JPH05174126A - Electronic filing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To effectively use a small-sized general-purpose computer and to eliminate a need for modifying an electronic file application program each time the model of a peripheral equipment is changed or each model change. CONSTITUTION:An magnetooptical disk device 3 for image data storage is connected to a personal computer 11 to permit the input/output of data to/from the disk device 3 to be controlled by the personal computer 11, an image processor 5 is connected to the personal computer 11 so as to enable data transfer, and an image scanner 7 and a laser beam printer 9 are connected to the image processor 5. The data formats of scanner data and printer data are integrated, and a data take-in processing mode identification part or a printed data identification part is provided for the data format. The image processor 5 sets the printed data format by writing in the printed data identification part.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic filing system, and more particularly to an electronic filing system using an image scanner, a magneto-optical disk device or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Documents, drawings, etc. are captured as an image by an image capturing means such as an image scanner, image processing is performed on this image and converted into appropriate image data, and this image data is stored as a file in a storage device such as an optical disk device. However, there is known an electronic filing system configured to read image data from the storage device in response to a request, transfer the image data to a laser beam printer, and output a hard copy of the image data.

This electronic filing system includes a dedicated machine and a system using a small general-purpose computer such as a personal computer.

[0004]

An electronic filing system using a dedicated machine generally has a problem that it is expensive and lacks versatility in system construction because the entire system including peripheral equipment is constructed by dedicated equipment. I'm out. In addition, this electronic filing system is generally C
Although it has an image processing gate array and an LSI separately from a main processor such as PU, it has only one CPU, which is used for image processing such as image compression / expansion, rotation, enlargement, and reduction.
I / O processing is performed for all input / output devices such as image scanners, magneto-optical disk devices, and laser beam printers. Therefore, the CPU processing speed limits the speed of data input / output processing. In order to speed up the input / output processing, it becomes necessary to use an expensive high-speed CPU.

In an electronic filing system using a small general-purpose computer such as a personal computer, the small general-purpose computer executes an electronic file application program to perform all image processing and input / output processing on an internal memory. Therefore, in addition to the problems that the processing speed is slow and the load on the CPU is heavy, this electronic fing system is used for external input / output interface boards for image scanners, laser beam printers, and other external devices, and for image compression. Since the system is constructed by loading the expansion processing board and the magneto-optical disk device interface board into the expansion slot of the computer main body, these boards occupy the expansion slot of the computer main body and are used in other applications of small general-purpose computers. of Results in a problem that to give the physical constraints at the use.

Further, in the related art, the commands for the image scanner and the printer are not integrated, and the image data is taken in from the image taking means and the printer is given in the individually set data format. It is designed to output image data,
Also, since the image scanner input command and printer output command are unique to each device, the image scanner,
It is necessary to change the electronic file application program each time the printer model is changed and the model is changed.

The present invention has been made by paying attention to the above-mentioned problems in the conventional electronic filing system, and a small general-purpose computer such as a personal computer without occupying the expansion slot of the computer main body with various boards. High-speed image processing by effectively utilizing
It is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic filing system which performs input / output processing and does not need to change an electronic file application program every time the model of an image scanner or a printer is changed and the model is changed.

[0008]

According to the present invention, a storage device for storing image data such as documents and drawings, and an electronic filing application program for inputting / outputting data to / from the storage device are provided. A computer system for execution, an input / output interface connected to the computer system, a main processor, an image processor, an input interface for image capturing means, and an output interface for a printer, and a computer system for executing a control program. Image processing of the image signal input from the input interface by interpreting the command of (1), bidirectionally transferring the image-processed image data to and from the computer system via the input / output interface, and transferring the image data. The output interface An image processing apparatus that performs control to output to over scan, which is connected to the input interface of the image processing apparatus, an imported document, images such as drawings, and image capturing means for outputting the image signal to the image processing apparatus,
A printer that is connected to the output interface of the image processing apparatus and that receives image data from the image processing apparatus and prints; and a data format of image data captured by the image capturing unit and image data for the printer. Has been integrated with
The data format includes a print data identification unit, and the image processing apparatus is configured to identify the type of print data by the light of the print data identification unit.

[0009]

According to the above construction, the data input / output to / from the storage means, that is, the processing such as the file operation is performed by the computer system, and the image processing, the input of the image signal from the image capturing means and the output of the image data to the printer are performed. The processing is performed by the image processing apparatus, and the distributed processing is performed by the computer system and the image processing apparatus. The data format of the image data captured by the image capturing means and the format of the image data for the printer are integrated, and the image processing apparatus identifies the type of print data by the light of the print data identification unit included in the data format.

