JP2007168368A - Printer controlling device, and printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To raise the printing output speed of a printer device by a simple constitution. <P>SOLUTION: This printer device 100 includes a data acquiring section 104 which acquires PDL data, a page data forming section 108 which forms picture drawing data by developing the PDL data, a printing condition acquiring section 114, a data converting section 112 which rotates the coordinate system of the PDL data at 90°, and a conversion controlling section 106. In this case, the printing condition acquiring section 114 acquires printing conditions indicating sheet sizes enough to be printable by a printer body 120, and the paper feeding direction. The conversion controlling section 106 judges whether the PDL data are rotated or not from the printing information of the PDL data acquired by the data acquiring section 104, and the printing conditions acquired by the printing condition acquiring section. When the conversion controlling section 106 judges to rotate the PDL data, the data converting section 112 rotates the PDL data, and the page data forming section 108 forms the picture drawing data by developing the PDL data which are rotated by the data converting section 112. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a printer control device and a printer device.

  In Patent Document 1, in a configuration in which a PDL controller unit and a printer engine unit are connected by a PCI bus and image data to be printed is DMA-transferred, drawing data expanded in the RAM in the PDL controller unit is temporarily stored in an M of PCI / F. A technique has been disclosed in which data that is rotated 90 degrees is written from the buffer memory when the data read from the × N-bit buffer memory and the data read from the buffer memory is written to the RAM of the printer engine unit is transferred to the engine memory. Yes.

Here, on the PDL controller side, drawing data of the vertical paper size is generated in the memory without performing rotation processing, and the drawing data is DMA-transferred from the memory in the PDL board to the memory of the main body via the PCI controller. In the process, drawing data is rotated using a buffer memory provided in the PCI controller.
JP 2002-79712 A

  However, when the drawing data is rotated using the buffer memory as described in Patent Document 1, the next page data cannot be expanded in the buffer until the page buffer becomes completely empty, causing a delay. End up. As a result, there has been a problem that the printing output speed is lowered when rotation is required. In order not to cause such a delay, it is necessary to prepare a large-capacity buffer memory, which causes a problem that the apparatus becomes expensive.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a technique for increasing the processing speed of a printer apparatus with a simple configuration.

According to the present invention,
A PDL data acquisition unit for acquiring PDL data described in a page description language;
A drawing data generation unit that expands the PDL data to generate drawing data;
A printing condition acquisition unit that acquires a printing condition indicating a paper size and a paper feeding direction that can be printed by the printer to be controlled;
A converter that rotates the coordinate system of the PDL data by 90 degrees;
Conversion for determining whether to rotate the PDL data based on the print information indicating the print size and print direction of the PDL data acquired by the PDL data acquisition unit and the print conditions acquired by the print condition acquisition unit A control unit;
Including
When the conversion control unit determines to rotate the PDL data, the conversion unit rotates the PDL data, and the drawing data generation unit expands the PDL data rotated by the conversion unit and performs the drawing. A printer controller for generating data is provided.

  According to the printer control apparatus of the present invention, before the drawing data is generated, the PDL data is rotated as necessary to change the printing direction of the data, so that the data can be generated smoothly and the printer processing can be performed. Speed can be increased.

  In the printer control apparatus of the present invention, the printing condition acquisition unit can be configured to be connected to the printer to be controlled via a bus, and can acquire the printing conditions via the bus.

  Here, the printing condition acquisition unit may be provided on a general-purpose option board. According to the printer control device of the present invention, even if the printing condition is not grasped on the option board side in the initial state, the printing condition of the control target printer can be acquired by the printing condition acquisition unit. Appropriate drawing data can be generated.

  In the printer control apparatus according to the present invention, the conversion control unit may be configured to preferentially perform the lateral feeding when the feeding condition allows the lateral feeding with the same size as the PDL data. It can be determined whether or not to rotate.

  In the printer, the lateral feed / discharge (LEF set) can increase the printing speed than the vertical feed / discharge (SEF (short edge feed) set). For this reason, it is preferable that the data to be printed is created in landscape (landscape) when horizontal paper feed / discharge is possible. According to the printer control apparatus of the present invention, when the lateral feeding / discharging is possible, the printing data is controlled to be horizontally long, so that the printing speed can be increased.

