JP2006088637A - Image forming device and method for controlling it - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming device which specifies and prints a region forming a three-dimensional image given with a height based on a control parameter stored and managed by the image forming device, registers information displaying a fixed printing region having routine height information and can reuse the information every time when printing, and a method for controlling the image forming device. <P>SOLUTION: A print data generation section 10 has a height information management section 15 for setting and processing a specific object for performing height printing on a printer 1 side. An intermediate image data generation section 12 develops the image region of each drawing object in document data 51 in an intermediate image data 6. A height print intermediate image data generating section 13 extracts the data corresponding to a height information setting condition 151 from among the data developed in the intermediate image data 6, and creates height print intermediate image data 8 provided with height information for height printing to output the data to an intermediate image data buffer output control section 14. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a method for controlling the image forming apparatus, and in particular, the height corresponding to a specific form region or a specific object attribute based on a generation rule for height information preset in the image forming apparatus. The present invention relates to a technique for forming a stereoscopic image by providing information.

As a technique relating to a toner forming method for performing a printing process in which a printed material for performing three-dimensional printing has a height, an “image forming apparatus” described in Patent Document 1 is disclosed.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-244384.

  The invention of the above-mentioned patent document 1 shows a toner forming method for performing a printing process (hereinafter referred to as “height printing”) in which a printed image has a height, and this is realized as a printing apparatus. There is no mention of techniques for doing this.

  On the other hand, a printing apparatus which mainly uses a printer driver or the like on the side instructing printing and prepares a dedicated user interface (UI) or command for handling the height information of the three-dimensional image area and interprets the printing command A method may be considered in which the image is rendered with a height based on the height information.

  However, in this method, it is necessary to develop a dedicated printer driver, and it is difficult to introduce a system that uses a general-purpose printer driver such as PostScript, and a dedicated system that directly outputs a command without using a printer driver. However, there is a problem that the system needs to be replaced in order to realize the height printing function.

  Therefore, in the present invention, the attribute of the object to be three-dimensionalized and the condition for giving the height information for each attribute type of the object are set and managed in advance on the image forming apparatus side, and the height is printed by the image forming apparatus. Print data is generated and printed, and a standard print area is registered on the image forming apparatus side as form data, and the registered form data is registered as a height print target and can be reused. An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus capable of performing height printing and a method for controlling the image forming apparatus.

  In order to achieve the above object, according to a first aspect of the present invention, in an image forming apparatus for forming a stereoscopic image based on a document including one or a plurality of objects, one attribute information in the attribute information of the object is three-dimensionalized. When forming a stereoscopic image based on a document, a selection unit that selects based on the attribute information of the object, a height information setting unit that sets the height information of the stereoscopic image corresponding to the attribute information selected by the selection unit, Image forming means for controlling the height of the object having the attribute information selected by the selection means based on the height information set by the height information setting means to form a stereoscopic image.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the invention, the image forming means includes first information indicating the position and size of each object of the document and first or more attribute information of the object. An image data forming unit for forming intermediate image data described by the information 2 and an object including attribute information selected by the selecting unit from the second information of the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming unit are extracted. Object extracting means, stereoscopic image data forming means for forming stereoscopic image data by replacing the second information of the object extracted by the object extracting means with height information set by the height information setting means, and image data A stereoscopic image for forming a stereoscopic image based on the intermediate image data formed by the forming means and the stereoscopic image data formed by the stereoscopic image data forming means Characterized by comprising a formation unit.

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, in an image forming apparatus that forms a stereoscopic image based on a document including one or a plurality of objects, the attribute information of the object corresponds to the object to which the height is given. When forming a stereoscopic image based on a document and attribute adding means for adding height information, the height of the object given height information by the attribute adding means is controlled based on the height information to form a stereoscopic image And an image forming unit.

