JP2011025539A - Printing device, image output system, rendering method and program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To shorten a processing time by reducing the consumption of a memory necessary for a printing device or a printing system upon printing an XPS (XML Paper Specification) document. <P>SOLUTION: Transparency-rendering determination processing is performed on each of pages by any of filtering parts FP1 to FPn, and the processing mode of a rendering part 202b is switched in accordance with the determination result. If there is the transparency-rendering, rendering is performed by an RGB multi-valued rendering part 202c using an RGB multi-valued virtual frame memory, and superposition between the rendered objects is performed, then, RGB color multi-valued image data of image information about the transparency-rendering is generated, and then, the RGB color multi-valued image data is converted to the corresponding CMYK data, further, converted to CMYK few-valued data. If there is no transparency-rendering, the RGB color multi-level image data is converted to the corresponding CMYK data by a CMYK few-valued rendering part 202d, further, converted to CMYK few-valued data necessary for the rendering data. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image output system including a printer device that prints an XPS (XML Paper Specification) document, a host device that creates an XPS document, and an output device that outputs an image related to the XPS document created by the host device, XPS The present invention relates to a rendering method that performs rendering based on a document and forms image data of an image related to the XPS document in a frame memory, and a program that causes a computer to execute each procedure of the above-described rendering method.

  XPS adopted by Windows Vista (registered trademark) proposed by Microsoft Corporation is an XML-based document format and is also a printer description language (PDL). Advanced expressions such as Transparency (transparent drawing), Gradient (gradation), Canvas (reusable virtual drawing memory) and the like are possible. In this specification, document data created by an application program or the like according to XPS is referred to as XPS document or XPS document data. The XPS specification is shown in Non-Patent Document 1.

  On the other hand, in order to realize high-level rendering such as transparent drawing, it is necessary to render in a multi-value color space (for example, a color space represented by 8 bits for each color of RGB) before the reduction in value. Compared with rendering performed with a small CMYK value, more memory is consumed and processing time is also increased.

  In other words, RGB multilevel rendering performs CMYK conversion and subtraction after performing rendering processing using an RGB multilevel virtual frame memory before rendering in the actual page frame memory. Compared with value rendering, extra RGB multi-valued virtual frame memory is necessary, and because the size of the virtual frame memory is large, the PDL work memory to be used in the rendering process increases. This increases the memory usage.

  As a technique for dealing with such a problem, Patent Document 1 determines whether the content can be processed without performing a transparent operation even when there is a transparent drawing command. There is disclosed a technique in which the drawing processing time is shortened by replacing with a drawing command that does not require transparent drawing with a lower processing load.

  However, in the technique described in Patent Document 1, in the case of transparent drawing, the original correct drawing result may not be obtained because it is replaced with a drawing command (for example, raster operation (ROP)) that does not involve transparent calculation. There is sex.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and a printer device and an image output device that can reduce a memory usage amount required for a printer device or a printing system when an XPS document is printed, and a processing time. It is an object to provide a system, a rendering method, and a program.

  The printer device of the present invention is a printer device for printing an XPS document, and for the XPS document, a determination means for determining whether or not there is data for designating transparent drawing for each page, and a CMYK CMYK small value rendering means for performing rendering processing for one page related to the XPS document using the value rendering pass, and rendering processing for one page related to the XPS document using the RGB multivalue rendering pass. Among the RGB multi-value rendering means to be performed and the above-described XPS document, the CMYK small value rendering means performs rendering processing for the pages for which the determination means determines that there is no data for specifying transparent drawing, and specifies transparent drawing. For pages that are determined to have data to be processed, the RGB multi-value rendering means It is obtained by a rendering control means for causing the Daringu process.

If a problem occurs during the determination process for the XPS document, the determination unit may determine that there is data specifying transparent drawing for the determination target page.
The determination unit may determine whether or not there is data specifying transparent drawing in the page by using an Element or Value included in the XPS document.
When the determination unit detects at least one piece of data that specifies transparent drawing during the determination of one page of the XPS document, the determination unit determines that there is data specifying transparent drawing for the page at that time, and determines the next page. It is good to shift to judgment.
The determination means determines whether or not there is data specifying transparent drawing in the page based on information indicating the presence or absence of data including transparent drawing added to each page of the XPS document by the host device that created the XPS document. It is good to judge.
Parser means for interpreting an XPS document, the parser means interprets information indicating the presence or absence of data designating transparent drawing on the page for each page of the XPS document, and the determination means includes the parser means Information indicating the presence / absence of data specifying the transparent drawing may be acquired from the interpretation content to determine whether there is data specifying the transparent drawing.

