JP4660423B2 - Image forming system and image forming method - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming system including an image forming apparatus that forms an image and an advertisement image management apparatus that manages advertisement images. When copying a document, the advertisement image suitable for the owner of the document is copied to the document image. The present invention relates to an image forming system and an image forming method.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when copying an original in an image forming system, there is a technique for printing an advertisement image in an unprinted area on paper. In this technology, since the advertiser is charged a fee charged when using the image forming apparatus, the user of the image forming apparatus can make a copy at a low cost, and the advertiser can promote the advertisement. Can benefit both users and advertisers.

  For example, in the prior art disclosed in Patent Document 1 below, in order to enhance the advertising effect, the user is asked for a questionnaire and an advertising image that matches the questionnaire is obtained from the advertising image management server. As a result, an advertisement having a content according to the user can be acquired, and an advertisement image with a high advertising effect can be printed and provided on paper.

Further, as a conventional technique, as shown in Patent Document 2 below, a technique for searching for an advertisement image using a keyword has been proposed. The process requester who copies the manuscript detects the advertisement image by comparing the keyword set in advance in the advertisement image data with the extracted keyword.
The prior art can be acquired by searching for an advertisement image required by a user who uses the image forming apparatus, and thus the advertising effect is enhanced.

JP 2002-41953 A (paragraphs [0028] to [0036], FIG. 4) JP 2002-189394 A (paragraphs [0095], [0096], FIG. 15)

However, in the above-described conventional technology, every time a necessary advertisement image is output, a questionnaire survey for searching, keyword operation, etc. must be performed, which is troublesome and causes erroneous operations. .
Further, when a third party uses the image forming apparatus in place of the original user, the third party performs an input operation for search on behalf of the original user. For this reason, there has been a problem that a third party has to input without error and the operation is troublesome.

  Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and searches for an advertisement image suitable for the owner of a document and automatically synthesizes it with a document image. An object of the present invention is to provide a forming system and an image forming method.

In order to solve the above problems, an invention according to claim 1 of the present application includes an image forming apparatus and an advertisement image management apparatus that manages advertisement images, and when copying a document image in the image forming apparatus, In the image forming system for retrieving advertisement image data stored in the advertisement image management apparatus from the advertisement image management apparatus, transmitting the advertisement image data to the image forming apparatus, and outputting the advertisement image data together with the document image to an image forming medium.
The image forming apparatus includes a holder specifying data acquisition unit that acquires data of a document holder and specifies a document holder when acquiring the document image,
The advertisement image management device searches advertisement image data corresponding to the acquired owner specifying data, and when a plurality of advertisement images are searched based on the owner specifying data, the number of output times for the owner is determined . An advertisement image data search means for preferentially outputting a small number of advertisement images is provided.

Moreover, the invention according to claim 1 of the present application is characterized in that the owner specifying data acquired by the owner specifying data acquiring means is attached to the document image as a tint block image.

In order to solve the above problem, an invention according to claim 2 of the present application includes an image forming apparatus and an advertisement image management apparatus that manages advertisement images, and when copying a document image in the image formation apparatus, In the image forming method in the image forming system, the advertisement image data stored in the advertisement image management apparatus is retrieved from the advertisement image management apparatus, transmitted to the image forming apparatus, and output to the image forming medium together with the document image. ,
In the image forming apparatus, when acquiring the document image, acquiring the document owner data to identify the document owner;
In the advertisement image management device, when the advertisement image data corresponding to the acquired owner specifying data is searched and a plurality of advertisement images are searched based on the owner specifying data, the number of times of output for the owner And preferentially outputting an advertisement image with a small amount of advertisement image.

In addition, in the invention according to claim 2 of the present application, the owner specifying data acquired in the step of specifying the manuscript creator or the owner at the same time of acquiring the manuscript image is attached to the manuscript image as a tint block image. It is characterized by.