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the overall configuration of an electronic filing system according to the present invention. The electronic filing system includes a small general-purpose computer system 1,
It is constructed by a magneto-optical disk device 3 as a mass storage device, an image processing device 5, an image scanner 7 as an image capturing means, and a laser beam printer 9.

The small general-purpose computer system 1 includes a general-purpose general-purpose personal computer 11 having a floppy disk drive, a CRT 15 as a display device connected to the personal computer 11 by an analog RGB cable 13, etc., the personal computer 11 and a keyboard. Keyboard 1 connected by cable 17
9 and 9. In addition to the keyboard 19, as input devices, the personal computer 11 includes
A pointing device such as a mouse may be connected.

Although not shown in the figure, the personal computer 11 has a CP of 16 bits, 32 bits or the like.
U and main memory (internal memory) are built in. The operating system and the electronic file application program are read from the floppy magnetic disk of the floppy disk drive, the filing management information is fetched from the keyboard 19, and the CRT is used.
Various information and operation instructions are displayed on the screen 15 and electronic file operations such as data input / output to / from the magneto-optical disk device 3 and the image processing device 5 are performed.

A hard disk unit is connected to the personal computer 11 as an external memory,
Operating system, system program,
Various parameters may be stored.

Although not shown in the figure, the personal computer 11 has a plurality of normal expansion slots on its back surface, and two of these expansion slots each have an input / output interface with a connector. Boards 21, 23
(See FIG. 2) is loaded. The input / output interface by the input / output interface boards 21 and 23 is AN
SI (American National Stan)
SCSI (Sm by dard Institute)
all Computer System Inter
face).

The input / output interface board 21 has an SC
The magneto-optical disk device 3 is connected by an input / output interface cable 25 of SI, and the input / output interface board 23 has an SC as shown in FIG.
The image processing apparatus 5 is connected by an input / output interface cable 27 of SI. In this SCSI connection, the personal computer 11 serves as an initiator, and the magneto-optical disk device 3 and the image processing device 5 serve as targets.

The magneto-optical disk loaded in the magneto-optical disk device 3 is an image data file area for storing image data as each file by the personal computer 11 and a database file area for storing a database file of management information for filing image data. And are formatted so that they are reserved respectively.

The image processing apparatus 5, as shown in FIG. 2, is a RISC (reduced instruction set computer) -CPU.
A main processor 29, an image processor 31 which is a bitmap processor, and a main memory 33.
A frame memory 35 for storing image data, a binary image signal compression / expansion module 37, a SCSI input / output interface unit 39 for connection with the personal computer 11, a floppy disk interface unit 41, and a font card. It has a font generator 45 which receives font data from the font storage 43, a scanner interface unit 47, and a printer interface unit 49.

The main processor 29, the image processor 31, the main memory 33, the binary image signal compression / expansion module 37, the input / output interface section 39, and the floppy drive interface section 41 are bidirectionally connected to each other by a multi-bus 51. Image processor 31
The frame memory 35, the binary image signal compression / expansion module 37, the font generator 45, the scanner interface unit 47, and the printer interface unit 49 are bidirectionally connected to each other by an image bus 53.

Binary image signal compression / expansion module 37
Is an MMR (Modified Modified Re) that is a standard encoding method for G4 digital facsimiles.
ad) It may be a data compression / decompression module of an encoding system. This is because in order to maximize the compression efficiency, the information change pixels changing from white to black on each scan line, or vice versa, are more than the reference pixels on the encoding scan line or other scan lines. This is an encoding method in which the relative distance is used to perform encoding without limiting the number of scanning lines, and thereby the image data capacity can be significantly reduced.

Floppy disk interface unit 41
A floppy disk drive unit 55 is connected to the floppy disk drive unit 55, and the floppy disk drive unit 55 reads the operation system and control program for the image processing apparatus 5 from the floppy magnetic disk loaded in the floppy disk drive unit 55.

The image scanner 7 is connected to the scanner interface section 47 by a scanner video cable 57.

The laser beam printer 9 is connected to the printer interface section 49 by a printer video cable 59.

The image processing device 5 operates according to a control program, and outputs an image signal input from the image scanner 7 to the scanner interface section 47 to the image processor 31.
Is converted into image data by using the main processor 29 and the binary image signal compression / expansion module 37.
Data is compressed by and to be processed at high speed as numerical data.