  The image output system of the present invention is an image output system including a host device that creates an XPS document and an output device that outputs an image related to the XPS document created by the host device. Using the CMYK low-value rendering path, the XPS document is determined by using a determination unit that determines whether there is data for designating transparent drawing in each page of the XPS document in any output device. CMYK small value rendering means for performing rendering processing for one page, RGB multivalue rendering means for rendering processing for one page related to the XPS document using an RGB multivalue rendering pass, and the XPS document Of these pages, for the pages determined by the determination means to have no data for designating transparent drawing, To perform a rendering process in rendering unit for a page it is determined that there is data to specify the transmission drawing, is provided with a rendering control means for causing the rendering process to the RGB multilevel rendering means.

The rendering method of the present invention is a rendering method that performs rendering based on an XPS document and forms image data of an image related to the XPS document in a frame memory. A determination procedure for determining whether or not there is data for designating transparent rendering, and for the pages of the XPS document that the determination procedure determines that there is no data for designating transparent rendering, the CMYK low-value rendering pass is used. A page that has been used to perform rendering processing and is determined to have data for designating transparent drawing has a rendering procedure for performing rendering processing using an RGB multi-value rendering pass.
The present invention also provides a program that causes a computer to execute each procedure of the rendering method described above.

  According to the printer device, the image output system, the rendering method, and the program of the present invention as described above, it is possible to reduce the memory usage necessary for printing or outputting the XPS document and to shorten the processing time. Get the effect.

1 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configuration of an XPS document printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configuration of a host device 100. FIG. It is a functional block diagram showing an example of an outline of a function of an XPS printing system. FIG. 4 is a functional block diagram illustrating an example of a processing function portion that is handled by a host device 100 among the functions of the XPS printing system illustrated in FIG. 3. 5 is a flowchart showing an example of a drawing process of XPS document data for one page according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is the flowchart which showed an example of the transparent drawing determination process for 1 page which one of the filter process parts FP1-FPn performs. 12 is a flowchart illustrating another example of transparent drawing determination processing for one page performed by any one of the filter processing units FP1 to FPn. FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a drawing element that specifies transparent drawing in XPS document data. It is the schematic which showed an example of the structure of the XPS data (XPS document data) of FIG. FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram illustrating another example in which the processing mode of the host device 100 and the printer device 200 is different in the XPS printing system illustrated in FIG. 4. FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram illustrating another example in which the sharing mode of processing between the host apparatus 100 and the printer apparatus 200 is further different in the XPS printing system illustrated in FIG. 4.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a hardware configuration of an XPS document printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
This printing system includes a host device 100 that creates an XPS document and a printer device 200 that records and outputs a printed matter of the XPS document created by the host device 100.

  In the printer device 200, the host interface unit 201 is for exchanging various data such as XPS document data with the host device 100, and the printer controller 202 is connected to the host device 100 via the host interface unit 201. The received XPS document data is temporarily stored in the reception buffer 203 and a predetermined XPS document print data creation process is executed to create print data of each print color (CMYK). Stored in the frame memory 204. The printer controller 202 controls the operation of the printer engine 205.

  The print data of each print color stored in the frame memory 204 is appropriately read out from the printer engine 205, and the XPS document printed matter created by the host device 100 is recorded and output by the printer engine 205. Here, as the printer engine 205, for example, a tandem type color image forming apparatus in which a plurality of photosensitive drums that form an electrostatic latent image of each color component are arranged in the transfer paper conveyance direction, an inkjet printer apparatus, etc. Any appropriate one can be used as long as it has a function of printing out a printed matter of a color image based on the print data of each print color of CMYK.

