JP2003067156A - Printing control device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printing control method for printing at a high speed by using a multiprocessor, particularly, a laser printer and a shuttle printer. SOLUTION: The printing control method performs plotting processing and printing processing of respective pages by a plurality of processors according to a printing command by storing the printing command ranging over a plurality of pages in a command buffer. When successively allocating the plotting processing of a different page to the different processors, a printing command row ranging over a plurality of pages in the command buffer is read, and empty plotting for setting a plotting attribute parameter of the respective pages is performed without performing actual plotting (real plotting), and the real plotting is performed by the respective processors on the basis of the printing command row according to the set plotting attribute parameter on a page of finishing the empty plotting.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control apparatus and a print control method, and more particularly to a page printer such as a laser printer, an LED (light emitting diode) printer, an LCS (liquid crystal shutter) printer, a shuttle printer, and a multiprocessor. The present invention relates to a print control apparatus and a print control method for performing high-speed printing by using a printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in the print control devices described in Japanese Patent Application No. 63-158481 and Japanese Patent Application No. 1-282747, a print command string is received from a host computer, and drawing in a page buffer is performed. The print throughput was increased to the maximum performance of the printer by executing the parallel processing of the completed page buffer. The maximum performance of this printer has been achieved if the drawing time per page is approximately equal to or less than the printer mechanism printing time per page (the shortest printing time per page).

In the print control apparatus described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-263055, one page is divided into a plurality of areas,
A dedicated drawing processor is prepared for each area, and each area is drawn independently to improve drawing performance.
I was trying to speed up page printing. In this apparatus, even if the drawing time per page exceeds the printer mechanism printing time per page, the printing performance can be improved if only one page is printed (first print).

In the print control apparatus described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-263051, one page is divided into a plurality of areas,
A character drawing processor or a graphic drawing processor is assigned to each area, and each processor draws each area independently to improve drawing performance and speed up printing of one page.

As another conventional technique for controlling printing by using a plurality of processors, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-263051
JP-A-1-263055, JP-A-2-63852
And JP-A-2-108567.

[0006]

[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application No. 63-15
In Japanese Patent No. 8481 and Japanese Patent Application No. 1-282747, when the drawing time per page exceeds the printer mechanism printing time per page, the print throughput is lower than the maximum printer performance.

Further, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-263055 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-263051, the drawing performance of only one page is high, but the printing contents of each page are different because drawing and printing are not processed in parallel. When continuously printing a document consisting of a plurality of pages (hereinafter, simply referred to as continuous printing), there is a problem that the maximum printer performance cannot be obtained.

In the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-263051, when each page is composed of only characters or figures, the figure drawing processor or the character drawing processor is not useful, so that the drawing performance cannot be improved and the printing of one page is sufficiently fast. There was a problem that it could not be realized.

Further, in any of the above-mentioned prior arts using a plurality of processors, there is no description of a method in which a plurality of processors draw different pages in parallel when continuously printing a document consisting of a plurality of pages having different print contents. There was a problem that it was not mentioned.

An object of the present invention is to provide a print control method capable of improving print performance when continuously printing a document consisting of a plurality of pages in a print control apparatus having a multiprocessor structure suitable for use in a laser printer or the like. To provide.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a print control method and a print control apparatus capable of performing printing with the highest performance of a printer even with a document having a heavy drawing load and using a printer having a high dot density and a high speed. To do.

According to the print control method of the present invention, a print command for a plurality of pages is stored in a command buffer, and a plurality of processors draw and print each page according to the print command. That is, when the drawing processes of different pages are sequentially assigned to different processors, the print command string over a plurality of pages in the command buffer is read and the drawing attribute parameter of each page is set without actually drawing (actual drawing). The blank drawing is performed, and the actual drawing is executed by each processor based on the print command sequence in accordance with the set drawing attribute parameter for the page for which the blank drawing is completed. In the present specification, the drawing attribute parameters include font type and size, character pitch,
In addition to various drawing attributes such as line pitch, reverse, underline, and italic, paper control information such as paper size, number of copies, printing direction (portrait / landscape), etc. is also included.

The print control apparatus according to the present invention includes an input / output of a master processor, a plurality of slave processors operating according to instructions from the master processor, a host communication controller for communicating with a host computer, and a printer engine section. A printer engine adapter for performing a print command sequence, a command buffer unit for storing a print command sequence received from a host computer via the host communication controller, a shared memory accessible by all the processors, and access by individual processors only. The master processor is provided with a local memory for each processor, and the master processor reads the print command string in the command buffer section and interprets it, and performs the drawing attribute parameter setting process without drawing one page until a page break is detected. Minutes, next page And sky drawing function for obtaining a page delimiter address head, a function of acquiring the slave processor idle after the air drawing, after the acquisition of the slave processor,
A function of acquiring an empty page buffer memory having a size corresponding to the paper size determined by the empty drawing, and the acquisition by the acquisition slave processor of a page for which empty drawing is completed after the acquisition of the page buffer memory The actual drawing in the page buffer memory is provided with a function of sequentially activating the page break address at the beginning of the page and the drawing attribute parameter as input parameters, and the slave processor is drawn as the actual drawing obtained by the empty drawing. It has a function of drawing one page according to the attribute parameter, and a function of notifying the master processor of the completion of the actual drawing after the actual drawing and requesting the master processor to perform a print process for the drawn page buffer. In addition, when the master processor receives the end report of the actual drawing, the actual drawing is performed. A function for updating the end page and releasing the report source slave processor, a function for executing the print processing for the drawn page buffer when a print processing is requested, and a drawing completed by the print processing. When the end of reading from the page buffer is recognized by the printer engine adapter or the slave processor, it has a function of releasing the page buffer, and the master processor performs the empty drawing processing and the printing processing in parallel, and further, the master The processing by the processor and the processing by the slave processors are performed in parallel.

Another print control apparatus according to the present invention comprises a master processor, a plurality of slave processors that operate according to instructions from the master processor, a host communication controller for communicating with a host computer, and a printer engine section. A printer engine adapter for inputting / outputting, a command buffer unit for storing a print command sequence received from a host computer via the host communication controller, a shared memory accessible by all the processors, and individual processors With local memory for each processor that can only be accessed,
The master processor has a function of activating any one of M individual drawing tasks for a plurality of slave processors, and the individual drawing task 1 assigned to the first slave processor has a fixed size (printer). The function of requesting the master processor to acquire an empty page buffer memory (corresponding to the maximum paper size that can be printed by the engine unit), and then the drawing attribute parameter as the actual drawing to the acquired page buffer memory. A function of performing setting processing and drawing until a page break is detected and drawing one page, and after the actual drawing, reports the end of the actual drawing from the slave processor to the master processor.
A function for requesting print processing for the drawn page buffer, and a page for processing for setting drawing attribute parameters without drawing while reading and interpreting the print command sequence in the command buffer section after requesting the print processing The blank drawing is provided to the individual drawing task m assigned to the k-th slave processor by providing the function of repeatedly executing the empty drawing for one page M-1 time until the break is detected. Function to execute once, function to request the master processor to acquire the fixed size free page buffer memory, and then page-draw the drawing attribute parameter setting process and drawing as actual drawing in the acquired page buffer memory Until one is detected, and the function to draw one page, and after the actual drawing, the actual drawing from the slave processor to the master processor The end of the drawing, a function of requesting a print process for the drawn page buffer, and a function of executing the empty drawing Mm times after the request of the print process, and further including the master processor. To
A function of updating the actual drawing end page when receiving the completion report of the actual drawing, a function of executing a print process for the drawn page buffer when a print process is requested, and a drawn page started by the print process. When the printer engine adapter or the slave processor recognizes the end of the reading from the buffer, it has a function of releasing the page buffer and a function of executing the acquisition of the page buffer at the time of requesting the acquisition of the page buffer. The empty drawing process and the printing process are performed in parallel, and the process by the master processor and the process by each slave processor are performed in parallel.

[0014]

In the multiprocessor type print control device having the master processor and the plurality of slave processors, the plurality of slave processors can process the drawing and the like in parallel under the control of the master processor. The processing capacity of the print control device can be improved. In particular, the adoption of empty drawing facilitates parallel execution of drawing processing by multiple processors.

In a print control apparatus using the blank drawing centralized processing method (paper size fixed type blank drawing centralized processing method or paper size assumption type blank drawing centralized processing method), a drawing management task performs blank drawing The individual drawing task of executes the actual drawing in parallel on another processor. Further, the print processing for each page buffer that has been drawn by the actual drawing can be executed in parallel with the empty drawing and in parallel with the actual drawing. In this specification, "parallel" execution means that a plurality of processors execute a plurality of processes at the same time, and "parallel" execution means that one processor processes a plurality of processes in a pipeline manner. Means to do.

Also in the empty drawing distributed processing method, a plurality of individual drawing tasks execute real drawing in parallel on different processors, and the print processing for each page buffer that has been drawn by real drawing is called real drawing. Run in parallel.

Therefore, in the blank drawing centralized processing method and the blank drawing distributed processing method, since the real drawing processing is executed in parallel, even if the drawing time per page exceeds the printer mechanism printing time per page, printing is performed. The highest performance of the printer can be achieved as the throughput. Further, since the drawing and the printing are performed in parallel, the maximum printer performance can be achieved even in the continuous printing of a document composed of a plurality of pages with different print contents of each page. Further, by using general-purpose processors as the plurality of processors, it is possible to improve the drawing performance and the printing performance even for a document in which each page has only characters or figures.

In the case of using the variable length page buffer control of the blank drawing centralized processing method and the blank drawing distributed processing method, only a page buffer of a required size is acquired according to the paper size, so that a large paper size is used. Printing can be realized with a small total page buffer capacity. In addition, since a large number of page buffers can be arranged for printing on a small paper size, even if printing of pages with a large drawing load is mixed, the average print throughput will not be reduced and the maximum performance of the printer engine will be achieved. Printing can be realized.

In the empty drawing distributed processing method, unlike the empty drawing concentrated processing method, the empty drawing is performed by an individual drawing task. Therefore, when the load of the empty drawing is small, the number of individual drawing tasks M is made equal to the total number of slave processors K or K + 1, and each individual drawing task m is assigned to any one of the slave processor and the master processor to improve the print throughput. This can be improved over the blank drawing centralized processing method.

Further, while supporting the constraint command, in the blank drawing process in the print control process corresponding to the constraint command, only clear page breaks are detected, and the process of setting the drawing attribute parameter is not performed. I'm done. Therefore, by providing the constraint command and the print control method corresponding to the constraint command, the empty drawing processing in the empty drawing concentrated processing method and the empty drawing distributed processing method can be simplified and speeded up in the case of the restricted command.

Therefore, with respect to the constraint command, in addition to the effects shown in the above-described empty drawing centralized processing method and empty drawing distributed processing, an effect of improving drawing performance almost proportional to the number of processors can be obtained.

Further, in the intra-page parallel processing type print control apparatus, drawing for each page is divided into a plurality of areas, and different processors execute the respective areas in parallel.
Further, the printing process for each page buffer that has been drawn is executed in parallel with the drawing.

Therefore, in the intra-page parallel processing type print control device, not only is continuous printing executed at high speed,
Documents consisting of one page and fast print can be printed at high speed.

[0024]

EXAMPLE A first example of the present invention will be described below. First, the basic hardware configuration of the print control apparatus according to this embodiment will be described with reference to the basic hardware configuration diagrams shown in FIGS. 2 to 5.

FIG. 2 shows a first basic configuration of hardware. In the figure, the print control device 11 includes a master processor module 100 and a slave processor module 1.
(110), ..., Slave processor module k (not shown in the figure), ..., Slave processor module K
(120), system bus arbitration unit 130, system bus 12, shared memory 141, host communication controller 15
1-a, secondary storage device 161, file controller 1
62-a, printer engine adapter unit 1 (171-
a) and.

The master processor module 100 comprises a master processor (hereinafter also referred to as MPU) 101, an internal bus 102, a local memory 103, and a bus interface (hereinafter also referred to as I / F) 104. The internal bus 102 includes various input / output signals (address signals, data signals, other control signals) of the MPU 101.