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the third aspect of the present invention, the image forming means adds the first information indicating the position and size of each object of the document and the height added by the attribute adding means of the object. Image data forming means for forming intermediate image data described by second information indicating attribute information including information, and height information among the second information of the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming means An object extraction unit that extracts an object, a stereoscopic image data formation unit that forms stereoscopic image data by replacing the second information of the object extracted by the object extraction unit with height information, and an image data formation unit 3D image forming means for forming a 3D image based on the intermediate image data and the 3D image data formed by the 3D image data forming means. And it features.

  According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the control method of an image forming apparatus for forming a stereoscopic image based on a document including one or a plurality of objects, one attribute information in the attribute information of the object is three-dimensionalized by the selection means. First information selected as object attribute information, height information corresponding to the attribute information selected by the selecting means is set by the height information setting means, and each object of the document is indicated by first information indicating its position and size; Intermediate image data described by the second information indicating one or more attribute information of the object is formed by the image data forming means, and selected from the second information of the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming means The object including attribute information selected by the means is extracted by the object extracting means, and the second information of the object extracted by the object extracting means is obtained. The body image data forming means replaces the height information set by the height information setting means to form stereoscopic image data, and the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming means and the stereoscopic image data formed by the stereoscopic image data forming means A stereoscopic image is formed based on the image data.

  According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in the control method of an image forming apparatus for forming a stereoscopic image based on a document including one or a plurality of objects, an attribute of the object corresponding to the object to which a height is given among the objects. The height information is given by the attribute giving means as the information, and the first information indicating the position and size of each object of the document and the attribute information including the height information added by the attribute adding means of the object. The intermediate image data described by the information 2 is formed by the image data forming means, and the object including the height information is extracted by the object extracting means from the second information of the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming means. The second information of the object extracted by the object extracting means is replaced with the height information by the stereoscopic image data forming means. The image data is formed, and forming a three-dimensional image based on the three-dimensional image data formed by the intermediate image data and stereoscopic image data forming means formed by the image data forming means.

According to the image forming apparatus and the control method of the image forming apparatus of the present invention,
1) A configuration in which a print region to be subjected to height printing is specified based on preset height printing setting conditions, and intermediate image data for height printing is processed on the image forming apparatus side Therefore, height printing can be performed only by the correspondence on the image forming apparatus side without changing the configuration on the terminal side that issues a print instruction including the printer driver.

  Therefore, it is possible to suppress the renovation cost on the image forming apparatus side necessary for performing the height printing, and it is possible to shift from the conventional printing system to the printing system for performing the height printing at the minimum necessary cost.

  2) Since the data corresponding to the standard print area (form area) is registered and managed, and the form area is set as the height print target area in addition to the conventional drawing print area, the form When printing processing of a plurality of pages in which an area is designated can be performed, the bitmap data generation process corresponding to the form object area can be reused without being performed for each print page.

  Therefore, it is possible to prevent a reduction in the speed of the printing process when performing a height printing process for a plurality of print pages including the form area.

  Embodiments of an image forming apparatus and an image forming apparatus control method according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a first example of a control configuration of an image forming apparatus according to the present invention. In FIG. 1, a printer 1 is connected by a network or a cable and performs print processing with print job data 5 sent from a terminal device that issues a print instruction. In particular, characters, graphics, In addition to the conventional color printing function for forming an image on recording paper in accordance with an image drawing command and a color designation command, the printer 1 has a height printing function and is based on control information set in the printer 1 in advance. Then, a printing area for forming an image having a height on the recording paper is determined, and a printing process using a special toner that gives a height to the determined area is performed.

  The printer 1 includes a print data generation unit 10 and a print unit 20.

  The print data generation unit 10 generates print data that can be processed by the print unit 20 based on the received print job data 5.

  The printing unit 20 further includes a color printing control unit 21 that performs a conventional drawing process, and a height printing control unit 22 that performs a printing process in which a height is given by a special toner. A color printing control unit 21 that develops an image of each color toner that forms a color image and a special toner that forms an image having a given height, and fixes each toner on a recording sheet by a fixing mechanism. Each has a print control unit 22.