Next, the hardware configuration of the host device 100 and the printer device 200 will be described.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a hardware configuration of the host device 100. The host device 100 has a hardware configuration of a general personal computer device.
In the figure, a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 1 controls the operation of the host device 100, and includes an operating system such as the above-mentioned Windows Vista, various application programs for creating XPS documents, XPS print paths ( Various software is executed, such as processing of a printer driver (described later) included in (described later). A ROM (Read Only Memory) 2 is used to store programs executed by the CPU 1 and necessary data, and a RAM (Random Access Memory) 3 constitutes a work area of the CPU 1. Is to do.

  The character generator 4 is for generating graphic character display data, the clock circuit 5 is for outputting current date and time information, and the network interface circuit 26 is configured to connect the host device 100 to a LAN or WAN. For connecting to a wired network (not shown) such as a wireless network or a wireless network (not shown) such as a wireless LAN. The network transmission control unit 7 is connected to another data terminal device or host device via the network. And the like for executing communication control processing of various predetermined protocol suites for exchanging various types of data. In addition, the network in this case is not limited by the network standard such as the protocol to be used or the network topology, and any network can be applied.

  The magnetic disk device 8 is for storing various data such as various application programs executed by the CPU 1, work data, and various file data created by the application program, and the optical medium driving device 9 is replaceable. This is for accessing (reading and writing) data on an optical recording medium (for example, CD-ROM, DVD, etc.) 10, and the screen display device 11 displays a screen to be referred to when the user operates the host device 100. The display control unit 12 is for controlling the display content of the screen display device 11.

  The keyboard device 13 is used by a user to input various commands and the like to the host device 100, and the screen instruction device 14 is operated by the user to instruct an arbitrary point on the screen display device 11. The input control unit 15 is for taking in the input information of the keyboard device 13 and the screen pointing device 14, for example.

  The printer interface means 16 is for connecting the host device 100 to the printer apparatus 200 and exchanging various data with the printer apparatus 200. For example, the USB interface means and the parallel interface means are used. It is done.

  These CPU 1, ROM 2, RAM 3, character generator 4, clock circuit 5, network transmission control unit 7, magnetic disk device 8, optical medium drive device 9, display control unit 12, input control unit 15, and printer interface means 16 Are connected to an internal bus 17 such as a system bus, and data exchange between these elements is mainly performed via the internal bus 17.

FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram illustrating an example of a schematic function of the XPS printing system.
In the figure, a printer driver 300 is one of functions implemented in the host device 100 realized by a printer driver program executed by the CPU 1 of the host device 100, and is created by application software or the like installed in the host device 100. The XPS document data is sent to the printer controller 202 of the printer device 200 via the printer driver 300.

  The printer driver 300 is provided with filter processing units FP1 to FPn that each execute predetermined image processing, and the outputs of the filter processing units FP1 to FP (n−1) are the filter processing unit FP2 at the next stage. Are connected to the inputs of FPn and constitute a filter pipeline as a whole, and a plurality of filter processing units FP1 to FPn can be executed in parallel and used when the processing is completed Free up memory.

  In this filter pipeline, for example, according to the XPS document data processing mode in the printer driver 300, the functions of the respective filter processing units FP1 to FPn are appropriately set at the stage before starting the XPS document data processing. can do. Therefore, for example, functions set in the filter processing unit FP1 and the filter processing unit FP2 may be reversed between a certain processing mode and another processing mode.

  Each of the filter processing units FP1 to FPn executes processing such as editing of data in the page, data conversion, editing processing at the time of aggregate printing, scaling processing, and transparent drawing determination processing described later. Each execution result is added to XPS document data (details will be described later) as necessary. For example, in the case of transparent drawing determination processing, it is checked whether or not information (tag, value, or attribute) relating to transparent drawing is included in the XPS document data of each page. If included, the XPS document of that page is included. Attribute information indicating that transparent drawing is included in the data (hereinafter referred to as “transparent drawing information”) is added.

  The printer controller 202 includes a parser 202a that interprets XPS document data, and a renderer processing unit 202b that generates (renders) print data from the XPS document data in accordance with the output of the parser 202a. The renderer processing unit 202b includes an RGB multi-value renderer. A processing unit 202c and a CMYK small value renderer processing unit 202d are included.