By providing the above-described configuration, the present invention has the following excellent effects. That is, according to the image forming system of the invention of claim 1 of the present application, when copying a document image, the owner of the document is specified almost automatically without performing a troublesome input operation such as inputting a questionnaire. In the advertisement image management apparatus, advertisement image data suitable for the specified owner can be obtained and output together with the document image. Moreover, even when a third party makes a copy of the manuscript on behalf of the owner of the manuscript, an advertisement image appropriate and necessary for the owner can be automatically output regardless of the third party. it can. Therefore, the owner of the manuscript does not need to convey information for inputting work such as an ID code and a keyword when requesting a copy to a third party, and can easily form an image and at the same time, a necessary advertisement image. Will be able to get.
In addition, when there are multiple advertisement image data suitable for the holder among a plurality of advertisement image data recorded and held in advance, the plurality of advertisement image data is output with priority from the one with the smallest number of output times. Therefore, an advertisement image always having new contents can be automatically obtained for the owner. Accordingly, advertising activities with a high advertising effect are always promoted, which is beneficial to the document owner and the advertiser.

Further, according to the image forming system of the invention of claim 1 of the present application, the owner specifying data acquired by the owner specifying data acquiring unit is attached to the document image as a copy-forgery-inhibited pattern image. Therefore, when reading an original image in the image forming apparatus, it becomes possible to acquire the owner specifying data simultaneously and automatically, and troublesome work such as manually inputting the owner specifying data and the questionnaire. It becomes possible to acquire a necessary advertisement image without doing it.

Further, according to the second aspect of the present invention, it is possible to obtain an image forming method having the same effect as that of the image forming system according to the first aspect .

  Hereinafter, specific examples of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to examples and drawings.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an image forming system in the embodiment, FIG. 2 is an explanatory view showing a document copied in the image forming system in the embodiment, and FIG. 3 is an explanatory view showing a database of owner information in the embodiment. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a database of advertisement information in the embodiment, FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the overall operation of the image forming system of the embodiment, and FIG. 6 is a diagram of an image output (printed) by the image forming system in the embodiment. FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an advertisement image data search unit in the embodiment, and FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a processing operation for determining priority from a plurality of advertisement image data in the embodiment.

  FIG. 1 shows an image forming system 1. The image forming system 1 includes an advertisement image management apparatus 10 that manages advertisement images and a plurality of image forming apparatuses 30 connected via a network 20.

  FIG. 2 shows a manuscript 40 for forming an image using the image forming apparatus 30. The manuscript 40 includes a manuscript image 401 composed of characters, figures, and the like, and the owner of the manuscript 40. Person identification data 402 is attached. This owner specifying data is composed of a tint block image, for example. Alternatively, the owner specifying data 402 may be a bar code or the like, but in this case, it is necessary to provide it at the end of the document 40 so as not to overlap the document image 401.

The advertisement image management apparatus 10 includes an owner information registration unit 101 that registers information corresponding to the owner identification data 402, and an advertisement image data storage unit 102 that stores and holds advertisement image data corresponding to the owner identification data 402 in advance. The owner specifying data receiving unit 103 that receives the owner specifying data 402 sent from the image forming apparatus 30 and the advertisement image data storing unit 102 based on the owner specifying data 402 received by the owner specifying data receiving unit 103. The advertisement image data search unit 104 that searches for the advertisement image data stored in the advertisement image data search unit 104 and the output unit 105 that outputs the advertisement image data searched by the advertisement image data search unit 104 to the image forming apparatus 30.
The advertisement image management apparatus 10 further includes a setting operation unit 106, a control unit 107 that controls the whole, an internal bus 108, and an interface 109 connected to the network 20.

  The holder information registration unit 101 registers the owner information in the holder information database 50 shown in FIG. The owner information database 50 is provided in the advertisement image management apparatus 10. Alternatively, it is provided in another server or terminal device (not shown) connected to the network 20. The advertisement image data storage unit 102 of the advertisement image management apparatus 10 stores advertisement image data classified by the advertisement information database 60 shown in FIG.

  Information on the owner is input to the owner information database 50 by operating the setting operation unit 106. In this information, a hobby preference category number 501 in which a hobby preference is prepared in advance in addition to the gender and age of the owner is recorded. This hobby preference category number 501 categorizes and organizes the types of hobbies and preferences of the owner that the advertiser wants to provide an advertisement. Necessary items are selected by a setter such as an administrator of the advertisement image management apparatus 10 It is for setting.