The image processing apparatus 5 is connected to the personal computer 11 via the input / output interface section 39, the input / output interface cable 27, and the input / output interface board 23 by the SCSI.
In CSI connection, for example, "TEST UNIT
"READY", "REQUEST SENSE", "
READ ”,“ WRITE ”,“ FLUSH BUFF
Commands such as "ER" are supported. Note that "T
"EST UNIT READY" is a command for testing whether the image processing apparatus 5 is usable or not.
"EST SENSE" is a command for inputting sense data, and "READ" is a command for transferring data from the image processing apparatus 5 to the personal computer 11. With this command, scanner data and status are sent from the image processing apparatus 5 to the personal computer 11. On the other hand, "WRITE" is a data transfer command from the personal computer 11 to the image processing apparatus 5, and the image processing apparatus 5 sends vector data, raster data, or parameters from the personal computer 11 by this command. I will receive it again.
“LUSH BUFFER” is a compulsory print output command.

The format of the data portion of the data transfer command as described above is integrated by the image data captured by the image scanner 7, that is, the format of the scanner data and the format of the print data of the image data for the laser beam printer 9. This includes a header part, a function code part, a data fetching processing mode identifying part or a print data identifying part, a significant data part, a pad character part, etc., and all are set to a length of 512 bytes, for example.

FIG. 3A shows an example of the data format of the scanner mode select (write command).
This data format includes a head portion a, a scanner mode selection code portion b as a data fetch processing mode identification portion, a scanner data processing code portion c, a parameter data portion d, and a pad character portion e. The scanner mode select code part b may be 2 bytes, and the code of the scanner mode select code part b sets the data acquisition processing mode to, for example, a bitmap data mode, a run length data mode, an MMR data mode, or the like. It

FIG. 3B shows an example of the format of scanner data (read command). This data format has a header portion a and a scanner data valid byte number portion f.
A scanner data part j and a pad character part e. In the format of the scanner data, the data designated by the scanner mode is read in 512-byte units by the read command.

FIG. 3C shows an example of the format of print data. This data format has a head section a, a data identification code section h as a print data identification section, a print data section i, and a pad character section e. Contains. The data identification code portion h may be 2 bytes. Depending on the code of the data identification code portion h, the data format of the print data portion i may be, for example, graphic data, character data, MMR data, or uncompressed bitmap data. It is identified whether there is any.

FIG. 4 shows a processing flow in the electronic filing system according to the present invention. At the time of filing the drawing OD, a scanner read command in the scanner mode select data format as shown in FIG. 3A is sent from the personal computer 11 to the image processing apparatus 5. When the image processing device 5 receives the scanner read command, the image processing device 5 decodes the command, sets the scanner data processing mode to, for example, the MMR data mode based on the code of the scanner data processing code portion c, and then sends it to the image scanner 7. A start-up command is output, data for image reading of the drawing OD from the image scanner 7 is read, and the read image signal is input to the frame memory 35 of the image processing device 5 as bitmap data.

The image processing apparatus 5 enlarges, reduces, rotates, and MMRs in the frame memory 35 in accordance with a command from the personal computer 11 according to the scanner mode select data format as shown in FIG. 3A.
Data such as compression is generated, and this data is converted into S data in the scanner data format as shown in FIG.
High-speed transfer to the personal computer 11 by the input / output interface unit 39, the input / output interface cable 27, and the input / output interface board 23 by CSI. In other words, the read image signal is converted into predetermined image data by the image processor 31 of the image processing device 5, and this image data is converted by the main processor 29 and the binary image signal compression / expansion module 37 of the image processing device 5. The data is compressed and transferred at high speed to the personal computer 11 through the input / output interface unit 39, the input / output interface cable 27, and the input / output interface board 23 by the SCSI according to the data format as described above.

The personal computer 11 reads the content of the drawing by the image data from the image processing apparatus 5 and displays it in C.
A screen name is displayed on the RT 15, the image data from the image processing device 5 is given a file name and the like according to the filing management information input from the keyboard 15 and transferred to the magneto-optical disk device 3 by the input / output interface cable 25. The input filing management information is transferred to the magneto-optical disk device 3 by the input / output interface cable 25.

As a result, the magneto-optical disk device 3 writes the image data, in this case, the image of the drawing OD in the image data file area of the magneto-optical disk as one file in the MMR compressed state, and the filing management information of the drawing OD. To a database file that is built in the database file area.

When drawing the drawing OD filed on the magneto-optical disk of the magneto-optical disk device 3,
The file name of the file is input from the keyboard 19.
As a result, the personal computer 11 searches the magneto-optical disk of the magneto-optical disk device 3 for a file of the corresponding image data, reads it out, displays it on the screen of the CRT 15, and, if necessary, reads it out and filing management information related to the drawing. Is read from the magneto-optical disk of the magneto-optical disk device 3 and is displayed on the CRT 15.

