JP2011067982A - Image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming apparatus achieved in the high speed of printing processing. <P>SOLUTION: The image forming apparatus 10 which executes calling, from a predetermined drawing program, a code for executing each instruction included in printing data includes: a processing frequency information control part 109 which specifies one or more codes whose execution frequencies exceed a predetermined value among executed codes; a RAM which holds the specified codes; a processing frequency information holding part 110 which holds the identification information of the codes; and a system control part 107 which executes the calling of a corresponding code from the RAM when the identification information showing the code for executing each instruction included in the objective printing data is held by the processing frequency information holding part 110. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that eliminates output delay and increases the speed.

When a printing delay occurs in an image forming apparatus such as a printer, the cause and tendency can often be identified by referring to history information such as a log.
For this reason, log analysis is conventionally used as an effective countermeasure against delay.
However, since log analysis is usually performed by a person such as an engineer, the effect is easily affected by the technical level and experience, and is not necessarily an accurate and rational method.
Therefore, a print control apparatus that controls the output order of print data in accordance with the error frequency based on the error log has been proposed (for example, see Patent Document 1).

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-24854 (page 1-2, FIG. 6)

  However, since the print control apparatus described in Patent Document 1 is a technology of a system that controls the output order of a plurality of connected data processing apparatuses, it does not eliminate the delay that occurs in the data processing apparatus alone. High speed was required.

  The present invention is considered in view of the above circumstances, and a frequently used code is held in a memory that can be accessed at high speed, and then the corresponding code is called from the memory and executed in the same drawing process. Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an image forming system that achieves high speed.

In order to achieve the above object, an image forming apparatus of the present invention calls and executes a code for executing an instruction included in print data from a predetermined drawing program, and includes a code specifying unit and a specific code holding unit. Means and code execution control means.
The code specifying means specifies one or two or more codes whose execution frequency exceeds a predetermined value among executed codes. The specific code holding unit holds each specified code in the first memory and holds identification information of the code in the second memory. When the identification information indicating the code for executing the instruction included in the target print data is held in the first memory, the code execution control unit calls the corresponding code from the second memory. Execute.

  According to the image forming apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to effectively eliminate the output delay and increase the speed.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an operation procedure of the image forming apparatus according to the embodiment of the present disclosure.

Hereinafter, the configuration of an image forming apparatus 1 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Note that the image forming apparatus 1 of the present embodiment constitutes an image forming system by being electrically connected to a host computer (not shown).
That is, the image forming apparatus 1 receives print data sent from a host computer, performs a drawing process on the print data, and performs print output.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the image forming apparatus 1 includes a communication interface 101, a data receiving unit 102, a data analyzing unit 103, a drawing data processing unit 104, a drawing unit 105, an output unit 106, a system control unit 107, and a code cache control unit. 108, a processing frequency information control unit 109, a processing frequency information holding unit 110, and a CPU 111.

The communication interface 101 includes a network interface card (NIC) or the like, and includes a control board connected to a host computer (not shown) via a communication cable or the like.
The data receiving unit 102 includes a control board for receiving print data via the communication interface 101.

The data analysis unit 103 includes a control board for calling and executing a code used for data analysis from a drawing program, and analyzes the print data received by the data reception unit 102. That is, “code” refers to an internal function that constitutes a drawing program.
Specifically, the control board determines whether each object included in the received print data is character data, vector data, or image data, and outputs the drawing data of each object to the drawing data processing unit 104.
Further, the control board extracts drawing commands corresponding to each object.
For example, when a line drawing command is included in certain print data, a drawing command for drawing a line, a drawing command for designating a line color, a position, and the like are extracted.
The data analysis unit 103 extracts the code used here and notifies the processing frequency information control unit 109 of the information.

The drawing data processing unit 104 includes a control board for calling a code for converting each object data transferred from the data analysis unit 103 into drawing data (display list) in an intermediate format from a drawing program.
The drawing data processing unit 104 extracts the code used here and notifies the processing frequency information control unit 109 of the information.

The drawing unit 105 includes a control board for calling a code for converting the display list generated by the drawing data processing unit 104 into bitmap data from a drawing program.
The control board performs a process of outputting the converted bitmap data to the output unit 106.
In addition, the drawing unit 105 extracts the code used here and notifies the processing frequency information control unit 109 of the information.