Advertisement information is input to the advertisement information database 60 by the setting operation unit 106. In this information, the gender and age appropriate for providing the advertisement, and the selected hobby / category category number 601 and advertisement ID 602 are input.
In this way, the recorded and held advertisement image data is classified in the advertisement information database 60 for each hobby / category category. Then, when the owner identification data 402 is received in the advertisement image management apparatus 10, the advertisement image data search unit 104 refers to the owner information database 50 to acquire the hobby preference category number of the document owner, and the hobby The corresponding advertisement image data is searched and extracted from the preference category number.

The image forming apparatus 30 includes a scanner unit 301 and a buffer memory that temporarily stores and holds a document image 401 read by the scanner unit 301. The image forming apparatus 30 has a holder specification that separates the owner specification data 402 from the document image 401. A data acquisition unit 302; a holder identification data output unit 303 that outputs the acquired owner identification data to the advertisement image management apparatus 10; and an advertisement image data reception that receives advertisement image data output from the advertisement image management apparatus 10 Unit 304, an image composition unit 305 that synthesizes the advertisement image received by the advertisement image data reception unit 304 and the original image, and a printer unit 306 that forms the image synthesized by the image composition unit 305 on a printing medium. .
Further, the image forming apparatus 30 includes an operation unit 307, a control unit 308 that controls the whole, an internal bus 309, and an interface 310 connected to the network 20.

  The owner identification data 402 is read simultaneously when the scanner unit 301 reads a document image 401 such as characters and images included in the document 40. The read image data is temporarily stored in a buffer memory (not shown). Next, the holder specifying data acquisition unit 302 acquires the holder specifying data 402 separately from the document image 401, and the holder specifying data output unit 303 outputs the acquired holder specifying data to the advertisement image management apparatus 10.

  Details of the advertisement image data search unit 104 of the advertisement image management apparatus 10 are shown in FIG. The advertisement image data search unit 104 is configured to search for advertisement image data stored in the advertisement image data storage unit 102 based on the owner identification data 402 received by the owner identification data reception unit 103, and Result data calculation unit 1041 that calculates the actual data by counting the number of times of output for each owner of the advertisement data output as a result of the search, actual data storage unit 1042 that accumulates the calculated actual data, and the owner A priority determination unit that determines to preferentially output advertisement image data with a small number of outputs in the result data in the result data storage unit 1042 when there are a plurality of advertisement image data searched and extracted based on the specific data 1043.

  If a plurality of extracted advertisement image data has the same result data, it is impossible to obtain a single one by obtaining a difference. In this case, the priority determination unit 1043 determines what should be output according to the order stored and held in the advertisement image data storage unit 102.

The operation of the image forming system 1 according to the above-described embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
The document 40 for forming an image using the image forming apparatus 30 is previously attached with owner specifying data 402 for specifying the owner (step S1). In the advertisement image management apparatus 10, the owner information database 50 corresponding to the owner specifying data 402 is created as an initial setting (step S2). The advertisement image data storage unit 102 stores and holds a plurality of advertisement image data (step S3), and further creates the advertisement information database 60 (step S4). Steps S1 to S4 described above are initial settings for image formation, and this initial setting is performed by the administrator at the request of the document owner and the advertiser. Of course, it may be performed by a user other than the administrator, an advertiser, or the like.

  After the initial setting, the user can read and print an image from the prepared document 40 by using the image forming apparatus 30. Therefore, the user loads the document 40 at a predetermined position of the scanner unit 301 (step S5). Then, the user operates the operation unit 307 to start reading the document image 401 from the document 40 (step S6).

  The document image read from the document 40 is stored in the buffer memory, and the owner specifying data acquisition unit 302 extracts the owner specifying data from the data of the document image, and the acquired owner specifying data is the owner specifying data. The data is output from the data output unit 303 (step S7).

  The outputted owner identification data is transmitted from the image forming apparatus 30 to the advertisement image management apparatus 10 via the interface 310. In the advertisement image management apparatus 10, the owner specifying data is received by the owner specifying data receiving unit 103 via the interface 109 (step S8). Next, the advertisement image data search unit 104 confirms that the owner specified based on the owner specification data 402 received by the owner specification data receiving unit 103 is registered in the owner information registration unit 101. After the confirmation is obtained, the advertisement image data search unit 104 executes a search process using the owner information database 50 and the advertisement information database 60 (step S9). By this search processing, the advertisement image data search unit 104 extracts advertisement image data corresponding to the owner specifying data 402 stored in the advertisement image data storage unit 102.