  According to the present invention, there is provided a printer apparatus including the printer control apparatus of the present invention and a print processing unit including a print engine.

  The printer device of the present invention includes a printer main body provided with the print processing unit, the PDL data acquisition unit, the drawing data generation unit, the printing condition acquisition unit, the conversion unit, and the conversion control unit. And an option board, and the printing condition acquisition unit is connected to the printer main body via a bus, and can acquire the printing condition via the bus.

  It should be noted that any combination of the above-described constituent elements and a conversion of the expression of the present invention between a method, an apparatus, a system, a recording medium, a computer program, etc. are also effective as an aspect of the present invention.

  According to the present invention, the processing speed of the printer apparatus can be increased with a simple configuration.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In all the drawings, the same reference numerals are given to the same components, and the description will be omitted as appropriate.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printer apparatus according to the present embodiment.
The printer apparatus 100 includes a printer controller (printer control apparatus) 102 and a printer main body 120. The printer main body 120 has a print engine and performs printing processing. The printer main body 120 can be a network facsimile apparatus such as an MFP (Multi Functional Peripheral) having a network printer function, a network scanner function, and the like. The printer controller 102 can be a general-purpose option board. The printer controller 102 and the printer main body 120 are connected via a bus such as a PCI bus, and exchange data. By connecting the printer controller 102 and the printer main body 120 by a general-purpose bus such as a PCI bus, the printer controller 102 can be used for general purposes regardless of the type of the printer main body 120. That is, a plurality of types of printer main bodies 120 can be controlled by one type of printer controller 102.

  The printer controller 102 receives PDL (Page Description Language) data created by the driver in the PC 200 via the network 150. The network 150 can be, for example, a LAN, a USB, or a parallel cable. Next, the printer controller 102 draws PDL data to generate page data, and transfers the page data to the printer main body 120. In the case of performing processing in this series of procedures, conventionally, for example, when vertically long (portrait: portrait) PDL data is created on the PC 200, the vertically long page data is transferred to the printer main body 120. For example, when landscape-oriented PDL data is created on the PC 200, landscape-oriented page data is transferred to the printer main body 120.

  In the present embodiment, the printer controller 102 rotates the coordinate system of the PDL data by 90 degrees in accordance with the printing conditions indicating the paper size and paper feeding direction that can be printed by the printer main body 120. In the printer main body 120, the lateral feed / discharge can increase the printing speed (PPM: Page Per Minute) more than the vertical feed / discharge (SEF (short edge feed) set). In the present embodiment, the printer controller 102 is capable of paper feed / discharge in the horizontal direction by the printer main body 120. If the PDL data transmitted from the PC 200 is vertically long, the PDL data is generated before the drawing data is generated. The coordinate system is rotated 90 degrees. Therefore, the printing speed can be increased.

  Here, it is assumed that the printer controller 102 does not hold the printing conditions of the printer main body 120 in the initial state. The printer controller 102 acquires printing conditions from the printer main body 120. According to the printer device 100 in the present embodiment, the printer controller 102 acquires the printing conditions of the printer main body 120 and performs coordinate conversion of the PDL data, so that the printing speed can be increased without performing unnecessary processing. it can.

  The printer controller 102 includes a data acquisition unit 104 (PDL data acquisition unit), a conversion control unit 106, a page data generation unit (drawing data generation unit) 108, a transfer control unit 110, a data conversion unit (conversion unit) 112, and print condition acquisition. Section 114 and printing condition storage section 116. The printer main body 120 includes a print processing unit 122, a print condition detection unit 124, a data transmission / reception unit 126, and a printer performance storage unit 130.

  In FIG. 1, the configuration of parts not related to the essence of the present invention is omitted. Each component of the printer apparatus 100 shown in FIG. 1 is not a hardware unit configuration but a functional unit block. Each component of the printer 100 is centered on an arbitrary computer CPU, memory, a program for realizing the components shown in the figure loaded in the memory, a storage unit such as a hard disk for storing the program, and a network connection interface. Realized by any combination of hardware and software. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that there are various modifications to the implementation method and apparatus.

