JP2004032048A - Multifunction system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To restore a system program or image data without dropping the transfer speed of a hard disk by having a plurality of hard disks and backing up at least one or more hard disks. <P>SOLUTION: This multifunction system has two units of hard disks and writes into two units of hard disks. In the case that data cannot be read out, the data is read out of the other unit. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a multi-function system.
[0002]
[Prior art]
Conventionally, a digital copier equipped with an electronic sort function that reads images of all originals to be copied, temporarily records the image data on a hard disk, and repeatedly reads out and prints out image data of any original from the memory. It has been known. Thus, it is possible to discharge the copy sheets in a sorted state without having a sorter device having a plurality of bins. Further, an image read from the scanner is transmitted to a facsimile machine, an iFAX machine, and transmitted to a PC, and is temporarily stored in a hard disk.
[0003]
Further, by storing the programs on the hard disk, it is possible to reduce the number of ROMs for storing programs other than the startup program. However, a medium such as a hard disk has a problem that data transfer speed is slower than that of a semiconductor memory, and it takes more time to transfer an image than a semiconductor memory. When the copying speed of the copying machine is increased, there arises a problem that the transfer speed becomes a bottleneck and the overall copying speed is reduced. Therefore, in order to reduce the transfer time, the image is compressed and recorded on the hard disk.
[0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, a magnetic recording device such as a hard disk has a problem that the reliability of data is inferior to that of a semiconductor memory because it includes mechanical factors. Therefore, when reading data written to the hard disk, there is a possibility that the recorded data cannot be restored normally. If the program area cannot be read, there is a problem that the system cannot be started. Further, when the image is compressed and recorded, there is a problem that the subsequent image data cannot be restored from the portion where the reading error has occurred. In order to avoid the problem that the hard disk cannot be read, a method of writing data twice may be considered, but there is a problem that disk access is doubled and speed is sacrificed.
[0005]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to overcome the above-mentioned problems, a multifunction system has a plurality of hard disks, and at least one hard disk is used as a backup so that system programs and image data can be restored without lowering the transfer speed of the hard disk. It is possible to do.
[0006]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, a copy machine will be described in detail as a preferred embodiment. The present invention is not limited to this embodiment.
[0007]
FIG. 1 shows an overall configuration diagram. The Controller Unit 2000 is a controller for inputting and outputting image information and device information by connecting to a scanner 2020 as an image input device and a printer 2019 as an image output device, and connecting to a LAN 2011 or a public line (WAN) 2021 on the other hand. is there. A CPU 2001 is a controller that controls the entire system. A RAM 2004 is a system work memory for the operation of the CPU 2001, and is also an image memory for temporarily recording image data. BootROM 2002 is a boot ROM, and stores a system boot program. The BackupRAM 2003 is a RAM backed up by a battery, and records device-specific information such as user settings and counter values. The peripheral device I / F 2006 controls the HDD 2007, serial communication, parallel communication, and an interrupt signal. HDDs 2007 and 2008 are hard disk drives for storing system software and image data. An operation unit I / F 2009 is an interface unit with the operation unit (UI) 2015 and outputs image data to be displayed on the operation unit 2015. In addition, it plays a role of transmitting information input by the system user from the operation unit 2015 to the CPU 2001. The Modem 2005 connects to the public line 2021 and inputs and outputs information. The above buses are arranged on the system bus 2014.
[0008]
The image bus 2022 is a bus for mainly transferring image data at high speed, and is constituted by a high-speed shared bus such as PCI or IEEE1394. The following devices are arranged on the image bus 2022. A network 2010 is connected to the LAN 2011 and inputs and outputs image data and other information. A raster image processor (RIP) 2012 develops a PDL code into a bitmap image. An image bus I / F unit 2013 connects the scanner image processing 2080 and the printer image processing 2090 to the CPU 2001, and performs synchronous / asynchronous conversion of image data processed by the scanner 2020 and the printer 2019 as image input / output devices. The scanner image processing unit 2080 performs correction, processing, and editing on input image data. The printer image processing unit 2090 performs printer correction, resolution conversion, and the like on print output image data. The image compression / decompression / rotation units 2030 and 2040 perform compression / decompression / rotation of the value image data. The compression / expansion processing is performed by JBIG, MMR and MH for binary image data, and JPEG for multi-valued image data. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and any compression method may be used.
