JP2006197213A - Image forming system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming system which is capable of processing image data that are transmitted to a printing device through an image feed device without acquiring the function information from the printing device, and transmitting the image data to the printing device. <P>SOLUTION: The standard resolution is previously determined in image data which are delivered from a digital camera to a printer, and the digital camera transmits the image data converted to the standard resolution when the digital camera transmits the image data to the printer. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming system that includes an image supply device and a printing apparatus, and prints an image using the printing apparatus based on image data supplied from the image supply device.

  A so-called digital camera direct, in which a printer and a digital still camera (hereinafter referred to as a digital camera) are directly connected via an interface such as a USB, and a photographic image stored in a storage medium (memory card) of the digital camera is transmitted to the printer for printing. Printing systems are becoming common.

  In such a print system, generally, a JPEG file of an image to be printed is transmitted from a digital camera to a printer, and the printer can decompress the JPEG file, perform color conversion, resize, etc., and printable data. It is converted to a format and printed.

  On the other hand, a system has been proposed in which a digital camera processes a captured image exclusively for printing and then transmits the image to a printer for printing (see, for example, Patent Documents 1 to 3).

  Patent Document 1 proposes a digital camera direct print system that enables printing of an image from a digital camera and an image according to a printing mode such as a paper size on the printer side, using a unique print protocol with low generality. ing.

  In Patent Document 2, in order to reduce the processing load on the printer, the digital camera decompresses the JPEG file, performs color conversion, resizing, etc., converts it into a printable data format, and sends it to the printer as printable data. However, the image processing load on the printer is reduced.

Further, in Patent Document 3, variations in color reproduction characteristics of each printer are corrected on the digital camera side, converted into a general image file such as JPEG, and transmitted to the printer. Thus, it is described that a stable image that does not depend on printing characteristics for each printer is obtained.
JP-A-8-32911 JP-A-10-290470 JP 2003-134457 A

  With PictBridge that defines the communication procedure in the above-described digital camera direct print system, the digital camera direct print system has become more and more popular, and there has been significant progress in improving the image quality of digital cameras. Image data captured and stored by digital cameras was a maximum of 1 to 2 million pixels / image until several years ago, but in recent years, high-resolution images of 8 million pixels or more per image can be taken and stored. Digital cameras are on sale.

  With the increase in the number of photographic pixels of such a digital camera, the inventor of the present application has found the following new problem in the above-described digital camera direct print system.

  (1) The number of pixels to be processed on the printer side increases, and the load on the printer increases.

  (2) The image file size increases in accordance with the number of pixels, and the transfer load of the image file between the digital camera and the printer increases.

  Due to these factors, there is a problem that the printing speed is reduced during printing.

  It has been newly found that there is a problem in processing a part of image processing of image data for printing on the digital camera side for the purpose of distributing the processing load as in the above-described known example.

  In Patent Document 1, a printer notifies a digital camera of a print mode that can be currently printed, and the digital camera changes the print mode accordingly. For example, if A4 size paper is set in the printer main body, a printer having a paper size detection function automatically notifies the digital camera of the paper size as A4. If there is no paper size detection function, the paper size is selected on the setting panel of the printer main body, and the result is notified to the digital camera. In either case, the digital camera can be notified only when the printer recognizes the current printing mode, and cannot be notified when it cannot be recognized.

  The same applies to Patent Documents 2 and 3, but there is a description that the printing characteristics of the printer are acquired from the printer. However, if the printer cannot recognize the current printing mode, the digital camera cannot be notified.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems. The feature of the present invention is that the image data to be transmitted to the printing apparatus is processed by the image supply device without acquiring functional information from the printing apparatus, and the printing apparatus. An object is to provide an image forming system for transmission.

  An image forming system according to an aspect of the present invention includes the following configuration in order to solve the above problems.

  That is, the image supply device compares the resolution of the image to be transferred to the printing apparatus with the reference resolution, and the image to be transferred is determined in advance when the resolution of the image to be transferred is different from the reference resolution. Means for resizing to the reference resolution, and means for transferring the image resized to the reference resolution to the printing apparatus.