When the MPU 101 generates an address signal, the bus I / F 104 directly generates an address on the internal bus 102 according to the generated address signal, and inputs / outputs with the local memory 103 on the internal bus 102. After converting to an address on the system bus 12, input / output with the shared memory 141 and various peripheral controllers on the system bus 12 is performed.

Slave processor module 1 (11
0) is a slave processor 1 (hereinafter also referred to as SPU1) (111), an internal bus 112, a local memory 11
3 and a bus I / F 114. The internal bus 112 is
Various input / output signals of SPU1 (111) (address signal,
Data signal and other control signals). SPU1
When (111) generates an address signal, the bus I / F1
14 generates an address on the internal bus 112 as it is in accordance with the generated address signal, performs input / output with the local memory 113 on the internal bus 112, converts it to an address on the system bus 12, and then Input / output with the shared memory 141 on 12 and various peripheral controllers.

Hereinafter, the slave processor module 2,
..., k, ..., K are slave processor modules 1 (1
The configuration is the same as 10). For example, the slave processor module K (120) is a slave processor K (hereinafter S
(Also referred to as PU K) (121), an internal bus 122, a local memory 123, and a bus I / F 124, each of which functions in the same manner as the slave processor module 1 (110).

In the system bus 12, each of the processor modules, that is, the master processor module 100, the slave processor module 1 (110), ..., The slave processor module K (120) has the shared memory 141 and various peripheral controllers, that is, the host communication controller 151. -A and file controller 162-a
And various input / output signals (address signals, etc.) for performing input / output with the printer engine adapter unit 1 (171-a).
Data signal and other control signals).

The system bus arbitration unit 130, for the system bus 12, is a master processor module 100 which is a master of the system bus 12, a slave processor module 1 (110), ..., A slave processor module k ,. 12
0), host communication controller 151-a, file controller 162-a, printer engine adapter unit 1
When (171-a) or the like validates the system bus use right request signal, it determines which master is given the system bus use right. As the method of determining the usage right, the first-come-first-served method, the centralized control priority method, the daisy chain method,
Any of the cyclic methods may be used.

The shared memory 141 includes the MPU 101 and SP.
U1 (111), ..., SPUK, ..., SPUK (12
It is a memory that can be accessed from all of 1). The shared memory 141 is configured by a multi-port memory, one port is used as a port for a peripheral controller such as the host communication controller 151-a or the file controller 162-a to access, and another one port is a master processor or a slave processor. It may be used as a port for access by.

The host communication controller 151-a is a controller for the print controller 11 to communicate with the host computer 10, and is one peripheral controller of the system bus 12.

Physical I / F of this communication (called host I / F)
F is SCSI (Small Computer System Interfac
e), RS232C, RS422, GP-IB (General Purpose Interface)
Bus), Centronics, HDLC (High-Level Data)
Link Control), ISDN (Integrated Services Deg)
Ital Network), Ethernet, etc. are used to implement appropriate hardware logic of the controller 151-a according to the type of physical I / F used.

The secondary storage device 161 stores font data,
It is used to store format data, programs, etc., and is connected to the system bus 12 via a file controller 162-a, which is one peripheral controller of the system bus 12.

Printer engine adapter section 1 (171-
Reference numeral a) denotes a controller for the print control device 11 to perform input / output with the printer engine unit 18, which is also a peripheral controller of the system bus 12.

Next, various signals in the first hardware basic configuration (FIG. 2) will be described.

The signal line 12-a is a group of input / output signals for connecting the master processor module and the system bus, and includes address signals, data signals, bus arbitration signals, MPU 101 control signals, and shared memory 141 control. It consists of signals.

The signal line 12-b is a group of input / output signals for connecting the slave processor module 1 and the system bus, and includes an address signal, a data signal, a bus arbitration signal, a control signal for the SPU1 (101), and a shared signal. Memory 1
41 control signals and the like.

The other slave processor modules 2 to K also use the same signal lines as the slave processor module 1 to transmit / receive input / output signals to / from the system bus. The signal line 12-c is a group of input / output signals for connecting the shared memory and the system bus, and includes an address signal, a data signal, a control signal for the shared memory 141, and the like.

The signal line 12-d is a group of input / output signals for connecting the host communication controller 151-a and the shared memory 141, and includes an address signal, a data signal, a control signal for the shared memory 141, and the like.

The signal line 12-e is a group of input / output signals for connecting the host communication controller 151-a and the system bus, and is a bus arbitration signal and a control signal of the host communication controller (interruption signal to the MPU). Including) etc. An interrupt signal to each SPU is further added to the signal line 12
It can also be added to -d.

The signal line 12-f is a group of input / output signals for connecting the file controller 162-a and the shared memory 141, and includes address signals, data signals, control signals for the shared memory 141, and the like.

The signal line 12-g is a group of input / output signals for connecting the file controller 162-a and the system bus, and is a bus arbitration signal, a file controller control signal (including an interrupt signal to the MPU), etc. Consists of. An interrupt signal to each SPU is further added to the signal line 12-g.
Can also be added to.

The signal line 12-h is a group of input / output signals for connecting the printer engine adapter section 1 (171-a) and the system bus, and is a bus arbitration signal and a control signal of the printer engine adapter section 1 ( (Including an interrupt signal to the MPU and an interrupt signal to each SPU), an address signal, a data signal, a control signal for the shared memory 141, and the like. The interrupt signal to each SPU can be omitted.

The signal line 12-i is a group of input / output signals for connecting the printer engine adapter section 1 (171-a) and the printer engine section 18, and is composed of various interface signals defined by the printer engine section 18.

FIG. 3 shows a second basic configuration of hardware. In this figure, the printer engine adapter unit 1 (171-a) in FIG. 2 is replaced by the printer engine adapter unit 2 (1
71-b). The printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b) is the same in that it is connected to the system bus 12, but the read of print data to the printer engine unit 18 is performed by the newly provided video bus 1 instead of the system bus 12. (13) is used.

Therefore, the interface with the video bus 1 (13) is established by using the signal line 12-j, the signal line 12-k, and the signal line 12-1.

The signal line 12-j is a group of input / output signals for connecting the master processor module and the video bus. Address signals, data signals, bus arbitration signals, MPU 101 control signals, printer engine adapter section 2 It consists of control signals for accessing the memory (not shown in this figure) in (171-b).

The signal line 12-k is a group of input / output signals for connecting the slave processor module 1 and the video bus 1 (13), and includes address signals, data signals,
It includes a bus arbitration signal, a control signal for the SPU1 (111), a control signal for accessing a memory (not shown in the figure) in the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b), and the like.

The other slave processor modules 2 to K also use the same signal lines as the slave processor module 1 to transmit / receive input / output signals to / from the video bus 1 (13).

The signal line 12-l is a group of input / output signals for connecting the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b) and the video bus 1 (13).
It includes a data signal, a bus arbitration signal, a control signal of the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b), an interrupt signal to the MPU and each SPU, and the like.

FIG. 4 shows a third basic configuration of hardware. This figure shows the host communication controller 15 in FIG.
1-a and the file controller 162-a are replaced with a host communication controller 151-b and a file controller 162-b, respectively, and the direct connection to the shared memory is stopped, and only the system bus is connected. Since the interface around the shared memory is different from that in FIG. 2, 142 is used as the reference number of the shared memory in this figure.

The signal line 12-c 'is a group of input / output signals for connecting the shared memory and the system bus 12, and is composed of an address signal, a data signal, a control signal for the shared memory 142 and the like.

The signal line 12-e 'is a group of input / output signals for connecting the host communication controller 151-b and the system bus 12, and includes address signals, data signals,
It includes a bus arbitration signal, a host communication controller control signal (including an interrupt signal to the MPU), a shared memory 142 control signal, and the like.

The signal line 12-g 'is a group of input / output signals for connecting the file controller 162-b and the system bus 12, and is an address signal, a data signal, a bus arbitration signal, and a file controller control signal (MPU).
(Including an interrupt signal to the), a control signal for the shared memory 142, and the like.

The signal line 12-e 'and the signal line 12-g'
It is also possible to add an interrupt signal to each SPU.

FIG. 5 shows a fourth basic configuration of hardware. This figure shows the host communication controller 15 in FIG.
1-a and the file controller 162-a are replaced with the host communication controller 151-b and the file controller 162-b, respectively, and they are not directly connected to the shared memory, but are connected only to the system bus. . The contents of the change are the same as those in FIG. 2 changed to FIG. Also in this figure, the reference number of the shared memory is 14
2 is used.

Next, the hardware configuration of the print control device 11 will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. In FIG. 1, FIG.
In the master processor module 100 and each slave processor module unit,
6, 126, etc .; image processing processors 107, 11
7, 127, etc .; character / graphic drawing processors 108, 11
Added 8, 128 etc. Furthermore, an operation panel unit 19 is also added so that the display and input of the print control device 11 can be performed.

It should be noted that the components similar to those in FIG. 1 can be added to FIGS.

Next, the software configuration of the print control device 11 will be described with reference to FIG. As shown in this figure, the software comprises a monitor unit 31 and a task processing unit 32. The monitor unit 31 includes a kernel unit 311, a host communication control unit 312, a command buffer control unit 313, a file control unit 314, a page buffer control unit 315, a printer control unit 316, a command buffer unit 33, and a page buffer unit 34. It

The kernel unit 311 comprises a main routine of an interrupt control program, a main routine of supervisor call (abbreviated as SVC) control, a task control unit, and a timer control unit.

The host communication controller 312 exchanges various commands between the host computer 10 and the print controller 11. For example, a print command sequence is received from the host computer 10, and various events occurred in the print control device 11 (error occurrence, page print end, document print end, etc.).
Is reported to the host computer 10.

The command buffer control unit 313 controls a write start pointer, a write end pointer, a read pointer, etc. used when writing and reading the command buffer unit 33.

The host communication control unit 312 uses the command buffer control unit 313 to store the print command in the command buffer unit 33. Similarly, the command buffer control unit 313 is used to execute a task processing unit 32 to be described later.
The drawing task unit 321 therein reads out and processes the contents of the command buffer unit 33.

The file control section 314 is a section for controlling each file in the secondary storage device 161.
Controls for accessing the data in each file, and file entities that make up the file (set of multiple blocks)
Management, etc. Each task in the task processing unit uses various SVC functions for file control in the file control unit 314 to control a file.

The page buffer controller 315 manages vacancy (management of acquisition and release) for the page buffer 34 having a plurality of pages. By using this free space management,
It is also possible to acquire as many page buffers as necessary, which are determined according to the paper size, when drawing and writing to the page buffer are necessary, and to release the page buffer when the drawing contents have been read.

The printer control section 316 includes a printer engine section 18 and a printer engine adapter section 1 (171-).
a) or printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b)
Of the printer engine 18 and control of input / output with the printer engine unit 18.

The task processing section 32 comprises a drawing task section 321, a print task section 322 and a processing section 323 for other tasks.

The drawing task section 321 is used by the drawing management task 3
210, individual drawing task 1 (3211), individual drawing task 2 (3212), ..., Individual drawing task M (321
3) and. These various drawing tasks 321, 32
Reference numerals 10, 3211, ..., 3213 denote the print control apparatus 11.
Multiple processor modules (100, 1,
10, 120, etc.) are used for parallel processing between different processors, and parallel processing is performed within the same processor. These various drawing tasks 321, 3210, 3211, 3
The processing contents of 213 will be described later in detail.

The print task section 322 is for the print task 1 (3
221), print task 2 (3222), ..., Print task N (3223). Each print task n is activated by the individual drawing task m when the individual drawing task m finishes drawing in the page buffer unit 34.
Each of the activated print tasks n executes a print process for each page buffer (one page on the paper surface) for which drawing has been completed. This print processing is executed by issuing various SVC commands for printer control to the printer control unit 316. Multiple print tasks are prepared for parallel processing of different pages. The total number of print tasks to be prepared is the maximum value of the number of print tasks that can be concurrently processed in the apparatus. Specifically, it corresponds to the maximum number of sheets that can exist between the paper feed unit and the paper discharge unit of the printer engine unit 18 at an arbitrary time point, and this number corresponds to the printer engine unit 1.
Increase or decrease according to the specifications of 8.

