JP2001007972A - Picture processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To shorten the processing time for plural copies. SOLUTION: A document is read only once by a scanner part 203, and obtained picture data are processed in a picture processing part 204 to generate multi-valued data, and obtained multi-valued data are stored in a data buffer 205. Multi-valued data in the data buffer 205 are supplied to a recording part 206, and the recording part 206 converts multi-valued data to printing data, and printing is performed on the basis of obtained printing data. Meanwhile, multi-valued data recorded in the recording part 206 are stored in a memory 210 of a host computer 202 with respect to recording to a first recording medium. With respect to recording to second and following recording mediums, multi-valued data in the memory 210 are supplied to the recording part 206 of a picture processor 201, and multi-valued data are converted to printing data in the recording part 206, and printing is performed on the basis of obtained printing data.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an image processing system in which an image apparatus having a scanner function, a printer function, a copy function and the like is connected to a computer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As an image processing apparatus having a scanner function, a printer function, a copy function and the like, for example, an image processing apparatus 101 shown in FIG. 3 is known. When using the scanner unit 103 or the recording unit in the image processing apparatus 101, the scanner unit 103 or the recording unit is connected to the host computer 102 and used. The original is read by the scanner unit 103, and the obtained digital data is transferred to the host computer 102 through the interface unit 107. On the other hand, data created by the host computer 102 is transmitted to the recording unit 1 in the image processing apparatus 101 through the interface unit 107.
06 and printed out by the recording unit 106.

When the copy function is used, it can be used stand-alone regardless of the host computer 102. Image processing device 1 for original to be copied
01 and the scanner unit 10
3 is input to the image processing unit 104, and the image processing unit 104 performs, for example, filter processing, l
The data is subjected to an og conversion process, a masking process, a gamma process, and a multi-value process, and is once stored in the data buffer 105 as multi-value data. Then, the held multi-valued data is converted into recording data by the recording unit 106 and recorded on the recording medium.

[0004]

When a plurality of originals are copied using the copy function, a data buffer 105 for temporarily storing multi-valued data from the image processing unit 104 is used.
If the size of the
The copy operation for the second and subsequent sheets can be performed using the multi-valued data in the data buffer as it is.

However, if the capacity of the data buffer 105 is not enough for the image data at the time of reading the original and the entire data buffer 105 is filled with the multi-valued data,
The next multivalued data is sequentially overwritten from the head address of the data buffer 105.

Therefore, the multi-valued data previously held at the head address of the data buffer 105 is stored in the recording unit 10.
If the multi-valued data is not transferred to the recording unit 106, the writing to the data buffer 105 is stopped, and the operation of the image processing unit 104 and the scanner unit 103 is stopped. Is also stopped. In other words, since the data buffer 105 is used as a ring buffer, all the multi-valued data for the original read obtained by the first copy operation is stored in the data buffer 1.
05 is not held. Therefore, in this case, 2
At present, it is necessary to perform a document reading operation by the scanner unit 103 and an image processing operation by the image processing unit 104 for each copy operation after the first sheet.

A first object of the present invention is to provide an image processing system which can solve the above-mentioned problems and can shorten the processing time when a plurality of copies are made.

A second object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems and to provide an image processing system capable of efficiently performing multiple copies when performing multiple copies.

[0009]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image processing system in which an image processing apparatus and a computer are connected via a communication path, wherein the image processing apparatus comprises: Setting means, determining means for determining whether or not a plurality of sheets have been set by the number setting means, and when the determination means makes an affirmative determination, the document is read only once and obtained. Image reading processing means for generating image data into multi-valued data, first storage means for holding the multi-valued data from the image reading processing means, and recording the supplied multi-valued data Recording means for recording on a recording medium based on the recording data obtained by converting the data, first transmitting means for transmitting the multi-valued data of the first storage means onto the communication path, and multi-valued data from the communication path Chemical A first receiving means for receiving the data, and supplies the multi-value data of the first storage means to said recording means for the recording of the first sheet of the recording medium,
A first supply unit that supplies the multi-level data received by the first receiving unit to the recording unit, wherein the computer has a second storage unit and a second storage unit that receives the multi-level data on the communication path. (2) receiving means, writing the multi-valued data received by the second receiving means into the second storage means, and reading out the multi-valued data from the second storage means for the second and subsequent recording on the recording medium It is characterized by comprising storage control means, and second transmission means for transmitting the multi-valued data read by the storage control means onto the communication path.

According to the first aspect, the capacity of the first storage means can be at least equal to the multi-valued data amount of the image data sequence for one line in the main scanning direction of the document.

