JP2007011573A - Printing processing method for information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that it may become a state of a memory shortage or a slashing state depending on states of work executed with a host computer when printing is executed by banding processing. <P>SOLUTION: The information processor for executing development processing of print data develops the print data by deciding a segmented area of the print data after acquiring usable area information of the information processor. It is composed so as to prevent the stop of the printing processing or the deterioration of working efficiency due to the working state in the information processor. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a printing system that generates print data and performs print processing in an information processing apparatus such as a host computer.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, DTP application software for printing out images, characters, graphic objects, and the like has been used in so-called page printers such as laser beam printers and inkjet printers. In general, the following two methods are used as processing for sending print data from the host computer to the printer by the application software described above.

  One is a method in which a high-level drawing command represented by a page description language is sent to the printer, and development processing (rasterization) of images, characters, and graphic objects is performed on the printer side. The other is a method in which rasterization processing is performed by a host computer and the generated image data is sent to a printer.

  The former method is generally widely used because the processing amount on the host computer is small and the time from issuing the print instruction to releasing the resources on the host computer is also small. On the other hand, due to the recent reduction in computer resources such as random access memory, the processing capacity of home-use computers has been dramatically improved, and page data is complicated, and rasterization is performed on the host computer. The method is also often used.

  In addition, since rasterizing the entire full-color page data at once requires a huge amount of memory, both methods generally perform so-called banding that divides the page area into multiple areas and sequentially rasterizes them. It is.

With respect to the above banding processing, conventionally, a method has been proposed in which the bandwidth is a predetermined value or is dynamically changed according to the drawing content to perform rasterization processing (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
JP 9-240073

  In general, in an information processing apparatus represented by a personal computer or the like, while a printing process is being performed by DTP application software, work such as document creation and Internet browsing is often performed simultaneously with other application software. The computer resources such as the storage area that can be used above change from time to time.

  However, in the above-described background art, when rasterizing processing is performed on the host computer, the bandwidth of the banding processing is a fixed default value or variable, depending on only the drawing content on the page. For this reason, depending on the work status on the host computer, the amount of memory required for the entire host computer may be larger than the amount of installed physical memory.

  In such a situation, the printing process stops due to insufficient memory, or on the operating system employing the virtual memory system, the memory contents are continuously saved and written back in the auxiliary storage area and the main storage area allocated to the virtual memory. , So-called thrashing. Since the data reading and writing speed of the auxiliary storage device is usually very slow compared to that of the main storage device, the work efficiency is significantly reduced even if the virtual storage system does not interrupt printing. There was a problem.

  In order to solve the above problems, a print processing method of the present invention is a print processing method of an information processing apparatus that performs print processing by dividing print data into a plurality of areas, and includes a developing step of developing the print data; A first acquisition step of acquiring usable region information of a storage unit of the information processing apparatus; and a determination step of determining a divided region of the print data based on the region information acquired in the first acquisition step. In the divided region determined in the determining step, the expanding step expands the print data.

  According to the present invention, in an information processing apparatus that performs print data expansion processing, by obtaining available area information, a print data division area is determined and print data is expanded. It is possible to prevent the printing process from being stopped or the work efficiency from being lowered depending on the work status in the apparatus.

  Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, the constituent elements described in this embodiment are merely examples, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention only to them.

(First embodiment)
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a printing system according to this embodiment.

  In the host computer 101, a central processing unit (CPU) 102, a main storage device (RAM) 104, an auxiliary storage device (HD) 105, and a peripheral device control device 106 are respectively connected via an internal bus represented by a system bus 103. It is connected. The host computer 101 and the color printing apparatus 107 are connected by a wired or wireless connection (106) such as an IEEE 1394 cable. Further, each of the components may be connected via various networks such as a local area network.

  The color printing apparatus 107 (hereinafter also simply referred to as a printer) may be of any recording system such as a laser beam printer or an ink jet printer. In this embodiment, a color output printing apparatus is taken as an example, but even a monochrome printer is applicable to the present invention. The host computer 101 includes an input device represented by a keyboard (not shown) and an output device represented by a CRT.

