JP2002067398A - Output system, output device and control device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a color printer having high printing speed in low cost. SOLUTION: Individual color printing units 32C, 32M, 32Y and 32K for printing each color of CMYK are disposed in parallel, so that they can individually get individual color data 68C-68K from a host computer 5. A printer 31 and a printing system 30 capable of outputting color images in high speed with simple configuration can be provided, since printing data for each color can be produced by a host computer 5 and received without overhead, and color printing can be carried out in parallel.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an output device capable of outputting a color image, such as a color printer, and an output system thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the improvement of functions and processing speed of personal computers, multi-color image processing capability has been greatly improved. Accordingly, it is required that a peripheral device such as a printer or a projector can output a high-resolution color image at a high speed. In particular,
Although printers that can perform color printing have become widespread, low-cost color printers that can print high-quality color images at high speed have not yet been realized. At present, as one of color printers having a high output speed, there is a laser printer which is an optical scanning type printer which scans a photosensitive member with a laser beam and performs printing. However, with the current laser printer, it is difficult to realize a high-speed and low-cost printer due to several factors.

FIG. 3 shows an outline of a current laser printer 2 and a printing system 1 comprising the laser printer 2 and a host computer 5. In the personal computer 5 such as a desktop or notebook computer, a printer driver 51 for supplying print data to a printer that can be used as a peripheral device is installed in addition to the OS 50 that controls the system, and can be used from applications. I have. Therefore, when a process of printing a color image 62 is executed in the application program 61, the data of the color image 62 is input to the driver 51 and supplied to the printer 2 via a serial or parallel interface such as the USB interface 52. You.

The printer 2 includes a control circuit 20 and a printing mechanism 3 for performing a printing process under the control of the control circuit 20. The control circuit 20 controls the color image data 21 represented by the red R, green G and blue B data sent from the driver 52.
A receiving unit 22 for receiving RGB and color conversion of these color data 21 RGB, that is, color conversion to cyan C, magenta M, yellow Y and black K, and other image quality processing such as edge enhancement processing, etc. Give C
A color conversion unit 24 that generates color data 23CMYK represented by MYK. Further, in order to print the color data 23CMYK by the color laser printer 2 which is a page printer, the data conversion unit 25 which separates the data of each color into binary or multi-valued data while separating the data into each color is provided. For example, data 26C for each color obtained by binarizing the image of each color,
26M, 26Y and 26K are generated. Then, the print data 26C, 26M, 26Y and 26K for each color
Are arranged for one page, the respective print data are supplied to the exposure device 11 in a predetermined order, and a latent image is formed on the photosensitive drum 12 by the laser beam.

The printing mechanism 3 of the printer 2 includes a photosensitive drum 1
2 and a rotary toner drum 18 for developing an image of each color. Toner drum 18 is provided with toner cartridges 18C, 18M, 18Y and 18K of each color. The image of each color can be formed on the photosensitive drum 12 by turning a predetermined angle. The image of each color formed on the photosensitive drum 12 is transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 14. Therefore, the images of the respective colors are sequentially developed on the photosensitive drum 12 in accordance with the print data of the respective colors supplied from the control circuit 20, and when the images of all the colors are transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 14, the images are supplied to the paper path 16. The color image is transferred from the intermediate transfer belt 4 via the transfer roller 15 to the sheet 9 that has been transferred. The color-printed paper is output by passing through the fixing roller 17.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION This laser printer 2
In order to speed up the processing in the step (1), first, it is necessary to speed up the process of generating print data 26C, 26M, 26Y and 26K separated for each color from the color image data received from the host 5. For example, RG
The process of color-converting B into CMYK can also be performed by the driver 52, in which case the image data 21R
The color-converted data is converted into GB and CMYK, and at the same time, data subjected to image quality processing such as etch enhancement is transmitted to the printer 2. Then, in the printer 2, the color-converted data is separated for each color. However, the process of color separation needs to be performed by a printer.

In recent years, color images have become higher resolution, and output color prints are also required to have higher resolution. Accordingly, the amount of data handled in the process of generating print data is enormous, and a high-speed processor (CPU) is required. In addition, a large-capacity, high-speed access speed is required to store intermediate state data and print data for each color. Requires fast memory. Furthermore, since the laser printer 2 performs printing in page units, the printing mechanism 3 is driven after generating print data for one page. Therefore, an extremely high-speed processor and a large-capacity memory are required to generate print data for printing several tens of sheets per minute.