  The extracted advertisement image data is transmitted from the output unit 105 to the image forming apparatus 30 via the interface 109 and the network 20. The advertisement image data transmitted from the advertisement image management apparatus 10 is received by the advertisement image data receiving unit 304 of the image forming apparatus 30 (step S10). The received advertisement image data is combined with the original image in the image combining unit 305 (step S11). The combined image data is supplied to the printer unit 306 and printed on a predetermined sheet (step S12).

  An output state of an image printed by the printer unit 306 is shown in FIG. 6, and an advertisement image 701 is arranged in the margin on the output paper 70 so as to be aligned with the original image 401. If there is not enough margin to print the advertisement image 701, the margin is created by reducing the original image 401 during the image composition processing.

  Note that the control unit 107 of the advertisement image management apparatus 10 and the control unit 308 of the image forming apparatus 30 detect that the advertisement image 701 is output and printed, and part or all of the charge is charged to the advertiser. Process. If the corresponding advertisement image is not obtained as a result of the search, the user is responsible for the charge, and a message to that effect is displayed.

  Next, the processing operation in which the advertisement image data search unit 104 determines the priority order from a plurality of advertisement image data will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

As a result of the search, the advertisement image management apparatus 10 outputs desired advertisement image data and sends it to the image forming apparatus 30 (step S20). The performance data calculation unit 1041 calculates the performance data by counting the number of times the advertisement image data output by the search is carried out for each holder (step S21). The calculated result data is accumulated in the result data storage unit 1042 (step S22). When the search processing unit 1040 determines whether or not there are a plurality of pieces of advertisement image data extracted for the same holder (step S23). When there are a plurality of extracted advertisement image data, the priority determination unit 1043 determines to prioritize advertisement image data with a small number of outputs in the result data stored in the result data storage unit 1042 (step S24). Then, the advertisement image data determined to have priority is sent to the output unit 105 (step S25). On the other hand, when it is determined in step S23 that single advertisement image data has been searched, the searched single advertisement image is output as it is (step S26).
If the plurality of retrieved advertisement image data have the same result data, the priority determination unit 1043 determines what should be output according to the order stored and held in the advertisement image data storage unit 102. In this way, single advertisement image data is sent to the image forming apparatus 30.

  Such an image forming system 1 is configured by a system including a computer, and can be operated by a program that executes the above steps.

  According to the above-described embodiment of the present invention, when the image forming apparatus 30 copies an original image acquired from an original, an advertisement image suitable for the owner of the original can be combined with the original image. This is because, in the advertisement image management apparatus 10, the owner specifying data for specifying the owner of the document is registered in the owner information registration unit 101, and the advertisement image data to which the search information is added in advance is added with the search information. Then, the advertisement image data is recorded and held in the advertisement image data storage unit 102, and appropriate advertisement image data is retrieved based on the owner identification data extracted from the original in the image forming apparatus 30 and sent to the image forming apparatus 30. Then, the image forming apparatus 30 can synthesize the searched advertisement image with the document image and output it.

  In this embodiment, the owner specifying data is attached to the original image in the form of a copy-forgery-inhibited pattern image or barcode, and the owner specifying data is extracted almost automatically when the original is read. Although an example has been shown, the owner specifying data may be acquired separately from the manuscript. For example, it is possible to attach an authentication device to the image forming apparatus and acquire the owner specifying data from the authentication device. For example, when the authentication device is a touch panel, authentication information for identifying owner specifying data is input by the manuscript owner operating the touch panel. Further, if the authentication device is an IC card reader, the authentication information recorded on the IC card can be read to acquire the owner specifying data. In addition, if a token with memory is used and inserted into the authentication device, it is possible to copy the original image and at the same time to acquire the owner specifying data. The data is used to search for advertisement images necessary for the owner. Furthermore, a biometric authentication device may be adopted as the authentication device.

  As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to automatically synthesize an advertisement image that is suitable for the owner and required by the owner and output it. Moreover, even when a third party uses the image forming apparatus using a manuscript on behalf of the owner, an advertisement image required by the owner or creator can be output regardless of the third party. Therefore, when requesting image formation from a third party, necessary image formation can be performed without taking any special procedure. In addition, when a plurality of advertisement image data suitable for the holder exists in a plurality of advertisement image data recorded and held in advance, the plurality of advertisement image data is output with priority from the one with the smallest number of output times. Therefore, an advertisement image always having new contents can be automatically obtained for the owner. Therefore, it is possible to promote advertising activities with a high advertising effect.

