JP2002314743A - Image reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image reader that can prevent a scanner from being misunderstood as being in a troubled state by not abnormally increasing the time required for reading of image data. SOLUTION: Each client PC 30 is provided with a memory box corresponding to memory box areas 8a of an image memory 8, a main control section 1 stores image data from an image read section 2 to the memory box in the memory box areas 8a; when the image reader receives a transfer instruction signal of the image data from each client PC 30, the image reader decides whether the image data are to be transferred on the basis of a transmission data quantity Dtr of the image data to be transferred (step S4 in Figure 4). The main control section 1 transmits (step S5) a transfer rejection notice signal to a corresponding external terminal, when the amount is a transfer specified data amount Dth or over by each memory box, corresponding to each client PC 30 ('YES' in step S4).

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image reading apparatus which reads an original image and converts it into image data, such as an image scanner (hereinafter, referred to as a scanner) or an image reading section of a digital multifunction peripheral.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A digital multifunction peripheral, which is a facsimile machine with a copy, printer, and scanner function, and a plurality of client devices such as personal computers are connected to a local area network (hereinafter referred to as LAN).
A LAN system that is connected via the Internet has been put to practical use. In this prior art LAN system, the scanner in the digital multifunction peripheral reads the original image and converts it into image data, stores it in a memory box in the image memory corresponding to each client device, and issues a transfer instruction from each client device. The image data is read from the memory box in the image memory in response to the request signal and transferred to the corresponding client device via the LAN.

[0003]

In the prior art LAN system, the scanner in the digital multifunction peripheral is
When a transfer instruction request signal is received simultaneously from a plurality of client devices, it is necessary to read out a plurality of image data corresponding to the plurality of client devices in parallel in time. Here, when a transfer instruction request signal is received from a large number of client devices at the same time, the time required for reading a large number of image data increases and becomes abnormally long, and it is misunderstood that the scanner is in a trouble state in each client device. In some cases.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems and to provide an image reading apparatus which can prevent the time required for reading image data from increasing abnormally and prevent the scanner from being misunderstood as being in a trouble state. It is in.

[0005]

According to the present invention, there is provided an image reading apparatus for reading an original image, converting the image into image data and outputting the image data, and a plurality of external terminal apparatuses connected to a plurality of external terminal apparatuses. External connection means for communicating with the image processing apparatus, storage means for storing image data, image data from the image reading means stored in the storage means, and transfer instruction signals for image data from the external terminal devices received. When
Control means for determining whether to execute the transfer of the image data based on the transfer data amount of the image data to be transferred.

In the above-mentioned image reading apparatus, the control means controls the transfer of the image data for each of the external terminal devices when the transfer data amount of the image data to be transferred is less than a predetermined transfer specified data amount. On the other hand, a transfer rejection notification signal is transmitted to the corresponding external terminal device when the transfer specified data amount is exceeded.

Further, in the above image reading apparatus, the storage means includes a plurality of memory boxes corresponding to the respective external terminal devices.

[0008]

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

<Embodiment> FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a LAN system provided with a digital multifunction device 20 which is a facsimile device having a copy, printer and scanner function according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[0010] The LAN system according to this embodiment includes a plurality of N client personal computers (hereinafter, referred to as N).
Client PC. ) 30-1 to 30-N (hereinafter collectively referred to as 30), a digital multifunction peripheral 20 connected to a public telephone network 80 via a public telephone line L, and a router connected to the Internet 90 Device 6
0 are connected via a LAN 70.
By connecting from each client PC 30 to the Internet 90 via a router device 60 or a mail server device (not shown), it is possible to browse home pages and send and receive e-mails.
30 accesses the digital multifunction peripheral 20 to copy, print,
The scanner and the facsimile can be commonly used.