Further, after all the images of each color are transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 4, printing on the paper 9 is performed. For this reason, for example, when printing at 20 sheets per minute, the photosensitive drum 12 needs to develop data of CMYK four colors 20 times per minute for each color. It must be capable of printing 80 sheets per minute. Therefore, the hardware of the control system is sufficiently fast, and if the printing speed is to be increased at that speed, it is necessary to prepare the photosensitive drum 12 and the exposure device 11 capable of printing at a speed four times the speed. It is difficult to develop such a photosensitive drum and an exposure apparatus in a short period of time, and to collect them compactly and supply them as a low-cost printer.

Therefore, to provide a high-speed laser printer, a high-speed printing mechanism is required in addition to a high-performance processor and a large-capacity memory. Therefore, at present, a laser printer capable of printing about 20 sheets per minute is very large and expensive as compared with other printers such as an ink jet printer, and is not in the stage of being widely used in offices and general homes. In the future, it is possible to develop a high-performance processor to improve the performance of the printer, or to develop a control circuit with a high-performance processor,
This requires enormous costs and is not an economically viable method for peripheral devices such as printers that are required to reduce prices.

For this reason, the spread of color laser printers and the like has not progressed as expected, and many users print color images with an ink jet printer at low speed and the quality is not so high as compared with color laser printers. Therefore, while color images are displayed at high speed and generally used on personal computers,
The environment for printing and outputting a color image is greatly delayed. For this reason, although a project for distributing magazines and newspapers containing color images via the Internet has been considered, it cannot be realized unless low-cost, high-speed color printers are widely used, and such an Internet business is developed. It has become a bottleneck on the top.

Therefore, in the present invention, an output system and an output device such as a printer which can easily speed up high-quality color printing at a low cost, and a printer driver or the like for sending data to the output device are controlled. It is intended to provide a device and a control program. And by providing an output system that can obtain high-quality color prints in a short time, it is possible to develop services that distribute magazines or newspapers including gravure via the Internet. And

[0012]

For this reason, according to the present invention, first, the host generates a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color from the multi-color image data.
It is supplied to an output device such as a printer. That is, the control device according to the present invention, such as a driver installed in the host computer, is characterized by having a generation unit that generates a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color from multi-color image data. With this control device, it is possible to provide a control method of an output job including a step of generating a plurality of output data for each color separated for each color from multi-color image data. As a control program product or a control program device such as a driver program having an instruction capable of executing a process of generating a plurality of color-specific output data, recorded on a computer-readable recording medium on which the control program is recorded, or on the Internet. For example, it can be provided by being embedded in a medium that can be transmitted by communication between computers.

When data for color output is transmitted to an output device such as a printer, even if image processing such as color conversion is performed by a personal computer, color separation processing is performed by the printer. When data for each color separated into colors is formed and transferred to a printer, it is considered that the amount of data to be transferred increases and the transfer speed affects the print speed.In a serial or line printer such as an inkjet printer, scanning is performed. This is because it is determined that it is more efficient to perform color separation in a printer since only a very limited amount of color-separated data such as line units is required. However, when a color image has a large number of gradations and high resolution and the amount of image data becomes enormous, the processing time and processing load on the printer side for image separation are reduced by the processing required for data transfer and color separation. By using high-performance computing resources such as a CPU and memory of a host computer and a general-purpose, high-speed transmission Ethernet (registered trademark) or digital serial bus, thereby providing processing speed and economical advantages. Can be

That is, by executing the color separation processing at high speed using the high-performance and abundant computing resources of the host computer, even if the data transmission time is slightly longer, the same processing is performed on the printer side. Can be prepared in a time that is comparable to that of executing the data. By executing the color separation processing on the host computer side, the load on the operation resources of the output device such as a printer can be further reduced, so that the cost of the output device can be further reduced. And the CPU of the host computer
And other computing resources are improving day by day, and the processing speed is only improving. In addition, the performance of general-purpose transmission means such as a serial bus is constantly improving. In the present invention, it is possible to directly link the improvement of the performance of the host to the improvement of the printing processing time in a printer or the like. A high-performance output device can be provided at a low cost.

Further, in the output device, an output means such as a printing means is provided for each color, and the host can supply the output data for each color generated for each color on the host side. Output processing is further decentralized to simplify the hardware of an output device such as a printer, and to easily increase the output speed. That is, the output system of the present invention includes: a generating unit that generates a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color from multi-color image data; and a transmitting unit that can transmit the color-specific output data. An output device capable of outputting a color image, a plurality of color-specific output means for outputting an image for each color, and color output data output by the color-specific output means. An output device including a plurality of color control means for controlling the color output means, a means for synthesizing an image of each color formed by the plurality of color output means, and a signal output from the transmission means of the host computer. Transmission means for transmitting the output data for each color to the output device.

In the output system of the present invention, as described above, the host computer separates the data for each color by the host computer and can perform all of the binarization or multi-value processing on the host computer side. Among the processing, processing that requires a high-performance processor and a large-capacity memory in order to increase the speed can be executed using the resources of the host computer whose performance is rapidly improving. For this reason, even if the resources of the output device have the same capacity,
It is possible to provide an output system in which the output speed of the output device is improved following the improvement of the capability of the host computer.

