JP2009021890A - Image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming apparatus which can improve the security of image data by storing the image data to be distributed. <P>SOLUTION: The image forming apparatus capable of making communication with a plurality of personal computers comprises a connection means for connection with hard disks of the personal computers. Furthermore, the image forming apparatus includes a division means for dividing image data for one page to produce a plurality of divided data items and a storage means for storing the plurality of divided data items while distributing them over the registered hard disks. Thus, image data for one page are stored while being distributed over the hard disks of the plurality of personal computers, thereby improving security of image data. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a printer, a copier, or a multifunction peripheral.

  In recent years, image forming apparatuses such as printers, copiers, and multifunctional machines have become indispensable office equipment in companies, etc., and are connected to personal computers via a network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) for various purposes. in use. Among these image forming apparatuses, there are many models equipped with a hard disk, and all documents in the company are centrally managed on the hard disk as image data.

  That is, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, it is assumed that the user creates a document with the personal computer 621 in a situation where the image forming apparatus 610 is connected to the personal computers 621 and 622 via the LAN 620. When the user prints this document, the image data of this document is input to the input unit 612 of the image forming apparatus 610 via the LAN 620. Then, the printing unit 611 prints the image data, and the image data is stored in the hard disk 613.

  In addition, when the image forming apparatus 610 has a copy function, the document can be copied as follows. That is, first, the user reads this document by reading means (not shown) such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device), thereby generating image data and inputting it to the input means 612. Then, as described above, the printing unit 611 prints the image data, and the image data is stored in the hard disk 613.

In this way, all documents in the company can be centrally managed in the hard disk 613 as image data. An image forming apparatus including such a hard disk is disclosed, for example, in Patent Document 1 below.
JP-A-2005-244656

  However, the above technique has the following problems.

  That is, such a conventional technique is superior in terms of unified management of image data, but has some drawbacks in terms of safety.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 6, when a plurality of users share the same image forming apparatus 610, the image data of the confidential document stored in the hard disk 613 is viewed by other users. Inconvenience can occur.

  In the worst case, it is not impossible to imagine a situation in which someone enters the company and steals the hard disk 613. In this case, all documents in the company will be lost.

  In other words, it can be said that the request for centralized management of documents is contrary to the request for security.

  The present invention has been made in view of such problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus that contributes to improving the safety of image data by distributing and storing the image data.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention employs the following means.
First, the present invention is premised on an image forming apparatus that includes an input unit that inputs image data and a printing unit that prints the image data, and can communicate with a plurality of personal computers via a network.

  In such an image forming apparatus, there is provided connection means for connecting the hard disks of the plurality of personal computers so as to be accessible. Further, a dividing unit that divides one page of the image data to generate a plurality of divided data, and a storage unit that distributes and stores the plurality of divided data in a plurality of connected hard disks are provided. As a result, image data for one page is distributed and stored in the hard disks of a plurality of personal computers, and the safety of the image data is improved.

  Furthermore, release means for releasing the connection is provided. This makes it impossible for a third party to know which hard disk is connected, so that the safety of the image data is further improved.

  It is possible to provide a management means for managing the storage history. Thus, it is possible to restore desired image data by following the history.

  As described above, according to the present invention, image data for one page is distributed and stored in the hard disks of a plurality of personal computers, and the safety of the image data is improved.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings for understanding of the present invention. In this embodiment, the present invention is embodied as a digital multi-function peripheral which is a form of an image forming apparatus.

  FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the overall configuration of the multifunction peripheral 100 according to the present embodiment. When a user prints an original using the multifunction machine, the original is placed on, for example, the original platen 103, and a print instruction is given to an operation button of the touch panel 300 provided near the original platen 103. When the instruction is given, printing is performed by operating the following sections (drive sections).

  In the image reading unit 101, the light emitted from the light source 104 is reflected by the document placed on the document table 103, and is guided to the image sensor 108 such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) by mirrors 105, 106, and 107. The image sensor 108 photoelectrically converts the received light to generate image data of the document. In this manner, the image data of the document is read by the image reading unit 101.

