JP2919600B2 - Facsimile machine - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus for transmitting and receiving image information, and more particularly to a facsimile apparatus with a memory function for storing image information before transmission and transmitting the stored image information. About.

[Conventional technology]

In a conventional facsimile apparatus, when reading an original and performing facsimile transmission, it is previously set whether to read the original in a high quality mode (fine mode), that is, high resolution, or to read the original in a normal mode (normal mode), that is, low resolution. Facsimile transmission. In this case, if it is not possible to visually check the status of the original and determine which mode to scan the original in and to send it by facsimile, perform a fax copy in both modes and visually check the copy. It has been conventionally performed to judge.

Also, in a conventional facsimile machine or a conventional facsimile machine with a memory function, when the original state is judged, if the original contents cannot be determined at the receiving end unless the original is read and transmitted in the high quality mode, the original is erroneously judged. When a document is read and transmitted in a normal mode, or when the image information is stored in a storage device such as a semiconductor memory and then transmitted by facsimile, the contents of the document may not be accurately determined at the receiving destination. Therefore, when facsimile transmission / reception has been completed at the receiving end, the receiving end informs the sending end that "the contents of the document cannot be determined accurately" to the sending end by telephone or other means, and the sender receives the notification and returns to the high quality mode. And then resend the document after reading it.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

In the above-described two conventional facsimile apparatuses, if the resolution setting is transmitted erroneously, there is a possibility that the destination paper is wasted. In this case, it is necessary for the transmission source to read the original again and transmit the original again, which wastes time and causes the problem that the same operation must be repeated many times.

Also, if it is not possible to determine which scanning mode to scan, fax copying must be performed once in both modes, and it must be determined from that state. There was a problem that wasted wasted.

Further, as described above, it is necessary to provide two modes for reading a document, and the circuit design of the document reading apparatus becomes complicated, and there is a problem that it takes a long time for the circuit design.

In addition, when transferring the original content received in high quality to another, it must be sent in high quality mode even if the original can be sent in normal quality. There was a problem that the required cost was high.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and reads image data in a high-resolution high-quality reading mode.
By storing it in a memory and displaying the stored image data as it is or compressed on a display device, the state of the image transmitted before transmission can be determined, the transmission time can be reduced, the transmission cost can be reduced, It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus which can prevent waste of paper, can design a circuit of a document reading apparatus in a short time, and is highly operable and economical.

[Means for Solving the Problems] A facsimile apparatus according to the present invention stores image information of a document to be transmitted, displays an image of the document on a display unit based on the stored image information, and displays the displayed image. A facsimile apparatus that transmits via a communication line and receives at least an image of a first resolution via the communication line, a document reading means for reading the document to be transmitted at a first resolution, Storage means for storing image information of a document read by the means or image information of an image received via the communication line; and a second means lower than the first resolution by thinning out the image information stored in the storage means. Means for generating image information relating to an image having a resolution, and selecting means for selecting image information stored in the storage means or image information generated by the means. And displaying an image according to the image information of the specified resolution on the display means, and transmitting the image at the resolution of the displayed image.

[Action]

In the present invention, the original is read by the original reading unit in the first resolution, that is, the high-resolution high-quality mode, and the image information of the read original or the received image is stored in the storage unit. A second resolution lower than the first resolution by thinning the image of the first resolution,
That is, a normal mode image is generated, the stored first resolution image or the generated second resolution image is selected by the selection means, and the selected resolution image is displayed on the display means and displayed. The transmitted image is transmitted. Therefore, the state of the original at the time of transmission can be easily confirmed by copying without copying, and an unclear image is not transmitted.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings showing examples.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to the present invention (hereinafter referred to as the present apparatus). In the drawing, reference numeral 1 denotes an MPU for performing overall control of the apparatus of the present invention. The MPU 1 has a ROM for storing a control program, an area for temporarily storing data when the MPU 1 performs control, and an MPU 1 which is necessary for control. And a RAM having an area for storing various flags. MPU
A switching key 11 for connecting and disconnecting the power supply voltage is connected to 1, and a mode signal for switching the resolution, that is, a high quality mode, is transmitted to an image control circuit 6 and a modulation circuit 8, which will be described later, according to this state. give.

The MPU 1 is interconnected with a circuit such as an encoding circuit 3, a page memory 4, a decoding circuit 5, an image control circuit 6, an image memory 7, a modulation circuit 8, and a demodulation circuit 9 via a bus 14 and a memory. Input and output data and addresses.

The encoding circuit 3 converts the image signal output as a set of binary signals indicating black and white in accordance with the black and white of the image by the original reading circuit 2 with a signal representing white (or black) by a known method such as the MH method. Compression-encodes to a symbol representing a number.