Further, by providing color-specific control means corresponding to a plurality of color-specific output means for outputting an image for each color, and receiving the respective color-specific output data and controlling the color-specific output means, Individually, a configuration similar to that of a single-color printer can be adopted. Therefore, the processing and time involved in color switching can be unnecessary or minimized, and the printing time can be reduced. Further, since the color printer can be mainly composed of a simple and proven monochromatic printer, it is possible to provide an output device and an output system which are easy to maintain, have high reliability, and have a high processing speed.

Further, instead of separating and transferring the output data for each color to the respective output control means in the output device, the color control means is provided with an interface capable of receiving the output data for each color from the host computer. In addition, each color control unit can directly receive color output data from the host computer, and the configuration of the output device can be simplified and maintenance can be easily performed. Further, by directly receiving the output data for each color from the host computer, the hardware and processing time for selecting the output data for each color in the output device and transferring the output data to the control means for each color are reduced. Can be deleted. Therefore, it is possible to provide an output device that can reduce the output time such as the printing time at a lower cost and can utilize the capabilities of the host computer.

One of the easy methods of individually transferring the color-specific output data to the color-specific control means is to provide an independent address for the color-specific control means and to output the color-specific output transmitted from the host computer to each address. An interface capable of receiving individual output data including data is provided. Therefore, it is desirable that the generation means of the control device serving as a driver can output the output data for each color as individual output data that can be transmitted to each address. It is preferable that the software further includes an instruction capable of executing a step of transmitting the output data for each color to each address.

Further, as means for transmitting color-specific output data to the address of the color-specific control means, a general-purpose interface such as USB, IEEE1394, or Ethernet capable of transmitting data for each address can be used. Therefore, in the output system of the present invention, if the performance of these general-purpose interfaces is improved, the performance can be utilized, further high-speed processing can be performed, and the printing speed and the like can be further improved. In these general-purpose transmission means, the interface of the host computer and the color control means may be connected like a daisy chain according to the standard, and an appropriate hub or transceiver is prepared in the output device. Then, it can be connected to a host computer as a relay terminal.

Further, when the output device is a light scanning type printer, a single color light scanning type printing means is adopted as the output means for each color, and the image of the light scanning type means for each color is synthesized as the synthesizing means. By employing an intermediate transfer unit or a paper supply unit for sequentially supplying paper to the optical scanning unit for each color, printing can be performed at the processing speed of the photosensitive drum of each optical scanning printing unit. Therefore, it is not necessary to rotate the photosensitive drum at several times the output speed, and the printing speed can be easily improved. By providing a plurality of monochromatic optical scanning type printing means, there is a demerit that components such as photosensitive drums increase, but a mechanism for rotating the toner cartridge of each color becomes unnecessary,
The overall configuration can be simplified. Furthermore, in the output device of the present invention, a processor and a memory necessary for performing color conversion and color separation at high speed are not required, and further, since each output unit receives output data individually, the configuration is simplified, An output device that can be supplied at a low price can be provided.

As described above, in the output device such as a color printer capable of outputting a color image according to the present invention, the image data received in the color printer is not separated or processed, and the capability of the host computer can be reflected most. An output device and an output system can be provided.
As a result, it is possible to reduce the processing time of color images without installing a high-speed processor or large-capacity memory in the printer. The time and cost required for developing a control circuit can be reduced.

In accordance with the speeding up of such a control system, the output device of the present embodiment is provided with output means for each color, and these can be arranged in parallel or executed in parallel. The problem that it is difficult to improve the processing speed mechanically can also be avoided.
Further, by distributing the mechanism systems for each color, setting addresses for them, and communicating, the processing results in an overhead in receiving the processing results of the host computer in the output device and distributing the processing results to the control means for each color. The configuration can be omitted. Therefore, by allowing the control system and the mechanism system to be directly accessible to the host computer for each color, each of them has a configuration that can be speeded up with a simple configuration, and provides an output device that can perform high-speed processing at low cost. be able to.

The present invention can be applied to a peripheral device that outputs another color image such as a color projector, but is particularly effective for a recording device such as a printer that performs color printing. That is, the output means for each color outputs the image for each color so that it can be printed on paper, and the control means for each color outputs the print data for each color to be printed by the output means for each color to the output data for each color. The means for receiving and synthesizing each color is particularly effective in an output device for synthesizing images of each color formed by a plurality of color-specific output means on a sheet.