  The printer performance storage unit 130 of the printer main body 120 stores the performance of the print processing unit 122 such as the paper size that can be printed by the printer main body 120 and the printing conditions that indicate whether or not each paper size can be fed in the horizontal direction. . The print condition detection unit 124 detects the performance of the print processing unit 122. The print condition detection unit 124 can detect the performance of the print processing unit 122 based on the paper cassette set in the print processing unit 122 and the presence / absence of paper in the paper cassette. In this case, the print condition detection unit 124 can store the detected performance of the print processing unit 122 in the printer performance storage unit 130. Further, the performance of the print processing unit 122 can be stored in the printer performance storage unit 130 by default. In this case, the print condition detection unit 124 can detect the performance of the print processing unit 122 with reference to the printer performance storage unit 130.

  The data transmission / reception unit 126 transmits the performance such as the printing condition detected by the printing condition detection unit 124 to the printer controller 102.

  For example, the print condition detection unit 124 can detect the performance of the print processing unit 122 after power-on and supply the information to the printer controller 102 via the data transmission / reception unit 126. In addition, the printing condition detection unit 124 can appropriately detect the performance of the printing processing unit 122 while the power is on, and supply the information to the printer controller 102 when there is a change.

  The printing condition acquisition unit 114 of the printer controller 102 acquires the printing conditions transmitted from the data transmission / reception unit 126. The printing condition acquisition unit 114 stores the acquired printing conditions in the printing condition storage unit 116. In this way, the printer controller 102 can grasp the performance of the print processing unit 122 even if the printer controller 102 does not hold information regarding the performance of the print processing unit 122 in the initial state.

  The data acquisition unit 104 receives PDL data from the PC 200 or the like connected via the network 150.

  Note that the timing at which the printing condition acquisition unit 114 acquires the printing conditions from the printer main body 120 and stores them in the printing condition storage unit 116 can be set in various ways. For example, the printing condition acquisition unit 114 can acquire printing conditions from the printer main body 120 when the printer apparatus 100 is turned on and store the printing conditions in the printing condition storage unit 116. The printing condition acquisition unit 114 can acquire the printing conditions from the printer main body 120 and store them in the printing condition storage unit 116 when the printing conditions are changed in the printer main body 120. The print condition acquisition unit 114 can acquire print conditions from the printer main body 120 when the data acquisition unit 104 receives a print job from the PC 200 or the like, that is, when PDL data is received. The print condition acquisition unit 114 can also acquire print conditions from the printer main body 120 every time processing is performed in units of pages. In this way, even when a paper break occurs during the printing process, the PDL data can be processed in accordance with the current performance of the printer main body 120.

  When the data acquisition unit 104 receives the PDL data, the conversion control unit 106 refers to the printing condition storage unit 116. The conversion control unit 106 determines whether to rotate the PDL data based on the print information of the PDL data received by the data acquisition unit 104 and the print conditions stored in the print condition storage unit 116. As described above, in order to perform the printing process quickly, it is preferable to use LEF paper supply / discharge as much as possible. The conversion control unit 106 rotates the PDL data so that LEF supply / discharge is preferentially performed when LEF supply / discharge is possible with the same size as the PDL data under the print conditions acquired by the print condition acquisition unit 114. It can be determined whether or not.

  For example, if the printing condition corresponding to the size of the PDL data is LEF paper supply / discharge, and the PDL data is portrait (portrait: portrait), the conversion control unit 106 determines to rotate the PDL data.

  On the other hand, even when the printing condition corresponding to the size of the PDL data is not LEF feeding / discharging and the PDL data is landscape (landscape: landscape), the conversion control unit 106 determines to rotate the PDL data.

  When the conversion control unit 106 determines that the PDL data is to be rotated, the data conversion unit 112 rotates the coordinate system of the PDL data by 90 degrees.

  The page data generation unit 108 expands PDL data and generates drawing data (raster data). Here, the drawing data is page data composed of drawing data in units of pages. When the data conversion unit 112 rotates the PDL data, the page data generation unit 108 expands the PDL data converted by the data conversion unit 112 and generates drawing data.

  The transfer control unit 110 transfers the drawing data generated by the page data generation unit 108 to the printer main body 120.