The processing contents of each part in this software configuration are as follows: Japanese Patent Application No. 63-15 filed previously by the applicant of the present invention.
This is the same as the case of Japanese Patent Application No. 8481 and Japanese Patent Application No. 1-282747 except that parallel processing is performed using a multiprocessor as described above.

The command buffer section 33 and the page buffer section 34 may be regarded as memory sections that do not belong to the monitor section 31 or the task processing section 32.

Each part shown in the software configuration of FIG. 6 is associated with each part in the hardware configuration diagram of FIG. 1 or FIGS. 2 to 5 as follows.

(1) The program of the monitor unit 31 (excluding the command buffer unit 33 and the page buffer unit 34) is
Stored in the local memory 103 for MPU 101,
Execute in U101.

(2) The command buffer unit 33 is arranged in the shared memory (141 or 142). Furthermore, all or part of the command buffer unit 33 is stored in each local memory (
03, 113, 123, etc.).

(3) The page buffer unit 34 uses the shared memory (141 or 142) or each local memory (103,
113, 123, etc.).

(4) The program of the drawing management task 3210 is stored in the local memory 103 for the MPU 101 and executed by the MPU 101. It is stored in the local memory (113, 123, etc.) for each SPU, and each SPU (11
1, 121, etc.).

(5) The programs for the individual drawing task 1, the individual drawing task 2, ...
Local memory (113, 123 etc.) or MPU1
01 in the local memory 103, and the SPU (11
1, 121) or the MPU 101.

(6) Print task 1, print task 2, ...
The program for the print task N is stored in the local memory 103 for the MPU 101 and executed by the MPU 101. Local memory for each SPU (113, 123, etc.)
It can also be stored in the SPU and executed by each SPU (111, 121, etc.).

(7) The other task processing units 323 are M
The MPU is stored in the local memory 103 for the PU 101 or the local memory for each SPU (113, 123, etc.).
101 or SPU (111, 121, etc.).

Next, one processing procedure in the print control apparatus 11 will be described with reference to FIG. Hereinafter, this processing procedure will be referred to as a paper size fixed type blank drawing concentrated processing method.

First, the master processor receives a print command sequence from the host computer via the host communication controller and stores it in the command buffer section in the shared memory (141 or 142).

Drawing management task 32 in the master processor
10 performs the following processing on the print command sequence in the command buffer section.

(1) Initialize parameters (4
1). (1-1) Initialize the individual drawing task number m to 0 (4
11). (1-2) Initialize page serial number j to 0 (41
2). (1-3) Initialize drawing attribute parameters (41
3). (2) The following processing is repeated indefinitely (42). (2-1) Update the parameters (421). (2-1-1) Update the individual drawing task number i (42
11). (2-1-2) Update page serial number j (421
2). (2-2) Empty drawing for one page is performed (422). That is, while reading and interpreting the print command string in the command buffer unit, the drawing attribute parameter setting process without drawing is performed for one page until the page break is detected. As a result, the page break address for the top of the next page and the drawing attribute parameter are obtained (422). (2-3) The resource is acquired for the individual drawing task m for performing the actual drawing for the page serial number j (423). (2-3-1) Acquire a slave processor in an empty state for the individual drawing task m (4231). (2-3-2) Acquire an empty page buffer for the individual drawing task m, that is, the slave processor acquired for the individual drawing task m can access the size of the paper size determined by the empty drawing process. A free page buffer memory having a size is acquired (4322). (2-4) The individual drawing task m is activated, and the process called actual drawing in the acquired page buffer memory by the acquisition slave processor for the page (page serial number j) for which empty drawing is completed is initially set for the first page. The page break address for the first page, which is the value, and the drawing attribute parameter are used as input parameters, and the page break address for the page start and the drawing attribute parameter, which have already been detected by the master processor, are used as input parameters for the second and subsequent pages. It is activated (424).

The individual drawing task m (3212 to 3213) in the slave processor k activated by the drawing management task 3210 in the master processor performs the following processing. (1) Actual drawing for one page is performed. That is, as the actual drawing, the drawing attribute parameter setting process and the drawing to the acquired page buffer are performed until the page break is detected.
Drawing of pages is executed (441). (2) The SPUk reports the end of the actual drawing to the MPU and requests the print processing for the drawn page buffer (442). (3) M indicates that this report and the request for print processing have been accepted.
After the notification from PU, the process ends.

Communication from each SPUk (k is 1 to K) to the MPU and request for processing are performed as follows. (1) Each SPUk uses the information transmission processing unit to the MPU to contact the MPU or request processing (451). (2) The MPU receives the contact or processing request using the information reception processing unit from the SPU (432). (3) The MPU uses the SPU request content execution unit to receive the contact and execute the process (433). (4) The MPU uses the information transmission processing unit to the SPU,
The SPUl is notified that reception of the contact and execution of the process are completed (431). (5) The MPU uses the information reception processing unit from the SPU to know that the contact or processing request has been completed (45)
2).

Next, the method of communication between the MPU and each SPU will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 24 and 25.

As shown in FIG. 24, the MPU and the SPU communicate with each other by mutually inputting interrupt signals. Each of these interrupt signals is sent to the system bus 12
However, the signal line may be independent of the system bus 12.

Information indicating the contents of the contact is arranged in the shared memory as shown in FIG.

Using the interrupt signal shown in FIG. 24 and the contact information on the shared memory shown in FIG. 25, the MPU (SPU
Communication from k) to SPU k (MPU) is performed as follows.

(A) Processing of MPU (SPU k) (1) A task or monitor issues a contact macro instruction mtos (stom). (2) The monitor on the MPU (SPU k) executes mtos (stom).

(A) [Input] (i) k: SPU number (ii) Contact information I (b) [Output] None (c) [Process] (i) MPU (SPU k) to SPU k (MPU) Enter the contact information I in the contact information area.

(Ii) MPU (SPU k) to SPU
Assert an interrupt signal to k (MPU).

(B) Processing of SPU k (MPU) (1) Analysis of interrupt factors in interrupt processing,
Identifies a contact interruption from (SPU k).

(2) In the process corresponding to the contact interruption, M
The contact information I from the PU (SPU k) to the SPU k (MPU) is read, and the processing according to the content is performed.

(3) In this process, in addition to the simple reception of the contact information I, various processes (task control such as task activation, task termination, event occurrence wait, resource availability wait, etc. can also be involved)
It can be performed.

The MPU, which has received the request to acquire and reacquire the page buffer, acquires and reacquires the page buffer by using the page buffer control unit 315 (55).
3).

The MPU which has received the completion report of the actual drawing,
The execution unit of the SPU request content updates the actual drawing end page and releases the reporting source slave processor (43
3). Also, the MPU for which the print processing was requested is also S
In the execution unit of the PU request content, the print task for the drawn page buffer is activated (433).

When the reading from the rendered page buffer started by the print task is completed, the MPU causes the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b) or the SPU to finish reading.
The MPU releases the page buffer by using the page buffer control unit 315 when it knows from the interrupt signal from.

The drawing management task processing and the printing task processing by the MPU are processed in parallel by using the method described in the above-mentioned prior art. Further, the processing by the MPU and the processing by each SPU are processed in parallel as described above.

Next, another processing procedure in the print control apparatus 11 will be described with reference to FIG. Hereinafter, this processing procedure will be referred to as a paper size assumption type empty drawing centralized processing method.

First, the MPU receives a print command sequence from the host computer via the host communication controller and stores it in the command buffer section in the shared memory. M
The drawing management task 3210 in the PU performs the following processing on the print command string in the command buffer unit. (1) The parameters are initialized (51).

(1-1) The individual drawing task number m is initialized to 1 (511). (1-2) Initialize page serial number j to 1 (51
2). (1-3) Initialize drawing attribute parameters (51
3).

(2) Since the actual drawing for the page serial number 1 is performed, the resource is acquired for the individual drawing task i (5
2). (2-1) Acquire an empty SPU for the individual drawing task m (521). (2-2) Acquire an empty page buffer for the individual drawing task m. In other words, an empty page buffer memory having a size equivalent to the paper size assumed as the initial value that can be accessed by the SPU acquired for the individual drawing task m is acquired (522).

(3) The individual drawing task m is activated, and a process called actual drawing in the acquired page buffer memory by the acquisition slave processor for the page with the page serial number 1 (first page) is performed for the top of the first page. The page break address and the drawing attribute parameter are started as input parameters (53).

(4) The following processing is repeated infinitely (5
4). (4-1) Empty drawing for one page is performed. That is, while reading and interpreting the print command string in the command buffer unit, the drawing attribute parameter setting process without drawing is performed for one page until the page break is detected. As a result, the page break address for the top of the next page and the drawing attribute parameter are stored (541). (4-2) The parameters are updated (542). (4-2-1) Update the individual drawing task number m (54
21). (4-2-2) Update page serial number j (542
2). (4-3) Resources are acquired for the individual drawing task m for performing actual drawing for the page serial number j (543). (4-3-1) SPU in an empty state for the individual drawing task m
Is acquired (5431). (4-3-2) Acquire an empty page buffer for the individual drawing task i. That is, the SPU acquired for the individual drawing task i is accessible, and the empty page buffer memory having the size of the default paper size at the end of the empty drawing is acquired (5432). (4-4) A process called actual drawing in the acquired page buffer memory by the acquisition slave processor for the next page (page serial number j) for which the individual drawing task m is started and the empty drawing is completed is started at the top of the next page. The page break address for drawing and the drawing attribute parameter are activated as input parameters (544).

The drawing management task 321 in the MPU
The individual drawing task m (3212 to 3213) in the slave processor k activated by 0 performs the following processing.

(1) Actual drawing for one page is performed. That is, as the actual drawing, the drawing attribute parameter setting process and the drawing in the acquired page buffer are performed until the page break is detected, and the drawing for one page is executed.

When a paper size change is detected in the drawing attribute parameter setting process in the actual drawing, the MPU is requested to reacquire the page buffer for the changed paper size (561).

(2) The individual drawing task m (processed by SPUk) reports the end of the actual drawing to the MPU and requests print processing for the drawn page buffer (562).

(3) After the fact that this report and the request for the print processing have been accepted is notified by the contact from the MPU, the processing is terminated.

The information transmission processing unit (5) for the MPU sends a message from each SPUk (k is 1 to K) to the MPU or requests processing.
71), information reception processing unit (572) from MPU, SP
U information transmission processing unit (551), SPU information reception processing unit (552), SPU request content execution unit (55)
3) is performed in the same manner as in the case of FIG.

The MPU, which has received the request to acquire and reacquire the page buffer, acquires and reacquires the page buffer by using the page buffer control unit 315.

The MPU that has received the end report of the actual drawing
In the execution unit of the SPU request content, the actual drawing end page is updated and the report source slave processor is released (553). Further, the MPU which is requested to perform the print processing also activates the print task for the drawn page buffer in the execution unit of the SPU request content (553).

When the reading from the rendered page buffer started by the print task is completed, the MPU causes the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b) or the SPU to finish reading.
The MPU releases the page buffer by using the page buffer control unit 315.

The drawing management task process and the print task process by the MPU are processed in parallel by using the method described in the prior art. Further, the processing by the MPU and each SP
The processing by U is performed in parallel as described above.

In the procedure described above, the variable length page buffer control method for acquiring and releasing the page buffer of the required size according to the paper size is adopted as the method for acquiring and releasing the page buffer, but it does not depend on the paper size. A fixed length page buffer control method of acquiring and releasing a fixed size page buffer (corresponding to the maximum paper size that can be printed by the printer engine) can also be adopted. In this case, in the above procedure, the page buffer can be easily controlled, for example, the reacquisition of the page buffer is unnecessary, but the page buffer memory cannot be effectively used as much as the variable length page buffer control method.

