JP2013121157A - Image formation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To resolve a problem that, in the case that image data of front and rear faces of a double-sided document encoded with different encoding coefficients is laid out in a page aggregation (Nin1) format, re-compression on a memory is required for matching the encoding coefficients of the image data of the front and rear faces, which requires an excessive processing time for the re-compression, and which causes increase in cost of a device for the purpose of providing image processing means and the memory.SOLUTION: A compound machine simultaneously reading out front and rear faces of a double-sided document to make a copy by page aggregation, has an image formation device, in the case that at least one readout image data of front and rear faces could not be stored in a memory, performing re-reading by using the same coefficient resulting in higher compression than the previous reading as encoding coefficients for the front and rear faces.

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a multifunction machine having a double-sided simultaneous reading function, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus that lays out and prints a plurality of image data on the same page.

  Conventionally, in a page aggregation process where multiple originals are read and laid out and printed on a single sheet of paper, if each original image has a different encoding coefficient, it is decompressed and compressed in memory before creating the layout image. There is a technique for performing layout processing after performing the same coding coefficient. (For example, refer to Patent Document 1).

JP 2006-101010 A

  However, when laying out the image data on the front and back sides of a double-sided document encoded with different encoding coefficients in the page aggregation (Nin1) format, in order to align the encoding coefficients of the image data on the front and back sides, the data is expanded and re-stored on the memory. There is a problem that it is necessary to compress the image, and it takes an extra processing time, and the image processing means and the memory are provided for that purpose, so that the cost of the apparatus increases.

Reading means equipped with an optical sensor for reading the front and back surfaces of a double-sided document,
Image processing means for performing image processing on each of the front and back image data read by the reading means, encoding and outputting, and
Memory means for storing data output by the image processing means;
Layout means for creating a layout image for laying out original image data read by the reading means on a single sheet;
Printing means for printing a layout image created by the layout means;
Control means,
The image processing means includes first and second encoding means for encoding image data on the front and back surfaces,
The first and second encoding means perform encoding using the first and second encoding coefficients, respectively.
The control means determines whether at least one of the front and back image data output by the image processing means overflows the capacity allocated on the memory means,
In the case of overflow, a compression coefficient that is higher than the encoding coefficient used at the time of the previous reading is set as the first and second encoding coefficients, and the reading unit is controlled to read the same document again. An image forming apparatus.

  According to the present invention, both sides of the front and back are simultaneously read using the same high compression coefficient during the re-reading process, so that means for decompressing and re-compressing on the memory can be provided without sacrificing the processing time. There is an effect that image data having the same compression coefficient can be created on the front and back surfaces without adding.

1 is a block diagram showing a system configuration example of a multifunction peripheral according to an embodiment of the present invention. Diagram explaining the tile image format The figure explaining arrangement | positioning on the memory of the image data of a tile format The figure explaining the tile image management table for managing tile image data Block diagram for explaining the flow of processing to output the layout of both front and back sides of a double-sided document in page aggregation format The figure which shows the tile image management table of the tile image by which 2 in 1 layout was carried out A flowchart for explaining a process of outputting a layout of both front and back sides of a double-sided document in a page aggregation format

  The best mode for carrying out the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

  A configuration example of a system that is an embodiment of a multifunction peripheral (MFP) of an image forming apparatus of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. The MFP includes a controller 100, an operation unit 112, a scanner unit 113, and a printer unit 114. The scanner unit 113 converts the image information into RGB electrical signals by inputting the reflected light obtained by exposing and scanning the image on the document to the CCD, and outputs it to the controller 100. An original reading instruction is given from the controller 100 to the scanner unit 113 by a user operation, and a reading operation is performed. The printer unit 114 is an image forming device that forms image data received from the controller 100 on a sheet. The controller 100 is electrically connected to the scanner unit 113 and the printer unit 114 by a scanner I / F 108 and a printer I / F 109, respectively.

  The CPU 101 comprehensively controls access to each connected device based on the boot program stored in the ROM 105 and the system program stored in the hard disk 111, and also comprehensively performs various processes performed in the controller. Control. The RAM 106 is a system work memory for the operation of the CPU 101 and also a memory for temporarily storing image data. The RAM 106 includes an SRAM that retains the stored content even after the power is turned off, and a DRAM that erases the stored content after the power is turned off. The ROM 105 stores a boot program for the apparatus. The operation unit I / F 107 is an interface unit for connecting the system bus 110 and the operation unit 112. The operation unit I / F 107 receives image data to be displayed on the operation unit 112 from the system bus 110 and outputs the image data to the operation unit 112, and outputs information input from the operation unit 112 to the system bus 110. A network I / F 102 is connected to the LAN 115 and the system bus 110 to input / output information.