  Also, the bitmap data of the image printed on the recording paper includes a color plane provided for each component image in the color expression format (CMYK) that can be processed by the printing unit 20, and a height as an image for height printing. Each of the planes is processed separately.

  The print data generation unit 10 sets the height information in the height information management unit 15 in the height information management unit 15 in which the print unit 20 designates a print area and height necessary for performing height printing. It is generated based on the setting condition 151.

  The print data generation unit 10 includes a print job data analysis unit 11, an intermediate image data generation unit 12, a height print intermediate image data generation unit 13, an intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14, and a height information management unit 15. .

  The print job data analysis unit 11 analyzes the print job data 5 received from a print instruction terminal (not shown) connected to the printer 1, and displays each of graphic drawing information 52, image drawing information 53, and character drawing information 54. Each object is extracted and classified, and drawing information corresponding to the graphic drawing region processing unit 121, the image drawing region processing unit 122, and the font drawing region processing unit 123 of the intermediate image data generation unit 12 is output.

  The intermediate image data generation unit 12 includes an image drawing region processing unit 121, a graphic drawing region processing 122, and a font drawing region processing unit 123.

  The intermediate image data generation unit 12 uses the position of each pixel in the print page of the object to be printed, the color designation information, based on the print area specified by the graphic drawing information 52, the image drawing information 53, and the character drawing information 54. Intermediate image data 6 indicating the type of the object attribute to be generated is generated, a development process to a bitmap corresponding to each print object is performed, and output to the height print intermediate image data generation unit 13.

  The height information management unit 15 records and manages the height information setting condition 151 that records the attribute type of the object to be height printed and the height level in height printing.

  The height information setting condition 151 can be set and changed on an operation panel provided in the printer 1 or an external terminal connected to the printer 1.

  The height print intermediate image data generation unit 13 uses the intermediate image data 6 generated by the intermediate image data generation unit 12 to obtain information on the position and size of the object attribute corresponding to the height information setting condition 151 on the print page. , And the height print intermediate image data 8 expressed by giving the “height level” set in the height information setting condition 151 is generated and output to the intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14.

  Further, the height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13 converts all the print objects expanded into the intermediate image data 6 into the data format of the drawing printing intermediate image data 7, and outputs the intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14. Output to.

  The intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14 generates bitmap data decomposed for each component image in the color expression format handled by the printing unit 20 based on the color designation information of the drawing / printing intermediate image data 7 and generates each color component. Output to the corresponding plane buffer (C buffer, M buffer, Y buffer, K buffer).

  Further, the intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14 is based on the data of the height print intermediate image data 8 and includes a bitmap including information on the position and size of each pixel forming the stereoscopic image on the print page and the height level. Data is generated and output to the height plane buffer corresponding to the height printing control unit 22 of the printing unit 20.

  The print unit 20 is configured to start the formation of an image to be printed and the development processing based on the bitmap data of the image corresponding to each plane received from the intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14, the color The plate printing control unit 21 is controlled to perform printing processing on the recording paper.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of the height information setting condition 151 of the height information management unit 15 illustrated in FIG.

  In FIG. 2, the height information setting condition 151 includes “attribute type”, “height information setting condition”, and “set height level”.

  Further, the number of steps indicating the height level at the time of printing finish designated by the “set height level” is determined by the number of levels that can be handled by the height printing control unit 22.

  For example, FIG. 2 is a setting table when the data area assigned to the height level is 2 bits (1 to 4), and a character area is included as a print object (“attribute type” is “Font”). The object to which the height print information is added is the object to which the object whose character font size is 20 points or more is assigned the height information, and is set in the height print intermediate image data 8 at that time. This indicates that the height setting level is “4”.

  For image images (“attribute type” is “Image”), the height is set to all areas of the object, and the height setting level at that time is “1”. .