  In addition, the printing apparatus compares the reference resolution image received from the image supply device with the recording resolution of the printing apparatus, and resizes the reference resolution image to the recording resolution of the printing apparatus when the reference resolution and the recording resolution are different. And means for printing an image resized to the recording resolution.

  According to the present invention, the image data to be transmitted to the printing apparatus is resized to the reference resolution in advance by the image supply device and transmitted to the printing apparatus without acquiring the function information from the printing apparatus. Since it is possible to avoid sending a resolution image file, the number of pixels processed by the printer can be reduced. In addition, when the reference resolution is smaller than the shooting resolution of the digital camera, the image file size is reduced, and the effect of reducing the transfer load of the image file between the digital camera and the printer can be obtained.

  In addition, since no function information is acquired from the printing apparatus, a special communication protocol for mutual communication between the digital camera and the printer is not required.

  DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In this embodiment, the case where PictBridge is used to realize direct printing between a digital camera and a printer will be described. However, the present invention is not limited to this.

Embodiment 1 of the Invention
FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention.

  This is because a printing system 1 (corresponding to an image forming system in claims) is composed of a printer 11 and a digital camera 12, and is connected to each other by an interface cable 13 such as a USB.

  The printer 11 includes a communication control unit 11a, a print information management memory 11b, an image resize processing unit 11c, an image rotation processing unit (not shown), an image color processing unit 11d, an image expansion / compression processing unit 11e, and a print control unit 11f.

  The digital camera 12 includes a communication control unit 12a, a print information management memory 12b, an image resize processing unit 12c, and an image expansion / compression processing unit 12d.

  FIG. 2 shows image data 201 photographed with a digital camera, image data 202 obtained by resizing the digital camera to a reference resolution previously determined between the digital camera and the printer, and an L having a size of 89 mm × 127 mm when the printer receiving the image data 202 Reference numeral 203 denotes an image size necessary for performing borderless printing with a recording resolution of 600 dpi.

  In the present embodiment, the resolution of the image data 201 taken with the digital camera is 8 million pixels, and the number of pixels constituting the horizontal × vertical is 3504 × 2336 pixels. Further, the image data 202 indicating the reference resolution indicates that the reference resolution is 6,300,000 pixels, and the number of pixels constituting the width × length is 3072 × 2048 pixels. An image size 203 necessary for performing borderless printing with a recording resolution of 600 dpi on an L size having a size of 89 mm × 127 mm indicates that the number of pixels constituting the horizontal × vertical is 3000 × 2102 pixels.

  FIG. 3 shows an image resizing process executed by the printing system shown in FIG. 1 in accordance with the printing conditions of the printer. It is a flowchart which shows the algorithm which performs.

  First, in step S101, the digital camera obtains from the print information management memory 12b in the digital camera the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the standard resolution for image data delivery determined in advance with the printer.

  In step S102, the digital camera determines whether the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the image data to be transferred to the printer matches the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the reference resolution. If they match and the image resizing process is unnecessary, the process proceeds to S106, and if they do not match, the process proceeds to Step S103.

  In step S103, the digital camera determines whether the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the image data to be transferred to the printer is larger than the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the reference resolution. If the image data to be transferred is larger and the image size of the reference resolution needs to be reduced, the process proceeds to step S105. If the image data to be transferred is smaller, the image size of the reference resolution is reduced to the image size of the reference resolution. If it is necessary to carry out enlargement image resizing, the process proceeds to step S104.

  In step S104, the digital camera performs image resizing processing in order to enlarge the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the image data to be transferred to the printer by the image resizing processing unit 12c so as to match the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the reference resolution.

  In step S105, the digital camera performs image resizing processing in order to reduce the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the image data to be transferred to the printer by the image resizing processing unit 12c so as to match the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the reference resolution.

  In step S106, the digital camera converts the image data, which has been formed into the number of horizontal x vertical pixels of the standard resolution, into a compressed file format such as JPEG by the image expansion / compression processing unit 12d as a process of compressing and filing the image data for transfer to the printer. To do.

  In step S107, the digital camera transfers the image data file generated by data compression in step S106 to the printer via the communication control unit 12a.

