JP2001008016A - Image forming device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To eliminate a black triangle solid print on corners and to avoid an image of an original from missing in the case of reading a non-rectangle original with a missing corner, by setting a position and a quantity of a corner to be deleted so as to delete the corner. SOLUTION: A corner delete processing means CE of an image processing section GS to delete corners may be set to perform image processing that automatically detects missing of corners of an original on the basis of image information from an image read section 2 to delete automatically missing corners or may be set to image processing where an operator selects a corner delete mode with a corner delete mode selection means of an operation section OP to delete corners. Furthermore, the corner delete mode selection means preferably has a corner delete position setting means that selects which corner of the four corners of the original is to be deleted and a corner delete amount setting means that sets the amount (area) of the deleted corners.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus for reading an image on a document and forming the image on a recording medium such as recording paper. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image forming apparatus in which corners are missing due to bending at a staple position. The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of forming a high-quality image without reading the missing corner in solid black when forming an image by reading a document.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus or the like, when a document of a book is read and an image is formed, the outside of the document is output as a solid black image. But there was a phenomenon that was not desirable.

[0003] In order to avoid this phenomenon, a technique called "frame erasing" has been proposed.
No. 24 discloses its details. In a digital copying machine that reads an image of a document with a digital signal, scanning is performed before reading the document image (referred to as “prescan”), whereby the outside of the document is detected and not output. As shown in FIG.
At the time of pre-scan, the coordinates (x ₁ , y ₁ ) of the upper left point and the coordinates (x ₂ , y ₂ ) of the lower right point of the minimum area surrounding the document are searched for and stored, and signals outside the coordinates are output. The frame can be erased by not doing so. In this method, since only the upper left point and the lower right point are specified, the outermost shape of the document is defined as a rectangular area.

In this frame erasing technique, for example, when a corner of a document whose staples are stapled is bent and an image is read in a state where the corner is chipped (non-square), the chipped part becomes a solid black triangle. It is output (FIG. 8A). In addition, if the width of the frame eraser is increased to prevent black solids from appearing, the image of the original is lost (FIG. 8B).

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to read a non-rectangular original having no corners and to form an image, without forming a triangular black solid at the corners.
An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus capable of forming a high-quality image that does not lack an image of a document.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The object of the present invention has been attained by the following constitution.

[0007] 1. An image forming apparatus comprising: an image reading unit that reads a document and outputs image information; and an image forming unit that forms an image on a recording medium based on the image information. Forming equipment.

[0008] 2. The image forming apparatus further includes a setting unit that sets an image forming condition for forming the image.
Wherein said setting means has a corner erasing mode selecting means capable of selecting a corner erasing mode in which corner erasing is performed by said corner erasing processing means.
An image forming apparatus according to claim 1.

3. 3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a corner erase position setting unit that sets a position of a corner to be erased in the corner erase mode.

[0010] 4. The image forming apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, further comprising a corner erase amount setting unit that sets an amount of a corner to be erased in the corner erase mode.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing an embodiment of the image forming apparatus of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, there are two methods of reading an image of a document by the image reading means: a case where the document is automatically conveyed by the automatic document feeder 1 and a case where the document is placed on the platen glass 27. Image information of a document is read by the image reading unit 2 as reading means.

When the automatic document feeder 1 automatically feeds a document, the document is placed on a document feed table 11 with its image surface facing upward, and is sent out one by one by the operation of a feed roller 12. The image is read once by the image reading unit 2 as the image reading means in the process of being stopped and trimmed, and then conveyed, conveyed to the conveying drum 14 and rotated counterclockwise integrally with the drum surface. After that, the sheet is branched off from the drum surface at a position substantially halfway around, and is discharged to the sheet discharge table 15.

In the image reading section 2, a light source 231 is provided.
A first mirror unit 23 having a mirror 232 and a mirror 232 sequentially illuminates and reads a passing document at a position immediately below the transport drum 14, and includes a mirror 241 and a mirror 242 which are arranged so as to be orthogonal to the moving direction of the document. The light is reflected by the two mirror units 24 and forms an image on a linear imaging element 26 via the imaging lens 25.

On the other hand, when an original is placed on the platen glass 27, the image reading section 2 has a first light source 231a and a mirror 232a movable in the horizontal direction in FIG.
The mirror unit sequentially reads and illuminates the image surface of the document while moving, reflects the light by a second mirror unit having a mirror 241 a and a mirror 242 a, and forms an image on the linear image sensor 26 via the imaging lens 25. Image.

When the automatic document feeder 1 which also functions as a cover for the platen glass 27 reads an image of a document in a state where it is retracted from the surface of the platen glass 27 and flipped up, corner missing of the document may be caused by black solid or the like. In many cases, the image is formed as a problem image. However, even in the case of not reading an image of such a document, if a corner of the document is missing (such as a document in which a stapled corner is cut), the corner missing portion may become dirty and an image may be formed. Therefore, the image forming apparatus having the corner erasing mode of the present invention is effective in any of the above image reading.

Image information of a document image read by the image reading section 2 is subjected to image processing by image processing means, converted into a signal as image data, and temporarily stored in a memory.