  In the printer main body 120, the data transmission / reception unit 126 receives drawing data transmitted from the printer controller 102. The print processing unit 122 includes a printer engine, and prints drawing data received by the data transmission / reception unit 126.

  In the printer controller 102, the page data generation unit 108 encodes and compresses the drawing data using the MH (Modified Huffman), MR (Modified Read), or MMR (Modified Modified Read) method, and then transfers the data to the printer main body 120. Can do. In this case, the print processing unit 122 can print after decoding the compressed drawing data.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of the printer apparatus 100 according to the present embodiment.
When the data acquisition unit 104 receives the PDL data (YES in S100), the conversion control unit 106 refers to the printing condition storage unit 116. The conversion control unit 106 determines whether or not rotation is necessary based on the printing conditions stored in the printing condition storage unit 116 and the printing information of the PDL data received by the data acquisition unit 104 (S102). When the conversion control unit 106 determines that rotation is necessary (YES in S102), the data conversion unit 112 rotates the coordinate system of the PDL data by 90 degrees (S104). If it is determined in step S102 that rotation is not necessary (NO in S102), the process proceeds to step S106. The page data generation unit 108 generates drawing data by expanding the PDL data converted by the data conversion unit 112 or the PDL data as received by the data acquisition unit 104 (S106). The page data generation unit 108 can also encode / compress drawing data. The transfer control unit 110 transfers the drawing data generated by the page data generation unit 108 to the printer main body 120.

  Thereafter, in the printer main body 120, the print processing unit 122 performs print processing.

  According to the printer device 100 in the present embodiment, the PDL data is rotated before generating the drawing data, instead of rotating the data after generating the drawing data. Therefore, it is not necessary to perform a development process using a buffer, and the processing speed can be increased. Further, since the printer controller 102 grasps the performance of the printer main body 120 and performs rotation processing, it is possible to prevent a delay due to useless processing.

  As mentioned above, although embodiment of this invention was described with reference to drawings, these are the illustrations of this invention, Various structures other than the above are also employable.

  In the above embodiment, the case where the data acquisition unit 104 acquires PDL data via the network 150 has been described as an example. However, the data acquisition unit 104 may acquire PDL data stored in a storage medium or the like, for example. it can.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printer device according to an embodiment of the present invention. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a processing procedure of the printer apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Printer apparatus 102 Printer controller 104 Data acquisition part 106 Conversion control part 108 Page data generation part 110 Transfer control part 112 Data conversion part 114 Print condition acquisition part 116 Print condition storage part 120 Printer main body 122 Print processing part 124 Print condition detection part 126 Data transmission / reception unit 130 Printer performance storage unit 150 Network 200 PC

Claims (5)

A PDL data acquisition unit for acquiring PDL data described in a page description language;
A drawing data generation unit that expands the PDL data to generate drawing data;
A printing condition acquisition unit that acquires a printing condition indicating a paper size and a paper feeding direction that can be printed by the printer to be controlled;
A converter that rotates the coordinate system of the PDL data by 90 degrees;
Conversion that determines whether or not to rotate the PDL data based on the print information indicating the print size and print direction of the PDL data acquired by the PDL data acquisition unit and the print conditions acquired by the print condition acquisition unit A control unit;
Including
When the conversion control unit determines to rotate the PDL data, the conversion unit rotates the PDL data, and the drawing data generation unit expands the PDL data rotated by the conversion unit and performs the drawing. Printer control device that generates data. The printer control device according to claim 1.
The printing condition acquisition unit is a printer control apparatus that is connected to the printer to be controlled via a bus and acquires the printing conditions via the bus. The printer control device according to claim 1 or 2,
The conversion control unit determines whether or not to rotate the PDL data so that the horizontal feeding is performed preferentially when the printing condition allows the horizontal feeding with the same size as the PDL data. Printer control device. A printer control device according to any one of claims 1 to 3,
A print processing unit including a print engine;
Printer device including The printer apparatus according to claim 4, wherein
A printer body provided with the print processing unit;
An option board provided with the PDL data acquisition unit, the drawing data generation unit, the printing condition acquisition unit, the conversion unit, and the conversion control unit;
The printing condition acquisition unit is connected to the printer body via a bus and acquires the printing conditions via the bus.

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