[0011] The digital composite device 2 according to this embodiment
0, a corresponding memory box in the memory box area 8a of the image memory 8 is provided for each client PC 30, and the main control unit 1 stores the image data from the image reading unit 2 in the memory box in the memory box area 8a. When receiving the image data transfer instruction signal from each of the client PCs 30 and determining whether to execute the image data transfer based on the transfer data amount Dtr of the image data to be transferred (FIG. 4). Step S4), specifically, when the transfer data amount Dtr of the image data to be transferred is less than the predetermined transfer prescribed data amount Dth for each memory box corresponding to each client PC 30 (Step S4).
(NO in step S4), the image data is transferred (step S7). On the other hand, when the transfer data amount is equal to or larger than the prescribed transfer data amount Dth (YES in step S4), a transfer rejection notification signal is transmitted to the corresponding external terminal device (step S5). ).

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the client PC 30 shown in FIG.

In FIG. 2, the client PC 30 comprises:
An external terminal device, which is a known personal computer, executes processes such as generation, recording, and storage of image data and character data. In the present embodiment, for example, the client PC 30 is used as an external terminal device that receives image data scanned by a scanner. The main control unit 101 is specifically configured by a CPU, is connected to the following hardware units via a bus 113, controls them, and executes various software functions to be described later. This client PC 30
, An image reading unit and an image recording unit (not shown) are provided as options. The display unit 104 is a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a CRT display, and displays an operation state of the client PC 30 and displays image data of a document to be transmitted and received image data. The operation unit 105 is, for example, a keyboard for inputting character data and instruction commands.

The ROM 106 stores the client PC 3
0 are stored in advance, which are various software programs necessary for the operation of No. 0 and executed by the main control unit 101.
The RAM 107 includes an SRAM, a DRAM, an SDRA
M is used as a working area of the main control unit 101 and stores temporary data generated when the program is executed. In addition, hard disk drive 1
Reference numeral 08 denotes a storage device having a built-in recording medium, which stores an application program to be executed and an image memory.

The client PC configured as described above
At 30, the main control unit 101 of the client PC 30
When transferring the image data stored in the corresponding memory box in the memory box area 8a after being scanned and converted by the image reading unit 2 to its own device, the instruction data instructing the corresponding memory box is transmitted. Including the transfer instruction request signal including the LAN interface 112 and the LAN 7
0 to the main control unit 1 in the digital multifunction peripheral 20, and in response to this, the digital multifunction peripheral 20
Receives image data transmitted via the LAN 70 from the hard disk drive 9.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the digital multifunction peripheral 20 shown in FIG.

Referring to FIG. 3, the digital multifunction peripheral 20
Has a copy, printer, and scanner function in addition to a conventional G3 facsimile communication function. The main control unit 1 is specifically composed of a CPU, is connected to the following hardware units via a bus 13, controls them, and executes various software functions to be described later. The image reading unit 2 reads a document with a scanner using a CCD or the like, and outputs dot image data converted into black and white binary. The image recording unit 3 is a printer device of, for example, an electrophotographic system, and the image reading unit 2
And prints out a hard copy of the image data scanned and converted by facsimile communication or image data received from another facsimile apparatus, or records character data.

The display unit 4 is a display device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a CRT display. The display unit 4 displays the operation state of the digital multi-function peripheral 20, image data of a document to be transmitted, and received image data. Is displayed. The operation unit 5 includes character keys, dial numeric keys, speed dial keys, one-touch dial keys, various function keys, and the like necessary for operating the digital multifunction peripheral 20. The display unit 4 may be configured to be a touch panel type so that some or all of the various keys of the operation unit 5 can be substituted.

The ROM 6 stores the digital multifunction device 20
The programs of various software necessary for the operation of and executed by the main control unit 1 are stored in advance, and the present embodiment includes at least the program of the scanner image data transfer processing of FIG. RAM7 is SRAM, DRA
M, SDRAM, and the like, which is used as a working area of the main control unit 1 and stores temporary data generated when a program is executed. When a flash memory is used as the RAM 7, even if the power is cut off due to a power failure, a movement of the apparatus, or the like, the contents of the data are not lost.