  In addition, for a graphic area (“attribute type” is graphic), this indicates that height printing is not performed.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of the intermediate image data 6, the drawing print intermediate image data 7, and the height print intermediate image data 8.

  In FIG. 3, the intermediate image data 6 indicates that the area of each object in the print page is the number of lines in the print page determined by the minimum unit pixel of the print area processed by the print unit 20 and the scanning on each line. This is expressed by line data indicating the position of a two-dimensional space composed of the number of pixels assigned in the direction.

  The line data includes a line position “start point y” on the print page, a “start point x” indicating the position from the base point on the line, and a “long” indicating the length from the start point in the line scanning direction. ”,“ Attribute type ”indicating the type of the corresponding print object, and color information“ color designation information ”of the print object expanded into line data.

  The drawing / printing intermediate image data 7 includes data obtained by removing the “attribute type” from each line data of the intermediate image data 6.

  Further, the height print intermediate image data 8 is a part of line data having the object attribute type set in the height information setting condition 151, “start point x, start point y”, “length”, and height It is composed of “height level” set in the height information setting condition 151.

  In the example of FIG. 3, the line data whose “attribute type” is “font” is the target of height printing, and “4” is given as the height level.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure of print data generation processing to the print unit 20 in the print data generation unit 10 shown in FIG.

  When the print data generation unit 10 receives the print job data 5, the print job data analysis unit 11 extracts the document data 51 from the received print job data 5 (S 101). The data is classified into drawing information 52, image drawing information 53, and character drawing information 54, and output to the intermediate image data generation unit 12 (S102).

  The intermediate image data generation unit 12 generates the intermediate image data 6 from the received graphic drawing information 52, image drawing information 53, and character drawing information 54, and outputs the intermediate image data 6 to the height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13 (S103).

  The height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13 determines whether or not there is line data corresponding to the height information setting condition 151 in the received intermediate image data 6 (S104), and the line data to which “height level” is added is determined. If there is (YES in S104), the height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13 acquires “height level” from the height information setting condition 151 (S105), generates height printing intermediate image data 8, and generates intermediate image data. The data is output to the buffer output control unit 14 (S106).

  If the intermediate image data 6 does not have line data having an attribute type to which height information is to be added (NO in S104), the height print intermediate image data generation unit 13 uses the intermediate image data 6 to the drawing print intermediate image data 7 Are generated and output to the intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14, and the intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14 generates and outputs bitmap data for each plane, and issues a print instruction to the print unit 20 (S107). .

  Next, an image forming apparatus and a control method for the image forming apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention will be described.

  FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a second control configuration of the print data generation unit 10 corresponding to the print job data 5 that can be designated for height printing for each print object.

  In FIG. 5, the document data 51 of the print job data 5 is a graphic drawing information height designation object attribute 521 and an image drawing information height designation with respect to the graphic drawing information 52, the image drawing information 53, and the character drawing information 54. Separately specifying information indicating the height of each object, such as the object attribute 531 and the height specification object attribute 541 for character drawing information, and a three-dimensionalization that designates a height area having no drawing information separately from these print objects. The area drawing information 55 has a data format that can be specified.

  In order to correspond to the data format of the second print job data 5, as the configuration of the print data generation unit 10, the intermediate image data generation unit 12 of the print data generation unit 10 shown in FIG. The designated drawing area processing unit 124 is further added and provided.

  Further, the height information setting condition 151 includes a graphic drawing information height designation object attribute 521, an image drawing information height designation object attribute 531, a character drawing information height designation object attribute 541, and a three-dimensionalization. A correspondence table for converting each specified value of the height information specified in the area drawing information 55 into a representation of a height level that can be handled by the height printing control unit 22 in the printing unit 20; Alternatively, information corresponding to a conversion formula or the like is further stored and managed.

