JP2007055133A - Image forming device and image forming system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily change a layout without imposing an overburden on a processor. <P>SOLUTION: The image forming device 1 which forms an image on the basis of information acquired through a transmission route 4, has a receiving section 102 which receives format information including information necessary for the acquisition of images through the transmission route, an analysis section 103 which acquires image acquisition information from the received format information, an image information acquisition section 106 which acquires image information from a processing server connected through the transmission route on the basis of the acquired image acquisition information, an image forming information generation section 108 which generates image formation information on the basis of the acquired image information and the format information, and an image formation section 109 which forms images on the basis of the generated image formation information. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and an image forming system configured in a network.

  An image forming apparatus such as a printer is connected to a network called a LAN (Local Area Network) or a WAN (Wide Area Network). A large number of processing devices such as personal computers are connected to the network, and each processing device can form an image with the image forming apparatus via the network, and the image forming apparatus is shared.

  In the image formation performed through the network as described above, for example, a processing apparatus prepares information necessary for image formation by the image forming apparatus, and the information prepared for each page as a predetermined print unit is stored in the network. Output to the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus performs a printing process based on information from the processing apparatus to form an image.

By the way, in addition to preparing all information necessary for the printing process in the processing apparatus, for example, in Patent Document 1, an image and a format are registered in the image forming apparatus in advance, and then the registered information and processing are performed in the image forming apparatus. It is disclosed that information for print processing is generated based on information sent from an apparatus, and an image is formed by performing print processing based on the information.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-234865

  By the way, as disclosed in Patent Document 1 described above, if the format is stored in the image forming apparatus in advance, the format cannot be easily changed, and the layout of the document or image can be freely changed. I can't do it. On the other hand, in order to freely change the layout in the processing device, all information necessary for the printing process is held, the information is output from the processing device to the image forming device, and the image processing is performed in the image forming device to form an image. Then, it is necessary to store a large amount of information in the processing device, and the processing for image formation is larger than the display, and there is a problem that the processing device is overloaded.

  Accordingly, in view of the above-described problems, an object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus and an image forming system capable of easily changing the layout without placing an excessive burden on the processing apparatus.

  The present invention adopts the following configuration in order to solve the above points.

<Configuration 1>
In an image forming apparatus that forms an image based on information acquired via a transmission path, a receiving unit that receives format information including information necessary for image acquisition via the transmission path, and the received format An analysis unit that acquires image acquisition information from information, an image information acquisition unit that acquires image information from a processing server connected via a transmission path based on the acquired image acquisition information, acquired image information, and format information And an image forming information generation unit that forms an image based on the generated image formation information.

<Configuration 2>
The format information is characterized in that an image is shown in advance.
<Configuration 3>
The transmission path is an IP network, the format information is indicated in HTML, and the URL in the processing server is indicated in the image acquisition information.
<Configuration 4>
The format information includes key information necessary for permitting acquisition of image information in the processing server, the analysis unit acquires key information from the format information, and the image information acquisition unit acquires the acquired key information. Is notified in response to an authentication request from the processing server.

<Configuration 5>
A processing apparatus that outputs format information including information necessary for image acquisition, connected to the transmission path, and an image that is connected to the transmission path and includes the retained image information in the format information A processing server that outputs in response to an acquisition request based on acquisition information, a reception unit that receives format information via a transmission path, an analysis unit that acquires image acquisition information from the received format information, and an acquired image acquisition information Based on the image information acquisition unit that acquires image information from the processing server, the image formation information generation unit that generates image formation information based on the acquired image information and format information, and the generated image formation information And an image forming apparatus having an image forming unit that forms an image.

  According to the present invention, when the image forming apparatus receives the format information, the image forming apparatus acquires the image information from the processing server based on the image acquisition information included in the format information, and the image based on the acquired image information and the format information. By generating the formation information and forming the image based on the image formation information, it is not necessary to register the format information in advance in the image forming apparatus. Thus, the layout can be easily changed. Furthermore, since each piece of information for generating image formation information is distributed and stored in the processing device and the processing server, the load on the processing device can be reduced.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. In the following description, the same constituent elements in the drawings used in each embodiment will be given the same reference numerals, and redundant description will be omitted as much as possible.