Next, an example of the configuration of the printer engine adapter unit 2 (172) will be described with reference to FIGS. 9 and 10.

Printer engine adapter section 2 (172)
In FIG. 9, the printer engine adapter unit 2 (172)
A printer control processor (abbreviated as PPU) 172
1, an internal bus 1722, a local memory 1723, a printer memory controller 1 (1724, abbreviated as PMC1), and bus I / Fs 1725 and 1726. Of these, the PMC1 (1724) reads out the contents of the local memory 1723 (usually contents of an area called a print relay buffer described later) to the printer engine unit 18 and controls the local memory 1723 (DR).
AM refresh etc.). A built-in DMA (Direct Memory Access) circuit is provided for the read process, and the read process is performed by the printer control processor 1.
It is desirable to carry out without burdening 721. Under this configuration, the contents of the drawn page buffer in the page buffer section arranged on the local memory in the master processor module 100 and each slave processor module (110 etc.) are connected to the internal bus for each processor module. A master processor, a slave processor, or a DMA circuit (109, 119, etc.) in each of the processor modules that are provided is different from the system bus 12 called the video bus 1 (13) from the internal bus. After sending to the bus, the video bus 1 (1
3) to the printer engine adapter section 2 (171-
In b), the data is transmitted to an area called a print relay buffer arranged on the local memory 1723, and the data in the print relay buffer is sent to the printer engine unit 18 and the printer engine interfaces (12-i-1 and 12-i-).
Send according to 2). Further, the reading of the data from the print relay buffer in the printer engine adapter unit 2 (172) to the printer engine unit 18 is performed by the PMC in the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b).
Alternatively, it may be performed by using the DMA circuit built in the.

In FIG. 10, the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b) is a printer control processor (PPU).
1721, an internal bus 1722, a local memory 1723, and a bus I / F 1725.

In this configuration, the printer memory controller 2 (10A, 11A) is provided in each processor module.
Etc.) (abbreviated as PMC2) may be provided. The PMC 2 reads the contents of the local memories 103 and 113 (normal page buffer contents) to the printer engine unit 18 and controls the local memories 103 and 113 (D
RAM refresh, etc.) is performed. A built-in DMA (Direct Memory Access) circuit is provided for this read processing, and the read processing is performed by the MP in each processor module.
It can also be performed without burdening the U or each SPU.

Under the present configuration, the contents of the rendered page buffer in the page buffer section arranged on the local memory (103, 113, etc.) in the master processor module and each slave processor module are stored in each processor module. The PMC 2 transmits to a bus different from the system bus called the video bus 2 without passing through the internal bus for each processor module, and then transmits from the video bus 2 to the printer engine unit according to the printer engine interface.

In addition, in FIG. 9 and FIG.
Circuits 109, 119 etc. and PMC2 (10A, 11A etc.)
When the above data transfer is performed, a mode for clearing zero and a mode for not clearing are provided at the time of reading each raster of the page buffer. The zero clear mode is used in printing called normal page printing, in which each page is printed one by one. The zero-clear mode is used in printing called multi-page copy, in which each page is printed with two or more copies.

In the present embodiment, even if the drawing time per page exceeds the printer mechanism printing time per page, the printer maximum performance can be achieved as the print throughput.

FIGS. 11, 12, and 13 show the timing of command reception, empty drawing, actual drawing, printing, etc. in this embodiment. As illustrated, the processing of the drawing management task by the MPU and the processing of the individual drawing tasks 1, 2, 3, etc. by the SPUs are executed in parallel for each processor. Also M
Command reception, drawing management task processing, transfer 1, transfer 2, ..., Transfer 5, etc., print 1, print 2, ..., Print 5 etc. are executed in parallel (pipeline processing). There is.

11 and 12 correspond to the case where FIG. 9 is used as the configuration of the printer engine adapter unit 2 (172). Among them, in FIG. 11, the print relay buffer (in the local memory 1723) from the local memory (103, 113, etc.) in each processor module (100, 110, 120, etc.) to the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b). DMA data transfer to
This corresponds to the case where the circuits (109, 119, etc.) perform. Further, in this figure, the zero clear is performed by hardware (the DMA
Circuit).

On the other hand, FIG. 12 corresponds to the case where the data transfer is performed by one of the MPU and SPU processors in each processor module connected to the internal bus for each processor module using software processing. Further, in this figure, the zero clear is performed using software (the processor).

11 and 12, the print relay buffer in the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b) has at least two page buffers (one page can be printed by the printer engine unit 18 at the maximum). (Having a size corresponding to the paper size), writing and reading to and from the print relay buffer can be performed in parallel. The printing process can be performed even if the capacity of the print relay buffer is reduced.

Although FIG. 12 shows an example in which the clear time is longer than the transfer time, the magnitude relationship between the clear time and the transfer time changes depending on the method of realizing the print control apparatus. However, even if the magnitude relationship between the two changes, the timing of each process is the same as in the case of FIG.

FIG. 13 corresponds to the case of using FIG. 10 as the configuration of the printer engine adapter unit 2 (172).

As described above, in the present embodiment, since the actual drawing processing is executed in parallel, the drawing time per page is
Even if the printer mechanism print time per page is exceeded, the maximum printer performance can be achieved as the print throughput.

Further, since the drawing and the printing are performed in parallel, the maximum printer performance can be achieved even in the continuous printing of a document consisting of a plurality of pages whose print contents are different.

Further, a plurality of processors (MPU, SPU)
, SPU2, ..., SPUK), the drawing performance can be improved and the printing performance can be improved even for a document in which each page has only characters or figures.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described.

The basic configuration of hardware, detailed configuration of hardware, software configuration, and the configuration of the printer engine adapter unit 2 are the same as those in the first embodiment shown in FIG.
~ The ones shown in Figs. 6, 9 and 10 are used.

One processing procedure in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Hereinafter, this procedure will be referred to as an empty drawing distributed processing method.

Next, referring to FIG. 14, the printing control apparatus 11 will be described.
Another processing procedure in will be described. First MPU
Receives a print command sequence from the host computer via the host communication controller and stores it in the command buffer section in the shared memory.

The drawing management task 321 in the MPU
0 performs the following processing on the print command string in the command buffer section.

(1) All the individual drawing tasks (individual drawing tasks 1, 2, ..., M) are activated (81). As the number M of individual drawing tasks, there are usually the following two cases.

(A) The number M of individual drawing tasks is the same as the total number K of slave processors.

(B) The number M of individual drawing tasks is set to K + 1.

In the case of (a), each individual drawing task 1 is assigned to one of the slave processors. In the case of (b), each individual drawing task m is assigned to any slave processor and master processor. In the following description, the case (a) is assumed and described, but the case (b) can be similarly realized.

(2) End the processing of this task (8
2).

The drawing management task 321 in the MPU
Individual drawing task 1 (3
212) repeats the next processing indefinitely (84).

(1) Request the MPU to acquire an empty page buffer for the individual drawing task 1. That is, the page buffer acquisition is performed for the default paper size accessible by the SPU acquired for the individual drawing task 1.
Request U (841).

(2) Actual drawing for one page is performed. That is, as the actual drawing in the acquired page buffer memory, drawing attribute parameter setting processing and drawing are performed until a page break is detected, and drawing for one page is performed. When the paper size change is detected in the drawing attribute parameter setting process in the actual drawing, the master processor is requested to reacquire the page buffer for the changed paper size (842).

(3) The individual drawing task 1 reports the end of actual drawing to the MPU and requests the print processing for the drawn page buffer (843).

(4) Empty drawing for one page shown below (84
Repeat 5) M-1 times (844). This number of M-1 corresponds to the number of pages in which other individual drawing tasks are in charge of actual drawing. (4-1) Empty drawing for one page is performed. That is, while reading and interpreting the print command string in the command buffer unit, the drawing attribute parameter setting process without drawing is performed for one page until the page break is detected (84.
5). Since it is not known on which page the drawing attribute parameter will be changed, it is necessary to sequentially perform blank drawing for all pages that it is not in charge of.

The drawing management task 321 in the MPU
Individual drawing task m (3
213) repeats the next processing indefinitely (86).

(1) Empty drawing for one page shown below (86
2) is repeated m-1 times (861). This number of m-1 corresponds to the number of pages handled by other individual drawing tasks up to the page in which the individual drawing task m is in charge of drawing. (1-1) Empty drawing for one page is performed. That is, while reading and interpreting the print command string in the command buffer unit, the drawing attribute parameter setting process without drawing is performed for one page until the page break is detected (86.
2).

(2) The MPU is requested to acquire an empty page buffer for the individual drawing task m. That is, the MPU is requested to acquire the page buffer for the default paper size accessible by the SPU acquired for the individual drawing task m (863).

(3) Actual drawing for one page is performed. That is, as the actual drawing in the acquired page buffer memory, drawing attribute parameter setting processing and drawing are performed until a page break is detected, and drawing for one page is performed. When a paper size change is detected in the drawing attribute parameter setting process in the actual drawing, the master processor is requested to reacquire the page buffer for the changed paper size (864).

(4) The individual drawing task m reports the end of the actual drawing to the MPU and requests the print processing for the drawn page buffer (865).

(5) One page empty drawing (867)
Repeat M-m times. This number of M-m corresponds to the number of pages of the M pages which the individual drawing task m is in charge of drawing after the page in which the individual drawing task m is in charge of drawing.
The processing content of the blank drawing (867) is the same as that shown in 862, and the same subroutine program and function may be used.

The information transmission processing unit (8) for the MPU sends a message to each MPU from each SPUk (k is 1 to K) and requests for processing.
51, 871), an information reception processing unit (85
2, 872), an information transmission processing unit (831) to the SPU,
6 and 11 to 13 by using the information reception processing unit (832) from the SPU and the execution unit (833) of the SPU request content.
It is performed in the same manner as in the case of the first embodiment shown in FIG.

The MPU which has received the page buffer acquisition and reacquisition request uses the page buffer control section 315 to acquire and reacquire the page buffer.

The MPU which has received the report of the end of the actual drawing,
The execution unit of the SPU request content updates the actual drawing end page (833).

Further, the MPU which is requested to perform the print process also activates the print task for the drawn page buffer in the execution unit of the SPU request content (833).

When the reading from the rendered page buffer started by the print task is completed, the MPU causes the printer engine adapter unit 2 (171-b) or the SPU to finish reading.
The MPU releases the page buffer by using the page buffer control unit 315.

In the procedure described above, the variable length page buffer control method for acquiring and releasing the page buffer of the required size according to the paper size is adopted as the method for acquiring and releasing the page buffer, but it does not depend on the paper size. A fixed length page buffer control method of acquiring and releasing a fixed size page buffer (corresponding to the maximum paper size that can be printed by the printer engine) can also be adopted. In this case, in the above procedure, the page buffer can be easily controlled, for example, the reacquisition of the page buffer is unnecessary, but the page buffer memory cannot be effectively used as much as the variable length page buffer control method.

The drawing management task process and the print task process by the MPU are processed in parallel by using the method described in the prior art. Further, the processing by the MPU and the processing by each SPU are processed in parallel as described above.

In addition, command reception in the second embodiment,
The timing chart for blank drawing, actual drawing, printing, etc. is shown in FIG.
This is similar to the case of FIG. 1, FIG. 12, and FIG. In other words, as shown in the figure, processing of drawing management tasks by the MPU and each SP
The processing of each individual drawing task 1, 2, 3, etc. by U is executed in parallel. Also, command reception processed by the MPU, processing of drawing management task, transfer 1, transfer 2, ...
Transfer 5, etc., print 1, print 2, ..., Print 5 etc. are executed in parallel.

Correspondence between FIG. 11, FIG. 12, and FIG. 13 and FIG. 9 and FIG. 10 is the same as in the case of the first embodiment.

As described above, since the actual drawing processing is executed in parallel also in this embodiment, the drawing time per page is
Even if the printer mechanism print time per page is exceeded, the maximum printer performance can be achieved as the print throughput.