  The photosensitive drum 109 provided in the image forming unit 102 rotates in a predetermined direction at a constant speed, and around the charger 110, the exposure unit 111, the developing unit 112, and the transfer around the periphery in order from the upstream side in the rotation direction. A device 113 and the like are arranged. The charger 111 uniformly charges the surface of the photosensitive drum 109. The exposure device 111 irradiates light according to the image data read by the image reading unit 101, and forms an electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive drum 109. The developing unit 112 attaches toner to the electrostatic latent image formed by the exposure unit 111 to form a toner image on the photosensitive drum 109. The transfer unit 113 transfers the toner image on the photosensitive drum 109 to a sheet. In this way, the series of processes is performed in the image forming unit 102 as the photosensitive drum 109 rotates.

  Further, when performing printing, the image forming unit 102 draws one sheet from any one of the sheet feeding cassettes 114 to the conveyance path L using the pickup roller 115. Each sheet cassette 114 stores sheets of different sizes, and sheets of a size selected by the user according to the application are fed. The sheet pulled out on the conveyance path L is sent between the photosensitive drum 109 and the transfer unit 113 by the conveyance roller 116 and the registration roller 117.

  When the sheet passes between the heating roller 119 and the pressure roller 120 in the fixing device 118, the visible image is fixed on the sheet by heat and the pressing force on the sheet. In order to perform the fixing appropriately, the heat amount of the heating roller is optimally set according to the paper size. The image forming unit 102 discharges the paper that has passed through the fixing device 118 to the paper discharge tray 121.

  FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram related to control of the multifunction peripheral 100 according to the present embodiment.

  The multifunction device 100 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 201, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 202, a ROM (Read Only Memory) 203, an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) 204, and a driver 205 corresponding to each drive unit in the above printing. They are connected via a bus 206.

  The CPU 201 uses, for example, the RAM 202 as a work area, executes a program stored in the ROM 203, the HDD 204, etc., and transmits and receives data and commands to and from the driver 205 based on the execution result, as shown in FIG. The operation of each driving unit is controlled. Further, each means (shown in FIG. 3) to be described later other than the above-described drive unit operates as each means when the CPU 201 executes the program.

  FIG. 3 is a software configuration diagram of the multifunction peripheral 100 according to the present embodiment.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the MFP 100 can communicate with personal computers (hereinafter abbreviated as “PC”) 321, 322, 323, and 324 via a network 320 such as a LAN (Local Area Network) by a communication unit 311.

  Assume that a user creates a document on the PC 321 under this system, for example. When the user prints the document, the image data of the document is input to the input unit 312 of the multifunction peripheral 100 via the network 320. Then, the printing unit 313 prints this image data. The process up to here is the same as the background art described above.

  The multifunction peripheral 100 of the present invention includes a dividing unit 314. The dividing unit 314 divides one page of the image data (for example, four divisions) to generate divided data. When this image data covers several pages, each page is divided into four.

  As a division method, image data (bit string) for one page can be divided every quarter from the top, but an object of the present invention is to improve the safety of image data information. For example, the following method is adopted.

  As shown in FIG. 4 (a), when dividing the 8-bit data in which the 0th to 7th bits are “01100110” into four, first, the data “00” obtained by extracting the 0th and 4th bits "Is divided data P1. Next, the data “11” obtained by extracting the first bit and the fifth bit is set as the divided data P2. Similarly, the data “11” obtained by extracting the second bit and the sixth bit is set as the divided data P3, and the data “00” obtained by extracting the third bit and the seventh bit is set as the divided data P4.

  That is, generally, n is a natural number, the fourth n bits are the divided data P1, the fourth n + 1 bits are the divided data P2, the fourth n + 2 bits are the divided data P3, and the fourth n + 3 bits are the divided data P4. This method ensures that even large image data can be divided into four. Since this method divides the original image data in a meandering manner, the original image data cannot be restored by simply combining the four divided data P1, P2, P3, and P4. Safety is greatly improved.

  The multifunction peripheral 100 of the present invention stores the four divided data P1, P2, P3, and P4 generated in a distributed manner on the hard disks of the four PCs 321, 322, 323, and 324. For this purpose, the connection means 316 connects the multifunction device 100 and the hard disk according to the following procedure.

  That is, information exchange as shown in FIG. 5 is performed between the multifunction peripheral 100 and, for example, the PC 321. First, when the multifunction device 100 is turned on or a specific instruction is issued from the touch panel 300, the driver 511 of the multifunction device 100 transmits a connection request (1) to the driver 521 of the PC 321. Then, the driver 521 notifies the OS (Operating System) 522 of the PC 321 of the connection request (2). Upon receiving this, the OS 522 issues a connection call (3) to the disk drive 523, and the hard disk can be used.