  As shown in FIG. 1, an image forming system 10 according to the first exemplary embodiment includes a printer 1 as an image forming apparatus, a client PC 2 as a processing apparatus, and a WWW server 3 as a processing server. The network 4 is connected via a network 4 called an IP (Internet Protocol) network.

  By the way, each device connected to the network 4 is pre-assigned an IP address for communication according to a communication protocol called http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and each device designates the IP address as a communication partner. Thus, IP communication can be performed with the designated device.

The client PC 2 outputs the print information (format information) indicated by the format necessary for printing and the contents to be printed shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 2, the print information includes a control command for controlling the printer 1 and print contents described in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). The print contents include characters, layouts, and the like, and further information necessary for acquiring an image arranged according to the layout.

  2, the image acquisition information for acquiring an image is “http: //www.***.com/img” following “SRC =” in the print contents described in HTML. /Fuji.jpg ".

  An IP address indicated by “www. ***. Com” is assigned to the WWW server 3, and the WWW server 3 that has received an information acquisition request from a device that designates the IP address as a communication partner is, for example, The document shown in FIG. 3 is notified to the requesting device. The WWW server 3 manages the document shown in FIG. 3 in a systematic manner, for example, for each advertisement, image, character, layout, etc., and manages each document in response to an acquisition request by the browser function provided in the requesting device. Notify information. The requesting device can obtain the document shown in FIG. 3 by combining the acquired information using the browser function.

  In addition, the apparatus that makes an information acquisition request can acquire only a part of information in each piece of information combined to obtain the document shown in FIG. For example, when the information held in the WWW server 3 is “fuji.jpg”, and the information is organized and managed as indicated by “/img/fuji.jpg”, the device connected to the network 4 “ The WWW server 3 that has received the information acquisition request indicated by “http: //www.***.com/img/fuji.jpg” can notify only the specified information to the requesting apparatus.

  In the following description, information such as characters and videos systematically managed by the WWW server 3 is referred to as image information, and the WWW server 3 that has received the acquisition request for the image information outputs the specified image information. This will be explained with an example.

  The printer 1 includes a network interface 101 that performs control for communicating with each device connected to the network 4, a receiving unit 102 that performs control for acquiring print information from the client PC 2 via the network interface 101, and Analyzing the print information and acquiring the print contents and control commands described in HTML respectively, the control command processing section 104 performing processing based on the acquired control commands, and the print contents described in HTML An HTML processing unit 105 that analyzes and acquires image acquisition information, an image information acquisition unit 106 that acquires image information managed by the WWW server 3 based on the acquired image acquisition information, and a bit obtained by expanding the acquired image information An expansion unit 107 that generates a map, and an HTML processing unit 1 that generates the generated bitmap 5 is combined with the print contents from 5 to generate image formation information, the combining unit (image formation information generation unit) 108 that generates the generated image formation information, and rasterizing the generated image formation information to generate raster data And a printer unit (image forming unit) 109 that generates and forms an image based on the raster data.

  The analysis unit 103 analyzes the print information illustrated in FIG. 2 and acquires a control command and print contents. Note that the analysis unit 103 specifies the print content within the range indicated by “<HTML> to“ / HTML ”of the print information, acquires the print content, and obtains“ PAPERSIZE = A4 ”and“ PAPERTRY = 1 ”. And “PRINT” is acquired as a control command.

  The control command processing unit 104 performs print control based on the control command acquired by the analysis unit 103. With this control, A4 size paper is selected by the control command indicated by “PAPERSIZE = A4” on the first line in the print information, and a paper feed tray (not shown) is selected by the control command indicated by “PAPERTRAY = 1” on the second line. A sheet feed tray 1 associated with the group is selected, and image forming information is generated by a combining unit 108, which will be described later, according to a control command indicated by “PRINT” in the last row, and based on the image forming information by the printer unit 109. Image formation is performed.

  The HTML processing unit 105 analyzes the print content described in HTML acquired by the analysis unit 103, detects, for example, an “IMG” tag that needs to read another file, and links described after the tag. The previous address is acquired as image acquisition information. Accordingly, in FIG. 2, the HTML processing unit uses the link address indicated by “http: //www.***.com/img/fuji.jpg” designated by the attribute “src =” as image acquisition information. Obtained at 105.

  The image information acquisition unit 106 acquires image information via the network interface 101 based on the image acquisition information acquired by the HTML processing unit 105. In this embodiment, “/ img / fuji.” Managed by the WWW server 3 based on image acquisition information indicated by “http: //www.***.com/img/fuji.jpg”. jpg "is obtained.