Further, since the drawing and the printing are processed in parallel as described above, the maximum printer performance can be achieved even in the continuous printing of a document composed of a plurality of pages whose print contents are different.

Also, a plurality of processors (MPU, SPU)
, SPU2, ..., SPUK), the drawing performance can be improved and the printing performance can be improved even for a document in which each page has only characters or figures.

In the present embodiment, unlike the first embodiment, each individual drawing task carries out empty drawing. Therefore, when the load of the empty drawing is small, the number of individual drawing tasks M is set to the total number of slave processors K + 1, and each individual drawing task m is assigned to any one of the slave processor and the master processor, so that the print throughput becomes the first.
This can be improved compared to the case of the embodiment.

Next, a third embodiment of the present invention will be described. Basic configuration of hardware, detailed configuration of hardware, software configuration, printer engine adapter unit 2 of this embodiment
The structure of FIG. 1 uses those shown in FIGS. 1 to 6, 9 and 10 as in the case of the first embodiment.

Among the conventional print commands, there is a clear page.
There is a command (hereinafter, referred to as an unconstrained command) that has no drawing break and inherits drawing attribute parameters. Here, "no clear page break" means that the command indicating page break is not at the page break position and the print controller implicitly breaks the page when the following conditions occur. Is considered to have been instructed.

(1) The total number of character lines exceeds the page length.

(2) Changes in various specifications, such as paper size and the number of print copies, which can be specified only once for each page, were instructed during drawing of a certain page.

The command with drawing attribute parameter inheritance means the character font type, character line pitch, character string pitch, line width, line type, paper size, number of copies, printer paper feed unit, printer output. Various parameters relating to drawing and printing of the paper section are commands that are carried over to the next page.

Incidentally, as a representative of commands with no clear page delimiter and with inheritance of drawing attribute parameters, that is, unrestricted commands, printer control escapes independently defined by each printer manufacturer. There is a push-up.

When printing is performed using the above-mentioned unrestricted command, in the above-described first and second embodiments, if the load of the empty drawing processing becomes large, the printing performance will jump even if the multiprocessor system is used. Improvement cannot be expected.

For example, the processing amount d of the empty drawing processing by the individual drawing tasks in the empty drawing distributed processing method is: d = (M−1) · a + 1 where M: number of individual drawing tasks a: load coefficient of empty drawing processing (Ratio to drawing processing time).

In this case, when M = 3 and a = 0.1 to 0.4, the processing amount d of the empty drawing processing becomes d = 1.2 to 1.8.

In the empty drawing centralized processing method, the drawing management task executes the empty drawing by the empty drawing processing load coefficient a for each page for the unconstrained command.

In the present embodiment, the above problem is solved by defining a print command called a constraint command as shown in FIG. Here, the constraint command is
A command called a page break command indicating a page break is arranged at the page break (95, 98), and various drawing attribute parameters are initialized at the head of each page according to the print command specifications. Alternatively, a reset command B (93, 93) for initializing various drawing attribute parameters at the beginning of each page
96), and before the command for the first page, all pages of the document consisting of all external characters, formats, functions, dictionaries, etc. that are valid for all subsequent pages of this document. -A command for arranging the valid parameters of the page is arranged (92), and a reset command A (91) for initializing the drawing attribute parameters and the valid parameters of all pages of the document at the beginning of the document. ) Is arranged, and between each of the reset command B and the page break command, a drawing command for setting each drawing attribute parameter for specifying the drawing and print contents of each page and a row of various drawing commands are arranged. Did (9
4, 97).

There are the following two methods for realizing the constraint command.

(1) It is newly defined as a print command complying with the above rules.

(2) The usage of the unrestricted command, that is, the command sequence is made to follow the above-mentioned rules.

In recent years, in order to perform high-quality printing using a laser printer or the like, page description language (PD
A print command called “L” is becoming popular.
As PDL, Adobe PostScript, HP DD
L, Xerox's Interpress, etc. These PD
L is compared to the printer control escape sequence,
The above problems are particularly serious due to the large throughput. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 16, if the PDL is made into a restricted command, the printing performance can be greatly improved. The PDL with this constraint will be hereinafter referred to as a PDL with constraint.

As shown in FIG. 16, the restricted PDL includes a sentence beginning comment section 10A, a document all-page valid parameter setting section 10B, a first page content section 10C, a second page content section 10D, ..., A last page content section 10E. It consists of a sentence end comment section 10F.

The introductory comment section 10A includes a document creator 10A1, a document name 10A2, a creation date 10A3, a total number of pages 10A4, a used font list 10A5, a sentence beginning comment section end descriptor 10A6, and the like. In this example, the total page number 10A4 and the used font list 10A5 refer to the sentence end comment portion 10F.

Document All Page Effective Parameter Setting Section 10B
Is a part for setting the above-mentioned document all-page valid parameter 92.

The first page content section 10C, the second page content section 10D, ..., And the last page content section 10E set various drawing attribute parameters and various drawing commands for designating the drawing and printing contents of each page. Row of (94,
97).

The end-of-sentence comment part 10F includes a start-end descriptor 10F1 of the end-of-sentence comment part, a total number of pages 10F2, a used font list 10F3, and the like.

At least the first page content section 10
C, second page content section 10D, ..., Last page content section 1
The breaks of 0E, that is, the page breaks are the same as those in 10C, 1
In order to reduce the load of the blank drawing processing, it is preferable to easily distinguish from the description of page contents such as 0D and 10E and to easily detect the page break.

In PostScript, a command called copypage is used. This command inherits all drawing contents and drawing attribute parameters in the page buffer for the previous page to the next page. Therefore, the print control apparatus proceeds with the process by regarding that the page is not updated by the copypage command.

Next, with reference to FIG. 17, the processing by the host computer 10 and the print control device of the constraint command and the unconstrained command will be described.

The host computer transmits the print command sequence to the print control device 11 by performing any of the following.

(1) The constraint command 11A1 is directly generated by the application program or the printer driver in the host computer 10 and transmitted to the print control device 11.

(2) The unrestricted command 11A2 is once created by the application program or printer driver in the host computer 10, and similarly the host computer 10 uses the restricted command conversion unit 11B to restrict the unrestricted command 11A2. After converting to the command 11C2, the command is transmitted to the print control apparatus 11.

(3) The unrestricted command 11A2 is created by the application program or the printer driver in the host computer 110 and sent to the print control device 11 as it is (corresponding to 11C3).

In order to distinguish between the constraint command and the unconstrained command in the head area of the print command string, a constraint presence / absence designation command is arranged (see FIG. 18), and the host computer prints the print command string. Send to.

The print control device 11 performs the following processing.

(1) By processing the constraint presence / absence designation command described in the print command sequence received from the host computer, it is determined whether the received print command sequence is a constraint command or an unconstrained command. (11D1).

(2) If the result of the determination is that the command is a constraint command, the print control method 11E1 corresponding to the constraint command is executed (11
E1). If the command is an unrestricted command, the unrestricted command-compatible print control method is executed (11E2).

In the unrestricted command compatible print control method, the processing shown in the first or second embodiment is performed as the empty drawing processing. Further, in the constraint command compatible print control method, only clear page breaks are detected as empty drawing processing, and the drawing attribute parameter takeover processing is not executed.

As the processing procedure of the drawing management task and the individual drawing task in this embodiment, the paper size fixed empty drawing centralized processing method (FIG. 7) and the paper size assumed empty drawing centralized processing method in the first embodiment are used. (FIG. 8) or the empty drawing distributed processing method (FIG. 14) is used. However, in the constraint command, empty drawing is simplified as described above.

Next, the format of the print command sequence transmitted by the host computer will be described. The host computer 10 creates a print command string in the format shown in FIG. 18 and sends it to the print control apparatus 11. The print protocol designation command 12A1 is used to designate the type of various PDLs such as the print control escape sequence corresponding to each printer manufacturer and PostScript. This print protocol specification command cannot be omitted.

The constraint presence / absence designation command 12A2 distinguishes between a constraint command and an unconstrained command. Further, a print command sequence 12A3 (hereinafter referred to as a document content description print command sequence) indicating the print content of the document is arranged after the constraint presence / absence designation command 12A2. An example of the contents of the document content description print command sequence 12A3 is the print command sequence shown in FIGS. 15 and 16. By attaching a single-sided / double-sided printing designation command 12A4 in the document content description print command sequence 12A3, either single-sided printing or double-sided printing is designated. Constraint presence / absence designation command and single-sided /
If the double-sided print designation command is omitted, the previous designated value will be used. If there is no pre-specified value, it is regarded as the initial value. In this embodiment, the initial value is the unrestricted command or single-sided printing, but it may be a restricted command or double-sided printing. The print protocol designation command 12A1 and the constraint presence / absence designation designation command 12A2 may be combined to form the print protocol designation command 12A1.

As described above, by providing the constraint command and the print control system corresponding to the constraint command, the empty drawing process by the drawing management task in the empty drawing centralized processing system and the empty drawing process by the individual drawing task in the empty drawing distributed processing system In the case of a restricted command, it can be simplified and speeded up.

Therefore, in this embodiment, in addition to the effects obtained in the first and second embodiments, the effect of improving the drawing performance almost proportional to the number of processors can be obtained.

In the constraint command, after the print command string for each page is cut out, it is transferred from the shared memory to the local memory in the processor module corresponding to each individual drawing task, and the transferred print command string. May be processed by each individual drawing task. In this case, there is an effect that, when accessing the print command string by each individual drawing task, access conflict does not occur unlike in the case of the shared memory. However, the transfer time is extra.

Further, by providing a page break that is easier to detect by the page break command as described below, it is possible to further speed up the page cut out and further reduce the load of blank drawing.

(1) SCSI (Small Computer System)
Interface) print command is issued separately for each page. (2) As described in the PDL with restrictions, the page breaks 10C, 10D, 10E
A special descriptor that can be easily distinguished from the description of the page contents such as is provided.

Next, a fourth embodiment of the present invention will be described.

The software configuration and the configuration of the printer engine adapter section 2 are the same as those in the first embodiment, and those shown in FIGS. 6, 9 and 10 are used. The hardware configuration shown in FIGS. 1 to 5 can be used, but another configuration can be used. The hardware configuration will be described later.

This embodiment is intended for high-speed printing of a document consisting of one page and the first page of the document called first print.

Therefore, one page is divided into a plurality of areas, and different processors perform drawing for each area as individual drawing task processing for each area.
Each page is drawn at high speed.

Further, when the drawing for all the areas forming one page is completed, the print task is activated in the same manner as shown in FIG. Since the print task is processed in parallel with the individual drawing task in a different processor and in parallel with the same processor, high-speed printing can be realized even for a document having a plurality of pages. The processing method shown in the fourth embodiment described above is called an intra-page parallel processing method.

A more detailed description will be given. From the host computer 10 to the host communication controller (151-a or 15
The print command sequence is received via 1-b) and stored in the command buffer unit in the shared memory (141 or 142).

One page is divided from the area 1 into the area K in the MPU 101, one partial page buffer in an empty state is acquired for the area 1, and drawing in the area 1 is performed by the first slave processor SPU1 (111). , By invoking a process called in-page mode individual drawing task process 1. Similarly, one empty partial page buffer is acquired for each region k, and drawing in this region k is performed at the k-th position. The slave processor SPUk is instructed by activating a process called an in-page mode individual drawing task process k.

Each k-th slave processor SPUk
In the in-page mode individual drawing task process k, the drawing attribute parameter setting process and the drawing process using the region k as the clipping area are performed until the page break is detected, and when the process for one page is completed, the MPU indicates that. After reporting to, the process is terminated.

When the MPU receives the processing completion report for each area by each SPU, it releases each SPU of the reporting source.

When the MPU receives the processing completion report for each area by each SPU from all areas, the print task (322) is executed for the one page for which drawing has been completed.
1, 3222, 3223, etc.) is activated.