  The RGB multilevel renderer 202c performs drawing processing using an RGB multilevel virtual frame memory, and when transparent drawing is set, performs transparent drawing processing according to the transparency, and is necessary. Depending on, the drawing object is overlapped. The CMYK small value renderer processing unit 202d converts the RGB data into corresponding CMYK data, performs a value reduction process on the converted CMYK data, and supplies the CMYK data (CMYK low value data) after the value reduction to the frame memory 204. It is something to write out. Further, the CMYK small value renderer processing unit 202d performs drawing object superimposition processing as necessary when writing the CMYK small value data to the frame memory 204.

  Note that the print data stored in the frame memory 204 has a data format that can be directly used by the printer engine 205 for a printing operation. In this case, CMYK small value data is stored in the frame memory 204. Therefore, the RGB multi-value renderer processing unit 202c converts the created RGB multi-value print data into corresponding CMYK data, and the CMYK data after the conversion is reduced, and the resulting CMYK low-value data is generated. Is stored in the frame memory 204.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a processing function part that the host device 100 takes charge of among the functions of the XPS printing system.
In the figure, an application 101 creates XPS document data. The output XPS document data is temporarily stored in the magnetic disk device 8 as an XPS spool file 103 via a print spooler 102.

Further, the print spooler 102 appropriately reads the XPS document data stored as the XPS spool file 103, and outputs the XPS document data to the first-stage filter processing unit FP1 of the filter pipeline manager FPM constituting the printer driver.
Depending on the configuration of the printer driver, the XPS spool file 103 may be directly output to the first-stage filter processing unit FP1 of the filter pipeline manager FPM without being stored in the magnetic disk device 8.

  3, the operations of the filter processing units FP1, FP2,..., FPn, which are components of the printer driver 300, are controlled by the filter pipeline manager FPM shown in FIG. 4 and output from the final-stage filter processing unit FP2. The XPS document data is output to the subsequent XPS print path 500. The XPS print path 500 after the filter pipeline manager FPM in this case corresponds to a processing part after the printer controller 202 of the printer apparatus 200 shown in FIG.

  Here, the XPS print path is constructed based on the XPS printer driver model (XPSDrv). In this embodiment, the XPS document creation function included in the application 101 of the host apparatus 100 converts the XPS document data into the XPS print path. All processing functions constituting the processing path from the creation stage until the printer device 200 prints the XPS document data, for example, the print spooler 102, the printer driver (filter pipeline manager FPM) 300, and the parser of the printer controller 202 202a, a renderer processing unit 202b, and a (modeled) frame memory 204. In the processing stage up to the input section of the XPS print pass parser 202a (up to the output of the filter pipeline), data is input / output in the data format of XPS document data.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a drawing process of XPS document data for one page according to an embodiment of the present invention. This processing is realized by the processing functions of the parser 202a and the renderer processing unit 202b of the printer controller 202.
First, a parsing process for analyzing XPS document data is performed by the parser 202a (step S1), and it is checked based on the analysis result of the parsing process whether information regarding transparent drawing is included in the XPS document data of the page (step S1). S2). As will be described later, in this case, if the XPS document data of the page contains information related to transparent drawing, transparent drawing information indicating that transparent drawing is included in the XPS document data of the page is added. Therefore, if the transparent drawing information is included, the result of step S2 is YES, and if the transparent drawing information is not included, the result of step S2 is NO.

  When the XPS document data of the page includes information related to transparent drawing and the result of step S2 is YES, an RGB multi-value rendering pass process is performed. The RGB multilevel renderer 202c corresponds to a drawing object (including an image, a character string, a geometric figure, etc.) represented by RGB color multilevel data included in the XPS document data as print data. Drawing processing using a virtual frame memory is performed to create RGB color multivalued image data of image information for one page (step S3). In addition, when the RGB color multivalued image data is written in the virtual frame memory in step S3, the drawing object is superimposed as necessary.

  Next, the RGB color multivalued image data created in step S3 is converted into corresponding CMYK data (step S4), and the converted CMYK data is converted into CMYK small value data necessary for drawing data. The CMYK small value data obtained as a processing result is written to the frame memory 204 corresponding to each color component (step S5). Here, the process of step S3 corresponds to the RGB multilevel rendering process, and is performed by the RGB renderer processing unit 202c as described above.

