JP2539630B2 - Fax machine - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus.

[Prior Art] When transmitting image information with a facsimile apparatus, generally, after calling a transmission destination and connecting to the transmission destination through a line, the image information of a transmission original is sequentially read and transmitted. on the other hand,
In the case of transmitting the same document to a plurality of destinations, after storing the image information of the transmitted document in the image memory once, a call is made to the destinations, and a storage broadcast communication is also performed to perform a transmission process.

In the former case where the transmission process is performed while scanning the transmitted document,
The reading and transmission of the document are executed at the same time. Therefore,
By observing the speed at which the manuscript is read page by page, it is possible to know the approximate time required to transmit all pages during the transmission process, and thus the communication charge, which is the telephone charge, can be estimated.

However, in the latter case of storing and transmitting, the reading speed of the document is usually higher than that in the above case, and when the transmission is actually performed, the data transmission rate changes depending on the line state, and the transmission method such as the encoding method of the transmission destination is changed. Sent under conditions compatible with facsimile machines. Therefore, the operator cannot estimate the communication charge in advance or during the transmission process.

Therefore, there is a problem in that, when actually executing the accumulation transmission, the operator may be charged with a communication charge more than expected, and the operator may be anxious when performing the transmission process.

[Purpose] It is an object of the present invention to solve the above problems, and to provide a facsimile apparatus in which the communication charge is known before the transmission process is executed and the communication charge is eliminated.

[Structure] For this purpose, the present invention stores the image information encoding method of the destination facsimile machine and the communication charge per unit time, while storing the data amount of the image information accumulated in the image memory and the code of the image information. The communication time required to transmit the image information is calculated based on the encryption method and the data transmission rate, and the communication charge required to transmit the image information is calculated based on the communication time and the communication charge per unit time, and The communication fee is displayed before the transmission of image information is started.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, a scanner 1 reads an original image and extracts image information of a predetermined resolution, and a plotter 2 records the image information on a recording sheet.

The encoding / decoding unit 3 performs encoding of image information to be transmitted and decoding of received image information. The image memory 4 temporarily stores image information to be transmitted in the case of storage transmission.

The network control device 5 is connected to a normal analog telephone line network and performs line capturing, transmission of a selection signal which is a destination telephone number, detection of an incoming call, and the like.

The modem 6 modulates and demodulates image information and transmits it, and also transmits various procedure signals in the transmission control procedure. The communication controller 7 controls the network controller 5 and the modem 6 to execute facsimile transmission according to a predetermined transmission control procedure based on the G3 standard recommended by CCITT.

The network control device 8 is connected to a digital line network such as a DDX network and performs line capture, transmission of a selection signal which is a destination telephone number, detection of an incoming call, and the like. Communication control unit 9
Controls the network control device 8 to execute facsimile transmission according to a predetermined transmission control procedure based on the G4 standard recommended by CCITT.

The switching unit 10 switches between the communication control units 7 and 9.

The transmission destination information storage unit 11 stores, in advance, a telephone number of each transmission destination, information regarding the facsimile device, various conditions at the time of transmission, and the like together with the speed dial number. The communication time calculation unit 12 calculates the communication time required for the transmission process of the image information, and the communication charge calculation unit 13 calculates the communication charge according to the communication time.

The operation display unit 14 displays operation guidance and the like in addition to the communication charge, and performs various operations for causing the facsimile apparatus to execute a predetermined transmission / reception process in accordance with the guidance.

The system control unit 15 is composed of a microcomputer system, and controls each of the above units to execute a predetermined operation of the facsimile apparatus.

A normal G3 standard facsimile device 16 is connected to the telephone line network, and a G4 standard facsimile device 17 is connected to the digital line network.

When the facsimile apparatus according to the present embodiment is used with the above configuration, the operation display unit 14 is operated to first set the speed dial number. At this time, at the same time, as shown in FIG. 2, various information regarding each destination is set. That is, a desired destination telephone number (c in the figure) is set in association with each speed dial number (a in the figure). In addition, the distinction between the telephone line network and the digital line network (b in the figure) is set.

By the way, in general, in a G3 standard facsimile machine,
When the image information for each line is continuously received, the recording speed of the plotter cannot follow, so the minimum transmission time of the image information for each line is set according to the recording speed of the plotter. This minimum transmission time is notified from the reception side to the transmission side in the transmission control procedure between the facsimile machines, and the transmission side transmits the image information for each line at a time interval equal to or longer than the minimum transmission time.