The output unit 106 includes a control board and performs a printing process based on the bitmap data.
Specifically, the print engine executes a process for transferring the bitmap data obtained via the drawing unit 105 to a paper medium or the like by transferring a colorant such as toner or ink to a visible image.

  The system control unit 107 has a drawing program that manages shared information of the entire apparatus and controls each component unit. Based on this drawing program, drawing processing is performed by operating a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 111. Is called.

The code cache control unit (code execution control means) 108 includes a so-called program for executing a code cache. Based on this program, the code cache control unit 108 executes the code cache by controlling the execution of the drawing program.
The code cache control unit 108 temporarily stores the identification information of the code used for the drawing process in a memory that can be accessed at high speed. The code itself relating to the code cache is temporarily stored in a RAM (Random Access Memory) in the CPU 111 (one operation included in the specific code holding means of the present invention).
Note that the CPU 111 refers to this memory during the drawing process, and checks whether the same identification information as the code used for the drawing process is held. When the CPU 111 detects identification information of the same code as the code used for the drawing process from the memory, the CPU 111 calls the code from the RAM and causes the drawing unit 105 to execute drawing.

In particular, the code cache control unit 108 according to the present embodiment preferentially targets codes that are frequently used, which are held by a processing frequency information holding unit 110 described later, as a code cache target.
For this reason, it is possible to perform processing faster than a normal drawing method in which a code used for drawing processing is called from a drawing program and executed each time.

The processing frequency information control unit (code specifying unit) 109 includes a control board, and collects the number of times each code used by the data analysis unit 103, the drawing data processing unit 104, and the drawing unit 105 is used.
In addition, the control board identifies a code that is frequently used among the used codes.
Specifically, among the used codes, one or more codes whose use frequency exceeds a predetermined value and whose use frequency is high can be specified.
Further, among the used codes, one or more codes selected within a range in which the usage frequency exceeds a predetermined value and the usage frequency does not exceed a predetermined data amount are specified. be able to.
For example, by performing an input operation, it is possible to notify the processing frequency information holding unit 110 of the identification information of the code corresponding to the fifth most frequently used code from the most frequently used code and control it to be held.
Further, it is possible to control to notify and hold the identification information of the code that is frequently used within the range of 1 MB by the input operation to the processing frequency information holding unit 110.

The usage frequency (the number of times of use per unit time) can be automatically measured, for example, every month or every certain number of times of use as a device, and can be obtained based on the measured period unit or cumulative total.
Further, the timing of counting the usage frequency can be set or changed in advance according to the output performance of the image forming apparatus (output device) and the usage mode of the user.

Further, it is possible to limit execution of the code cache according to the present embodiment only for the code related to the print data generated by a specific application.
This is not a problem for applications that have an extremely large number of “draw line” instructions, such as CAD data. However, in the case of applications that have no bias in instructions, such as general business documents, code that is frequently used is retained. This is because many codes are cached, and there is a risk that the processing speed will decrease.
Therefore, the processing frequency information control unit 109 can specify a code related to print data generated by a predetermined application specified in advance and whose execution frequency exceeds a predetermined value. .

The processing frequency information holding unit (second memory) 110 is configured by a storage medium such as a memory and holds code identification information specified by the processing frequency information control unit 109 (included in the specific code holding unit of the present invention). Other behavior).
A storage medium such as a memory is preferably capable of high-speed access.

The communication interface 101, the data receiving unit 102, the data analyzing unit 103, the drawing data processing unit 104, the drawing unit 105, the output unit 106, the system control unit 107, the code cache control unit 108, the processing frequency information control unit 109, and the processing frequency. Each control board provided in the information holding unit 110 includes a control element of the CPU 111, a ROM (Read Only Memory), and a RAM (Random Access Memory). The control boards cooperate with each other to constitute a computer of the image forming apparatus 10. The CPU 111 is an arithmetic processing unit that executes processing described in the program. In the present embodiment, a code cache is realized by reading a program included in the system control unit 107 and causing each of the components to execute necessary processes. The ROM is a non-volatile memory that stores programs and data in advance.
The RAM is a memory that temporarily stores the program and data when the program is executed and uses it as a work area.
In this embodiment, the code itself that is the target of the code cache is temporarily held.
When the program is executed, each control board has a data reception unit 102, a data analysis unit 103, a drawing data processing unit 104, a drawing unit 105, a system control unit 107, a code cache control unit 108, and processing frequency information in the CPU. The control unit 109 is configured as a functional block, and the hardware elements of each unit function as the communication interface 101, the output unit 106, and the processing frequency information holding unit 110.