  On the other hand, if the XPS document data of the page does not include information related to transparent drawing and the result of step S2 is NO, the CMYK small value rendering pass process is performed. A drawing object (including an image, a character string, and a geometric figure) represented by RGB color multilevel data included as print data in the XPS document data is converted into a drawing object represented by corresponding CMYK data (step) S6).

  Next, drawing processing of the drawing object represented by the converted CMYK data is performed, and CMYK small value data obtained by creating image information for one page is converted into a frame memory corresponding to each color component. Write to 204 (step S7). Further, when the CMYK small value data is written to the frame memory 204 in step S7, a drawing object overlapping process is performed as necessary. Here, the process of step S7 corresponds to the CMYK small value rendering process, and is performed by the CMYK small value renderer processing unit 202d as described above.

  In this way, in this embodiment, for pages including information related to transparent drawing, RGB multi-value rendering processing is performed to generate print data to which appropriate transparent drawing is applied, and for pages not including information related to transparent drawing. Can perform CMYK small value rendering processing and perform high-speed rendering processing with low memory, and can efficiently perform rendering processing (rendering processing) of XPS data.

  Here, since the transparent drawing designation is designated by a value of 0 to 100% in many applications, it is necessary to deal with multi-value in the first place in order to perform accurate overlay processing. In addition, when drawing is performed with a small value, since the superimposed figures are represented by binary or quaternary values by dither processing or the like, the dither patterns interfere with each other and are not correctly drawn. Therefore, as in the present embodiment, it is necessary to generate print data to which appropriate transparent drawing is applied by performing RGB multi-value rendering processing for pages including information related to transparent drawing.

  On the other hand, if transparent drawing is not designated, a drawing command (raster operation) that does not involve a transparent operation is executed, and appropriate print data can be created even using the above-described CMYK small value rendering process. Can do.

Next, processing for performing transparent drawing determination for each page of XPS document data will be described. This transparent drawing determination process is realized by one of the filter processing units FP1 to FPn.
FIG. 6 shows an example of transparent drawing determination processing for one page performed by any one of the filter processing units FP1 to FPn.
Here, whether or not information relating to transparent drawing (data designating transparent drawing) is included is determined based on an element relating to transparent drawing (Element) and an attribute value relating to transparent drawing (Value) included in XPS document data. use. For example, when a value other than 1.0 is specified for the Opacity attribute specified for a character (Glyph) or an image (Brush), it can be determined that transparent drawing is performed.

  First, XPS document data is read (step S11), and it is checked whether or not any error has occurred at that time (step S12). If no error has occurred and the result of step S12 is YES, it is checked whether the XPS document data read in step S11 contains information related to transparent drawing (step S13), and the result of step S13 is the result. If NO, it is checked whether the processing of one page of XPS document data to be processed has been completed (step S14). If the result of step S14 is NO, the process returns to step S11 and the subsequent processing is repeated. When the result of step S14 is YES, the transparent drawing determination process at this time ends.

On the other hand, if an error has occurred at that time, the result of step S12 is NO, and if the XPS document data read in step S11 contains information related to transparent drawing, the result of step S13 is YES. At that time, the result (transparent drawing information) is added to the XPS document data of the page (step S15), the process proceeds to step S14, and the subsequent processing is executed.
In this way, transparent drawing determination is performed for each page of XPS document data, and for pages including information related to transparent drawing, transparent drawing information is added to the page of the XPS document data.

  This process will be described. First, in order to perform transparent drawing determination, a memory for reading XPS document data is required. A memory area for that purpose is appropriately secured in the memory device 24 of the printer device 200, for example. On the other hand, not only XPS, but the amount of PDL data is not constant for each page, and the amount of data increases or decreases depending on the complexity of the drawing contents.

  For this reason, the amount of memory required for analyzing one-page XPS document data and determining the presence / absence of transparent drawing is not constant, and there may be a shortage of memory for processing large data (error occurrence). . In this case, the determination process is stopped, and the result (transparent drawing information) is added to the XPS document data, assuming that there is transparent drawing.

