JP2007067579A - Image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a new image forming apparatus capable of storing a large amount of image data when forming an image, at a higher speed of image processing. <P>SOLUTION: An image forming apparatus temporarily stores an acquired image data and forms and outputs an image on an output sheet using a printer part 16. The image forming apparatus comprises a plurality of storage means (RAM15, HD19 and the like) that store image data, a storage control part 21 that controls to store the acquired image data in the storage means with highest processing speed (RAM15) among the storage means, and a read control part 22 that selectively reads image data stored in the plurality of storage means and supplies it to the printer part 16. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that prints out acquired image data with a printer unit, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus that realizes high-speed printing output.

  Conventionally, in this type of image forming apparatus, when copying, all original images are read, the image data is temporarily stored in a memory, and then read out from the memory and printed out. In such an image forming apparatus, when there are a large amount of originals and electronic sorting is performed, the amount of image data becomes large, and accordingly, there is a possibility that electronic sorting may fail due to insufficient storage area. Known from.

  Various techniques for solving such problems have already been devised. For example, a technique shown in Patent Document 1 below has been proposed. The image forming method and apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1 below stores a document image in the first storage unit, and stores the original image in the second storage unit when the storage capacity becomes full during the recording. It has become. Specifically, the first storage means is a hard disk, and when a large amount of originals must be stored at once as in electronic sorting, the second storage means is used for the remaining originals that could not be stored in the hard disk. Is stored in a magneto-optical disk. Here, the first storage means may be a RAM, and the second storage means may be a hard disk.

  As described above, since the conventional technology cannot easily include a single storage unit that can handle a large amount of storage capacity such as an electronic sort, the second storage unit is prepared in advance. .

Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 11-46273 (paragraphs [0020], [0025], [0027], [0063])

  By the way, in the image forming apparatus, not only the above-described output error is prevented, but also high speed printing output is required. However, in the prior art shown in Patent Document 1, high-speed processing is not considered. For this reason, there has been a problem that it is not possible to sufficiently cope with high-speed processing that has been increasingly required recently.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a novel image forming apparatus that not only stores a large amount of image data but also performs high-speed image processing.

In order to solve the above-described problem, an image forming apparatus according to claim 1 of the present application temporarily stores acquired image data and forms an image on output paper by a printer unit and outputs the image. In
A plurality of storage means for storing the image data;
Storage control means for controlling the acquired image data to be stored in the storage means having the fastest processing speed among the plurality of storage means;
Read control means for selectively reading image data stored in the plurality of storage means and supplying the image data to the printer unit;
It is characterized by comprising.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus according to the first aspect, the plurality of storage units are at least two selected from a RAM, an HD, and an external storage memory. To do.

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus according to the first or second aspect, the storage control unit stores the acquired image data in a storage unit having the fastest processing speed in the plurality of storage units. If the data cannot be stored, control is performed such that the data is stored in another storage means having the next highest processing speed.

  By providing the above-described configuration, the present invention has the following excellent effects. That is, in the invention according to claim 1 of the present application, since the storage control means controls so as to preferentially use the storage means having the fastest processing speed among the plurality of storage means, it is performed relatively frequently. When forming a small amount of image data, the image data can be stored in the storage means having a high processing speed, so that the image formation can be performed at a high speed.

  Further, according to the invention of claim 2 of the present application, in these storage means, the processing speed of the RAM is the fastest, followed by the HD and the external storage memory.

  Further, according to the invention according to claim 3 of the present application, when a job with a large amount of image data is acquired, it may not be possible to store in a storage means having the fastest processing speed, for example, RAM. In this case, since the data that could not be stored in the RAM is controlled to be stored in the storage device with the next fastest processing speed, for example, HD, a storage error or the like occurs even when a large-capacity job is received. In addition, electronic sorting can be performed in the read control means. That is, since image data can be stored using a plurality of storage means, no storage error or electronic sort failure occurs, and in addition, the storage means to be stored is selected according to the processing speed. Can also be achieved.

  Hereinafter, specific examples of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to examples and drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an image forming apparatus in an embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment described below, an image forming apparatus having two RAMs and HDs as storage means will be described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and various external memories such as an MO, a CD-RW, and a flash memory may be provided. Needless to say, it is controlled according to the processing speed.

  An image forming apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 1 includes a main control unit 10 that controls the image forming apparatus 1 as a whole, an operation unit 11 that is operated by a user, a host PC interface 12 that is connected to the host PC 2, and A PDL processing unit 13 that develops a PDL (Page Description Language) input from the host PC 2 into a bitmap image, a page memory unit 14 that stores image data obtained by the PDL processing unit 13, and a page memory A RAM (Random Access Memory) 15 that sequentially stores image data of the unit 14, a printer unit 16 that prints and outputs image data on a predetermined sheet, a scanner unit 17 that reads a document, and a scanner unit 17 are connected. A scanner interface 18, an HD (Hard Disk) 19 for storing and storing image data, and an HD interface for connecting the HD 19. When the interface 20 and image data acquired continuously are first supplied to the RAM 15 and it is detected that the storage capacity of the RAM 15 is full, the storage control unit 21 supplies image data acquired thereafter to the HD 19. And a read control unit 22 that selectively reads out image data stored in the RAM 15 and image data stored in the HD 19 and supplies the image data to the printer unit 16.