  The image information acquired by the image information acquisition unit 106 is generally a compressed image such as “GMP” or “JPG”, and the expansion unit 107 performs compression image expansion processing to form bitmap data that can be formed as an image. Is generated.

The combining unit 108 generates image formation information by incorporating the bitmap data generated by the image information acquisition unit 106 into the print content acquired from the HTML processing unit 105.
The printer unit 109 generates raster data by performing rasterization processing so as to form an image based on the image formation information generated by the synthesis unit 108, and is supplied from the paper feed tray 1 based on the raster data. An image is formed on A4 size paper.

  Next, the operation of the image forming system 10 according to the first embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Note that the description will be made on the assumption that the information shown in FIG. 3 is systematically managed in advance by the WWW server 3.

The printer 1 obtains the print information shown in FIG. 2 from the client PC 2 through the network interface 101 by the receiving unit 102 (step S1).
The acquired print information is analyzed by the analysis unit 103. When the analysis unit 103 analyzes the print information and acquires a control command included in the print information (step S2), the control command processing unit 104 performs control based on the control command (step S3).

  On the other hand, when the print content described in HTML is acquired by the analysis in the analysis unit 103, the HTML processing unit 105 analyzes the acquired print content and detects an “IMG” tag or the like that needs to read another file ( Step S4).

  The analysis unit 103 needs to read another file, and uses a link destination address (“http: //www.***.com/img/fuji.jpg”) for acquiring the file as image acquisition information. Upon acquisition, the image information acquisition unit 106 makes an image information acquisition request via the network interface 101 based on the acquired image acquisition information. As a result, the image information acquisition unit 106 acquires image information indicated by “/img/fuji.jpg” (step S5).

The image information acquired by the image information acquisition unit 106 is expanded by the expansion unit 107 and bitmap data is generated (step S6).
By the way, for the tag determined to be a general tag that does not need to read another file in step S4, the HTML processing unit 105 performs processing based on the tag (step S7).

  All the contents shown in the print information are analyzed, and the analysis process from step S2 is repeated until the process according to the analysis contents is completed (step S8).

  When all the contents shown in the print information are analyzed and the processing corresponding to the analysis contents is finished, the synthesizing unit 108 generates image formation information in which the bitmap data generated by the developing unit 107 is incorporated in the print contents. (Step S9).

  The printer unit 109 rasterizes the image formation information generated by the combining unit 108 and generates raster data. Based on the raster data, the printer unit 109 applies A4 paper fed from the paper feed tray selected by the control command. Form an image. Thereby, the image shown in FIG. 5 is formed (step S10).

  As described above, according to the image forming system 10 of the first embodiment, when the image information is held in the WWW server 3 in advance and the print information including the image acquisition information is acquired from the client PC 2, the print information is analyzed. To acquire image acquisition information. Then, image information managed by the WWW server 3 is acquired based on the acquired image acquisition information, and image formation information generated by incorporating bitmap data obtained by expanding the image information is generated. An image is formed on a sheet by performing a printing process based on the printing process.

  Thus, according to the image forming system 10 of the first embodiment, the printer 1 does not hold the format necessary for the printing process in advance, so that an image is formed in a format arbitrarily designated by an operator who generates print information. The format (layout) can be easily changed.

  Furthermore, according to the image forming system 10 of the first embodiment, since information necessary for generating image forming information for performing printing processing is distributed and managed in the client PC 2 and the WWW server 3, the client PC 2 can manage the information. It is not necessary to retain all information, and the load on the client PC 2 can be reduced.

Next, an image forming system 20 that performs print processing based on print information that includes key information necessary for image information acquisition authentication will be described.
As shown in FIG. 6, the image forming apparatus according to the second embodiment is connected to the client PC 2 via the network 4 as in the first embodiment. Further, the WWW server 5 and the printer 6 according to the second embodiment are connected to the network 4. Connecting.

  In addition to the same function as the WWW server 3 of the first embodiment, the WWW server 5 of the second embodiment receives an acquisition request for image information from the printer 6 and obtains key information to be described later from the printer 6. A request is made, and acquisition authentication is performed based on the acquired key information and previously held authentication information.

  The acquisition authentication is confirmed by matching the password associated with the ID, and the WWW server 5 holds the password associated with the ID as authentication information in advance.