The output job control program can be provided as driver software recorded on a computer-readable recording medium such as a hard disk or a CD-ROM. Can be held and loaded at appropriate times to control the computer. Furthermore, it is also possible to embed and provide the control program in a transmission medium transmitted by communication between computers such as the Internet. Further, the data package provided from the control program device to the output device includes at least a part of the color-specific output data of a certain color among the plurality of color-specific output data for each color generated from the multi-color image data. A data package having an address of a transfer destination of the output data for each color of the certain color, and the data package is embedded in a transmission medium that can be transmitted by communication between computers via a bus such as a USB or wirelessly, and an output device. Is transmitted to

[0026]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be further described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a printing system 30 according to the present invention. The printing system 30 of the present embodiment includes a host computer 5, a printer 31, and transmission means 6 for connecting the computer 5 and the printer 31. In this example, USB is used as the transmission means 6.

The computer 5 of this embodiment also has a printer driver 55 installed therein and operates together with the OS 50.
The printing data can be transmitted from the application 61 to the printer 31 via the driver 55. The printer driver 55 of the present embodiment supplies the color image data 61 to be printed stored in an appropriate recording medium (memory) 63 such as a hard disk or a RAM in a state where it can be printed almost as is by the printer 31. . Therefore, the printer driver 55 transmits the image data 61 for which a print instruction has been issued from the application 61.
Input unit 56 for acquiring color image data 66RGB represented by red R, green G, and blue B, and colors for printing the color data 66RGB, ie, cyan C, magenta M, yellow Y, and black. A color conversion unit 57 that performs color conversion and image quality processing such as edge enhancement for printing on K to generate color data 67CMYK.
And

Further, the driver 55 separates the color data 67CMYK into data for each color,
A data conversion unit 58 for converting the data into binary or multi-valued data for printing by a printer is provided. For example, data for each color, which is separated for each color and an image of each color is binarized (for each color) Output data, print data for each color) 68C,
68M, 68Y and 68K are generated. Further, the driver 55 of the present example outputs the print data 68C for each color,
The addresses 68C, 69M, 69Y and 69 set in the control circuits 34 of the printing units 32Y to 32K for printing the respective colors are assigned to 68M, 68Y and 68K.
A transmitting section 59 for transmitting as data (individual output data) addressed to K is provided. Then, the individual output data 70 transmitted from the transmission unit 59 to each address destination is packaged by the USB interface 52, and the packet data 7 in which each address 7a is added to a part of data 7b of each individual output data is provided. And the respective printing units 32C, 32M, 32Y and 32 via the USB cable 6.
Delivered to K.

The printer 31 of this embodiment is the same color laser printer as the printer described above,
Four printing units 32C, 32M, 32Y and 32 for performing printing for each color of magenta M, yellow Y and black K
K is provided. Each of the printing units 32C to 32K has the same configuration. For example, in the case of a printing unit 32C that generates a cyan C image, the photosensitive drum 37, a charging roller 38 that charges the photosensitive drum 37, and a photosensitive drum 37 An exposure device 36 for emitting a laser beam to form a latent image and a toner cartridge 39C for attaching cyan toner to develop the latent image are provided. Each printing unit 32
C, 32M, 32Y, and 32K, the unit 32M that prints a magenta image includes a magenta toner cartridge 39M, the unit 32Y that prints a yellow image includes a yellow toner cartridge 39Y, The unit 32K for printing a black image includes a black toner cartridge 39K.

Each printing unit (color-specific printing unit) 32 includes a control circuit (color-specific control circuit) 34 for controlling these mechanisms and a memory (color-specific memory) 35 for recording print data and the like. Have. For example, the control circuit 34 for each color of the printing unit 32C
Receiving unit 3 having a function as a USB interface for receiving and converting print data 68C received as packet data 7 addressed to the address
4a, and a print control unit 34b that sends data 68C recorded in the memory 35 to the exposure device 36 to perform printing. The printing unit 32C has a unique address 69C held in the color control circuit 34 or the memory 35. Therefore, the receiving unit 34a of the color-specific control circuit 34
Is the color-specific print data 68Y transmitted from the host computer 5 to the own address 69C via the USB 6.
Can be received and stored in the memory 35.

Printing units 32C, 32M, 32Y for each color
And 32K communicate with the host 5, respectively, and when one page of print data to be printed on each of the printing units 32C, 32M, 32Y and 32K is prepared, a signal is sent to the mechanism control circuit 33 from them. When the mechanism control circuit 33 determines that the printing is ready, the intermediate belt 14 is activated and the printing units 32C, 32M, 32Y and 3
Printing is performed at 2K. Therefore, each printing unit 3
The image of each color printed by 2C, 32M, 32Y and 32K is transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 14 to become a multi-color image, which is transferred to the paper 9 supplied to the paper path 16 via the transfer roller 15. . And
The color-printed paper is output by passing through the fixing roller 17.