  In the print data generation unit 10, the print job data analysis unit 11 starts from the document data 51 of the print job data 5, the graphic drawing information height designation object attribute 521, the image drawing information height designation object attribute 531, the character The drawing information height designation object attribute 541 and the three-dimensional area drawing information 55 are extracted, and the extracted data is further output to the height designation drawing area processing unit 124.

  In the height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13, line data corresponding to the height information addition condition for the object set in the height information setting condition 151 is extracted as in the configuration shown in the first embodiment. In addition to the configuration for generating the height print intermediate image data 8, in the intermediate image data 6 created by the intermediate image data generation unit 12, the line data of the object for which the attribute type related to the height is set is extracted, and the height print is performed. The intermediate image data 8 is generated, and the drawing / printing intermediate image data 7 is generated using line data other than the object related to the height.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of the intermediate image data 6, the drawing printing intermediate image data 7, and the height printing intermediate image data 8 in the second embodiment.

  The data structure of the line data of the drawing print intermediate image data 7 and the height print intermediate image data 8 in FIG. 6 is the same as the data format described in the first embodiment.

  In FIG. 6, the intermediate image data 6 has a line record in which “Graphic | height” and “height” are set as attribute types. This is because the print area specified by the graphic drawing command is in height printing. Indicates that this is a three-dimensional target area.

  Accordingly, it is indicated that the height printing intermediate image data 8 is processed for the line data in which “Graphic | height” and “height” are set as the attribute type.

  On the other hand, in the drawing / printing intermediate image data 7, the line data having only the attribute type “Height” among the line data of the intermediate image data 6 does not have color designation information, and is excluded from the drawing processing by the color plane. Indicates that

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a procedure of print data generation processing in the print data generation unit 10 shown in FIG.

  The print data generation unit 10 extracts the document data 51 from the print job data 5 in the print job data analysis unit 11 (S201). From the document data 51, the three-dimensional area drawing information 55 and the height specification object for graphic drawing information are displayed. An intermediate image data generation unit that extracts and classifies each print object including the designation information related to height printing of the attribute 521, the height designation object attribute 531 for image drawing information, and the height designation object attribute 541 for character drawing information. 12 (S202).

  The intermediate image data generation unit 12 generates the intermediate image data 6 based on the data classified for each attribute of the print object received from the print job data analysis unit 11 and outputs the generated intermediate image data 6 to the height print intermediate image data generation unit 13. (S203).

  The height print intermediate image data generation unit 13 extracts line data in which the object attribute indicating the height is specified in the “attribute type” in the intermediate image data 6, and generates the height print intermediate image data 8 (YES in S204). , S205).

  Next, the height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13 extracts line data having “attribute type” to which the height information of the height information setting condition 151 is added (YES in S206), and is set in the height information setting condition 151. The height printing intermediate image data 8 assigned with the “height level” is created (S207) and added to the height printing intermediate image data 8 (S208).

  Further, from the line data of the intermediate image data 6, all line data other than “attribute type” indicating only the attribute of height is extracted to generate the drawing / printing intermediate image data 7 (S 209), and the intermediate image data buffer It outputs to the output control part 14 (S210).

  Based on the received drawing / printing intermediate image data (with height designation attribute) 71 and height printing intermediate image data (height designation object, condition setting object) 81, the intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14 A bitmap of a print image corresponding to each plane is created and output to the print unit 20 (S210).

  As another example of instructing height printing, FIG. 8 shows print object areas such as an image drawing area 91, a graphic drawing area 92, and a font drawing area 93 (FIG. 8A), and rectangles corresponding to the print object areas. FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating a region 94 (FIG. 8B) and a print image when height printing is performed on the rectangular region 94 (FIG. 8C).

  As a configuration in which the height printing for the rectangular area is automatically performed on the printer 1 side, intermediate image data generation is performed for the print object area specified by the graphic drawing information 52, the image drawing information 53, and the character drawing information 54. A configuration in which the unit 12 automatically generates a rectangular area of each object, a configuration in which the height information setting condition 151 stores a condition for setting the height level of the rectangular area, and a height level to be set; In the image data generation unit 13, height printing may be performed by adding a configuration in which line data belonging to a rectangular area is extracted from 6 and the height printing intermediate image data 8 is generated.