At the start of image formation, the image forming section 3 as an image forming means starts operating, the image data is called from the memory and inputted to the image writing section 33, and the image data is read from a laser light emitter (not shown) in accordance with the image data. The projected laser beam is subjected to scanning exposure in the axial direction of the photosensitive drum 31 and rotation of the photosensitive drum 31 with respect to the photosensitive drum 31 to which a potential has been previously applied by the charger 32 by the rotation operation of the polygon mirror (no symbol). Is performed to form an electrostatic latent image of a document image on the photosensitive layer.

The electrostatic latent image is reversal-developed by a developing unit 34 to form a toner image. In parallel with this, a manual paper feed unit 19 for manually inserting recording paper as a recording medium, and a feeder for accommodating recording paper. Each paper feed unit 51A, 51 having a paper cassette
B or 51C is operated, and the recording paper is carried out, fed to the conveyance rollers 55 and 56 and the timing roller 39, and fed to the photosensitive drum 31 in synchronization with the toner image on the photosensitive drum 31. Is done. In the figure, reference numeral 5 denotes a recording medium supply unit.

The toner image on the photosensitive drum 31 is transferred to the transfer unit 3
5, the recording paper on which the toner image is transferred is transferred and transferred to the recording paper side, and the recording paper on which the toner image has been transferred is discharged by the static eliminator 36, separated from the photosensitive drum 31 and fixed via the conveyor belt. The toner is welded by pressure bonding and heating of the heat roller pair, and then discharged to the tray 64.

On the other hand, after removing the residual potential, the photosensitive drum 31 from which the recording paper has been separated is cleaned by removing the residual toner in the cleaning device 37, and then enters the next image forming process.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a control system according to an embodiment of the image forming apparatus of the present invention. In the figure, OP is an operation unit that also has a display function as setting means, CPU is control means,
Reference numeral 2 denotes an image reading unit as an image reading unit, GS denotes an image processing unit as an image processing unit, and CE denotes a corner erasing processing unit for performing corner erasing in image processing in the image processing unit GS. The image reading unit 2, the image processing unit GS, and the image forming unit 3 are controlled based on various conditions set by the operation unit OP as a setting unit to perform image reading of a document, processing of image information, and image formation. Do. Control means CP
The main control by U includes control for selecting a suitable recording medium from recording medium supply means 5 based on the document size and magnification information detected by document size detection means (not shown), Control for selecting the magnification based on the paper size, control for controlling the image processing unit GS based on the document size and magnification, and control for controlling the image writing area of the image writing unit 33, and control for the image processing unit GS There is a control for rotating the image to be formed and a control for controlling the corner erasure processing means CE of the image processing unit GS to erase the corner of the image to be formed.

The corner erasure processing means CE is set to automatically detect a missing corner of a document based on the image information from the image reading section 2 and to perform image processing for automatically erasing the missing corner. Alternatively, the operator may switch the image forming apparatus to the corner erasing mode and perform the corner erasing by a corner erasing mode selecting means (described later) of the operation unit OP.
The corner erasing mode selecting means includes a corner erasing position setting means for selecting which one of the four corners of the document is to be erased, and an amount (area) of the corner to be erased.
It is preferable to have a corner erasure amount setting unit for setting the corner erasure amount.

FIG. 3 shows an operation unit O of the image forming apparatus of the present invention.
1 shows one form of a basic screen of P. The operation unit OP is configured by a touch panel, and includes various buttons having a display function and a display area. The basic screen is used for standard operation of the image forming apparatus, and is a screen for displaying various operation items in standard use and receiving input of the items. The basic screen is provided with operation keys for entering various special modes and special screens.

Using the basic screen, it is possible to set not only image forming conditions such as an image forming magnification, the number of formed images, and image density, but also image recording conditions such as an output type and use of an applied function. As will be described later, image recording conditions such as detailed settings of application functions are set using a lower screen of the hierarchical screen.

The basic screen includes a message area 100, an image quality, a rotation display area 200, and the number of prints /
Set number display area 300, folder button 400 for displaying a list of reserved jobs, and screen setting area 5
00.

In the message area 100, instructions to the user such as "Ready to copy" and "Please set the original" and an explanation of the state of the machine such as "Display reservation list" are displayed.

In the image quality and rotation area 200,
The display of the image quality such as normal, fine, and super fine and the rotation of the image are displayed by icons.

On the folder button 400, the status of five reserved jobs, that is, a job being output (output job), a reserved job (reserved job), and a job whose reservation is being set (set job)
B), a job being read (read job), and a vacant job (empty job) are displayed.

In a screen setting area 500, one side or both sides are displayed, a single side / double side selection area 501 which can be selected, an image density is displayed, a copy density area 502 which can be set, an image forming magnification is displayed, and a magnification area which can be set. 503, a size selection area 5 in which the size of the recording paper is displayed and can be selected.
04.

Reference numeral 600 denotes an area for displaying and selecting a type of output, a staple position button 601 for displaying and selecting a staple position, a staple / sort button 603 for an output mode for sorting and stapling,
There are a sort button 604 for selecting sorting and an applied output button 602. By pressing the advanced output button,
Switch to the application output screen, punch, center fold, Z fold,
Functions such as grouping can be selected.