As described above, the printer 31 according to the present embodiment performs printing for each color by the color-specific printing units 32C, 32M, and 32Y.
And 32K are arranged in parallel, and these color-specific printing units 32C to 32K operate in parallel, so that the printing process for each color can be executed in a distributed manner. Therefore, by synchronizing the timing at which printing is started in these printing units with the movement of the intermediate transfer belt 14, a color image using four color toners can be generated in one cycle in which the intermediate belt 14 makes one rotation. it can. Therefore, for example, the color-specific printing units 32C, 32M, 32Y and 32
If the output performance of K is improved from 20 sheets per minute to 30 sheets per minute, color print can be output at that speed, that is, at a speed of 30 sheets per minute, and the printing speed can be easily improved.

Further, each printing unit 32C, 32
M, 32Y, and 32K are provided from the driver 55 of the host computer 5 for each color print data 68C, 68M,
68Y and 68K can be received independently and individually, and the process of receiving these print data can also be executed in parallel. In the present example, the exposure device 3 separates each color, and further converts it into binary or multi-valued data.
The host computer 5 sends the color-specific print data 68C, 68M, 68Y, and 68K in a bitmap state that can be transferred to the printer 6 as it is. For this reason, the color-specific control circuit 34 of the color-specific printing unit receives the color-specific print data 68 and the command associated therewith, and the like.
A configuration that is almost specialized in data processing of the color-specific print data 68 and processing of transferring the data to the exposure device 36 may be used. Therefore, the color-specific control circuit 34 need only be able to execute the data processing at high speed, and does not need to consume a large amount of resources for general-purpose processing associated with interrupts and errors. Even when such general-purpose processing occurs, it is processed on the host computer side, and only error processing is left to a common processor of the printer 31, for example, a control circuit 33 prepared for controlling a mechanical system. It is also possible to Therefore, the configuration of the color-specific control circuit 34 can be extremely simplified, and the color-specific printing unit 32 can be controlled at a sufficiently high speed even with a configuration based on a low-cost 4-bit or 8-bit CPU.

As described above, in the printer 31 of this embodiment, the image quality processing, the color separation processing, and the binary or multi-value processing that require high speed are all processed at high speed by the host computer 5. For this reason, the control circuit 34 of each printing unit
The high-speed processing is possible even if a low-performance processor with relatively low performance as described above is used as the processor constituting the processor, and most of the processing specialized for data transfer is performed. In addition, the chance of the performance of the control circuit 34 of each unit affecting the printing speed is reduced. Therefore, the printer 31 of the present example includes a control system, that is, a control circuit 34 that receives print data and transmits the print data to the exposure apparatus.
Both the mechanical system, that is, the system such as the exposure device 36 and the photosensitive drum 37 for creating a color image according to print data can be operated at high speed with a simple configuration. For this reason, the personal computer 5 has sufficient computing resources,
The image processing is performed at high speed, and the print data 68C, 68
If M, 68Y and 68K can be output almost continuously, the processing speed of the computer 5 can be easily reflected. Then, printing can be performed at the highest processing speed of the mechanism system of each printing unit 32 such as the photosensitive drum 37, and further, printing can be performed at the speed of each printing unit 32.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a process of controlling the job of the printer 31 by the printer driver 55 of this embodiment. When a new job is started, or when the host computer 5 recognizes the printer 31 for the first time, an initial process is performed in step 71. In this initial processing 71, each printing unit 34 of the printer 31
Addresses 69C, 6 of C, 34M, 34Y and 34K
Obtain 9M, 69Y and 69K. Furthermore, the driver 55 creates print data such as the environment in which the printer 31 is installed, the type of paper set, and the like, and acquires information necessary for individually transmitting the print data to each print unit.

Next, at step 72, the application 6
1 acquires the data of the image specified. Since the color image displayed on the display is formed in RGB, the acquired data is also image data 66RGB. Therefore, in step 73, the image data 66 expressed in RGB
RGB is converted into image data represented by the color space CMYK expressed by the printer 31. At the same time, other image quality processing is also performed at this stage. Then, in step 74, the image data 67CMYK represented by CMYK is color-separated to generate color data bit-mapped for each color. Then, in step 75, the data separated for each color is converted into binary or multi-valued data for printing, and data (print data for each color) 68C, 68M, 68 for each color.
Generate Y and 68K. Further, in step 76,
These color-specific print data 68C, 68M, 68Y and 68K are sent to the color-specific control circuits 34 of the printing units 32C to 32K, and the respective addresses 69C,
Send with 69M, 69Y and 69K added.