In the above setting operation, the minimum transmission time (d in the figure) of each destination facsimile machine is set. Note that the G4 standard facsimile apparatus does not have a definition of the minimum transmission time, so it is set to 0 ms.

Further, the image information encoding method when transmitting image information is the MMR (Modified Modified Read) method in the case of the G4 standard, but in the case of the G3 standard, in the transmission control procedure between the transmitting side and the receiving side, MR (Modified Read) method and MH (Mdifi
ed Huffman) method or a manufacturer-specific special method such as SM
It is decided to be R method.

Therefore, the encoding method (e in the figure) that is determined when the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment transmits image information to each destination facsimile apparatus is set.

In the case of a digital line, the data transmission rate is fixedly set for the line, for example, 64 kb / s. On the other hand, in the case of a telephone line, the data transmission rate is fixed within the range of 2400-9600b / S in the transmission control procedure of G3 standard. Therefore, in the case of a digital line, a fixed data transmission rate is set, while in the case of a telephone line, the value of the most determined data transmission rate in the past image information transmission is set as the data transmission rate (f in the figure). .

Further, since the communication fee, which is the line usage fee, can be known from the destination area, the communication fee per unit time is calculated in advance, and the calculated communication fee (g in the figure) is set.

The information set for each destination in this way is stored and stored in the destination information storage unit 11.

Now, in the case of carrying out the sending process in the facsimile apparatus of the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3, first, the sending original is set on the scanner 1 (process 21), and the destination is designated by the speed dial and a predetermined number is set. A starting operation is performed (process 22).

As a result, the scanner 1 is activated and the image information of the transmission document is read. The image information is encoded by the encoding / decoding unit 3 by a specific encoding method such as the MMR method, and is stored in the image memory 4 (Processing 2
3).

Next, the encoding method of the image information of the transmission destination is read from the transmission destination information storage unit 11. When sending image information,
In the G3 standard facsimile apparatus, the image information of the image memory 4 encoded by the MMR method is converted into the image information of the encoding method of the transmission destination and is transmitted.

Here, the converted data amount obtained by converting the image information of the MMR system into the image information of another encoding system is generally the original data amount in the SMR system as shown in FIG. 4 (a). Almost proportional. In the MR method, when the original data amount is small, the converted data amount is relatively large compared to the above,
This tendency is stronger in the MH method.

Further, in the case of transmitting the image information of the encoding method suitable for the destination facsimile apparatus as described above, the amount of data to be transmitted is the image information when the minimum transmission time is short, as shown in FIG. However, if the minimum transmission time becomes long, redundant data called so-called fill bit is transmitted in addition to the image information data, so that the transmission data amount becomes relatively large.

In the case of G3 standard, the amount of data transmitted in this way can be known. In the case of the G4 standard, the amount of data stored in the image memory 4 is the amount of transmission data. When this transmission data amount is known, the transmission time required for data transmission can be obtained from the data transmission speed, as shown in FIG.

Therefore, the communication time of the facsimile apparatus can be calculated by adding a substantially constant time required for transmission control and the like to the above transmission time.

The communication time calculation unit 12 is provided with a conversion table for obtaining various data amounts as shown in (a) and (b) of the same figure, and calculates the transmission time as shown in (c) of the figure. It has a function to do. As a result, the communication time calculation unit 12
The transmission time is calculated based on the data amount of the image information in the image memory 4 and each information of the transmission destination read from the transmission destination information storage unit 11, and a predetermined time required for the preset transmission control is added. Then, the communication time required for the facsimile communication, that is, the time for using the line is calculated (the process 24).

Next, the communication charge calculation unit 13 calculates the communication charge by multiplying the calculated communication time by the stored communication charge of the destination unit time (process 25). Then, this communication charge is displayed on the operation display unit 14 (process 26).

Here, the operator confirms the communication charge by this display and performs a transmission start operation (process 27).

As a result, the system control unit 15 determines the destination line from the stored information shown in FIG. 2 and switches the switching unit 10 to the corresponding side.

Now, for example, if the communication control unit 7 is switched to, the network control device 5 calls the destination telephone number. When the destination facsimile machine responds, the communication control unit 7 executes a predetermined transmission control procedure.