  Next, a description will be given of a third embodiment relating to an image forming apparatus and a control method in the image forming apparatus of the present invention.

  FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a third example of the control configuration in the image forming apparatus of the present invention.

  In FIG. 9, the printer 1 stores and manages information such as the position, size, and color regarding a standardized print area (hereinafter referred to as “form”), and print job data 5 or setting of the printer 1. Based on the above, print processing is performed to form an image obtained by combining the print area specified by the print object specified by the document data 51 of the print job data 5 and the form area.

  FIG. 10 is an image diagram illustrating a print result obtained by combining an image obtained by adding height information to an area where form registration has been performed and a print image corresponding to the drawing area.

  FIG. 10A shows an image of the form area 95 registered in the form data storage unit 161.

  FIG. 10B is an example of an image image of the font drawing area 93 designated by the print job data 5.

  FIG. 10C is a print result image showing the result of a print process in which the image of the form area 95 in FIG. 10A and the font drawing area 93 in FIG.

  Here, the form area 95 shown in FIG. 10A is registered in the form data storage unit 161 and becomes a reusable print area.

  Returning to FIG. 9 again, as a configuration for performing form printing, the printer 1 has a configuration in which the print data generation unit 10 newly includes a form information registration management unit 16.

  The form information registration management unit 16 includes a form data storage unit 161 that records and manages information related to the form area.

  The information recorded in the form data storage unit 161 is generated based on the form information 31 received as the form registration request 3 form registration request 3 generated by the form registration operation on the operation panel or the terminal device connected to the network. Registered and managed.

  Information stored and managed in the form data storage unit 161 includes form data 1611.

  FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of form data 1611 stored in the form data storage unit 161.

  The form data 1611 stores and manages “form data ID”, “form area information”, and “form data application print type”.

  “Form data ID” is information for identifying information regarding each form registered in the form data 1611.

  “Form area information” includes “position information (start point x, start point y)”, “size (length)”, “attribute type (Form) as detailed information of the form area specified for each“ form ID ”. ) ”, Link information to data for recording“ color designation information ”, and the like are recorded.

  The “form data application print type” is information for storing and managing the print classification (common drawing print, height print, or both prints) of the form area for each “form ID”. In the printer 1, the form information registered in is used as a drawing area for conventional image printing processing, or is processed as a target area for height printing, or in both drawing printing and height printing. This is information for setting and managing whether to use.

  For example, in the table of FIG. 11, “form ID 01” is form data used for both drawing printing and height printing, and “form ID 02” is used as an area for drawing printing.

  FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of the form area height level 152 in the third embodiment.

  In FIG. 12, the form area height level 152 is a form area height that is registered and managed as a “height level” that is assigned when height printing is performed on the form area registered in the form information registration management unit 16. The level 152 is further stored and managed.

  The “form region height level” is an individual height level that can be applied in the print unit 20 to a form set to be used for height printing among the forms registered in the form data 1611. It is set information.

  FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of the intermediate image data 6, the drawing print intermediate image data 7, and the height print intermediate image data 8 in the print data generation unit 10 of the printer 1 in the configuration of the third embodiment.

  In FIG. 13, the data representation format of the line data recorded in the intermediate image data 6, the drawing print intermediate image data 7, and the height print intermediate image data 8 is the same as the format described in the first and second embodiments. .

  When performing the printing process in which the form data 1611 registered in the form data storage unit 161 is designated, the intermediate image data generation unit 12 generates line data in which “Form” is set in the “object type” of the line data. Processing to add to the image data 6 is performed.