The processing in each of these steps and the data processing for each color may be executed sequentially,
It is also possible to execute the program in parallel for each step or each color, and it is desirable to design an actual program so that high speed processing can be performed by using the OS 50 or the processor and the memory 61 of the computer 5 most effectively.
When the print data 68C to 68K for each color is transmitted through a network, the print data can be divided into appropriate packet data, and these packets are transmitted to the printer 31 at appropriate timing according to an appropriate protocol. It is transmitted to the other printing units 32C to 32K. When one page of data is generated and transmitted in this manner, in step 77, the presence or absence of the next page is confirmed, and if further print data needs to be created, the above process is repeated.

The print job control method shown in FIG. 2 is a CD-RO as a driver program or a program device having instructions capable of executing the above-described steps.
M and provided on a suitable recording medium such as M. Alternatively, the driver program is provided in a form in which a driver program is embedded in a transmission medium supplied via communication between computers such as the Internet. The provided driver program or program device is recorded or downloaded onto the hard disk of the computer 5 or other suitable recording medium, so that the computer 5
The entire software or a part for executing an appropriate process at an appropriate timing is downloaded to the processor, and the printer 5 is installed in the computer 5.
The function as the control device is realized. From the host computer 5 in which the driver program is installed, the address 69 of each print unit and the data 7 in which a part or all of the print data 68 is packetized are transmitted to the transmission medium passing through the transmission path 6 realized by USB or the like. It is packetized and output according to the protocol for controlling the transmission path. And directly or
The packet 7 is supplied to the printer 31 via a hub, a router, or another server serving as a relay.

As a result, in the printing unit 32 for each color, if there is a packet 7 addressed to its own address for transmitting the transmission circuit 6, the packet 7 is acquired and the print data 68 is decoded or divided into packets. The data is collected and stored in the memory 35. The process of transferring the print data 68 can be realized using a function of a general-purpose interface, for example, a USB interface in this example.
It can be realized by using the functions provided in the OS 50 or the USB driver 52 of the host computer 5 and the hardware of the computer 5. Therefore, if the function of the interface is improved, the speed of the print job is further increased accordingly. The process of transmitting the color-specific print data 68 as the individual output data 70 is also a distributed process, and uses the resources of the host computer 5 and the transmission unit 6 in the most efficient manner based on the control of the USB driver 52 and the like. Can be transmitted for use.

If the printer 31 has the print data 68 transmitted to its own address, the color-specific printing unit 3
2 is received and printing is started when appropriate print data 68 for one page or color printing has been prepared. Therefore, as long as any one of the color-specific print data 68C to 68K is transferred from the host computer 5 to the color-specific printing units 32C to 32K of the printer 31 according to a predetermined protocol, the printer is independent of the processing of the host computer 5. At 31, the printing process proceeds, and the print data 68C-
A printout corresponding to 68K is output.

Print data 68C-68K for each color transmitted
If the processing speed in the color-specific printing units 32C to 32K is low with respect to the above speed, and the memory 35 becomes insufficient, it becomes necessary to adjust the transmission timing on the host computer 5 side. However, in the printing system 30 of the present example, color separation and 2
The value processing and transmission prevent the software processing in the color-specific printing units 32C to 32K of the printer 31 from becoming a critical path in the printing processing. Therefore, in a case other than the case where the mechanism system of the color-specific printing unit 32 becomes the critical path, only the transmission means such as USB or the software processing of the host computer 5 becomes the critical path. The performance of the transmission system and the performance of the host computer 5 are improving day by day. As a result, in the printing system 30 of the present example, the performance of the transmission system and the host computer is reflected, and the printing speed of the printer 31 is improved. It is possible to achieve.

That is, in the conventional color image printing system, for example, the amount of data transmitted from the host to the printer increases in order to prevent the transmission system from becoming a critical path due to the colorization. In order to prevent the processing from being performed and to increase the amount of processing for converting data in the printer by performing colorization, the processing resources in the printer are strengthened in order to prevent the processing from becoming a critical path. On the other hand, in this example, even in the case of colorization, the process of converting data in the printer is almost completely eliminated, thereby fundamentally preventing data processing in the printer from becoming a critical path, The processing to be a path is loaded on a general-purpose computer and a transmission means that have high performance at present and are expected to have higher performance in the future. Therefore, even if the printer 31 is not replaced, if the performance of the host computer 5 or the transmission system 6 such as USB is improved, the printing speed can be increased. The printer 31 does not need to take measures to prevent the transmission processing from becoming a critical path or the data processing from becoming a critical path, so that the cost can be reduced with a simple configuration. .

All the data conversion processing is performed by the host computer 5, and the color-separated print data 68 is separated.
On the printer 31 side, C-68K is received by one interface, and the print data 6 for each color is received inside the printer 31.
Select 8C-68K to select the printing unit 32C-3 for each color.
You may make it transfer to 2K. Such a printer can have one universal interface for communicating with the host computer 5, that is, one USB interface in this example. Therefore, if the cost of the interface is high, the cost merit is great. Therefore,
The above-described effects can be obtained by a low-cost printer.