  The hard disk controller 104 controls the hard disk 111 to be connected. The hard disk can store system software, image data generated by the scanner unit 113, print data and image data input via the LAN 110. Also, it has a role of holding destination information for transmitting stored data through the network I / F 102. The image processing unit 103 corrects, processes, and edits image data received from the scanner unit 113 via the scanner I / F 108. In addition, correction, processing, and editing are performed on image data output to the printer unit 114 via the printer I / F 109.

  Next, tile image data and a tile image management table arranged on the RAM 106 will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 (A), (B), and (C).

  FIG. 2A is a diagram for conceptually explaining a tile image. The size of the tile is t pixels in both width and height, and the image 201 is divided into 12 tiles of 4 × 3 tiles (0) to (11). Each tile has a two-dimensional tile coordinate (x, y), which represents a position in the image 201. For example, the tile coordinates of the tiles indicated by the numbers (0), (1), (2), (3), (4), and (11) are (0, 0), (1, 0), (2, 0), (3, 0), (0, 1), (3, 2).

  FIG. 2B is a diagram for explaining the arrangement of each tile image data on the RAM 106. Memory areas 204, 205, 206, 207, and 208 are tile storage areas in which tiles (0), (1), (2), (3), and (11) of the image 201 are stored, respectively. This is an area corresponding to the data length (len00) of the corresponding tile data from the start address 202 (addr00 address). In this example, the data of the next tile (1) is continuously arranged from the address 203 (addr01 address). The data stored in each tile storage area is image data representing a tile image of txt pixels, and can include image attribute information in addition to the image data. The format of the image data is not limited to this, but can be represented by a code image format such as RAW format or JPEG.

  FIG. 2C illustrates a tile image management table for managing tile images. In the figure, the inverted first row and first column are described for convenience in order to explain the meaning of the data, and are not data included in the actual management table. The tile image management table 209 stores information on one tile per line, and is composed of lines corresponding to the number of tiles constituting the tile image. The tile image management table 209 includes tile coordinates (x, y) of the corresponding tile and the RAM 106. The tile storage area consists of four columns of the head address and tile data length. The first row stores management information of the tile (0). The y coordinate of the tile coordinate (0, 0) of the tile (0) is the first column, the x coordinate is the second column, and the tile (0). The top address (addr00 address) of the tile storage area is stored in the third column, and the tile data length (len00) of the tile (0) is stored in the fourth column. Similarly, the management information of the remaining tiles (2) to tiles (11) constituting the image 201 is stored from the second line to the twelfth line.

  Next, the flow of processing for performing 2-in-1 page aggregation copying by simultaneously scanning both sides of a two-sided document will be described with reference to FIG. The scanner unit 113 inputs document image data read by the two reading sensors for reading the front side and the back side of the document to the image processing unit 103. The image processing unit 103 includes two systems of scan image processing units and tile encoding units therein, and is configured to perform image processing on both front and back surfaces in parallel. The front and back image data input from the scanner unit 113 is input to the front-side scan image processing unit 301 and the back-side scan image processing unit 302, respectively. Scan image processing units 301 and 302 perform known scan image processing such as main-scan and sub-scan color misregistration correction, image area determination, filter processing, histogram creation, and input color correction on document image data, and output the scanned image data. Are input to the front surface tile encoding unit 303 and the back surface tile encoding unit 304, respectively. The tile encoding units 303 and 304 are processing blocks that divide input document image data into tiles and output a tile image compressed for each tile and a tile image management table. The front surface tile encoding unit 303 performs an encoding process using the front surface quantization table 305, and outputs a tile image 307 and a tile image management table 308 to the RAM 106.

  Similarly, the back surface tile encoding unit 304 performs an encoding process using the back surface quantization table 306 and outputs the tile image 309 and the tile image management table 310 to the RAM 106. The tile image editing processing unit 311 is a processing block that creates and outputs a tile management table in which a plurality of tile images are laid out in the Nin1 (NUP) format. The CPU 101 uses the two tile image management tables 308 and 310 on the RAM 106 to output a tile management table. A new tile image management table 312 in which these tile images are laid out in 2 in 1 is created and input to the image processing unit 103. The image processing unit 103 includes a tile decoding unit 313 and a print image processing unit 314 inside. The tile decoding unit 313 reads the input tile image management table 312 to access the tile image, decodes the encoded and compressed tile, outputs a raster image, and inputs the raster image to the print image processing unit 314. The print image processing unit 314 inputs data subjected to known print image processing such as output color correction, filter processing, gamma correction, and halftone processing to the printer unit 114. The printer unit 114 records this on a recording sheet, and outputs a print output 315 as a paper discharge.

