetic tape, nonvolatile memory card, R
OM or the like can be used.

When the computer executes the supplied program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiment are realized, but also the OS (operating system) or other operating system in which the program code runs on the computer. It goes without saying that such program codes are also included in the embodiments of the present invention when the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized in cooperation with the application software or the like.

Further, after the supplied program code is stored in a memory provided in a function expansion board of a computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the function expansion board or the function expansion unit is specified based on an instruction of the program code. It is needless to say that the present invention also includes a case where the CPU or the like provided for performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

It should be noted that the shapes and structures of the respective parts shown in the above-described embodiments are merely examples of the embodiment for carrying out the present invention, and the technical scope of the present invention is thereby reduced. It should not be interpreted restrictively. That is, the present invention can be implemented in various forms without departing from the spirit or main features thereof.

[0041]

As described above, according to the present invention, when there are a plurality of originals, image processing settings can be made for each original before obtaining the image data of the original to an image processing application or the like. Therefore, there is no need to perform another operation on the read image data on the image processing application side or to read while changing the settings one by one without using the document feeder, so that efficient work can be performed. This can contribute to saving computer resources.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a host computer and an image scanner according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an appearance of an image scanner.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a functional configuration of software of a host computer.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a processing operation on the host computer side.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a processing operation on the image scanner side.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a user interface when reading an image.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of a user interface when image processing is set.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 CPU 2 External storage device 3 RAM 4 ROM 5 Keyboard 6 Mouse 7 Display 8 Bus line 9 Host adapter 10 Control unit 11 Document reading unit 12 Document feeder 13 Bus line 21 Image processing application 22 Driver manager 23 User interface 24 Device driver 25 Image Scanner

Claims (11)

[Claims] An image reading device for reading an image of a document;
An image processing system comprising: a data processing device that obtains image data of the document transferred from the image reading device; and an image processing device that enables image processing settings for the document with respect to image data of the document. An image reading system comprising setting means. 2. A data processing apparatus for obtaining image data of an original transferred from an image reading apparatus for reading an image of an original, wherein image processing settings can be set for each original for the image data of the original. A data processing device comprising image processing setting means. 3. The data processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the image processing setting is an image tone correction setting. 4. The data processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the image processing setting is a tone inversion setting of an image. 5. The data processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the image processing setting is an image rotation setting. 6. The data processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the image processing setting is a mirror image setting of an image. 7. The data processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the image processing setting is an image area designation setting. 8. The data processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a user interface unit that displays an image processing setting operation unit for performing the image processing setting together with an image based on the image data of the document. . 9. The data processing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the user interface unit displays a transfer instruction operation unit for giving an instruction to transfer the image data of the document to an image processing application. 10. A data processing method for obtaining image data of a document transferred from an image reading apparatus that reads an image of a document, wherein image processing is performed on the image data of the document for each document. A data processing method comprising a setting procedure. 11. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for obtaining image data of a document transferred from an image reading device that reads an image of a document, wherein the computer-readable storage medium stores a program for each of the documents with respect to the image data of the document. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for executing an image processing setting process for performing an image processing setting.