  Further, when the form data registered in the form data storage unit 161 is a target of height printing, the height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13 sets “FORM type” to “FORM type” in the line data of the intermediate image data 6. ”Is extracted, the form area height level 152 of the height information management unit 15 is specified from the“ form ID ”specified by the“ attribute type ”of the extracted line data, and the height Print intermediate image data 8 is generated and output to the intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14.

  FIG. 14 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of print data generation processing in the image forming apparatus according to the third embodiment.

  When the print data generation unit 10 receives the print job data 5, the print job data analysis unit 11 extracts the document data 51, and if the form print is designated, the form ID is sent to the intermediate image data generation unit 12. Output (S301).

  The intermediate image data generation unit 12 converts the graphic drawing information 52, the image drawing information 53, and the character drawing information 54 specified by the document data 51 into a graphic drawing region processing unit 121, an image drawing region processing unit 122, and an image drawing region. Processing is performed by the processing unit 122 and the font drawing area processing unit 123 to generate intermediate image data 6 of each print object (S302). When a form ID is specified (S303 YES), the form in the form data storage unit 161 Based on the data 1611, line data of the form area is generated, added to the intermediate image data 6, and output to the height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13 (S 304).

  The height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13 creates height printing intermediate image data 8 from the intermediate image data 6 (S305). In particular, in the intermediate image data 6, the line data having the “attribute type” of “Form” is included. If the height information setting condition 151 is set to a condition in which “height level” is given to “form ID” (YES in S306), the intermediate height print image data 8 corresponding to the form area is generated (S307). Then, it is added to the height printing intermediate image data 8 (S308).

  The height printing intermediate image data generation unit 13 creates drawing printing intermediate image data 7 from the intermediate image data 6, and outputs it together with the height printing intermediate image data 8 to the intermediate image data buffer output control unit 14. The data buffer output control unit 14 creates and outputs plane bitmap data to the print unit 20 (S309).

  The image forming apparatus and the image forming apparatus control method of the present invention are required to support height printing without adding or changing the configuration for performing height printing on the terminal device side that issues a print instruction. Available for printing systems.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a control configuration of Embodiment 1 in the image forming apparatus of the present invention. The figure which shows the example of the height information setting condition which a height information management part manages in the control structure of Example 1. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of intermediate image data, drawing printing intermediate image data, and height printing intermediate image data in the control configuration of Embodiment 1. FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an example of print data generation processing according to the first exemplary embodiment. FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a control configuration of Embodiment 2. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of intermediate image data, drawing printing intermediate image data, and height printing intermediate image data in the configuration of Embodiment 2. FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an example of print data generation processing in the control configuration according to the second embodiment. Print image when height printing is performed on the rectangular area of the print object. FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a control configuration in Embodiment 3. Print image showing an example of form printing. The figure which shows the example of form data memorize | stored in a form data storage part. The figure which shows the example of a form area | region height level. FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an example of intermediate image data, drawing printing intermediate image data, and height printing intermediate image data in the configuration of the second embodiment. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an example of print data generation processing according to the third embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Printer 10 Print data generation part 11 Print job data analysis part 12 Intermediate image data generation part 121 Graphic drawing area process part 122 Image drawing area process part 123 Font drawing area process part 124 Height designation | designated drawing area process part 13 Height printing middle Image data generation unit 131 Image drawing region processing unit 132 Graphics drawing region processing unit 133 Font drawing region processing unit 134 Three-dimensional printing region processing 14 Intermediate image data buffer output control unit 15 Height information management unit 151 Height information setting condition 152 Form Area height level
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 16 Form information registration management part 161 Form data storage part 1611 Form data 20 Printing part 21 Color printing control part 22 Height printing control part 3 Form registration information input part 31 Form registration request 311 Form information 5 Print job data 51 Graphic drawing information 511 Height designation object attribute for graphic drawing information 52 Image drawing information 521 Height designation object attribute for image drawing information 53 Character drawing information 531 Height designation object attribute for character drawing information 54 Three-dimensional area drawing information 6 Intermediate image data 7 Drawing Print intermediate image data 8 Height print intermediate image data 9 Drawing area 91 Image drawing area 92 Graphic drawing area 93 Font drawing area 94 Rectangular area 95 Form area 96 Print result image