  Here, it is assumed that the storage capacity of the RAM 104 mounted on the host computer 101 is 128 MB. The operating system stored and executed in the HD 105 is implemented with a virtual storage system, the size of which is 512 MB, and the storage capacity of the HD 105 is sufficiently larger than that.

  First, the operator instructs the CPU 102 to start a DTP application software program stored in advance in the HD 105 via the input device. The CPU 102 loads the program execution code from the HD 105 onto the RAM 104 and displays an initial screen on the output device.

  The operator places graphic objects such as images and characters on the page area by a general operation in a so-called DTP application not described in detail on the above-described application program. Here, it is assumed that data in which one image is arranged on a page of A4 size (210 mm × 297 mm) is created.

  FIG. 2 shows a page image of the created data.

  The operator issues a print instruction after realizing the desired arrangement. The application program receives a print instruction and starts print processing.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the processing steps of the program after issuing the print instruction. Hereinafter, description will be made according to the flow of FIG.

  In step S301, the program that has received the print instruction acquires resolution information of the output destination printer. Next, in step S302, a memory image size necessary for rasterizing the entire page data is determined from the resolution information acquired in S301 and the page size, and the memory capacity is calculated. In this embodiment, it is assumed that 300 dpi is obtained in step S301. Although the format of the memory image depends on the implementation, in this embodiment, each RGB color is 8 bits, and a storage area of 3 bytes per pixel is required. The storage capacity required for the entire page can be obtained from the following formula.

210 (mm) × 297 (mm) = 8.2677 (inch) × 11.6929 (inch) = 2480 (dot) × 3508 (dot) = 8699840 (number of pixels)
8699840 * 3 (bytes) = 24.89 (MB)
That is, a memory area of about 25 MB is required.

  In step S303, the currently available physical memory amount is acquired. Here, it is assumed that 20 MB is obtained. In order to process 25 MB of data in a 20 MB area, it can be processed by dividing it into a minimum of two times. From this result, the division number 2 is obtained by the division number / size determination processing in step S304. Thereafter, banding processing is performed in which the page area is equally divided and rasterized. This divided image is shown in FIG.

  In FIG. 4, 401 is a division band 1, 402 is a division band 2, and 403 is a division line. The dividing line 403 is not actually drawn. Banding processing is performed in each of the divided band 1 and the divided band 2.

  The dividing method of the banding process is not limited, and the memory image size corresponding to each band may not be the same. The band division direction may also be divided vertically into strips, or may be divided into tiles vertically and horizontally.

  In step S305, a memory image corresponding to the divided band 1 is generated on the memory, and the page start is notified to the printer in step S306. In step S307, the image data for the divided band 1 is rasterized, and the result is transmitted to the printer.

  In step S308, it is checked whether all the bands have been processed. Here, the answer is no, so the process returns to step S307 to rasterize the image data for the divided band 2 and perform printer transmission.

  In step 308, since the rasterizing process for all the bands has been completed, the process proceeds to step S309, and a page end instruction is sent to the printer. Finally, in step S310, the band image on the memory is deleted, and the printing process is terminated.

(Second Embodiment)
The block configuration of the printing system in this embodiment is the same as that in the first embodiment (FIG. 1). The storage capacity and performance of the host computer are the same, and the print data is the same as that shown in FIG.

  The operator activates the DTP application program as in the first embodiment, creates data, and issues a print instruction.

  FIG. 5 shows the processing steps of the program that has received a print instruction. Since S501 is the same as step S302 in the figure in steps S301 and S502 in FIG.

  After notifying the printer of the page start in step S503, the amount of physical memory currently available is acquired in step S504. Here, it is assumed that 10 MB is obtained. From this result, in the division size determination in step S505, for example, 2480 (dot) × 1409 (dot) is calculated as the memory image size for 10 MB, and this is generated in step S506.

  In step S507, the page area corresponding to this area is rasterized and sent to the printer. After the rasterization process is completed, the band memory image is deleted in step S508, and it is checked in step S509 whether the band of interest is the final band. Since the answer here is no, the process returns to step S504.