  In step S108, the printer decompresses the image data file received via the communication control unit 11a by the image decompression processing unit 11e to obtain image data.

  In step S109, the printer determines the number of horizontal x vertical pixels of the image data obtained in step S108 in advance between the digital camera and the printer, and stores the horizontal x vertical length of the reference resolution stored in the print information management memory 11b. It is determined whether the number of pixels matches. If they match, the process proceeds to S111, and if they do not match, the process proceeds to S110.

  In step S110, the printer performs image resizing processing on image data having a recording resolution at the image resizing processing unit 11c. That is, here, for example, image data of 8 million pixels (3504 × 2336) captured by a digital camera 201 shown in FIG. 2 is converted into image data of 600 dpi / L borderless (3000 × 2102) shown by 203 of FIG. Resize processing is performed.

  The process in step S110 is a process that is not performed if the image resizing process to the reference resolution in step S104 or S105 described above has been performed by the digital camera, or if the image data to be originally transferred has the reference resolution. Therefore, the process in step S110 is a process that is provided in consideration of handling digital cameras that transfer image data without performing image resizing processing to the reference resolution.

  In step S111, the printer performs image resizing on the image data of the recording resolution in the image resizing processing unit 11c. That is, here, the image data of 6,300,000 pixels (3072 × 2048) resized to the reference resolution indicated by 202 in FIG. 2 is converted into image data having no 600 dpi / L border (3000 × 2102) indicated by 203 in FIG. This refers to performing image resizing processing.

  In step S112, the image color processing unit 11d performs color processing on the image data that has been resized to the recording resolution.

  In step S113, the printer prints the color-processed image data with the print control unit 11f.

[Embodiment 2 of the Invention]
An example in which the determination method of step S104 of FIG. 3 shown in the first embodiment is changed as shown in S204 of FIG. All the processes in steps other than step S204 are the same as those in the first embodiment, for example, step S201 corresponds to step S101, and therefore the description of each step is omitted.

  In step S204, since the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the image data to be transferred is smaller than the number of horizontal × vertical pixels of the reference resolution, the digital camera intentionally enlarges this to the reference resolution and performs image resizing processing. Since the transfer data size is increased and the time required for data transfer is increased, the next step is the processing without changing the reference resolution to the number of pixels in the horizontal and vertical directions of the original image data. The process proceeds to S206.

It is a block diagram which shows one embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows an example of the figure which performs an image resizing process with respect to image data. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an algorithm for performing resize processing on image data on the digital camera side and printing using the printer. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an algorithm in which image data is resized on the digital camera side and printed by a printer using the image data in a form to which the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 is applied.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Printing system 11 Printer 11a Communication control part 11b Print information management memory 11c Image resizing process part 11d Image color process part 11e Image expansion compression process part 11f Print control part 12 Digital camera 12a Communication control part 12b Print information management memory 12c Image resizing process part 12d Image expansion / compression processing unit 13 Interface cable

Claims (2)

An image forming system comprising an image supply device and a printing apparatus, and printing out an image supplied from the image supply device by the printing apparatus,
The reference resolution of the transfer image is determined in advance between the image supply device and the printing apparatus in accordance with the recording resolution of the printing apparatus, and the image supply device compares the resolution of the image to be transferred to the printing apparatus with the reference resolution. And means for converting the image to be transferred to a predetermined reference resolution when the resolution of the image to be transferred does not match the reference resolution as a result of the comparison, and an image converted to the reference resolution. Means for transferring to the printing device; means for comparing the received reference resolution image with the recording resolution of the printing device; and if the reference resolution and the recording resolution are different, the reference resolution image is set to the recording resolution of the printing device. An image forming system comprising: means for converting; and means for printing an image converted to a recording resolution.   The image supply device compares the resolution of the image to be transferred to the printing apparatus with the reference resolution. As a result, if the resolution of the image to be transferred does not match the reference resolution and is small, the image to be transferred is displayed. The image forming system according to claim 1, wherein the image forming system transfers the image data as it is without converting to a predetermined reference resolution.

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