  As shown in FIG. 6, the printer 6 according to the second embodiment includes a network interface 101, a receiving unit 102, a control command processing unit 104, an HTML processing unit 105, a developing unit 107, a combining unit 108, and a printer unit similar to those in the first embodiment. 109, and further analyzes the print information and newly has a function for acquiring a script included in the print information, and executes processing based on the acquired script. The script processing unit 209 that acquires the included ID and password, the temporary storage unit 210 that temporarily stores the acquired ID and password as key information, and the WWW server 5 when acquiring image information from the WWW server 5 When the key information acquisition request is received from the server, the WWW server 5 is notified of the key information held in the temporary storage unit 210. And an image information acquisition unit 206 with a.

  When the receiving unit 102 acquires the print information shown in FIG. 7 from the receiving unit 102, the analyzing unit 203 analyzes the print information and acquires a control command and print contents. Further, the analysis unit 203 uses the link address indicated by “http: //www.***.com/img/fuji.jpg” in the acquired print content described in HTML as in the first embodiment. Acquire it as image acquisition information and acquire a script. Note that the analysis unit 203 acquires, as a script, the content indicated between “<!-ACCSFORM-SCRIPT” and “—>” in the print content, for example. As a result, in this embodiment, “<! — ACCSFFORM-SCRIPT ID =“ 0123 ”, PASS =“ ABCD ”—>” is acquired as a script.

  The script processing unit 209 performs processing based on the script acquired by the analysis unit 203, and acquires the ID and password indicated in the script sentence. In this embodiment, the script processing unit 209 acquires “0123” as the ID and “ABCD” as the password. The script processing unit 209 holds the acquired ID and password in the temporary storage unit 210 as key information.

  The image information acquisition unit 206 makes an image information acquisition request based on the image acquisition information acquired by the analysis unit 203. The WWW server 5 that has received this request makes a request for acquiring key information to the printer 6, and the image information acquisition unit 206 that has received the request notifies the WWW server 5 of the key information held in the temporary storage unit 210. To do.

  The WWW server 5 performs image information acquisition authentication based on the acquired key information and previously stored authentication information, and notifies the printer 6 of image information managed systematically after the authentication.

Next, the operation of the image forming system 20 according to the second embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
The printer 1 acquires the print information shown in FIG. 7 from the client PC 2 through the network interface 101 by the receiving unit 102 (step S21).
The acquired print information is analyzed by the analysis unit 203. When the analysis unit 203 analyzes the print information and acquires a control command included in the print information (step S22), the control command processing unit 104 performs control based on the control command (step S23).

  On the other hand, when the print content described in HTML is acquired by the analysis in the analysis unit 203, the acquired print content is further analyzed to acquire a script. A script is included in the print contents (step S24), and the analysis unit 203 that has acquired the script outputs the acquired script to the script processing unit 209.

  When the script processing unit 209 performs script processing based on the acquired script and acquires the ID and password, the script processing unit 209 holds the ID and password in the temporary storage unit 210 as key information (step S25).

  By the way, the print content acquired by the analysis unit 203 is analyzed by the HTML processing unit 105, and an “IMG” tag or the like that needs to read another file is detected by this analysis (step S26).

  When the analysis unit 203 detects an “IMG” tag or the like indicating reading of another file, the link destination address (“http: //www.***.com” for reading the other file indicated by the tag) is detected. /Img/fuji.jpg ") as image acquisition information.

  The image information acquisition unit 106 makes an image information acquisition request via the network interface 101 based on the image acquisition information acquired by the analysis unit 203.

  By the way, the WWW server 5 that has received the image information acquisition request makes a key information acquisition request to the printer 6. Upon receiving the request, the image information acquisition unit 206 of the printer 1 notifies the WWW server 5 of the key information held in the temporary storage unit 210 via the network interface 101.

  The WWW server 5 performs acquisition authentication based on the acquired key information and authentication information held in advance, and then outputs the requested image information to the printer 6. The image information acquisition unit 106 of the printer 6 acquires image information indicated by “/img/fuji.jpg” (step S27).

The image information acquired by the image information acquisition unit 106 is expanded by the expansion unit 107 and bitmap data is generated (step S28).
By the way, the tag determined to be a general tag that does not need to read another file in step S26 described above is processed by the HTML processing unit 105 based on the tag (step S29).