For example, when the image forming apparatus 10 receives certain print data, if the processing frequency information holding unit 110 stores a code for executing the print data drawing command, the processing frequency information holding unit The code is called from 110 to execute the drawing process.
Here, since the processing frequency information holding unit 110 holds only codes that are frequently used, the cache hit rate is higher than that of a normal code cache.
Therefore, according to the image forming apparatus 10 according to the present embodiment, the processing time related to drawing to printing is further shortened to further increase the speed.

Next, an operation procedure in the image forming apparatus of the present embodiment configured as described above will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of the image forming apparatus of the present embodiment.

As shown in the figure, first, it is assumed that the data receiving unit 102 has received print data from a host computer (not shown) (S1).
In response to receiving the print data, the data analysis unit 103 analyzes the print data (S2).
Specifically, the corresponding code is called to interpret the object and extract the drawing command.

Next, the drawing data processing unit 104 calls the corresponding code, converts each object data into a display list, and the drawing unit 105 converts the display list into bitmap data.
The output unit 106 performs a printing process based on the bitmap data (S3).
Subsequently, the processing frequency information control unit 109 measures the number of times each code used in S2 and S3 is used (S4).
That is, the number of codes used in the data analysis unit 103, the drawing data processing unit 104, and the drawing unit 105 is measured.
Note that S3 to S4 are repeatedly executed up to the page discharge command (loop 2) and are repeatedly executed up to the data end command (loop 1).

Next, the processing frequency information control unit 109 calculates a cumulative usage for each code, and identifies a code with a high usage frequency (S5). The processing frequency information control unit 109 notifies the identification information of the identified code to the processing frequency information holding unit 110.
Then, the processing frequency information holding unit 110 holds the identification information of the specified code (S6).

As described above, according to the image forming apparatus 10 of the present exemplary embodiment, when a code cache function is provided, a frequently used code among the codes used for the drawing process is held, and then the same drawing process is performed. Takes out the code and performs the drawing process.
For this reason, output delay can be effectively prevented and speeding up can be realized.

The image forming apparatus according to the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiment. However, the image forming apparatus according to the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the present invention. It goes without saying that implementation is possible.
For example, in the rule embodiment, the control boards of the respective components are configured to cooperate with each other to form the computer of the image forming apparatus 10, but the main controller board is provided in, for example, the system control unit 107 of the image forming apparatus, The main control board may constitute a computer to control each element.

As for the code to be cached, not only the use (execution) frequency but also the weight of the code based on the code size can be considered and the target code can be specified.
For example, when there are a plurality of codes having the same frequency, a code having a small code size is preferentially targeted for code caching.
As a result, the code reading time can be shortened, and the drawing processing time related to the code cache can be further increased.

  The present invention can be suitably used for an image forming apparatus having a code cache function.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Image forming apparatus 108 Code cache control part (code execution control means)
109 Processing frequency information control unit (code specifying means)
110 Processing frequency information holding unit

Claims (5)

An image forming apparatus that calls and executes a code for executing an instruction included in print data from a predetermined drawing program,
A code specifying means for specifying one or more codes whose execution frequency exceeds a predetermined value among executed codes;
Specific code holding means for holding each identified code in the first memory and holding identification information of the code in the second memory;
Code execution control means for calling and executing a corresponding code from the second memory when identification information indicating a code for executing an instruction included in the target print data is held in the first memory An image forming apparatus comprising: The code specifying means includes
The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the executed code is a code related to print data generated by a predetermined application specified in advance, and the code whose execution frequency exceeds a predetermined value is specified. The code specifying means includes
3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein one or two or more codes selected from the executed codes whose execution frequency exceeds a predetermined value and selected in descending order of execution frequency are specified. The code specifying means includes
2. One or more codes that are selected within a range in which the execution frequency exceeds a predetermined value and the usage frequency does not exceed a predetermined amount of data among the executed codes are specified. The image forming apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3.   The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the code is a function constituting the drawing program.

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