Reference numeral 700 denotes an application setting area, which is a rotation button 702 for displaying and setting the rotation of an image.
There are an irregular setting button 703 and an application function button 701 as an irregular setting section.

Each of these buttons is a button for performing a hierarchical display. By pressing these buttons, a setting screen relating to a specified item is called.

Called by the application function button 701,
The screen displayed on the touch panel is the screen shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 4, the application function has the following various functions. A desired application function can be selected by touching the following buttons, and an OK button 702 is displayed.
By pressing 6, the selected application function is set.

7011 Inter-sheet Colored paper or blank paper that does not record an image is inserted for each specified number of sheets 7012 Chapter division In duplex printing, the specified page is set as the front surface 7013 Compositing Multiple images are recorded on one page 7014 Booklet Two images are recorded on one sheet of recording paper, and images are formed in the page order that is combined in the binding order. 7015 OHP combination The same image is formed on OHP and plain paper. 7016 Insert page Page read using an automatic document feeder. Inserts the specified image into the specified page for the specified image data 7017 Consecutive copying of the page The image of one page of the original is recorded on two pages of the recording paper 7018 The overlay image is superimposed and recorded 7019 The original Automatic outside erase Detects the outline of the original and erases the image outside the outline 7020 Black-and-white inversion 7021 Repeat Repeats the specified image Record 7022 Erase borders and folds Erase unnecessary images around the image 7023 Correct document position Detect the position of the document and form the image in the center 7024 Thin paper / Thick paper Image formation corresponding to paper thickness By changing the conditions, a good image is formed regardless of the change in the thickness of the recording paper. 7025 Margin Margin is shifted by shifting the image forming position. 7027 Corner erase Erase corners of the original and remove black. Preventing Solid Images In the above, the corner erase button 7027 is a corner erase mode selection means. Corner erase button 70
Pressing 27 switches to the screen of FIG.

In FIG. 5, CEL is a corner erase position setting means, and CEV is a corner erase amount setting means. Q
Is the length of one side of the right angle of the triangle (corner) to be erased, and corresponds to a numerical value set by the corner erase amount setting means CEV. In the corner erasure position setting means CEL, when the position of the corner to be erased (numbered 1 to 4) is touched, the corner is darkened, and it is displayed that the darkened corner is set to be erased. In the corner erasure amount setting means CEV, the UP button (▲) or the DOWN button (▼) is touched, and the length of Q displayed on the left side thereof is set. Then, the user touches the OK button to determine the corner erasing condition. Or, to redo the condition setting,
Touch the ANCEL button.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of image processing in the corner erasing mode of the present invention.

According to the image forming apparatus having the corner erasing processing means of the present invention, even if the original has a corner missing, the missing portion becomes black or the image information of the original is lost due to unnecessary frame erase. Without any problems
High quality image formation has become possible.

[0040]

According to the present invention, even when a non-square original having no corners is read and an image is formed, an image forming apparatus capable of forming a high-quality image in which triangular black solids do not appear at corners and the original image is not lost. Could be provided.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating one embodiment of an image forming apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a control system according to an embodiment of the image forming apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of a basic screen of an operation unit OP of the image forming apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 4 shows a screen called by an applied function button on the basic screen of the operation unit OP in FIG.

FIG. 5 shows a screen called by a corner erase button in the screen called by the application function button of FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of image processing in a corner erasing mode of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating prescanning of a document in a conventional image forming apparatus having a frame erasing function.

FIG. 8 is an output example of a document with a missing corner in a conventional image forming apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 automatic document feeder (platen glass cover) 2 image reading unit 3 image forming unit 5 recording medium supply unit 27 platen glass 701 applied function button 7027 corner erase button OP operation unit CPU control unit GS image processing unit CE corner erase processing unit CEL corner erase position setting means CEV corner erase amount setting means

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Kenichi Hosoi 2970 Ishikawacho, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo Konica Corporation F term (reference) 2C087 AB01 AC08 BB03 BB10 BD05 CB12 DA01 2H027 DB01 EC12 EF06 EF09 FA30 FA35 FA37 FB02 FC03 FC04 FD01 FD03 FD08 GA08 GA15 GA16 GA20 GA23 GA39 GA45 GA47 GA49 GA56 GB05 5C076 AA02 AA18 BA03 BA04 CA02 CA12

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An image forming apparatus comprising: an image reading unit that reads an original and outputs image information; and an image forming unit that forms an image on a recording medium based on the image information. An image forming apparatus comprising: 2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a setting unit for setting an image forming condition for forming the image, wherein the setting unit is capable of selecting a corner erasing mode in which a corner is erased by the corner erasing processing unit. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a corner erasing mode selecting means.
An image forming apparatus according to claim 1. 3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a corner erasure position setting unit that sets a position of a corner to be erased in the corner erasure mode. 4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a corner erasing amount setting unit that sets an amount of a corner to be erased in the corner erasing mode.