The document reading circuit 2 uses, for example, a one-dimensional image sensor or the like, optically reads a document, and converts this into a dot-shaped binary image signal representing white or black. The document reading circuit 2 always reads a document in the first resolution high quality mode (fine mode).

The page memory 4 stores a signal that has been compression-encoded by the encoding circuit 3 or a signal that has been demodulated by a demodulation circuit 9 to be described later as image data for each file on a document-by-file basis.

The decoding circuit 5 converts (decodes) the compression-encoded signal stored in the page memory 4 into an image signal as a dot signal representing white or black.

The image control circuit 6 is a circuit for controlling the display on the CRT 12 as a display means, and sequentially scans the image memory 7 for storing image data of one screen, thereby outputting a video signal and a horizontal / vertical synchronization signal to the CRT 12. (HSYNC, VSYNC) is generated. Further, the image control circuit 6 thins out the image signal decoded by the decoding circuit 5 in accordance with the mode signal output in accordance with the state of the switching key 11 from the MPU 1 in the sub-scanning direction for every second line. The data is written to the image memory 7 in the resolution, that is, the normal mode, or is written to the image memory 7 in the high quality mode without thinning out the sub-scanning direction.

An 8-bit image signal read from the page memory 4 and decoded by the decoding circuit 5 is written in the image memory 7 at the first or second resolution as described above, and is converted into a video signal. And displayed on CRT 12. One bit of the image signal corresponds to a pixel of the CRT 12 and its “1”, “0”
Determines the black and white of the pixel.

The modulation circuit 8 is compression-coded by the coding circuit 3,
Key for switching image data stored in page memory 4
According to the state of 11, the sub-scanning direction is modulated with or without thinning out the sub-scanning direction line by line according to the mode signal output from the MPU 1 and output to the communication line 15 such as a telephone line. That is, the modulation circuit 8 outputs image data at the second resolution or the first resolution.

The demodulation circuit 9 is a circuit for demodulating a signal received from the communication line 15. The demodulated compression-encoded signal is stored in the page memory 4 or decoded by the decoding circuit 5, and is used for, for example, a thermal printer, an electronic Printing is performed on paper by a printing device 10 such as a photographic printer.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of an effective display area of the CRT 12, in which all numbers in the figure are represented by hexadecimal numbers with "H" at the end, and they indicate addresses of the image memory 7. .

When a low-resolution monochrome CRT 12 is used as a display means by interlaced scanning and the effective display area of the CRT 12 is 80 bytes (640 dots) × 480 lines per line as shown in FIG. The even field indicated by "e" and the odd field indicated by "o" have 240 lines each. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the area configuration of the image memory 7 for the CRT 12 having the effective display area shown in FIG. 2, and has an area configuration capable of storing image data of 216 bytes (1728 dots) in the horizontal direction. ing. In addition, 128K bytes (256 × 512) bytes are prepared in total, and 103680 bytes (216 × 480) bytes are prepared for image display. The rest is used as a work area for system control.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an initial positional relationship between the CRT 12 screen and the address of the image memory 7. Initially, data in the image memory 7 at the upper left corner of the image is displayed on the CRT 12.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the position of the CRT 12 screen for one A4 document when the CRT 12 screen and the address of the image memory 7 have the relationship shown in FIG. 4. The CRT screen is indicated by hatching. I have. As is clear from this figure, CRT
Only a small part of the document is displayed on the 12 screens. Therefore, the image control circuit 6 is provided with a horizontal scanning start register for easily realizing horizontal scrolling, and a vertical divided into even and odd fields for realizing vertical scrolling. A direction scan start register is provided, and their register values can be set from the MPU 1.

Horizontal scrolling can be easily realized by rewriting the value of the above-described horizontal scanning start register. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the relationship between the CRT 12 screen and the address of the image memory 7 when scrolling by 2 bytes (16 dots) in the horizontal direction from the state shown in FIG. The address has been incremented by 2H.

On the other hand, in the vertical scrolling, similarly, the value of the vertical scanning start register is rewritten, image data corresponding to the number of scrolled lines is read from the page memory 4, and the read data is decoded by the decoding circuit 5. Is written to the image memory 7 via the image control circuit 6.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the relationship between the CRT 12 screen and the address of the image memory 7 when scrolling by 2 lines from the state shown in FIG. 6, and the address of the 0 to 477 lines is incremented by 200H as shown by the broken line. At the same time, the addresses of the 478,479 lines are set to the original addresses of the 0,1 lines, and data for two new lines is written there.