  Similarly, not only an error due to memory shortage, but other problems occur during the determination process (error occurrence), and the determination process may be interrupted. In this case, the determination process is similarly interrupted, The result (transparent drawing information) is added to the XPS document data assuming that there is transparent drawing.

  This is due to the following reason. That is, when the determination process is stopped, the result (transparent drawing information) is added to the XPS document data as if there was transparent drawing, so the processing after the determination is performed as if there was transparent drawing, increasing unnecessary memory consumption and processing time. However, there is no problem with the rendering result. On the other hand, if the processing after the determination is processed without transparent drawing, the transparent drawing command that must be transparently drawn is processed opaquely, so that errors and rendering result defects occur in the subsequent processing. Because.

  By the way, in the process of FIG. 6, when information about transparent drawing is included in the determination target page, transparent drawing information indicating that transparent drawing information is included is added to the page. If the target page does not contain information related to transparent drawing, non-transparent drawing information indicating that transparent drawing information is not included is added to the page, and information about transparent drawing is included in the page to be judged. In such a case, it is possible to determine whether or not information relating to transparent drawing is included in the page by not adding non-transparent drawing information to the page.

  In this case, with respect to step S2 of the drawing process of the XPS document data for one page shown in FIG. 5 described above, if non-transparent drawing information is not included, the result of step S2 is YES. Thereafter, the RGB multi-value rendering pass processing is executed, and if non-transparent rendering information is included, the result of this step S2 is NO, and thereafter the CMYK low-value rendering pass processing is executed. Is done.

FIG. 7 shows another example of transparent drawing determination processing for one page performed by any of the filter processing units FP1 to FPn in this case.
First, the XPS document data to be processed is read according to the reading unit (step S21), and it is checked whether information relating to transparent drawing is included (step S22). When the result of step S22 is YES, since the information about transparent drawing is included in the page to be determined at that time, non-transparent drawing information indicating that the page does not include information about transparent drawing. This process is terminated without adding.

  Further, when the result of step S22 is NO, it is a case where the information regarding transparent drawing is not included in the XPS document data read in step S21, so whether or not the processing of the XPS document data for one page is completed. (Step S23). When the result of step S23 is NO, the process returns to step S21, the remaining data of the XPS document data to be processed is read, and the subsequent processing is performed.

  On the other hand, when the information about transparent drawing is not included in the XPS document data for one page to be processed and the result of step S23 is YES, the non-transparent drawing information is added to the XPS document data of the page. (Step S24), and this process is terminated.

  In this way, in the transparent drawing determination process for one page in this example, when one or more pieces of information related to transparent drawing are found, the transparent drawing determination process for one page is completed at that time, so the page As a result, the time required for the transparent drawing determination process for one page can be greatly shortened.

  The reason for adding the determination result only when there is no transparent drawing and not adding it when there is transparent drawing is as follows. In other words, in this case, the detection with the transparent drawing is not performed until the end of the page, and the determination process is interrupted until the middle of the page where the transparent drawing is detected, so that the page is actually without the transparent drawing. This is because there is a possibility that there will be transparent drawing due to erroneous detection, but since the subsequent processing is processed with transparent drawing, there is no problem in the drawing result.

Next, a specific example in which it is determined that information regarding transparent drawing is included in XPS document data will be described.
FIG. 8 shows an example of information related to transparent drawing in XPS document data.
The example of FIG. 8 represents an example of an XPS command for drawing a character string “This is a fading text example” with transparent gradation. For the character (Glyph), using the OpacityMask attribute, This is an example in which the transmittance is designated by gradation. Color specified in GradientStop is specified to change from FF000000 to 00000000. Here, the AA part in which Color is specified in the AARRGGBB format represents the transmittance. In this case, since a gradation from FF (non-transparent) to 00 (completely transparent) is represented, it can be determined that transparent drawing exists when the color of OpacityMask is other than FF.

  As described above, whether or not information related to transparent drawing is included is determined by using an element (Element) related to transparent drawing and an attribute value (Value) related to transparent drawing included in the XPS document data. For example, when a value other than 1.0 is specified for the Opacity attribute specified for a character (Glyph) or an image (Brush), it can be determined that transparent drawing is performed. In addition, tags (elements), attributes, values, and the like related to transparent drawing can be used.