In the processing of this print task, the contents of the partial page buffers corresponding to the areas 1 to K are read in the order necessary to form one page and output to the printer engine unit 18.

Upon completion of reading from each drawn partial page buffer, the MPU causes the printer engine adapter unit 1,
When the MPU releases the partial page buffer, when the interrupt signal from the printer engine adapter unit 2 or each SPU is known.

Further, processing other than printing by the master processor and printing processing are performed in parallel, and further processing by the master processor and processing by each slave processor are performed in parallel.

Next, the hardware configuration will be described with reference to FIGS. 19 and 20.
Will be explained.

The system of FIG. 19 is called a processor-compatible local bus coupling system. It is basically the same as the case of FIGS. The difference is that each processor module 100, 1
Local memory 103, 113, 1 in 10, 120, etc.
23 and the like are used as partial page buffers that can correspond to the areas 1, 2, ... Here, the reason why I called it with the partial page buffer is
This is because each area corresponds to a part of a page, and thus a full page buffer for one page is not necessarily required.

In FIG. 19, for example, area 1, area 2, ..., Area K are denoted by 13A1, 13A2 in FIG.
.., 13A3 on the local memory.

Further, the hardware configuration shown in FIG. 20 may be adopted. This configuration is hereinafter referred to as a matrix switch coupling method. In this configuration, by connecting a plurality of slave processors and a plurality of partial page buffers with a switch to an arbitrary slave processor and an arbitrary partial page buffer, the slave processor accesses the partial page buffer and draws. It is configured so that it can be done.

FIG. 21 shows an example of the print result. 141, 1
42, 143, "abc", "def", "gh"
drawing such as "i" is performed in each of the partial page buffers 1, 2,
Regions 1, 2, and 3 on top of 3. In this figure, 14
Reference numeral 4 is a conceptual line for indicating the division of the area, and is not output as a print result.

The page buffer read circuit is as follows. (1) If a set of partial page buffers having continuous addresses is assigned to the area 1, the area 2, ... (2) It is necessary to devise the circuit to allow the assignment that is not so. In other words, a mechanism for switching the raster read address to the start address of the next partial page buffer after registering a set of partial page buffers constituting one page and reading from one partial page buffer is required.

In the case of the local bus installation system compatible with processors, a set of partial page buffers on different local buses is registered.

In the case of the matrix switch combination method, an arbitrary set of partial page buffers is registered.

FIG. 2 shows a set of partial page buffers.
The vertical combination shown in 2 was supported. If the vertical and horizontal combinations of FIG. 23 are also supported, the partial page buffer can be used more efficiently.

According to this embodiment, a document consisting of one page and a fast print can be printed at high speed.

Depending on the contents of the document such as the total number of pages and the distinction between restricted commands / unrestricted commands, the host computer or the print control device (a) the intra-page parallel processing method and (b) the page-specific parallel processing method ( This is a method of performing parallel processing for each page, and the above-mentioned (b-1) empty drawing distributed processing method,
(B-2) Paper size fixed empty drawing centralized processing method, (b-
3) One of the paper size assumption type blank drawing concentrated processing methods) can be selected and executed by switching. Further, depending on the document content, an appropriate one ((b-1), (b-2), among the page parallel processing methods of (b),
The host computer or the print control device can select (any one of (b-3)) and switch and execute it.

Next, a fifth embodiment of the present invention will be described. This embodiment is for dealing with a host computer transmission command of another format shown in FIG. In addition, in this embodiment, control information relating to the paper described later is specified by a separately provided load command, and other drawing attribute parameters (character pitch, line pitch, italic, double angle, underline, etc.) Changed to specify with the drawing / printing content specification command. Specifically, the font load command 2612 and the format load command 2613
By receiving the paper and paper control information load command 2614 before the drawing / printing content designation command 262 for the first page, the font and format and the paper control parameters respectively received from the host are stored in the print control device 11. Store in advance. The font, format, and paper control parameters are used in drawing and printing on the first page and thereafter. However, the paper control parameters can be changed before any subsequent page.

Drawing / printing content designation commands 262, 26
The subcommand 3 includes, as its subcommand, a series of various drawing attribute parameter setting subcommands and various drawing subcommands, and designates drawing / printing contents such as characters, figures, and images for one page. If there is a subcommand that specifies a page break in this subcommand, it is considered that there is no subsequent subcommand sequence.

A paper control information load command 2614
Is a sub-command for single-sided / double-sided print designation, paper feed unit designation, paper discharge unit designation, paper size designation, print copy number designation,
It includes a sequence of subcommands for specifying the printing direction (portrait / landscape) and specifies these various paper control parameters.

In the example of FIG. 26, a font load command 2612, a format load command 2613, and a paper control information load command 261 are printed on the first page to the (n-1) th page.
The font load command 2641 and the format load command 2 newly specified after the nth page are used by using the font, the format, and the paper control parameters loaded in 4 respectively.
The font, the format, and the paper control parameters loaded by the 642 and paper control information load command 2643 are used. The absence of any of these three load commands is also acceptable.

The software configuration adopted in this embodiment to process the above-mentioned various load commands in addition to the conventional format command will be described with reference to FIG. In this configuration, in addition to the command buffer section 33 in the monitor section 31 in FIG. 6, an edit command buffer section 331 is provided in the task processing section 32. Main edit command buffer section 33
1 is divided into pages, and each page is composed of a control information section and a drawing / printing content designation command (see FIG. 29).

Further, in this configuration, in order to correspond to the command of FIG. 26, the following tasks are newly provided. -Command task 320-Print management task 3220

FIG. 28 shows the functions of the above new tasks and various tasks related to drawing and printing.

(1) Command task (1-a) The command task exists for each command. (1-b) The command task for the font load command and the format load command sets the necessary data in the memory or table. (1-c) The command task for the paper control information load command sets various paper control parameters specified as subcommands of this command in the paper control parameter table. (1-d) In the command task for the drawing / printing content designation command, the following processing is performed. (1-d-1) A control information section for one page is created. Specifically, the paper control parameters for this page are copied from the contents of the paper control parameter table and set in the fixed area at the beginning of each page of the edit command buffer unit 331 (for example, 3311-1 in FIG. 29). (1-d-2) A series of various drawing attribute parameter setting subcommands and various drawing subcommands, which are the contents of the drawing / printing content designation command, are transferred from the command buffer unit 33 to the edit command buffer unit 331. (1-d-3) Every time one page of data is prepared in the edit command buffer unit 331, the drawing management task (321 in FIG. 29) is executed.
Contact 0) by sending a message (29M1) to that effect.

(2) Drawing management task (2-a) It is activated by receiving a message or a report from the SPU. (2-b) Acquire and release SPUs and page buffers as needed. (2-c) If the message indicates that one page of data from the command task is complete (29M1), the SPU and page buffer are acquired for this page, and then the individual drawing task (3211) is acquired. , 3212 ...)
To start. (2-d) When the drawing completion report of the individual drawing task from the SPU is received, the activation request message (29M2) is sent to the print management task 3220 and the corresponding page of the edit command buffer management table (29C) is sent. Edit command buffer status is "draw complete"
And (2-e) When a page buffer read end interrupt occurs, this interrupt processing sends a release request message for this page to the main drawing management task (3210). Upon receiving this message, the drawing management task sets the edit command buffer state of the page that has been read to the empty state, releases the edit command buffer, and releases the page buffer (29C1, 29C2, ..., 29C3) that has been read. ) Is released.

(3) Individual drawing tasks 1 to M (3-a) Drawing is performed on the page buffer specified by the drawing management task. (3-b) When the drawing for one page is completed, the fact is reported to the drawing management task.

(4) Print management task (4-a) A print task for printing the drawing completed page buffer is selected and activated.

(5) Print tasks 1 to N (5-a) Print processing for one page is performed.

Next, the processing method of the host transmission command in this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

In this system, the following are provided as the buffer memory and the management table in addition to those shown in FIG. (1) Font memory (29A1): Memory for storing various fonts such as Mincho typeface and Gothic typeface. Separately stores the dot font and outline font. Dot fonts are sorted by size and stored. (2) Font attribute memory (29A2): It consists of attributes of each font [font name, dot font / outline font distinction, dot font size, etc.], and a correspondence table of character codes and respective character font addresses. Form memory (29B): A memory for storing a form.
For example, it is expressed as a set of a format ID and format content (mixed data of characters, figures, and images). (3) Edit command buffer management table (29C):
A table for managing the edit command buffer unit 331. Edit command buffer status for each page (waiting for drawing,
(Drawing completed, drawing completed, empty) and edit command buffer read pointer for each page.

Next, with reference to FIG. 29, the processing method of the host transmission command will be described.

(1) First, the host communication controller 312
Any of the commands shown in FIG. 26 is received in the internal buffer (291-1).

(2) The command is stored in the command buffer unit 33 upon the host communication control unit interrupt process in the MPU (291-2).

(3) When the command is stored in the command buffer 33, the command task 320 corresponding to each command is activated (291-3). The command task 32 performs the following processing. In the case of the font load command, by executing this command, the font data received from the host is set in the font memory 29A1 and the font attribute memory 29A2. In the case of the format load command, the format data received from the host is set in the format memory 29B by executing this command.
In the paper control information load command, various paper control parameters specified by subcommands of this command
It is set in a sheet control parameter table (not shown in FIG. 29) for that purpose. In the case of the drawing / printing content designating command, as described in (1-d) of FIG. 28, the control information section for each page and the drawing / printing content designating command are stored in the edit command buffer section 331, and one page is stored. Message 29M1 to the drawing management task 3210 each time information on
Is transmitted (292). The creation of the control information portion 3311 for each page by the command task 320 corresponds to the above-described centralized empty drawing method.

(4) 1 in the edit command buffer section 331
The above message 29
The drawing management task 3210 learned by receiving M1 is (2b) to (2) in the description column of the drawing management task in FIG.
-The process shown in c) is performed. That is, after acquiring the SPU and the page buffer and setting the edit command buffer state of the page in the edit command buffer management table 29C to the "drawing waiting state", the acquired SPU (SPUx
(Assuming that
It is activated in the same manner as in the above-mentioned embodiment.

(5) The activated individual drawing task (321
(1, 3212, 3213, etc.), when drawing of one page is completed, the drawing management task 3210 is notified of the end in the same manner as in the above-described embodiment.

The communication method between the drawing management task 3210 and the individual drawing tasks (3211, 3212, 3213, etc.) may be as follows. SPU for contacting each SPUx on MPU
Provide a management task x. That is, 3211, 3212,
SPU management tasks 3211A, 3212A, 3213A, etc. are provided corresponding to individual drawing tasks such as 3213, etc.
Then, each SPU management task x sends a message, which is a function of the kernel unit 311, to communicate between each SPUx and the MPU.
Mediate while using the reception function. The drawing management task 3210 uses the above (4)
The individual drawing task x on the SPU is not directly activated, but the SPU management task x is activated. SPU management task x starts SPUx and
To execute the individual drawing task x. When the drawing for one page is completed, the individual drawing task x on the SPU notifies the SPU managing task x on the MPU to that effect by using the same communication method between the processors as in the above-described embodiment. The SPU management task x that has received the above notification notifies the drawing management task 3210 to that effect using the message transmission function described above.

(6) When the drawing management task 3210 knows that the drawing of one page by the individual drawing task x is completed, it sends a start request message 29M2 to the print management task.

(7) The print management task that has received the activation request message 29M2 selects a print task for printing the page buffer for which drawing has been completed, and then executes the print task (either one of 3221, 3222, 3223, etc.). To start.

(8) In the print task, the print processing for the page buffer for which drawing has been completed is performed in the same manner as in the above-described embodiment. The function of the print management task can be realized as a part of the function of the drawing management task.

According to the present embodiment, the printing throughput can be improved by utilizing the multiprocessor even when the drawing and the printing are advanced after the fonts and the formats are loaded in advance.

Further, in the present embodiment, the contents of the command buffer unit 33 are converted into the contents of the edit command buffer unit 331 divided for each page, and then the conventional drawing and printing processes are performed using the multiprocessor. Because you can
As for the constraint command described above, the print throughput can be improved as in the case of the unconstrained command.