[0009]
FIG. 2 shows the image input / output unit. A scanner unit 2020, which is an image input device, illuminates an image on paper serving as a document and scans a CCD line sensor (not shown), thereby converting the image into raster image data 2071 into an electric signal. The manuscript paper is set on the tray 2073 of the manuscript feeder 2072, and when the apparatus user gives an instruction to start reading from the operation unit 2015, the controller CPU 2001 gives an instruction to the scanner 2020 (2071), and the feeder 2072 feeds the manuscript paper one by one. Feeding is performed to read the original image.
[0010]
A printer unit 2019 serving as an image output device is a unit that converts raster image data 2096 into an image on a sheet. The method is an electrophotographic method using a photosensitive drum or a photosensitive belt, and ink is ejected from a minute nozzle array. There is an ink jet system for printing an image directly on a sheet, and the like, but any system may be used. Activation of the printing operation is started by an instruction 2096 from the controller CPU 2001. The printer unit 2019 has a plurality of paper feed stages so that different paper sizes or different paper orientations can be selected, and includes paper cassettes 2101, 2102, 2103, and 2104 corresponding thereto. The paper discharge tray 2111 receives printed paper.
[0011]
FIG. 3 shows the configuration of the operation unit 2015. The LCD display unit 2113 has a touch panel sheet affixed on the LCD, displays an operation screen of the system, and notifies the controller CPU 2001 of position information when a displayed key is pressed. A start key 2114 is used to start a document image reading operation. At the center of the start key 2114, there is a two-color LED 2118 of green and red, which indicates whether or not the start key 2114 is usable. A stop key 2115 functions to stop the operation during operation. An ID key 2116 is used to input a user ID of a user. A reset key 2117 is used to initialize settings from the operation unit.
[0012]
Scanner Image Processing Unit The configuration of the scanner image processing unit 2080 is shown in FIG. The image bus I / F 2013 is connected to the image bus 2022, controls the bus access sequence, and controls and timings of each device in the scanner image processing unit 2080.
[0013]
The image data 2071 input from the scanner 2020 is input to the filter processing unit 2082, and a convolution operation is performed by a spatial filter. The editing unit 2083 recognizes, for example, a closed area surrounded by the marker pen from the input image data, and performs image processing such as shadowing, shading, and negative / positive inversion on the image data in the closed area. When changing the resolution of the read image, the scaling unit 2084 performs interpolation calculation in the main scanning direction of the raster image to perform enlargement and reduction. Zooming in the sub-scanning direction is performed by changing the scanning speed of an image reading line sensor (not shown). The table 2085 is a table conversion that is performed to convert image data that is read luminance data into density data. The binarization 2086 binarizes multi-value grayscale image data by error diffusion processing or screen processing. The processed image data is transferred to the image bus 2022 via the image bus I / F 2013.
[0014]
FIG. 5 shows the configuration of the printer image processing unit 2090. The image bus I / F 2013 is connected to the image bus 2022, controls the bus access sequence, and controls and timings of each device in the printer image processing unit 2090. The resolution conversion unit 2092 performs resolution conversion for converting image data received from the network 2011 or the public line 2021 into the resolution of the printer 2095. The smoothing processing unit 2093 performs a process of smoothing jaggies (roughness of an image appearing at a black-and-white boundary such as an oblique line) of the image data after resolution conversion.
[0015]
FIG. 6 shows the configuration of the image compression / decompression / rotation units 2030 and 2040. Image bus I. The / F controller 2041 is connected to the image bus 2022 and controls the bus access sequence. The / F controller 2041 performs timing control for exchanging data with the input buffer 2042 and output buffer 2045, and the image compression / decompression / rotation unit 2043. Control such as a mode setting for. The processing procedure of image compression / decompression will be described below.