The image memory 8 is composed of a DRAM or the like, and stores image data to be transmitted or received image data, or image data scanned and converted. here,
The image memory 8 includes a memory box area 8a divided into a plurality of memory boxes corresponding to a plurality of client PCs 30. Each client PC 30 transfers the image data transmitted / received by the facsimile function, the image data scanned and converted by the scanner function or the copy function, and the image data when using the printer function to the corresponding memory box and temporarily stores the image data. Stored in
When reading from the memory box, the transfer instruction request signal is transmitted to read and transfer from the corresponding memory box. Further, the hard disk drive 9 is a storage device having a built-in recording medium, and stores various data and programs.

The fax modem 10 is connected to a public telephone line L
And has the function of a fax modem for normal facsimile communication. An NCU (Network Control Unit) 11 is a hardware circuit that performs closing and opening operations such as a DC loop of an analog public telephone line L and has an automatic dial function. To the public telephone line L. Here, the NCU 11 detects an ID receiving terminal activation signal and a normal telephone call signal in the outgoing telephone number notification service, and transmits a primary response signal and a secondary response signal in the outgoing telephone number notification service as necessary. can do. The NCU 11 may be connected to a baseband transmission type digital line (for example, an ISDN line) via a predetermined terminal adapter and a DSU (Digital Service Unit).

Further, the LAN interface 12
While being connected to the LAN 70 and receiving signals and data from the LAN 70, it transmits signals and data to the LAN 70 and executes interface processing related to LAN communication such as signal conversion and protocol conversion.

In the facsimile communication function of the digital multifunction peripheral 20 configured as described above, the dot image data transferred from each of the client PCs 30-1 to 30-N or the dot image data read by the image reading unit 2 is M defined in the standard of facsimile communication
After being encoded by software in accordance with an encoding system such as H, MR, MMR, etc., it is transmitted to the other party's facsimile apparatus, and on the contrary, the encoded data received from the other party's facsimile apparatus is also decoded into software by the software. After being converted, it is stored in the image memory 8 and printed by the image recording unit 3 as needed.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a scanner image data transfer process executed by the main controller 1 of FIG. The transfer data amount Dtr used in this processing is the data amount of the image data stored in the memory box area 8a in the image memory 8 and transferred to each client PC 30.

In FIG. 4, the transfer data amount Dtr is reset to 0 for all memory boxes in step S1, and the client PC 3 is reset in step S2.
From 0, it is determined whether a transfer instruction request signal for scanner image data has been received. If YES, the process proceeds to step S3, and if NO, the process proceeds to step S5. Next, in step S3, it is determined whether or not there is untransferred image data in the memory box designated by the client PC 30. If YES, the process proceeds to step S4 while N
In the case of O, the process proceeds to step S5. Then, step S4
It is determined whether or not the transfer data amount Dtr to be transferred is equal to or greater than the predetermined LAN transfer specified data amount Dth. If YES, the process proceeds to step S5, while NO
If so, the process proceeds to step S6. Here, the LAN transfer specified data amount Dth is the communication speed of the LAN 70 (10 Mb).
ps or 100 Mbps) and the number of client PCs 30 connected to the LAN 70, etc., and are set and determined in advance by a customer engineer who is in charge of maintenance.
When N, the preferred default value is 100 Mbytes.

In step S5, after transmitting a transfer rejection notification signal to the client PC 30 which has transmitted the transfer instruction request signal, the process returns to step S2. on the other hand,
In step S6, the result of adding the scan data amount Dsc of the image data scanned and converted by the image reading unit 2 to the data transfer amount Dtr in the designated memory box is set as the data transfer amount Dtr. Next, in step S7, the image data is transferred from the designated memory box to the client PC 30, and it is determined in step S8 whether the transfer is completed. If NO, the process returns to step S7, while if YES, the process returns to step S7.
Then, the process proceeds to step S9, in which the scan data amount is subtracted from the data transfer amount Dtr in the designated memory box, and the subtraction result is set as the data transfer amount.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the main control unit 1 stores the image data from the image reading unit 2 in the memory box in the memory box area 8a, and stores the image data from each client PC 30. When the transfer instruction signal is received, it is determined whether or not to execute the transfer of the image data based on the transfer data amount Dtr of the image data to be transferred (step S4 in FIG. 4). For each memory box corresponding to each client PC 30,
When the transfer data amount Dtr of the image data to be transferred is smaller than the predetermined transfer specified data amount Dth (N in step S4)
O) Execute the transfer of the image data (step S7)
On the other hand, when the transfer specified data amount Dth or more (YES in step S4), a transfer rejection notification signal is transmitted to the corresponding external terminal device (step S5). Therefore, the time required for reading the image data does not increase abnormally, and it can be prevented that the scanner is misunderstood as being in a trouble state.