According to the present invention, the capacity of the first storage means can be made smaller than the multivalued data amount of image data for one document.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the first supply means stores the multi-valued data for one line in the first storage means each time the one-line multi-valued data is stored in the first storage means. The transfer to the recording means can be started, and the first transmitting means, when the transfer of the multi-valued data for one line by the first supply means is completed, the one-line data of the first storage means. The transmission of the multi-valued data on the communication path can be started.

[0013] In claim 1, the image reading processing means comprises:
A write command and a read command can be issued, and the first transmitting means can transmit the write command and the read command issued by the image reading processing means to the communication path.

[0014] In claim 5, the storage control means includes:
According to the write command received from the communication path by the receiving means, the multi-valued data received from the communication path by the second receiving means can be written to the second storage means, and the multi-valued data received from the communication path by the second receiving means can be written. The multi-level data in the second storage unit can be read in accordance with the read command, and the second transmission unit transmits the multi-level data read from the second storage unit to the communication path by the storage control unit. Can be.

In the first aspect, the communication path may be a two-way communication path.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention. This is an example of an image processing system. In this image processing system, an image processing apparatus 201 and a host computer 202 are connected.

The image processing apparatus 201 will be described. The image processing device 201 includes a scanner unit 203 and an image processing unit 204
, A data buffer 205, a recording unit 206, and an interface unit 207.

A scanner unit 203 scans a document with a CCD (charge).
A line is read by a photoelectric device such as a coupled device, and RGB analog image signals obtained by color separation of the lines are converted into digital signals. The image processing unit 204 performs image processing on image data output from the scanner unit 203 in the order of input masking processing, filtering processing, scaling processing, log conversion processing, masking processing, gamma processing, and multi-value processing. It is. The data buffer 205 temporarily stores multi-valued data obtained by the multi-value processing by the image processing unit 204. The recording unit 206 receives the multi-valued data stored in the data buffer 205 line by line, converts the data into a printable data format, that is, print data, and records it on a recording medium such as paper. The interface unit 207 performs data communication control for transmitting data to the host computer 202 or receiving data from the host computer 202. The interface unit 207 selects a data signal and a control signal to be communicated with the host computer 202 for each of the scanner function, the copy function, and the printer function.

The host computer 202 will be described. In the host computer 202, a predetermined OS (operating
The system program manages the execution state of various application programs based on the system. The memory control driver that operates on this system program is. The host interface unit 208 and the memory control unit 209 in the host computer 202 are controlled to write multi-level data to the memory 210, read data by multi-level conversion from the memory 210, and transmit multi-level data. Perform reception.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of a control procedure of the image processing system when copying a plurality of originals. When the original is placed on the scanner unit 203 of the image processing apparatus 201, the number of copies is set by the operation unit (not shown) of the image processing apparatus 201, and the copy start is executed, the original is read by the scanner unit 203. The processing is started (S201), and the created image data is transferred to the image processing unit 204 (S202).

When the image data is supplied to the image processing unit 204, image processing is started by the image processing unit 204 (S
203), input masking processing, filter processing, scaling processing, log conversion processing, masking processing, gamma processing, and multi-value processing are performed in this order. The multi-valued data obtained by the multi-value processing is stored in the data buffer 205.
(S204), and when the multi-valued data for one line is prepared, the transfer of the multi-valued data for one line to the recording unit 206 is started (S206, S207).
The recording unit 206 converts the sent multi-valued data into print data, and starts printing when the data amount necessary for printing is completed (S208).

1 held in the data buffer 205
When the transfer of the multi-valued data for one line to the recording unit 206 is completed, the multi-valued data for one line is transferred to the host computer 202 this time (S209). At this time, the interface unit 207 first selects and connects the data signal and the control signal of the data buffer 205. Next, a memory write control command is sent to the host computer 202 so that the host computer 202
, And waits so that the memory control unit 209 can write data to the memory 210.

Thereafter, the REQ signal and the ACK signal are used to transmit data between the data buffer 205 and the interface unit 207, between the interface unit 207 and the host interface unit 208, and between the host interface unit 208 and the memory control unit 209. The multi-valued data in the buffer 205 is sequentially written to the memory 210 in the host computer 202.

When the multi-valued data fetching from the data buffer 205 is delayed due to the influence of the printing processing speed of the recording unit 206, the data buffer 205
May be full with multi-level data from. If the data buffer 205 is full, the scanner unit 20
3 is stopped (S211), so that the image data of the line to be processed next is not transferred. Data buffer 2
If there is a space for one line at 05 (S212),
The scanner unit 203 is started again, and data processing is sequentially performed.