On the other hand, when the cost of the general-purpose interface decreases, the print data 68C to 68C for each color is internally stored in the printer.
The processing time of the process of selecting K and transferring it to the color-specific printing units 32C to 32K appears as overhead. Further, hardware for selecting and transferring data inside the printer may also be an overhead in terms of cost.
Therefore, in the printer 31 of the present embodiment, the printing units 32C, 32M, 32Y and 32K for printing each color are used.
Are provided as independent units capable of distributed processing, and by arranging them in parallel, processing for printing a color image can be executed in parallel. Further, each printing unit 32C ~ 32K can be communicated independently with the host computer 5,
The processing time for selecting and transferring data in the printer and the hardware overhead can be saved. Therefore, in the printer 31 of the present example, the chance of data processing inside the printer 31 can be further reduced, and the possibility that the processing on the printer side becomes a critical path in the printing processing can be reduced. For this reason, the printing system 3 is configured to more easily reflect the performance improvement of the computer 5 and the performance improvement of the transmission system 6.
0 can be constructed.

Since the host computer 5 can directly send the color-specific print data 68C to 68K to the color-specific control circuits 34 of the printing units 32C to 32K, respectively, the driver 55 of the host computer 5 collects the color-specific print data. Also, processing or adjustment required for data transfer, such as adjusting the order of transmission, is not required.

According to the present invention, a laser color printer 31 capable of outputting high-quality color prints at high speed can be provided at low cost, so that a system capable of outputting clear color images at high speed to each user can be constructed. Therefore, it is also possible to realize a service of distributing magazines and newspapers containing clear color images at the same resolution as gravure photographs via the Internet or the like, and the information currently provided through these media can be further reduced. Timely distribution at a cost becomes possible.
In addition, a service using a color printer can be fully developed, for example, it can be used as a video capture that prints out a part of a screen being broadcast at a high speed in a timely manner.

Although the present invention has been described using a laser printer, the present invention can be similarly applied to other color printers such as an ink jet printer. However, in consideration of the current resolution, an optical scanning type printer such as a laser printer is suitable for outputting a high-resolution and high-quality color image at high speed. A solid-state optical scanning printer using a valve is also suitable as an embodiment of the present invention.

Also, in this embodiment, a printer is described in which a color image is synthesized by an intermediate transfer belt and then transferred to the paper 9, but the paper feed path 16 is connected to the color-specific printing units 32C, 32M, 32Y and 32K. However, it is also possible to supply the paper 9 in order (although it is not necessary to follow this order), and to print on the paper 9 directly by the color-specific printing unit 34.

Further, in this example, the printing unit 34 for each color is used.
Printer driver 55 installed in the host computer 5 so that data for each color can be directly transmitted to the
Then, color separation is performed, and furthermore, processing such as binarization is performed to generate data such as a bitmap, a vector, and a display list that can be printed almost as is in each printing unit 32. On the other hand, the printer 55 can also perform the color separation by the driver 55, transmit the data separated for each color to the printer, and perform binarization or multi-value conversion in the color control circuit 32 of each printing unit. The possibility that the processing on the side becomes a critical path can be reduced. However, in order to use the capacity of the host computer 5 as much as possible and minimize the possibility that the data conversion process on the printer side becomes a critical path and improve the speed of the printing process, data such as binarization or multi-leveling is used. It is desirable that the processing including the processing is executed on the host side, and the processing in the printing unit 32 is reduced.

As a transmission means, a USB (Universal)
Although an example using Serial Bus) is shown, it is also possible to use a transmission method capable of transmitting data by designating another specific address, for example, IEEE 1394, Ethernet, or the like. And print data can be transmitted directly from the Internet. It is also possible to transfer print data not only by wire but also wirelessly.
the personal computer and the printer 31
Alternatively, the color control circuits 34 of the individual color printing units can be linked. When the color printer according to the present invention is used in a portable personal computer or a mobile phone having a limited processing capability, a server connected via the Internet or the like is used as a substantial host computer, and the capability of the server is reduced. Generate print data for each color by using it and relay the print data for each color with a mobile terminal, or send the print data from a server directly to a printer or its print unit via the Internet etc. Printing is also possible.

Further, in this embodiment, a printer is described as an example of a device for outputting a color image. However, the present invention can be applied to a device for printing another color image such as a photographic developing device or a color copy. . Further, the present invention can be applied to other types of output devices such as a projector for projecting a color image. However, color conversion, color separation, and binary or multi-value conversion for a color image output to a display are possible. It can be said that the present invention is particularly suitable for a recording apparatus that needs to perform processing such as processing at high speed.