  The main control unit 10 sets the size of the print data input from the host PC 2 by the setting control data corresponding to the job, the setting of the electronic sort mode, and the like, and the ROM ( Read Only Memory) 101 is provided. This setting is similarly performed by an operation input to the operation unit 11 for a job of image data obtained by reading a document with the scanner unit 17.

  Next, the operation of the image forming apparatus 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention described above will be described. When the print data input from the host PC 2 is normally printed and output, the main control unit 10 processes the print data obtained via the host PC interface 12 by the PDL processing unit 13 and outputs it as image data. Then, the image data is temporarily stored in the page memory unit 14 and then supplied to the printer unit 16 to be printed on a predetermined sheet and output.

  When outputting the image data in the electronic sort mode, the main control unit 10 sets the electronic sort mode. Image data for each job obtained by the host PC 2 or the scanner unit 17 is sequentially supplied to the RAM 15 by the storage control unit 21 and stored therein. The image data stored in the RAM 15 is read by the read control unit 22 and output from the printer unit 16. Reading from the RAM 15 is performed at a number corresponding to a predetermined number of copies.

  When there is a large amount of image data for each job, the storage capacity in the RAM 15 becomes full, and the storage control unit 21 switches to supply image data acquired thereafter to the HD 19. The acquired image data is sequentially stored in the HD 19 until the end of the job unit.

  When outputting image data, the read control unit 22 reads the image data stored in the RAM 15 and supplies it to the printer unit 16. The printer unit 16 prints the image data on a predetermined sheet and outputs it. When the reading of the image data stored in the RAM 15 is completed, the read control unit 22 continues to read the image data stored in the HD 19 and supplies it to the printer unit 16. For this reason, the printer unit 16 continuously outputs image data for each job. Then, the read control unit 22 starts reading image data from the RAM 15 again. As a result, the next output by the printer unit 16 is performed and electronic sorting is achieved.

  According to the above-described embodiment of the present invention, the storage control unit 21 stores the image data continuously acquired in the RAM 15 having the fastest processing speed first, and then the storage capacity in the RAM 15 becomes full. Store in the HD 19 with high processing speed. Then, the read control unit 22 selectively reads image data from the RAM 15 and the HD 19. Therefore, in image formation of a small amount of image data that is performed relatively frequently, all image data can be stored as a job unit in the RAM 15 having a high processing speed, so that image formation can be performed at high speed. On the other hand, if there is a large amount of image data for each job, it is stored not only in the RAM 15 but also in the HD 19 having a large storage capacity. As described above, storing all the image data in units of jobs is necessary to achieve electronic sorting. However, in order to achieve a large storage capacity with only the RAM 15, the number of parts increases, which is disadvantageous in terms of cost. On the other hand, the present invention solves this problem by effectively using HD19.

  Further, although the processing speed of the HD 19 is slower than that of the RAM 15, it is possible to achieve image formation at a sufficient speed as a whole in processing in the electronic sort mode.

  Further, in the embodiment of the present invention, the HD 19 as a disk drive device is incorporated in the main body of the image forming apparatus 1, but the present invention is not limited to this and may be separated from the main body.

  In the embodiment of the present invention, the storage control unit 21 and the read control unit 22 are provided independently. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and they may be integrated, or the main control. The configuration may be variously changed as necessary, such as being incorporated in the unit 10.

  In the embodiment of the present invention, the electronic sort function is to output all pages of the image data a plurality of times. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and from the stored image data. An arbitrary one may be read and output a plurality of times.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an image forming apparatus in an embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

1 Image forming apparatus 2 Host PC
10 main control unit 11 operation unit 12 (for host PC) interface 13 PDL processing unit 14 page memory unit 15 RAM
16 Printer unit 17 Scanner unit 18 (for scanner) Interface 19 HD
20 (for HD) interface 21 storage control unit 22 read control unit

Claims (3)

In an image forming apparatus that temporarily stores acquired image data and forms and outputs an image on output paper by a printer unit.
A plurality of storage means for storing the image data;
Storage control means for controlling the acquired image data to be stored in the storage means having the fastest processing speed among the plurality of storage means;
Read control means for selectively reading image data stored in the plurality of storage means and supplying the image data to the printer unit;
An image forming apparatus comprising:   The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of storage units are at least two selected from a RAM, an HD, and an external storage memory.   The storage control unit controls the storage unit having the fastest processing speed to store the acquired image data in another storage unit having the next fastest processing speed when the plurality of storage units cannot store the acquired image data. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image forming apparatus is an image forming apparatus.

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