Claims (6)

In an image forming apparatus that forms a stereoscopic image based on a document including one or more objects,
Selecting means for selecting one attribute information among the attribute information of the object as attribute information of the object to be three-dimensionalized;
Height information setting means for setting height information of a stereoscopic image corresponding to the attribute information selected by the selection means;
When forming the stereoscopic image based on the document, the stereoscopic image formation is performed by controlling the height of the object having the attribute information selected by the selection unit based on the height information set by the height information setting unit. An image forming apparatus comprising: an image forming unit. The image forming unit includes:
Image data forming means for forming intermediate image data in which each object of the document is described by first information indicating the position and size of the object and second information indicating one or more attribute information of the object;
Object extracting means for extracting an object including attribute information selected by the selecting means from among the second information of the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming means;
Stereoscopic image data forming means for forming stereoscopic image data by replacing the second information of the object extracted by the object extracting means with height information set by the height information setting means;
The stereoscopic image forming means for forming the stereoscopic image based on the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming means and the stereoscopic image data formed by the stereoscopic image data forming means. The image forming apparatus according to 1. In an image forming apparatus that forms a stereoscopic image based on a document including one or more objects,
Attribute giving means for giving height information as attribute information of the object corresponding to the object giving the height among the objects;
Image forming means for forming the stereoscopic image by controlling the height of the object to which the height information is given by the attribute giving means based on the height information when forming the stereoscopic image based on the document; An image forming apparatus comprising: The image forming unit includes:
Forming intermediate image data in which each object of the document is described by first information indicating the position and size of the object and second information indicating attribute information including height information added by the attribute adding unit of the object Image data forming means,
Object extracting means for extracting an object including the height information from the second information of the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming means;
Stereoscopic image data forming means for forming stereoscopic image data by replacing the second information of the object extracted by the object extracting means with the height information;
The stereoscopic image forming means for forming the stereoscopic image based on the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming means and the stereoscopic image data formed by the stereoscopic image data forming means. 3. The image forming apparatus according to 3. In a control method of an image forming apparatus for forming a stereoscopic image based on a document including one or a plurality of objects,
Selecting one attribute information among the attribute information of the object as the attribute information of the object to be three-dimensionalized by the selection means,
Height information corresponding to the attribute information selected by the selection means is set by the height information setting means,
Intermediate image data describing each object of the document with first information indicating the position and size of the object and second information indicating one or more attribute information of the object is formed by image data forming means,
An object including attribute information selected by the selection unit in the second information of the intermediate image data formed by the image data formation unit is extracted by an object extraction unit;
Replacing the second information of the object extracted by the object extracting means with the height information set by the height information setting means by the stereoscopic image data forming means to form stereoscopic image data;
A method for controlling an image forming apparatus, comprising: forming the stereoscopic image based on the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming unit and the stereoscopic image data formed by the stereoscopic image data forming unit. In a control method of an image forming apparatus for forming a stereoscopic image based on a document including one or a plurality of objects,
Corresponding to the object to which height is given among the objects, height information is given by the attribute giving means as attribute information of the object,
Intermediate image data describing each object of the document with first information indicating the position and size of the object and second information indicating attribute information including height information added by the attribute adding unit of the object Formed by data forming means,
An object including the height information in the second information of the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming unit is extracted by an object extracting unit;
The second information of the object extracted by the object extracting means is replaced with the height information by the stereoscopic image data forming means to form stereoscopic image data,
A method for controlling an image forming apparatus, comprising: forming the stereoscopic image based on the intermediate image data formed by the image data forming unit and the stereoscopic image data formed by the stereoscopic image data forming unit.

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