In the above embodiment, the four errors shown in FIG. 30, that is, SPU exception, SPU no response, MPU exception, and MPU no response errors may occur in the master processor and the slave processor. For each error item, (a) a processor (error detection unit) that detects the error, and (b) the error processing name,
(C) The content of error processing is as shown in the figure. The non-response from the SPU to the MPU of the error items 2 and 4 and the non-response from the MPU to the SPU are shown in FIGS.
This is an error when there is no communication between the processors described in the above, which should be normal.

By providing the error processing described above, even if an error occurs in the master processor or the slave processor, the print processing can be continued without any trouble by using the remaining processors excluding the error occurrence processor.

In the above embodiments, the print control apparatus can be realized as one function of the host computer 10 by using any of the following methods. (1) The print control device is realized as one print control adapter or print control board in the host computer, a multiprocessor is mounted on this adapter or board, and the above-described functions are mounted on this multiprocessor unit. (2) The print control device is realized as software processing by the main processor of the host computer. This time,
This main processor is realized as a multiprocessor, and the multiprocessor unit is equipped with the above-mentioned functions.

[0262]

In the multiprocessor type print control device, a plurality of slave processors can perform processing such as drawing in parallel under the control of the master processor, so that the processing capability of the print control device is improved. Can be made. In particular, since empty drawing is adopted, parallel drawing processing by a plurality of processors becomes easy.

In the print control apparatus using the blank drawing centralized processing method (paper size fixed type blank drawing centralized processing method or paper size assumption type blank drawing centralized processing method), the drawing management task performs blank drawing The individual drawing task of executes the actual drawing in parallel on another processor. Further, the print processing for each page buffer that has been drawn by the actual drawing can be executed in parallel with the empty drawing and in parallel with the actual drawing.

Also in the empty drawing distributed processing method, a plurality of individual drawing tasks execute actual drawing in parallel on different processors, and the print processing for each page buffer that has been drawn by actual drawing is called the actual drawing. Can be executed in parallel.

Therefore, in the empty drawing centralized processing method and the empty drawing distributed processing method, since the actual drawing processing is executed in parallel, even if the drawing time per page exceeds the printer mechanism printing time per page, printing is performed. The highest performance of the printer can be achieved as the throughput. Further, since the drawing and the printing are performed in parallel, the maximum printer performance can be achieved even in the continuous printing of a document composed of a plurality of pages whose print contents are different. Further, since a general-purpose processor is used as a plurality of processors, it is possible to improve the drawing performance and the printing performance even for a document in which each page has only characters or figures.

In the case of using the variable length page buffer control of the empty drawing centralized processing method and the empty drawing distributed processing method, only a page buffer of a required size is acquired according to the paper size. Printing can be realized with a small total page buffer capacity. In addition, it is possible to arrange a large number of page buffers for printing on a small paper size, so even if some pages with large drawing loads are mixed, the average print throughput will not be reduced and the maximum performance of the printer engine will be achieved. There is also an effect that printing of can be realized.

In the empty drawing distributed processing method, unlike the empty drawing concentrated processing method, the empty drawing is performed by the individual drawing task. Therefore, when the load of the empty drawing is small, the number of individual drawing tasks M is set to the total number of slave processors K +
By assigning each individual drawing task m to any one of the slave processor and the master processor, it is possible to improve the print throughput as compared with the blank drawing intensive processing method.

Further, while supporting the constraint command, in the blank drawing process in the print control process corresponding to the constraint command, only clear page breaks are detected and the drawing attribute parameter setting process is not performed. I'm done. Therefore, by providing the constraint command and the print control method corresponding to the constraint command, the empty drawing processing in the empty drawing concentrated processing method and the empty drawing distributed processing method can be simplified and speeded up in the case of the restricted command.

Therefore, with respect to the constraint command, in addition to the effects shown in the above-mentioned empty drawing centralized processing method and empty drawing distributed processing, it is possible to obtain the effect of improving the drawing performance almost proportional to the number of processors.

In the intra-page parallel processing system print control apparatus, drawing for each page is divided into a plurality of areas, and different processors execute the areas in parallel.
Further, the printing process for each page buffer that has been drawn is executed in parallel with the drawing.

Therefore, in the intra-page parallel processing type printing control device, not only is continuous printing executed at high speed,
Documents consisting of one page and fast print can be printed at high speed.

Further, by using a method of pre-loading fonts and formats and then proceeding with drawing and printing, it is possible to improve the printing throughput by utilizing the multiprocessor even in such a case.

By converting the contents of the command buffer portion into the contents of the edit command buffer portion divided for each page and then performing the normal drawing and printing processing using the multiprocessor, Also,
You get the same high print throughput as for unconstrained commands.

Further, by devising the processing method at the time of processor error, even if an error occurs in the master processor or the slave processor, it is possible to continue the printing process without any trouble by using the remaining processors excluding the error occurrence processor. it can.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a hardware configuration of an embodiment of a print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a first basic configuration of hardware of a print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a second basic configuration of hardware of the print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a third basic configuration of hardware of the print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a fourth basic configuration of hardware of the print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a software configuration of a print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a processing procedure of a paper size fixed type empty drawing centralized processing method according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining a processing procedure of a paper size assumption type blank drawing concentrated processing method according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining the configuration of the printer engine adapter unit 2 in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram for explaining another configuration of the printer engine adapter unit 2 in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a printing procedure of the entire printing control apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining another printing procedure of the entire printing control apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a diagram for explaining still another printing procedure of the entire printing control apparatus in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is a diagram for explaining the processing procedure of the empty drawing distributed processing method according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 15 is a diagram for explaining a constraint command in the third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 16 is a PDL with a constraint according to the third embodiment of the present invention.
It is a figure for explaining.

FIG. 17 is a diagram for explaining processing by a host computer and a print control device of a constraint command and an unconstrained command according to the third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 18 is a diagram for explaining the format of a host computer transmission command in the third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 19 is a diagram for explaining an SPU-compatible local bus coupling method according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 20 is a diagram illustrating a matrix switch coupling method according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 21 is a diagram showing an example of a print result in the fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 22 is a diagram for explaining a method of dividing a page area according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 23 is a diagram for explaining another method for dividing the page area according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 24 is a diagram illustrating a communication method between an MPU and an SPU according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 25 is a diagram for explaining contact information between processors on a shared memory according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 26 is a diagram for explaining the format of a host computer transmission command in the fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 27 is a diagram showing a software configuration of a print control apparatus in a fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 28 is a diagram for explaining functions of a new task and drawing / printing-related tasks in the fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 29 is a diagram for explaining a host transmission command processing system according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 30 is a diagram for explaining processing specifications when a processor error occurs in the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 ... Host computer, 11 ... Print control device, 12
... system bus, 13 ... video bus 1, 100 ... master processor module, 110 ... slave processor module, 120 ... slave processor module, 1
30 ... System bus arbitration unit, 1331 ... Video bus 1 arbitration unit, 141 ... Shared memory, 171-b ... Printer engine adapter unit 2, 19 ... Operation panel unit, 18 ... Printer engine unit, 101 ... Master processor, 103 ... Local Memory, 111 ... Slave processor 1, 113
... local memory, 121 ... slave processor K, 1
23 ... Local memory, 31 ... Monitor unit, 311 ... Kernel unit, 312 ... Host communication control unit, 313 ... Command buffer control unit, 314 ... File control unit, 315 ... Page buffer control unit, 316 ... Printer control unit, 33 ...
Command buffer section, 34 ... Page buffer section, 32 ...
Task processing unit, 321 ... Drawing task unit, 3210 ... Drawing management task, 3211 ... Individual drawing task 1, 3212 ...
Individual drawing task 2, 3213 ... Individual drawing task M, 32
2 ... Print task part, 3221 ... Print task 1, 3222
... Print task 2, 3223 ... Print task N, 323 ... Processing units for other tasks.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ───

[Procedure amendment]

[Submission date] July 10, 2002 (2002.7.1)
0)

[Procedure Amendment 1]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Name of item to be amended] Title of invention

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

Patent application title: Print control device

[Procedure Amendment 2]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Name of item to be amended] Claims

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

[Claims]

[Procedure 3]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0010

[Correction method] Delete

[Procedure amendment 4]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0011

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

An object of the present invention is to provide a print control method and a print control apparatus capable of performing printing with the highest performance of a printer even with a document having a heavy drawing load and using a printer having a high dot density and a high speed. It is in.

A print control device according to the present invention.
Alignment is related to printing multiple pages based on the print command.
A print control device for performing print processing, which is a master processor.
And operate according to the instructions from the master processor.
A plurality of slave processors and the slave processor
A local memory provided for each server,
The star processor draws the actual content in the acquired page buffer.
Image to each of the slave processors,
Slave processor is a page in the local memory
Executes actual drawing in the buffer based on the print command
The end of drawing to the master processor,
The star processor reports from the slave processor.
Print the page buffer with
The processor processes the allocation process and the printing process in parallel.
In addition, the processing of the master processor and each thread
Characterized by parallel processing with the drawing processing of the wave processor
And In this specification, the drawing attribute parameters include various drawing attributes such as font type and size, character pitch, line pitch, reverse, underline, and italic, as well as paper size, number of copies, printing direction (port). Paper control information such as rate / landscape) is also included.

[Procedure Amendment 5]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0012

[Correction method] Delete

[Procedure correction 6]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0013

[Correction method] Delete

[Procedure Amendment 7]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Name of item to be corrected] 0015

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

[0015]

[Embodiment] In a print control apparatus using a blank drawing centralized processing method (paper size confirmation type blank drawing centralized processing method or paper size assumption type blank drawing centralized processing method), a drawing management task performs blank drawing Individual drawing tasks execute real drawing in parallel on different processors. Further, the print processing for each page buffer that has been drawn by the actual drawing can be executed in parallel with the empty drawing and in parallel with the actual drawing. In this specification, "parallel" execution means that a plurality of processors execute a plurality of processes at the same time, and "parallel" execution means that one processor processes a plurality of processes in a pipeline manner. Means to do.

[Procedure Amendment 8]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Name of item to be corrected] 0024

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

Next , a first embodiment of the present invention will be described. First, the basic hardware configuration of the print control apparatus according to this embodiment will be described with reference to the basic hardware configuration diagrams shown in FIGS. 2 to 5.

[Procedure Amendment 9]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0034

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

Physical I / F of this communication (called host I / F)
F is SCSI (Small Computer System Interfac
e), RS232C, RS422, GP-IB (General Purpose Interface)
Bus), Centronics, HDLC (High-Level Data)
Link Control), ISDN (Integrated Services Deg)
Ital Network), Ethernet (registered trademark) or the like is used to implement an appropriate hardware logic of the controller 151-a according to the type of physical I / F used.

[Procedure Amendment 10]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0262

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

[0262] In multi-processor printing control apparatus, under control of the master processor, it is possible to a plurality of slave processors to parallel processing processing drawing or the like to improve the processing capability of the print control apparatus be able to. In particular, since empty drawing is adopted, parallel drawing processing by a plurality of processors becomes easy.

[Procedure Amendment 11]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Name of item to be corrected] 0274

[Correction method] Change

[Correction content]

Further, by devising the processing method at the time of processor error, even if an error occurs in the master processor or the slave processor, it is possible to continue the printing process without any trouble by using the remaining processors excluding the error occurrence processor. it can.