The image memory 8 stores each client P
Since a plurality of memory boxes corresponding to C30 are provided in the memory box area 8a, the client PC 30 is allocated in advance for each memory box, and each client P
Image data can be reliably managed for each C30.

<Modification> In the above embodiment, the example of the digital multifunction peripheral 20 has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and can be widely applied to an image reading apparatus having a scanner function.

[0030]

As described above in detail, according to the image reading apparatus of the present invention, an image reading means for reading a document image, converting the image into image data and outputting the image data, and a plurality of external terminal devices connected to the plurality of external terminal devices External connection means for communicating with the external terminal device, storage means for storing image data, image data from the image reading means being stored in the storage means, and image data transfer instructions from each of the external terminal devices Control means for determining whether or not to execute the transfer of the image data based on the transfer data amount of the image data to be transferred when receiving the signal. Therefore, the time required for reading the image data does not increase abnormally, and it can be prevented that the scanner is misunderstood as being in a trouble state.

In the above image reading apparatus, the control means controls the transfer of the image data for each of the external terminal devices when the transfer data amount of the image data to be transferred is less than a predetermined transfer specified data amount. On the other hand, when the transfer data amount is equal to or larger than the transfer specified data amount, a transfer rejection notification signal is transmitted to the corresponding external terminal device. Therefore, the time required for reading the image data does not increase abnormally, and it can be prevented that the scanner is misunderstood as being in a trouble state.

Further, in the image reading apparatus, the storage means includes a plurality of memory boxes corresponding to each of the external terminal devices. Therefore, the time required for reading the image data does not abnormally increase, and it is possible to prevent the scanner from being misunderstood as being in a trouble state. In addition, an external terminal device is assigned in advance to each memory box, and each external terminal device is assigned. It is possible to reliably manage image data every time.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a LAN system including a digital multifunction device 20 which is a facsimile device with a copy, printer, and scanner function according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a client PC 30 of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the digital multifunction peripheral 20 of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a scanner image data transfer process executed by a main controller 1 of FIG. 3;

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Main control part, 2 ... Image reading part, 4 ... Display part, 5 ... Operation part, 6 ... ROM, 7 ... RAM, 8 ... Image memory, 8a ... Memory box area, 9 ... Hard disk drive, 10 ... Fax modem Reference numeral 11: NCU, 12: LAN interface, 13: bus, 20: digital multifunction peripheral, 30, 30-1 to 30-N: client personal computer (client PC), 70: local area network (LAN).

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued on the front page F term (reference) 5C062 AA02 AA05 AA35 AB17 AB38 AB42 AC02 AC22 AC34 AC58 AE01 BA00 5C073 AA06 AB17 CD13 5C075 AB90 CF04 FF90 5K101 KK01 LL01 LL02 LL05 NN21

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An image reading means for reading a document image, converting the image data into image data, and outputting the image data; an external connecting means connected to a plurality of external terminal devices for communicating with the plurality of external terminal devices; Storage means for storing the image data from the image reading means in the storage means, and upon receiving an image data transfer instruction signal from each of the external terminal devices, based on a transfer data amount of the image data to be transferred. A control unit for determining whether or not to execute the transfer of the image data. 2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit executes the transfer of the image data for each of the external terminal devices when the transfer data amount of the image data to be transferred is less than a predetermined transfer specified data amount. 2. The image reading apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a transfer rejection notification signal is transmitted to a corresponding external terminal device when the data amount is equal to or greater than a prescribed data amount. 3. The image reading apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said storage means includes a plurality of memory boxes corresponding to each of said external terminal devices.