  In step S504, the amount of physical memory that can be used at that time is acquired again, and 20 MB is obtained here. The remaining area 2480 (dot) × 2099 (dot) of the page corresponds to approximately 14.89 MB and can be stored in the memory. Therefore, a memory image of this size is generated and rasterized in the same manner. Here, the final band flag is set to ON.

  After the band memory image is deleted in step S508, it is checked in step S509 whether all areas have been rasterized. In this case, a page end instruction is issued to the printer in step S510, and the process ends.

  As a result of the above processing, the page image is divided into two different size bands as shown in FIG. 6 and processed. In FIG. 6, reference numeral 601 denotes a divided band 1 (for 10 MB), reference numeral 602 denotes a divided band 2 (for 14.89 MB), and reference numeral 603 denotes a dividing line (not actually drawn).

(Other embodiments)
Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, the present invention may be applied to a system constituted by a plurality of devices or may be applied to an apparatus constituted by one device.

  The present invention can also be achieved by supplying a program that realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments directly or remotely to a system or apparatus, and the system or apparatus reads and executes the supplied program code. The Accordingly, the program code itself installed in the computer in order to realize the functional processing of the present invention by the computer is also included in the technical scope of the present invention.

  In this case, the program may be in any form as long as it has a program function, such as an object code, a program executed by an interpreter, or script data supplied to the OS.

  As a recording medium for supplying the program, for example, floppy (registered trademark) disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, MO, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, magnetic tape, nonvolatile memory card ROM, DVD (DVD-ROM, DVD-R) and the like.

  As another program supply method, a client computer browser is used to connect to an Internet homepage, and the computer program itself of the present invention or a compressed file including an automatic installation function is downloaded from the homepage to a recording medium such as a hard disk. Can also be supplied. It can also be realized by dividing the program code constituting the program of the present invention into a plurality of files and downloading each file from a different homepage. That is, a WWW server that allows a plurality of users to download a program file for realizing the functional processing of the present invention on a computer is also included in the claims of the present invention.

  In addition, the program of the present invention is encrypted, stored in a storage medium such as a CD-ROM, distributed to users, and key information for decryption is downloaded from a homepage via the Internet to users who have cleared predetermined conditions. It is also possible to execute the encrypted program by using the key information and install the program on a computer.

  In addition to the functions of the above-described embodiments being realized by the computer executing the read program, the OS running on the computer based on the instruction of the program is a part of the actual processing. Alternatively, the functions of the above-described embodiment can be realized by performing all of them and performing the processing.

  Furthermore, after the program read from the recording medium is written in a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the function expansion board or The CPU or the like provided in the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the functions of the above-described embodiments are also realized by the processing.

Block diagram of a printing system in the present embodiment Print data page image in this embodiment Print processing step in the first embodiment Page division image in the first embodiment Print processing steps in the second embodiment Page division image in the second embodiment

Explanation of symbols

101 Host computer 102 Central processing unit (CPU)
103 System bus 104 Main memory (RAM)
105 Auxiliary storage device (HD)
106 Peripheral device control device 107 Color printing device 401 Example of division band 1 in the first embodiment 402 Example of division band 2 in the first embodiment 403 Example of division line in the first embodiment 601 Division band 1 in the second embodiment Example 602 Example of split band 2 in the second embodiment 603 Example of split line in the second embodiment

Claims (5)

A print processing method of an information processing apparatus that divides print data into a plurality of areas and performs expansion processing,
A developing step of developing the print data;
A first acquisition step of acquiring available area information of the storage means of the information processing apparatus;
A determination step of determining a divided region of the print data based on the region information acquired in the first acquisition step;
In the divided area determined in the determining step, the expanding step expands the print data. A second acquisition step of acquiring print data expansion information in order to perform the expansion processing of the print data,
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determining step determines a divided region of the print data based on the region information and the print data development information acquired in the second acquisition step. Print processing method.   The print processing method of the information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the area information is a storage capacity of the storage unit.   4. The print processing method of the information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the print data development information is a data amount of the print data.   5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first acquisition step acquires the region information every time the expansion of the expansion step is completed in a divided region having the print data. Print processing method of information processing apparatus.

Images