[0052]

As described above, according to the present invention, when a multi-color image is output from a peripheral device, the host computer performs a process of separating the data for each color to obtain output data for each color. The data is supplied to an output device such as a printer. Therefore, all of the data conversion processing and data transmission processing that may become a critical path can be performed by a general-purpose computer and transmission means that are expected to improve in performance and further improve in the future. . For this reason, it is possible to provide a color image output system in which the cost of the output device can be reduced by greatly reducing the load on the output device, and at the same time, the overall processing speed can be greatly improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an outline of a printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an outline of processing of a printer driver illustrated in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an outline of a printing system using a conventional laser printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 30 printing system 2, 31 printer 5 host computer 6 transmission circuit 7 packet data 32C to 32K color-specific printing unit 34 control circuit (color-specific control circuit) 35 memory 36 exposure device 37 photosensitive drum 38 charge roller 39 toner cartridge 50 OS 51, 55 Printer driver 52 USB interface

Claims (22)

[Claims] 1. A host computer comprising: generating means for generating a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color from multi-color image data; and transmitting means capable of transmitting the color-specific output data. An output device capable of outputting a color image, comprising: a plurality of color-specific output means for outputting an image for each color; and the color-specific output means for receiving the color-specific output data output by the color-specific output means. An output device comprising: a plurality of color-specific control means for controlling the respective colors; and a means for combining images of the respective colors formed by the plurality of color-specific output means; and the color output from the transmission means of the host computer. A transmission means for transmitting another output data to the output device. 2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the generating unit generates the output data for each color as individual output data that can be transmitted to each address, and the transmitting unit transmits the individual output data to each address. Can be transmitted to the output device, the color-specific control means of the output device has an individual address, receives the individual output data, and the transmission means can transmit the individual output data to each address. Some output systems. 3. The output system according to claim 1, wherein the output data for each color is print data for each color to be printed on paper, and the output device is a recording device capable of recording a color image on paper. . 4. A device capable of outputting a color image, comprising: a plurality of color-specific output means for outputting an image for each color; and a color-separated color-separated image for each color output means. An output device comprising: a plurality of color control means for respectively receiving output data and controlling the color output means; and a means for combining images of respective colors formed by the plurality of color output means. 5. The output device according to claim 4, wherein the control unit for each color includes an interface capable of receiving the output data for each color from a host computer. 6. The color-specific control means according to claim 4, wherein said color-specific control means has an independent address and can receive individual output data including said color-specific output data transmitted to each address from a host computer. An output device that has an interface. 7. The method according to claim 4, wherein
The color output means is means for outputting an image for each color so that it can be printed on paper, and the color control means outputs print data for each color to be printed by the output means for each color. An output device that receives the output data as output data and synthesizes the images of the respective colors formed by the plurality of color-specific output units on a sheet. 8. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the output means for each color is a light scanning type printing means of a single color, and the synthesizing means is an intermediate transfer means for synthesizing an image of the light scanning type printing means for each color. Alternatively, an output device that is a paper supply unit that sequentially supplies paper to the optical scanning type printing unit for each color. 9. A control device having a generation unit for generating a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color from multi-color image data. 10. The method according to claim 9, wherein:
A control device capable of outputting the output data for each color as individual output data that can be transmitted to each address. 11. The control device according to claim 9, wherein the output data for each color is print data for each color for printing a color image on a sheet. 12. A host computer having the control device according to claim 9. 13. An output job control method comprising the step of generating a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color from multi-color image data. 14. The output job control method according to claim 13, further comprising a step of transmitting the output data for each color to each address. 15. The output job control method according to claim 12, wherein the output data for each color is print data for each color for printing a color image on a sheet. 16. An output job control program product having an instruction capable of executing a step of generating a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color from multi-color image data. 17. The control program product for an output job according to claim 16, further comprising an instruction to execute the step of transmitting the output data for each color to each address. 18. A computer recording an output job control program having an instruction capable of executing a step of generating a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color from multi-color image data. A readable recording medium. 19. A computer-readable computer according to claim 18, wherein an output job control program having an instruction capable of further executing a step of transmitting said color-specific output data to each address is recorded. Recording medium. 20. A computer having embedded therein an output job control program having an instruction capable of executing a step of generating a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color from multi-color image data. Transmission medium transmitted by communication between 21. The computer according to claim 20, wherein an output job control program having an instruction capable of further executing a step of transmitting the color-specific output data to each address is embedded. A transmission medium transmitted by communication. 22. At least a part of the color-specific output data of a color among a plurality of color-specific output data separated for each color generated from multi-color image data, and the color-specific output data of the color A transmission medium transmitted by communication between computers, wherein a data package having a transfer destination address is embedded.