[0016]
Through the image bus 2022, the CPU 2001 makes settings for image compression / decompression control in the image bus I / F controller 2041. With this setting, the image bus I / F controller 2041 performs necessary settings (for example, MMR compression, JBIG expansion, etc.) for the image compression / decompression / rotation unit 2043. After the necessary settings are made, the CPU 2001 again permits the image bus I / F controller 2041 to transfer image data. According to this permission, the image bus I / F controller 2041 starts transfer of image data from each device on the RAM 2004 or the image bus 2022. The received image data is temporarily stored in the input buffer 2042, and the image is transferred at a constant speed in response to an image data request from the image compression unit 2043.
[0017]
At this time, the input buffer determines whether image data can be transferred between the image bus I / F controller 2041 and the image compression unit 2043, reads image data from the image bus 2022, and performs image compression on the image compression unit 2043. If it is not possible to write an image into the memory, control is performed not to transfer data (hereinafter, such control is referred to as a handshake). The image compression unit 2043 temporarily stores the received image data in the RAM 2044. This is because several lines of data are required depending on the type of image compression processing to be performed when performing image compression. To compress the first one line, several lines of image data must be prepared. This is because image compression cannot be performed unless the image is compressed. The image data subjected to the image compression is immediately sent to the output buffer 2045. The output buffer 2045 performs handshaking with the image bus I / F controller 2041 and the image compression unit 2043, and transfers image data to the image bus I / F controller 2041. The image bus I / F controller 2041 transfers the transferred compressed (or decompressed) image data to the RAM 2004 or each device on the image bus 2022. Such a series of processing is repeated until there is no processing request from the CPU 2001 (when processing of the required number of pages is completed) or until a stop request is issued from the image compression unit (for example, when an error occurs during compression and decompression). It is.
[0018]
FIG. 7 shows the configuration of the image bus I / F section 2013. The image bus I / F controller 2121 is connected to the image bus 2022, controls the bus access sequence, and controls and generates timing of each device in the image bus I / F unit 2013. In addition, a control signal to the external scanner 2020 and the printer 2019 is generated. The scan buffer 2122 temporarily stores the image data sent from the scanner 2020, and outputs the image data in synchronization with the image bus 2022. The serial / parallel / parallel / serial converter 2123 sequentially arranges or decomposes the image data stored in the scan buffer 2122 and converts the image data into a data width of image data that can be transferred to the image bus 2022. The parallel-serial-to-serial / parallel converter 2124 decomposes or arranges the image data transferred from the image bus 2122 into a data width of image data that can be stored in the print buffer 2125. The print buffer 2125 temporarily stores the image data sent from the image bus 2022 and outputs the image data in synchronization with the printer 2019.
[0019]
The processing procedure at the time of image scanning is shown below. The image data sent from the scanner 2020 is stored in the scan buffer 2122 in synchronization with the timing signal sent from the scanner 2020. When the image bus 2022 is a PCI bus, when image data enters the buffer in 32 bits or more, the image data is sent to the serial / parallel / serial / serial converter 2123 from the buffer for 32 bits on a first-in first-out basis. , And transferred to the image bus 2022 through the image bus I / F controller 2121. When the image bus 2022 is IEEE1394, the image data in the buffer is sent to the serial-parallel / parallel-serial converter 2123 from the buffer on a first-in first-out basis, and is converted into serial image data. 2022.
[0020]
The processing procedure at the time of image printing is shown below. When the image bus 2022 is a PCI bus, 32-bit image data sent from the image bus is received by the image bus I / F controller, sent to the parallel / serial / serial / parallel converter 2124, and the number of input data bits of the printer 2019 is changed. And the image data is stored in the print buffer 2125. When the image bus 2022 is IEEE1394, serial image data sent from the image bus is received by the image bus I / F controller, sent to the parallel-serial / serial / parallel converter 2124, and the number of input data bits of the printer 2019 is calculated. The image data is converted into image data and stored in the print buffer 2125. The image data in the buffer is sent to the printer 2019 on a first-in first-out basis in synchronization with a timing signal sent from the printer 2019.