  The owner or creator and the third party refer to the case where the owner is the president and the third party is the secretary, for example. Further, the number of owners is not limited to one, but may be a departmental organization of a company composed of a plurality of persons, a household, or the like. For example, in the case of a departmental organization of a company, a third party who corresponds to a temporary job such as a part-time job is equivalent.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the advertisement image management apparatus 10 and the image forming apparatus 30 are separated via the network 20, but may be integrated. Further, the owner specifying data receiving unit 103, the advertisement image data searching unit 104, the owner specifying data acquiring unit 302 of the image forming apparatus 30, the owner specifying data output unit 303, and the like are separately configured in the advertisement image management apparatus 10. ing. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and may be integrated.
In the embodiment of the present invention, when a plurality of advertisement image data is searched, priority is determined from the result data and a single advertisement image data is output. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the advertisement image data may be output based on the order of recording and holding.

1 is a block diagram illustrating an image forming system in an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a document to be copied in the image forming system according to the embodiment of the present invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the database of the holder information in the Example of this invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the database of the advertisement information in the Example of this invention. 3 is a flowchart showing an overall operation of the image forming system in the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a state of an image printed by the image forming system according to the embodiment of the present invention. 1 is a block diagram showing an advertisement image data search unit of an image forming system in an embodiment of the present invention. It is a flowchart which shows the processing operation which determines a priority from the some advertisement image data of the image forming system in the Example of this invention.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Image forming system 10 Advertisement image management apparatus 20 Network 30 Image forming apparatus 40 Manuscript 50 Owner information database 60 Advertisement information database 70 Output sheet 101 Owner information registration part 102 Advertisement image data storage part 103 Owner specific data receiving part 104 Advertisement Image data search unit 105 Output unit 106 Setting operation unit 107 Control unit 301 Scanner unit 302 Owner specific data acquisition unit 303 Owner specific data output unit 304 Advertisement image data reception unit 305 Image composition unit 306 Printer unit 307 Operation unit 308 Control unit 401 Document image 402 Owner specific data 501 Hobby preference category number 601 Hobby preference category number 602 Advertisement ID
701 Advertisement image 1040 Search processing unit 1041 Result data calculation unit 1042 Result data storage unit 1043 Priority determination unit

Claims (2)

An image forming apparatus, and an advertisement image management apparatus for managing advertisement images. When the original image is copied in the image forming apparatus, the advertisement image data stored in the advertisement image management apparatus is stored in the advertisement image management apparatus. In an image forming system for retrieving from an apparatus, transmitting to the image forming apparatus, and outputting to the image forming medium together with the original image,
The image forming apparatus includes a holder specifying data acquisition unit that acquires data of a document holder and specifies a document holder when acquiring the document image,
The advertisement image management device searches the advertisement image data corresponding to the acquired owner specifying data, and when a plurality of advertisement images are searched based on the owner specifying data, the number of times output to the owner with the advertisement image data retrieval means for outputting preferentially the less advertising image,
The image forming system, wherein the owner specifying data acquired by the owner specifying data acquiring means is attached to the document image as a copy-forgery-inhibited pattern image . An image forming apparatus and an advertisement image management apparatus for managing advertisement images, and when the original image is copied in the image forming apparatus, advertisement image data stored in the advertisement image management apparatus is stored in the advertisement image management apparatus. In an image forming method in an image forming system for retrieving from an apparatus, transmitting to the image forming apparatus, and outputting the original image together with the document image
In the image forming apparatus, when acquiring the document image, acquiring the document owner data to identify the document owner;
In the advertisement image management device, when the advertisement image data corresponding to the acquired owner specifying data is searched, and a plurality of advertisement images are searched based on the owner specifying data, the number of outputs to the owner And preferentially outputting advertisement images with less
An image forming method, wherein the owner specifying data acquired in the step of specifying a document creator or a holder at the same time of acquiring the document image is attached to the document image as a copy-forgery-inhibited pattern image .

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