  Next, a tile image management table 401 having a 2-in-1 layout created by the tile image editing processing unit 311 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 shows an example in which tile images 307 and 309 are laid out in a 2-in-1 layout to create a tile image 402. The tile image editing processing unit 311 reads the tile image management tables 307 and 309 and creates a new tile image management table 401. The tile image management table 401 is a table of 24 rows corresponding to 24 tiles constituting the tile image 402. In the first and second columns, coordinate data corresponding to y and x of the tile coordinates (x, y) in the tile image 402 are stored, respectively, and in the third and fourth columns, the first row ( The first address (address) and tile data length (length) of the tile storage area corresponding to each tile of the input tile image 307 are stored from the index = 0) to the 12th line (index = 11), and the 13th line (index). = 12) to 24th line (index = 23) store the leading address (address) and tile data length (length) of the tile storage area corresponding to the input tile image 309.

  Next, the flow of processing in the case where a double-sided original is simultaneously scanned on both sides and 2-in-1 page consolidated copy will be described using the flowchart of FIG. In the procedure shown in this flowchart, the control unit configured by the CPU 101, the RAM 106, the hard disk 111, and the system program stored therein controls the operation unit 112, the scanner unit 113, the printer unit 114, and the image processing unit 103. Is executed. In step S <b> 501, the CPU 101 detects that the user has set one double-sided document on a feeder provided in the scanner unit 113, operates the operation unit 112, and inputs a page aggregation copy start key with 2 in 1 setting, and starts a copy operation. It is a step to do. In step S <b> 502, the CPU 101 sets initial values in the front surface quantization table 305 and the back surface quantization table 306. In step S <b> 503, two-sided originals on which the scanner unit 113 is set are read at the same time, and processing up to storing the tile images 307 and 309 and the tile image management tables 308 and 309 in the RAM 106 is executed.

  In step S504, it is determined whether the data capacity of the tile images 307 and 309 exceeds the code memory capacity allocated to the RAM 106 by the CPU 101 for each image data. If memory overflow occurs in at least one of the front and back image data, the process proceeds to S505. If no memory overflow occurs in both the front and back faces, the process proceeds to S508. Step S505 is a step of displaying a screen prompting the user to set the original again in the feeder and resume copying because the original image read by the CPU 101 on the operation unit 112 cannot be stored in the memory. S506 is a step in which the CPU 101 waits for a restart input from the operation unit 112. When a restart input is received, the process proceeds to S507. S507 is a step in which the CPU 101 sets a quantization table having a higher compression rate than the previous scan. The same data is written in the surface quantization table 305 and the surface quantization table 306, and the process returns to S503 and more than the previous time. Re-read with high compression. In step S508, the tile image editing processing unit performs 2-in-1 layout processing. S509 is a step in which the printing unit 114 prints out the tile image laid out in 2 in 1 layout. S510 is a step of ending the copy process.

113 Scanner unit 303 Front side tile encoding unit 305 Front side quantization table 304 Back side tile encoding unit 306 Back side quantization table 307 Front side tile image data 308 Front side tile image management table 309 Back side tile image data 310 Back side tile image management Table 311 Tile image editor

Claims (1)

Reading means equipped with an optical sensor for reading the front and back surfaces of a double-sided document,
Image processing means for performing image processing on each of the front and back image data read by the reading means, encoding and outputting, and
Memory means for storing data output by the image processing means;
Layout means for creating a layout image for laying out original image data read by the reading means on a single sheet;
Printing means for printing a layout image created by the layout means;
Control means,
The image processing means includes first and second encoding means for encoding the image data on the front and back surfaces, and the first and second encoding means use first and second encoding coefficients, respectively. The control means determines whether at least one of the front and back image data output by the image processing means has overflowed the capacity allocated on the memory means. An image characterized in that a compression coefficient that is higher than the encoding coefficient used at the time of the previous reading is set as the first and second encoding coefficients, and control is performed so that the same original is read again by the reading means. Forming equipment.