The image data of the drawing OD read out by the personal computer 11 has a print data format as shown in FIG. 3C and has an input / output interface board 23, an input / output interface cable 27, an input / output interface by SCSI. It is transferred to the image processing device 5 by the unit 29. The image processing device 5 is shown in FIG.
By receiving the printout command in the print data format as shown in (C), the image data is sent to the main processor 2 in the frame memory 35.
9 and the binary image signal compression / decompression module 37 to decompress and decompress, and the data format of the print data section i is set to the figure data, the character data, the MMR data, and the uncompressed bitmap data by the code of the data identification code section h. It is identified which one it is and outputs it to the laser beam printer 9.

As a result, the laser beam printer 9 prints the drawing OD and outputs it.

If necessary, the filing management information relating to the read drawing is transferred as character data from the personal computer 11 to the image processing apparatus 5 by the input / output interface cable 27 in the print data format of FIG. 3C, and this filing is performed. The management information is processed for printing out and transferred to the laser beam printer 9 as character data, which is also printed out by the laser beam printer 9.

The input / output operations of the data filing as described above are all performed by operating the keyboard 19 of the personal computer 11 on the basis of the screen display by the CRT 15 of the personal computer 11, whereby the user is allowed to have the image processing apparatus 5. I / O operations of data filing can be performed without being conscious of, and the transparency of the processing space can be obtained here.

In the above, the present invention has been described in detail with respect to a specific embodiment, but the present invention is not limited to this, and various embodiments are possible within the scope of the present invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

[0040]

As will be understood from the above description, according to the present invention, a storage means such as a magneto-optical disk device and an image processing device are connected to a small general-purpose computer such as a personal computer, and an image scanner is connected to the image processing device. An electronic filing system is constructed by connecting the image capturing means and the printer as described above, and the input / output of data to / from the storage device, that is, file operation and the like is performed by a small general-purpose computer, and image processing and image signal transfer from the image capturing means are performed. The input processing and the output processing of the image data to the printer are distributed processing, which is performed by the image processing apparatus, so that the data filing processing can be performed at low cost and at high speed.

Further, in the electronic filing system according to the present invention, an image processing apparatus is connected to a small general-purpose computer such as a personal computer, and an image capturing means such as an image scanner and a printer are connected to the image processing apparatus. Therefore, as viewed from the small general-purpose computer, the input / output device including the image capturing means and the printer is integrated into one, and the input / output processing in the small general-purpose computer is facilitated. In this case, the expansion slot of the computer body of the small general-purpose computer is not occupied by the external input / output interface board for the external device such as the image scanner or the laser beam printer, and is physically used in the other uses of the small general-purpose computer. No more restrictions.

Further, in the electronic filing system according to the present invention, the data format of the image data taken in by the image taking means and the image data format for the printer are integrated, so that the small general-purpose computer can be used as an image scanner or printer. By sending a data format common to input and output to these devices without being aware of the above, the required processing can be performed. Since the image processing apparatus sets the print data format by writing the print data identification section included in the data format, the change of the model of the image scanner or printer,
When the model is changed, only the control program of the image processing apparatus needs to be changed, and it is not necessary to change the electronic file application program every time the model of the image scanner or the printer is changed or the model is changed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the overall configuration of an electronic filing system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing in detail an embodiment of an electronic filing system according to the present invention centering on an image processing apparatus.

FIG. 3A is an explanatory diagram showing a data format example of scanner mode select in the electronic filing system according to the present invention. FIG. 6B is an explanatory diagram showing a format example of scanner data in the electronic filing system according to the present invention. (C) is an explanatory view showing a format example of print data in the electronic filing system according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an outline of a processing flow in the electronic filing system according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 small general-purpose computer system 3 magneto-optical disk device 5 image processing device 7 image scanner 9 laser beam printer 15 CRT 19 keyboard 21, 23 input / output interface board 25, 27 input / output interface cable 29 main processor 31 image processing processor 35 frame memory 37 Binary image signal compression / expansion module 51 Multi-bus 53 Image bus

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A storage device for storing image data such as documents and drawings, a computer system for executing an electronic filing application program for inputting / outputting data to / from the storage means, and an input / output interface connected to the computer system. An image of an image signal which has a main processor, an image processor, an input interface for image capturing means, and an output interface for a printer, interprets commands from the computer system by executing a control program, and inputs the signals from the input interface. An image processing apparatus that performs processing, transfers image-processed image data bidirectionally to and from a computer system via the input / output interface, and outputs image data to the output interface; An image capturing unit that is connected to the input interface of the image processing apparatus, captures an image of a document, a drawing, or the like, and outputs the image signal to the image processing apparatus; and connects the output interface of the image processing apparatus with the image. And a printer for receiving image data from the processing device and performing printing, wherein a data format of the image data captured by the image capturing means and an image data format for the printer are integrated, and the data format is print data identification. An electronic filing system including a unit, wherein the image processing apparatus is configured to identify the type of print data by a light of the print data identification unit.