EFFECT OF THE INVENTION In a multiprocessor type print control device
Multiple slaves under the control of the master processor.
The processor can perform parallel processing such as drawing.
Therefore, to improve the processing capacity of the print control device.
You can

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Shinya Sakaguchi             1 Horiyamashita, Hadano City, Kanagawa Japan             Tate Manufacturing Kanagawa Factory F-term (reference) 2C187 AC07 BF03 FC02 JA01                 2C362 CB74 CB77                 5B021 AA01 CC07

Claims (26)

[Claims] 1. A print control method in which a print command for a plurality of pages is stored in a command buffer, and a plurality of processors perform drawing processing and printing processing for each page according to the print command, wherein drawing processing for different pages is sequentially changed. When allocating to a processor, a print command string over a plurality of pages in the command buffer is read, and empty drawing is performed to set drawing attribute parameters of each page without actually drawing (actual drawing). A print control method, wherein each processor executes actual drawing on the finished page based on the print command sequence according to the set drawing attribute parameter. 2. As the blank drawing, in addition to setting the drawing attribute parameter of each page, detecting a page break address in the command buffer, the blank drawing is executed by one processor, and the processor 2. For pages for which blank drawing has been completed, the page break address and drawing attribute parameter of the page are sequentially given to another processor to cause the other processor to execute drawing of the page. Print control method. 3. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein a processor assigned to draw a specific page performs the blank drawing and executes actual drawing of the specific page. 4. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein the paper size of each page is detected by the blank drawing, and a page buffer of the detected paper size is acquired for actual drawing of the page. . 5. A page buffer of a predetermined paper size is acquired for each page, and when it is detected that the paper size is different during actual drawing of each page, the page buffer of the paper size is acquired again. The print control method according to claim 1. 6. As the print command, a command called a page break command indicating a page break is arranged at a page break, and various drawing attribute parameters are initialized at the head of each page according to the print command specification or A command called a reset command B for initializing various drawing attribute parameters is arranged at the top of the page, and before the command for the first page, all external characters that are valid for all subsequent pages of this document, A command called a reset command A for arranging a command for defining an effective parameter for all pages of a document including a format, a function, a dictionary, etc. for initializing the drawing attribute parameter and an effective parameter for all pages of the document is provided at the beginning of the document. Arrangement and setting of various drawing attribute parameters for designating the drawing / printing contents of each page between each reset command B and each page break command. The print control method according to claim 1, wherein the employing a constraint command system to place a row of command and various drawing commands. 7. A constraint presence / absence designating command for distinguishing between a restricted command system and an unconstrained command system is arranged in the head area of the print command sequence sent to the print control device, and the print control device receives the received print. 7. The print control according to claim 6, wherein the restriction command correspondence print control method and the non-constraint command correspondence print control method are switched by processing the restriction presence / absence designation command described in the command sequence. Method. 8. A process of setting drawing attribute parameters and detecting page breaks is performed as the blank drawing process for a print command sequence of the unrestricted command system, and for a print command sequence of the restricted command system, The print control method according to claim 7, wherein only page breaks are detected as the blank drawing processing. 9. A master processor, a plurality of slave processors operating according to instructions from the master processor, a host communication controller for communicating with a host computer, and a printer engine for inputting / outputting to / from a printer engine unit. A shared memory that has an adapter and a command buffer unit that stores a print command sequence received from the host computer via the host communication controller, and a shared memory that can be accessed by all the processors, and a local memory for each processor that only individual processors can access. A read command string in the command buffer unit is read to the master processor;
While interpreting, a drawing attribute parameter setting process without drawing is performed for one page until a page break is detected, and an empty drawing function for obtaining a page break address at the beginning of the next page, and a slave processor in an empty state after the empty drawing And a function for acquiring an empty page buffer memory having a size corresponding to the paper size determined by the empty drawing after the slave processor is acquired, and an empty page buffer memory after acquiring the page buffer memory. The slave processor is provided with a function of sequentially activating actual drawing of the drawing-finished page in the acquired page buffer memory by the acquisition slave processor using the page break address of the page top and the drawing attribute parameter as input parameters. Then, as the actual drawing, drawing of one page is performed according to the drawing attribute parameter obtained by the blank drawing. After the actual drawing, the master processor is notified of the end of the actual drawing after the actual drawing, and the master processor is requested to print the drawn page buffer. When receiving the report of the end of the actual drawing, the function of updating the end page of the actual drawing and releasing the report source slave processor, and when the print process is requested, execute the print process for the drawn page buffer. The master processor has a function and a function of releasing the page buffer when the printer engine adapter or the slave processor recognizes the end of the reading from the drawn page buffer activated by the print processing, and the master processor performs the empty drawing. Processing and print processing in parallel, and further processing by the master processor and Print control apparatus characterized by the processing by the slave processor so as to parallel processing. 10. A fixed size accessible by the slave processor after the slave processor is acquired, in place of the function of acquiring an empty page buffer memory having a size corresponding to the paper size determined by the blank drawing. 10. The print control apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the master processor has a function of acquiring a page buffer memory in an empty state (a size corresponding to a maximum paper size that can be printed by the printer engine unit). 11. A default paper accessible by the slave processor after acquisition of the slave processor, in place of the function of acquiring an empty page buffer memory having a size corresponding to the paper size determined by the blank drawing. The master processor has a function of acquiring an empty page buffer memory having a size corresponding to the size, and when a change from the default value of the paper size is detected during actual drawing in the slave processor 10. The print control apparatus according to claim 9, wherein each slave processor has a function of requesting the master processor to reacquire a page buffer for a paper size. 12. An edit command buffer unit having an area for a plurality of pages for storing control information and drawing / printing content designation commands for each page is provided, and the master processor sequentially obtains each page by the blank drawing. A function of storing the drawn drawing attribute parameter and the drawing / printing content designation command in the command buffer section in the edit command buffer section, and sequentially requesting the slave processor to actually draw the contents of each page in the edit command buffer section. The print control device according to claim 9, further comprising a function. 13. A master processor, a plurality of slave processors operating according to instructions from the master processor, a host communication controller for communicating with a host computer, and a printer engine for inputting / outputting to / from a printer engine unit. A shared memory that has an adapter and a command buffer unit that stores a print command sequence received from the host computer via the host communication controller, and a shared memory that can be accessed by all the processors, and a local memory for each processor that only individual processors can access. A master processor having a function of activating any one of M individual drawing tasks for a plurality of slave processors, the individual drawing task 1 assigned to the first slave processor. , Fixed size (pudding The function of requesting the master processor to acquire an empty page buffer memory (corresponding to the maximum paper size that can be printed by the engine unit), and then the drawing attribute parameter as the actual drawing to the acquired page buffer memory. A function of performing setting processing and drawing until a page break is detected and drawing one page, and after the actual drawing, the slave processor reports the end of the actual drawing to the drawn page buffer. And a print command sequence in the command buffer unit after reading and interpreting the print command sequence until the page break is detected. It has the function of repeatedly executing the empty drawing performed for one page M-1 times, and the k-th slave process In the individual drawing task m assigned to the server, the function of executing the empty drawing m-1 times, the function of requesting the master processor to acquire the page buffer memory of the fixed size and the acquired page buffer memory As the actual drawing, the drawing attribute parameter setting process and the drawing are performed until the page break is detected, and the drawing of one page is performed, and after the actual drawing, the slave processor reports the end of the actual drawing to the master processor. In addition, the function of requesting the print processing for the drawn page buffer, and the empty drawing M after the request for the print processing
A function of executing m times, the master processor further updating the actual drawing end page when the actual drawing end report is received, and printing the drawn page buffer when requesting the print processing. A function to execute the process, a function to release the page buffer when the printer engine adapter or the slave processor recognizes the end of reading from the drawn page buffer activated by the print process, and a request to acquire the page buffer. A function of executing acquisition of a page buffer is provided, and an empty drawing process and a printing process by the master processor are performed in parallel, and a process by the master processor and a process by each slave processor are performed in parallel. Characteristic print control device. 14. Each slave processor has a function of requesting a master processor to acquire a page buffer for a default paper size, instead of a function of requesting a master processor to acquire an empty page buffer memory of a fixed size. At the same time, each slave processor has a function of requesting the master processor to reacquire a page buffer for the changed paper size when a paper size change is detected in the drawing attribute parameter setting process in the actual drawing. The print control device according to claim 13. 15. All of the page buffers are arranged on the shared memory, the actual drawing is performed on the page buffer, and the master processor performs print processing for the page buffer drawn by the actual drawing. The print control device according to claim 9 or 13, wherein 16. All of the page buffers are arranged on the local memory, the actual drawing is performed on the page buffer, and the master processor performs print processing for the page buffer drawn by the actual drawing. The print control device according to claim 9 or 13, wherein 17. An interrupt function from a master processor to all slave processors and a host communication controller and a printer engine adapter, and an interrupt function from a master processor to all slave processors are provided. Print controller. 18. All of the page buffers are arranged on the local memory, the actual drawing is performed on the page buffers, and the print processing for the page buffers drawn by the actual drawing is performed locally in each page buffer. 14. The print control device according to claim 9, wherein the slave processor corresponding to the memory is configured to perform the process. 19. The shared memory comprises a multi-port memory, one port is used as a port for a peripheral controller such as a host communication controller or a file controller to access the shared memory, and another one port is a master processor. 14. The print control device according to claim 9, wherein the slave processor is a port for accessing the shared memory. 20. The contents of a rendered page buffer in a page buffer section arranged on the local memory are different from those of a system bus to which the shared memory is connected by either the master processor or the slave processor. After transmitting to the video bus of the printer engine, the video bus transmits to the print relay buffer arranged in the local memory of the printer engine adapter, and the data in the print relay buffer is transmitted to the printer engine unit according to the printer engine interface. The print control device according to claim 9 or 13, wherein 21. The data read from the print relay buffer in the printer engine adapter to the printer engine unit is performed using a DMA circuit provided in the printer engine adapter unit.
The print control device according to item 0. 22. After transmitting the contents of a drawn page buffer in a page buffer section arranged on the local memory to a video bus different from the system bus to which the shared memory is connected, the content of the drawn page buffer is then transferred from the video bus. 14. The print control device according to claim 9, wherein a printer memory controller for transmitting to the printer engine unit according to a printer engine interface is provided for each processor. 23. When data of the contents of a drawn page buffer in the page buffer section is transferred, a mode for clearing to zero and a mode for not performing zero are provided when reading each raster of the page buffer. Alternatively, the print control device according to item 22. 24. At least one of a font memory for storing font data and a format memory for storing format data, wherein font data is stored in the font memory according to a font load command or a format load command from a host computer, 14. The print control apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the master processor has a function of storing format data in the format memory. 25. A master processor, a plurality of slave processors operating according to instructions from the master processor, a host communication controller for communicating with a host computer, and a printer engine for inputting / outputting with a printer engine unit. A shared memory that has an adapter and a command buffer unit that stores a print command sequence received from the host computer via the host communication controller, and a shared memory that can be accessed by all the processors, and a local memory for each processor that only individual processors can access. The master processor includes a memory, divides one page from the area 1 into the area K, obtains one partial page buffer in an empty state for the area 1, and draws in the area 1 as a first slave processor. Processing called in-page mode individual drawing task 1 It is instructed by activating, and in the same manner, one partial page buffer in an empty state is acquired for each area k, and drawing in this area k is called to the kth slave processor as an in-page mode individual drawing task k. Each k-th slave processor detects a page break in the drawing attribute parameter setting process and the drawing process with the region k as the clipping area in the in-page mode individual drawing task k. When the processing for one page is completed, it reports to the master processor to that effect, and then this processing ends, and when the master processor receives the processing completion report for each area by each slave processor, the master processor The master processor releases the processing completion report for each area by each slave processor to all areas. Upon reception, the print process is started, and in this print process, the contents of the partial page buffers corresponding to the areas 1 to K are read in the order necessary to form one page, and output to the printer engine unit. When the master processor recognizes the end of reading from the drawn partial page buffer from the printer engine adapter or each slave processor, the master processor releases the partial page buffer, and processing other than printing by the master processor and print processing are performed. In parallel, and the processing by the master processor and the processing by the slave processors are processed in parallel. 26. With respect to a plurality of slave processors and a plurality of partial page buffers, the slave processor accesses the partial page buffers by connecting a switch between the arbitrary slave processor and the arbitrary partial page buffers. 26. The print control apparatus according to claim 25, further comprising matrix switch coupling means for drawing.