FIGS. 9A and 9B show an example of the configuration of the XPS document data shown in FIG.
Basically, the XPS document data file container is a ZIP compressed file. When an XPS document file is expanded into a ZIP, a plurality of folders and files exist in the structure. FIG. 9A shows an example of a folder structure in which an XPS document file (Sample.xps) (one page of MS Word (registered trademark)) is renamed to sample.zip and ZIP expanded. FIG. 9B shows a list of information stored in the folder “Sample” in FIG.

  FIG. 10 shows another example in which the processing mode of the host device 100 and the printer device 200 is different in the XPS printing system shown in FIG. In the figure, the same or corresponding parts as those in FIG. This example can be applied to an XPS direct print system as will be described later.

  In this example, the filter pipeline manager FPM is removed from the host apparatus 100 and moved to the printer apparatus 200. With this configuration, even when the processing capability of the host device 100 is weak, the printer device 200 executes the filter pipeline manager FPM, so that an XPS printing system similar to that in FIG. 4 can be realized. In this case, the transparent drawing determination process for one page described above can be executed by one of the filter processing units FP1 and FP2 of the filter pipeline manager FPM of the printer apparatus 200.

FIG. 11 shows still another example in which the processing mode of the host device 100 and the printer device 200 is different in the XPS printing system shown in FIG. In the figure, the same or corresponding parts as those in FIG.
In this example, a filter pipeline manager FPM1 is provided in the host device 100, a filter pipeline manager FPM2 is provided in the printer device 200, and the processing of the filter pipeline manager FPM in the printer driver 300 is performed by the host device 100 and the printer device 200. The configuration is shared and the load is distributed.

In this case, the transparent drawing determination process for one page described above is performed by one of the filter processing units FP1 and FP2 of the filter pipeline manager FPM1 of the host device 100 or the filter processing unit of the filter pipeline manager FPM2 of the printer device 200. Either FP3 or FP4 can be executed. For example, if the processing capability of the printer apparatus 200 is large to some extent, it can be executed by one of the filter processing units FP3 and FP4 of the filter pipeline manager FPM2.
In addition, the assignment of which filter processing unit to execute the transparent drawing determination process for one page described above can be switched for each page or for each job.

  In the above-described embodiment, the case where the present invention is applied to a printing system that prints an XPS document created by a host device using a color printer device has been described. However, color print data (color image data) of an XPS document is stored in the host device. An image output system that displays and outputs on a screen display device, a system that converts color print data of an XPS document into an electronic document of a predetermined format (for example, PDF), and a rendering method in those systems The present invention can be similarly applied.

  However, when an XPS document is displayed and output on the screen display device of the host device, the display data of the screen display device is processed in the RGB multi-value color space, so CMYK small value rendering is not performed. Even in such a case, if a page that has been determined to have no data that specifies transparent drawing is subjected to a drawing process that is less burdensome than that required for transparent drawing, a calculation process with a high load peculiar to transparent drawing, etc. This eliminates the need for the image display application, and thus can speed up the display of the image display application.

  The present invention can also be applied to an XPS direct print system that directly prints XPS document data with a printer device without using a host device. In this case, the host interface unit 201 in the configuration of the printer apparatus in FIG. 1 is replaced with a general-purpose interface unit capable of appropriately exchanging data with an external device, and after the print spooler 102 having the configuration in FIG. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 10, the processing function after the filter pipeline manager FPM is provided to the printer apparatus, and the above-described transparent drawing presence / absence determination process is also performed by the printer apparatus. It is recommended to switch between.

  Other examples of the XPS direct printer system include a tool that directly sends XPS document data to the printer device on the host device, and FTP / RSH transfer. The printer device also supports memory direct printing. If so, an XPS file stored in a medium such as a USB memory is read and printed by the printer device.

  The present invention relates to an apparatus related to a system that prints an XPS document, a host apparatus that creates an XPS document, a printer apparatus that prints an XPS document, a printing system constructed by the host apparatus and the printer apparatus, and an image that displays an XPS document It can be applied to a display system.