  Then, a connection success notification (4) is issued from the disk drive 523 to the OS 522, and further a connection success notification (5) is notified from the OS 522 to the driver 521. The driver 521 transmits a connection success notification (6) to the driver 511 of the multifunction device 100, and the driver 511 notifies the OS 512 of the multifunction device 100 of a connection success notification (7).

  By sequentially executing this procedure, data can be written to, read from, or accessed from, the hard disk of the PC 321, 322, 323, 324 via the network 320 from the multifunction device 100. Therefore, the divided data P1 is saved in the hard disk of the PC321, the divided data P2 is saved in the hard disk of the PC322, the divided data P3 is saved in the hard disk of the PC323, and the divided data P4 is saved in the hard disk of the PC324. Then, after the above storage is completed, the release unit 317 releases the connection by the connection unit 316.

  As described above, the MFP 100 according to the present invention divides the image data and distributes and stores the image data in the hard disks of the PCs 321, 322, 323, and 324. Therefore, the safety of the image data can be highly secured. After the storage, as described above, the release unit 317 releases the connection, so that the third party cannot know which hard disk is connected, so that the safety of the image data is further improved.

  In this case, the divided data P1, P2, P3, and P4 that cannot be decoded as images themselves are stored in the PCs PC321, 322, 323, and 324 at approximately the same time. For example, the user cannot see the original image data unless he restores the four pieces of divided data by using the same time as a clue.

  However, it is possible to provide management means 318 for managing the above-described storage history, that is, which divided data is stored in which PC hard disk. This makes it possible to restore the original image data by following this history.

  In the above description, the division is described as four divisions. However, in view of the fact that there are four PCs, the division is merely four divisions for convenience of explanation, and any number of divisions may be applied for application. In addition, it has been explained that the four divided data are distributed and stored on the hard disks of four PCs. For example, if there are multiple hard disks in one PC, they are distributed and stored on these multiple hard disks. Of course it is also possible.

  In the present embodiment, the image data is divided into four, but one piece of parity data corresponding to these four divided data may be created. For example, if 5 PCs are used and 4 (N) divided data + 1 parity data are stored in 5 (N + 1) respectively, one PC cannot be started or the power is turned on. Even if it is not turned on, image data can be restored on the remaining four PCs.

  Further, since the image data is stored in the hard disk of the PC in this way, it is not always necessary to mount a hard disk for storing the image data in the multifunction peripheral 100 itself of the present invention. Therefore, it is finally added that the multifunction peripheral 100 of the present invention can be manufactured at low cost.

  Since the image forming apparatus according to the present invention stores image data for one page in a distributed manner on the hard disks of a plurality of personal computers, the safety of the image data is improved. Therefore, it is useful as a printer, a copying machine, a multifunction machine, or the like.

1 is an overall configuration diagram of an image forming apparatus of the present invention. 1 is a hardware configuration diagram of an image forming apparatus of the present invention. 2 is a software configuration diagram of the image forming apparatus of the present invention. FIG. Explanatory drawing of division | segmentation data generation. Procedure for connecting a hard disk. FIG. 6 is a software configuration diagram of a conventional image forming apparatus.

Explanation of symbols

100 MFP (image forming device)
101 Image reader
102 Image forming unit
103 Document table
104 Light source
105,106,107 mirror
108 Image sensor
109 Photosensitive drum
110 Charger
111 Exposure unit
112 Developer
113 Transfer device
114 Paper cassette
115 Pickup roller
116 Transport roller
117 Registration Roller
118 Fixing device
119 Heating roller
120 Pressure roller
121 Output tray
201 CPU
202 RAM
203 ROM
204 HDD
205 drivers
206 Internal bus
300 touch panel
311 Communication means
312 Input means
313 Printing means
314 Dividing means
315 Storage means
316 Connection means
317 Release means
318 Management measures
320 network
321,322,323,324 Personal computer

Claims (2)

In an image forming apparatus comprising an input means for inputting image data and a printing means for printing the image data, and capable of communicating with a plurality of personal computers via a network,
Connection means for accessing the hard disks of the plurality of personal computers in an accessible manner;
Dividing means for dividing one page of the image data to generate a plurality of divided data;
Storage means for distributing and storing the plurality of divided data in the plurality of connected hard disks;
Release means for releasing the connection;
An image forming apparatus comprising: The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a management unit that manages the storage history.

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