  All the contents shown in the print information are analyzed, and the analysis process from step S22 is repeated until the process according to the analysis contents is completed (step S30).

  When all the contents shown in the print information are analyzed and the processing corresponding to the analysis contents is finished, the synthesizing unit 108 generates image formation information in which the bitmap data generated by the developing unit 107 is incorporated in the print contents. (Step S31).

  The printer unit 109 rasterizes the image formation information generated by the combining unit 108 and generates raster data. Based on the raster data, the printer unit 109 applies A4 paper fed from the paper feed tray selected by the control command. Form an image. Thereby, the image shown in FIG. 5 is formed (step S32).

  As described above, according to the image forming system 20 of the second embodiment, when processing is performed based on a script acquired from print information, key information is acquired and held, and image information is acquired from the WWW server 5, Key information held in response to a request from the WWW server 5 is output. The WWW server 5 that has acquired the key information performs acquisition authentication based on the key information and authentication information that is held in advance, and outputs the image information that is held after authentication to the printer, so that the image information that is held by the WWW server 5 Can be obtained illegally.

  In the above-described embodiment, the printer is described as an example of the image forming apparatus. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the present invention can be applied to, for example, a facsimile machine or a multifunction peripheral (MFP).

  In the above-described embodiment, the image information read from the WWW server need not be limited to video, and character information such as characters, numerical values, and fonts that can be formed by a printer, advertisement information, and the like are read as image information. Also good.

  In the image forming system according to the second embodiment, the ID and password are notified as key information from the printer to the WWW server. However, the identification information unique to the apparatus given to the printer is included in the key information. The acquisition authentication based on the above may be performed by a WWW server.

1 is a block diagram of an image forming system according to Embodiment 1. FIG. FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating print information according to the first exemplary embodiment. It is a figure which shows the document hold | maintained at a WWW server. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the image forming system according to the first exemplary embodiment. It is a figure which shows the output result from a printer. 6 is a block diagram of an image forming system according to Embodiment 2. FIG. FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating print information according to a second embodiment. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the image forming system according to the second exemplary embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

1 Printer 2 Client PC
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 3 WWW server 4 Network 10 Image forming system 101 Network interface 102 Receiving part 103 Analysis part 104 Control command processing part 105 HTML processing part 106 Image information acquisition part 107 Expanding part 108 Compositing part 109 Printer part

Claims (8)

In an image forming apparatus that forms an image based on information acquired via a transmission path,
A receiver for receiving format information including information necessary for image acquisition via the transmission line;
An analysis unit for acquiring image acquisition information from the received format information;
Based on the acquired image acquisition information, an image information acquisition unit that acquires image information from a processing server connected through the transmission path;
An image formation information generation unit that generates image formation information based on the acquired image information and format information;
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image forming unit that forms an image based on the generated image forming information.   The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein an image is shown in advance in the format information. The transmission path is an IP network;
The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the format information is expressed in HTML, and the URL in the processing server is indicated in the image acquisition information. The format information includes key information necessary for permitting acquisition of the image information in the processing server,
The analysis unit obtains key information from the format information,
The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image information acquisition unit notifies the acquired key information in response to an authentication request from the processing server. A processing device connected to the transmission line and outputting format information including information necessary for image acquisition;
A processing server that is connected to the transmission path and outputs the held image information in response to an acquisition request based on the image acquisition information included in the format information;
A receiving unit that receives the format information via the transmission path, an analysis unit that acquires the image acquisition information from the received format information, and acquires image information from the processing server based on the acquired image acquisition information. An image information acquisition unit, an image formation information generation unit that generates image formation information based on the acquired image information, and format information, and an image formation unit that forms an image based on the generated image formation information An image forming apparatus;
An image forming system comprising:   6. The image forming system according to claim 5, wherein an image is shown in advance in the format information. The transmission path is an IP network;
6. The image forming system according to claim 5, wherein the format information is expressed in HTML, and the URL in the processing server is indicated in the image acquisition information. The format information includes key information necessary for permitting acquisition of the image information in the processing server,
The processing server includes an authentication unit that acquires the key information prior to the output of the image information, and performs authentication based on the acquired key information,
The analysis unit obtains key information from the format information,
6. The image forming system according to claim 5, wherein the image information acquisition unit notifies the acquired key information in response to an authentication request from the authentication unit.

Images