When the first printing by the recording unit 206 is completed (S213), the second and subsequent printings are performed using the data held in the memory 210 in the host computer 202.

First, the interface unit 207 selects a data signal and a control signal of the recording unit 206 and performs connection.
Next, a memory read control command is sent to the host computer 202 to activate the memory control driver in the host computer 202, and the memory control unit 20
9 to read data from the memory 210. After that, the RE is connected between the memory control unit 209 and the host interface unit 208, between the host interface unit 208 and the interface unit 207, and between the interface unit 207 and the recording unit 206.
In response to the Q signal and the ACK signal, the multi-valued data in the memory 210 is sequentially transferred line by line to the recording unit 206 (S214), and printing processing is performed on the recording medium.

Thereafter, S215 to S215 until the printing of all the number of copies set in the operation section is completed.
The procedure of S217 is repeated.

In this embodiment, the data buffer 205
For storing one line of multi-valued data held in memory
After the transfer to the host computer 202 is completed, the multi-valued data for one line is transferred to the host computer 202 side, but the multi-valued data for one line held in the data buffer 205 is described. The transfer of the data to the recording unit 206 and the transfer of the data to the host computer 202 may be performed simultaneously.

[0030]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It has the following effects:

(1) In the case of forming a plurality of images, the host computer and the image processing apparatus cooperate with each other to perform data processing, so that a smooth print output without waste can be obtained from the start to the end of image formation. It can be carried out.

(2) First for holding data after image processing
Even when the capacity of the storage means is not enough for one document, it is possible to efficiently form a plurality of images.

(3) If the first storage means has at least one line (corresponding to one column of data in the main scanning direction of the printing process), a plurality of images can be formed efficiently. The memory cost can be reduced by reducing the capacity.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a control procedure of the image processing system when copying a plurality of originals.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a conventional image processing apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 201 image processing device 202 host computer 203 scanner unit 204 image processing unit 205 data buffer 206 recording unit 207 interface unit 208 host interface unit 209 memory control unit 210 memory

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. An image processing system in which an image processing apparatus and a computer are connected via a communication path, wherein the image processing apparatus comprises: a number setting unit for setting the number of images to be formed; Determining means for determining whether or not the setting has been made; and, if the determination means makes an affirmative determination, reading the document only once and generating multi-valued data from the obtained image data. Image reading processing means for performing the following, first storage means for holding the multi-valued data from the image reading processing means, and based on the recording data obtained by converting the supplied multi-valued data into recording data. Recording means for recording the multi-valued data in the first storage means on the communication path, and first receiving means for receiving the multi-valued data from the communication path. For recording on the first recording medium, the multi-valued data in the first storage means is supplied to the recording means, and the multi-valued data received by the first receiving means is transmitted to the recording means. A first supply unit that supplies the multivalued data received by the second storage unit; a second reception unit that receives the multivalued data on the communication path; Is written in the second storage means, and the storage control means reads the multi-valued data of the second storage means for the second and subsequent recording on the recording medium; and the multi-valued data read by the storage control means An image processing system, comprising: a second transmission unit that transmits a message to the communication path. 2. An image according to claim 1, wherein said first storage means has a capacity at least equal to a multilevel data amount of an image data sequence for one line in the main scanning direction of the document. Processing system. 3. An image processing system according to claim 2, wherein said first storage means has a capacity smaller than a multi-valued data amount of image data of one document. 4. The multi-valued one-line data of the first storage means according to claim 2, wherein the first supply means stores the multi-valued data for one line in the first storage means each time. Transfer of the coded data to the recording means is started, and the first transmission means, when the transfer of the multi-valued data for one line by the first supply means ends, one line of the first storage means An image processing system, wherein transmission of multi-valued data for a minute to the communication path is started. 5. The image reading processing unit according to claim 1, wherein the image reading processing unit issues a writing command and a reading command, and the first transmitting unit communicates the writing command and the reading command issued by the image reading processing unit. An image processing system for transmitting on a road. 6. The storage control unit according to claim 5, wherein the storage control unit receives the second command according to a write command received from the communication path by the second reception unit.
The multi-valued data received from the communication path by the receiving means is written to the second storage means, and the multi-valued data of the second storage means is written in accordance with the read command received from the communication path by the second receiving means. The second transmitting means, the storage control means, the second transmission means
An image processing system, wherein multi-valued data read from a storage unit is transmitted on the communication path. 7. The image processing system according to claim 1, wherein said communication path is a two-way communication path.