In this transmission control procedure, the above-mentioned image information encoding method, data transmission rate, minimum transmission time, etc. are determined. The image information in the image memory 4 is encoded by the encoding / decoding unit 3 in accordance with these fixed conditions, and the communication control unit 7,
The data is transmitted to the destination facsimile machine via the modem 6 and the network controller 5 (process 28).

By the way, the image information encoding method and the minimum transmission time determined in this transmission process are already set in the transmission destination information storage unit 11. Further, as the data transmission rate, the value that is most frequently determined is set in the destination information storage unit 11.

Therefore, in most cases, the actual communication time in the transmission process is equal to the communication time calculated in the process 24.

On the other hand, when the transmission destination is a digital line, the switching unit 10 is switched to the communication control unit 9 side. At this time, since the image information in the image memory 4 has already been encoded by the MMR method,
It is directly transmitted via the communication control unit 9 and the network control device 8. Further, in this case, since the data transmission rate is fixed, the correct communication time is always calculated.

As described above, in the present embodiment, the image information coding method, the data transmission rate, the minimum transmission time, and the communication charge per unit time are stored in advance for each destination, and the stored conditions are stored. The communication charge is calculated and the communication charge is displayed before the image information transmission process is started.

As a result, the operator can know the communication charge in advance, and when the transmission process is actually executed as in the conventional case, the communication charge is not more than expected, and there is no concern about the communication charge. .

Further, since the communication fee is displayed immediately when the transmission original is read, it is possible to discriminate an original having a low compression rate due to the encoding of image information and a high communication fee. In this case, it becomes possible to consciously select the transmission original so that no communication charge is incurred, such as not transmitting only the original.

In the above embodiments, the image information coding method, the data transmission rate, and the minimum transmission time for each transmission destination are set manually first, but after the transmission processing is performed, Each value determined at that time may be stored. Also, the data transmission rate is
Although the value with the highest frequency of determination is set, the value with the lowest transmission rate may be set and the charge may be displayed under the condition that the communication charge is the highest.

[Effect] As described above, according to the present invention, the encoding method of the image information of the destination facsimile machine and the communication charge per unit time are stored in advance, and the accumulated data amount of the image information and each of the above information are stored. Since the information is displayed before the transmission of both information is started based on the communication charge per communication time required based on the transmission processing, the operator knows the communication fee before executing the transmission processing, and the operator is worried about the communication fee. Disappear.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of information stored for each destination, FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a transmission process, and FIG.
FIG. 6A is a graph showing the relationship between the data amount of accumulated image information and the data amount when the image information is converted into image information of another encoding method, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a graph showing the relationship between the data amount and the transmission data amount, and FIG. 7C is a graph showing the relationship between the transmission data amount and the transmission time. 1 ... Scanner, 2 ... Plotter, 3 ... Encoding / decoding unit, 4 ... Image memory, 5,8 ... Network control device, 6 ... Modem, 7,9 ... Communication control unit, 10 ... ... Switching unit, 11 ... Destination information storage unit, 12 ... Communication time calculation unit, 13 ... Communication charge calculation unit, 14 ... Operation display unit, 15 ... System control unit, 1
6,17 …… Facsimile machine.

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A facsimile apparatus for temporarily storing image information of a transmission original in an image memory and then calling a designated destination to transmit the image information, at least an encoding method of the image information of the destination facsimile apparatus. And a destination information storage means for storing the communication charge per unit time, and the image information based on the data amount of the image information accumulated in the image memory, the encoding system of the image information and the data transmission rate. Communication time calculating means for calculating the communication time required for transmission, communication charge calculating means for calculating the communication charge required for image information transmission based on the communication time and the communication charge per unit time, and the calculated communication charge And a communication fee display means for displaying the image information before starting the transmission of the image information. 2. The transmission method according to claim 1, wherein the transmission destination information storage means stores the image information encoding method and the data transmission rate determined in the transmission processing after the transmission processing is executed. Characteristic facsimile machine. 3. The transmission information storage means according to claim 1, further stores the minimum transmission time of the image information of one line, and the communication time calculation means also considers the minimum transmission time. A facsimile apparatus characterized by calculating a communication time required for transmitting image information. 4. A facsimile apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the destination information storage means further stores the minimum transmission time determined in the transmission process after the transmission process is executed.