1: CPU (Central Processing Unit) 2: ROM (Read Only Memory)
3: RAM (Random Access Memory) 4: Character Generator 5: Clock Circuit 6: Network Interface Means 7: Network Transmission Control Unit 8: Magnetic Disk Device 9: Optical Medium Drive Device 11: CRT Screen Display Device 12: Display Control Unit 13: Keyboard device 14: Screen instruction device 15: Input control unit 16: Printer interface unit 17: Internal bus 100: Host device 101: Application 102: Print spooler 103: XPS spool file 200: Printer device 201: Host interface unit 202 : Printer controller 202a: Parser 202b: Renderer processing unit 202c: RGB multi-level renderer processing unit 202d: CMYK low-value renderer processing unit 203: Reception buffer 204: Frame memory 2 5: the printer engine 300: Printer Driver 500: XPS print path FP1～FPn: filtering processor FPM, FPM1, FPM2: filter pipeline manager

JP 2005-182692 A

“XML Paper Specification”, [online], October 24, 2006, Microsoft, [searched July 6, 2009], Internet <URL: http://www.microsoft.com/japan/whdc/xps /xpsspec.mspx>

Claims (9)

A printer device for printing XPS documents,
Determining means for determining whether or not there is data for designating transparent drawing in the page for each XPS document;
CMYK small value rendering means for performing rendering processing for one page related to the XPS document using a CMYK small value rendering pass;
RGB multi-value rendering means for rendering one page of the XPS document using an RGB multi-value rendering path;
Of the XPS document, a page for which the determination unit has determined that there is no data for designating transparent drawing, has the CMYK small value rendering unit perform rendering processing, and has determined that there is data for designating transparent drawing. And a rendering control means for causing the RGB multi-value rendering means to perform rendering processing.   The printer device according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit determines that there is data designating transparent drawing for the determination target page when a failure occurs during the determination process for the XPS document. .   The determination unit determines whether there is data specifying transparent drawing in a page by using an element related to transparent drawing and / or an attribute value related to transparent drawing included in an XPS document. The printer device according to claim 1.   When the determination unit detects at least one piece of data specifying transparent drawing during the determination of one page of the XPS document, the determination unit determines that there is data specifying transparent drawing for the page at that time, and determines the next page. The printer apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the printer apparatus shifts to determination.   The determination unit designates transparent drawing in the page based on information added by the host device that created the XPS document for each page of the XPS document and indicating the presence / absence of data designating transparent drawing on the page. The printer apparatus according to claim 1, wherein it is determined whether or not there is data.   Having parser means for interpreting an XPS document, the parser means interpreting information indicating the presence or absence of data designating transparent drawing on the page for each page of the XPS document, and the determination means comprises the parser means 6. The printer apparatus according to claim 5, wherein information indicating the presence / absence of data specifying the transparent drawing is acquired from the interpretation content to determine whether there is data specifying the transparent drawing. An image output system comprising a host device that creates an XPS document and an output device that outputs an image related to the XPS document created by the host device,
Either the host device or the output device,
Determining means for determining whether or not there is data for designating transparent drawing in the page for each XPS document;
CMYK small value rendering means for performing rendering processing for one page related to the XPS document using a CMYK small value rendering pass;
RGB multi-value rendering means for rendering one page of the XPS document using an RGB multi-value rendering path;
Of the XPS document, a page for which the determination unit has determined that there is no data for designating transparent drawing, has the CMYK small value rendering unit perform rendering processing, and has determined that there is data for designating transparent drawing. Is provided with rendering control means for causing the RGB multilevel rendering means to perform rendering processing. A rendering method that performs rendering based on an XPS document and forms image data of an image related to the XPS document in a frame memory,
A determination procedure for determining whether or not there is data for designating transparent drawing in each page for the XPS document;
Of the XPS document, the page determined by the determination procedure that there is no data specifying transparent drawing is rendered using the CMYK low-value rendering pass, and it is determined that there is data specifying transparent drawing. A rendering method comprising: a rendering procedure for rendering a page using an RGB multi-value rendering pass.   A program for causing a computer to execute each procedure of the rendering method according to claim 8.

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