[0021]
Scan Operation The scan operation (FIG. 8) will be described below.
[0022]
First, a scan is performed based on the scan operation conditions set by the operation unit 2015 (S101). The scanned image passes through an image bus I / F 2013 via a scanner image processing unit 2080 and is stored in a RAM 2004 via an image bus 2022. Thereafter, the scan image stored in the RAM 2004 is compressed according to the scan image compression format using the image compression / expansion unit 2030, and is stored in the RAM 2004 (S102). The compressed scan image stored in the RAM 2004 is converted into a file and transferred to the HD 2007 or HD 2008 via the peripheral device I / F unit 2006 (S103). When a file is stored in the HD 2007 or HD 2008, processing of one document on the scanner 2020 ends. At this point, if there is an unscanned document on the scanner 2020, the scanning operation is performed again according to the above procedure, and the process is repeated until no document is present on the scanner 2020 (S104).
[0023]
The printing operation (FIG. 9) will be described below.
[0024]
First, when a print job instruction is passed from an application on the CPU, the designated file is transferred to the RAM 2004. Hereinafter, the HD 2007 will be described as a main HD, and the HD 2008 will be described as a sub HD for backup. If the file exists in the main HD 2007, the file is transferred from the HD 2007 to the RAM 2004 via the peripheral I / F 2006 (S201). It is monitored whether or not an error occurs when reading a file from the HD 2007 (S202). If no reading error occurs, the transfer ends normally. Here, the error monitoring method may be to monitor an error interrupt read from the HD 2007, calculate a checksum value, and set an error if the values do not match. When a reading error occurs, the same file stored in the sub HD 2008 is read (S203), the file recorded in the main HD 2007 is deleted, and the file read from the HD 2008 is written to the HD 2007 (S204). If the file transferred to the RAM 2004 is compressed, the file is decompressed using the image compression / decompression unit 2030 (S205), and the image bus I.D. / F2013. After that, registers necessary for job execution are set in the image bus I / F 2013, the printer image processing 2090, and the printer 2019 (S206). The information to be set is the address of the RAM 2004 where the given first page image is stored, the width of the image, the number of lines, and the like. Thereafter, a paper feed request signal is issued to the printer 2019, and a printout is performed (S207). The second and subsequent pages are processed in the same manner as the first page (S208). However, in order to perform printout at high speed, a file to be printed out is read from the HD 2007 in advance as long as the RAM 2004 has a free space. When the printout is completed normally and a file deletion instruction for the print job is passed (S209), the files stored in the HD2007 and HD2008 are deleted (S210).
[0025]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, even when data cannot be read from a recording device such as a hard disk, normal operation can be performed using a backup hard disk, and even if a hard disk fails, Since a spare hard disk can be used, downtime can be reduced.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is an overall block diagram of the system. FIG. 2 is an external view of a scanner unit, a printer unit, and an operation unit. FIG. 3 is a diagram of an operation unit. FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a scanner image processing unit. FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an image compression processing unit. FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a device I / F unit. FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a scan operation. FIG. 9 is a flowchart of a print operation. Explanation of code]
2000 Controller unit 2020 Scanner 2019 Printer 2001 CPU
2004 RAM

Claims (5)

Operation input means,
Multiple recording devices,
Image input means for inputting an image signal,
Image output means for outputting an image signal,
In a multifunction system having image storage means for storing image signals in a recording device,
When data is recorded on at least one or more first recording devices, the same data is recorded on at least one or more second recording devices,
A multi-function system wherein data is read from a second recording device when a reading error occurs in a first recording device. 2. The multi-function system according to claim 1, wherein the recording device is a hard disk. 2. The multi-function system according to claim 1, wherein when data is erased from the first recording device, data recorded in the second recording device is also erased. 2. The multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein data in which a read error has occurred is erased from the first recording device, and data read from the second recording device is recorded in the first recording device. 2. The multi-function system according to claim 1, wherein when data is erased from the first recording device, data recorded in the second recording device is also erased.

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