FIG. 8 shows a normal quality mode, that is, when a document of the second resolution is received, or the document read by the document reading circuit 2 is thinned out in the sub-scanning direction line by line in accordance with the state of the switching key 11, and the image is displayed. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a relationship between a CRT 12 screen and an address of an image memory 7 when stored in a memory 7. In this case, the image memory 7 is not scanned in the scanning of the odd field. Therefore, on the CRT 12 screen, the lines of the odd field scan become white.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a specific example of scanning on the CRT 12, where "normal original" is a normal quality original and the contents are displayed on the CRT 12 screen. Is received and the contents are thinned out line by line in the sub-scanning direction and displayed on the CRT 12 screen, or the original is read by the original reading circuit 2 and the contents are thinned out line by line in the sub-scanning direction. Is displayed.

The "fine original" is defined as a case where a high-quality mode original is received and its contents are displayed on the CRT 12 screen, or the original is read by the original reading circuit 2 and the CRT 12 is read without thinning the sub-scanning direction. This shows a case where the information is displayed on the screen.

Are lines indicating that the horizontal scanning of the CRT 12 is being performed in a state where the video signal or the signal shown in white is fixed in the odd field.

Next, the transmission procedure of the facsimile apparatus of the present invention will be described. FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a procedure from reading of a document to transmission. First, a document reading process is performed by the document reading circuit 2 (S1). The reading at this time is in the high quality mode (fine mode) as described above.
Perform at Next, the image signal of the read document is compression-encoded by the encoding circuit 3 into data representing the number of consecutive signals represented by white (or black) using the MH method or the like (S2). Then, the coded data is written to the page memory 4 for each document (S3). Next, it is checked whether or not there is still an original to be read (S4). If there is still an original, the process returns to step S1, and the original is read again. It is checked whether reading of another file is newly specified (S5), and if there is another document, the process returns to step S1.
If there is no document to be read, a process of selecting a document to be transmitted is performed (S6), and the selected document is read from the page memory 4 into the decoding circuit 5 (S7). Next, it is determined whether or not the display is performed with the sub-scanning direction thinned out, based on the state of the switching key 11 (S8). Without decoding, the decoded image signal is written into the image memory 7 (S9) and displayed on the CRT 12 (S10). In the case of thinning out the sub-scanning direction, the decoding circuit 5 thins out the sub-scanning direction line by line and decodes it, and writes it in the image memory 7 (S1).
1) Display on CRT 12 (S12).

Next, it is determined that the image displayed on the CRT 12 is appropriate, and it is determined whether or not to perform transmission by key operation (S13). When performing a fax transmission, the image is selected based on the image quality currently displayed on the CRT 12. The manuscript is transmitted (S14). After the transmission is completed, it is determined whether or not another original is to be transmitted (S15). If another original is to be transmitted, the process returns to step S6, and the procedure from the selection of the original is repeated. Also, in step S13, the image displayed on the CRT 12 is determined to be inappropriate, and it is necessary to change the resolution.
If the transmission is not to be performed, the process returns to step S8, and it is determined again whether the display is performed with the sub-scanning direction thinned out, and the resolution is changed.

Next, a case will be described in which the resolution of the received document is checked and the fax is transmitted instead of the image of the read document. FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a procedure for transmitting a received document by fax. First, a reception process is performed via the communication line 15 (S21), and the data of the received document is demodulated and written in the page memory 4 for each document (S2).
2). Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S5 in FIG. 10, where an image is displayed according to the above-described processing procedure, thereby determining whether or not the resolution is appropriate.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above, according to the present invention, for example, when it is not possible to determine the resolution at which to transmit a document by looking at the state of the document, the image at the time of transmission is selectively displayed on the display means at two resolutions. , So that you can view the image at the time of transmission without fax copying, and do not waste paper.

In addition, since the original is always read in the first resolution, that is, the high quality mode (fine mode), the display on the display means can be converted to the second resolution, that is, the normal quality mode (normal mode). It is possible to prevent a transmission error such as an erroneous transmission of a document to be sent in the high quality mode in the normal quality mode, and to avoid waste of transmission costs caused by sending a document in the normal quality mode in the high quality mode.

Furthermore, when the contents of the received original are transmitted as they are to other users, the contents are displayed on the display means, and when the original is transmitted at the first resolution, it can be converted to the normal quality mode and transmitted. The communication time can be shortened, transmission costs can be saved, and excellent effects such as operability and economic efficiency can be greatly improved as a whole.

[Brief description of the drawings]

1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of an effective display area of a CRT, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of an area configuration of an image memory,
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the relationship between the CRT screen and the address of the image memory, FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the relationship between the CRT screen and the A4 document, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the relationship between the CRT screen and the image memory address during horizontal scrolling. Fig. 7 shows the CR during vertical scrolling.
The figure showing the relationship between the T screen and the address of the image memory, FIG.
The figure shows the relationship between the CRT screen and the image memory address when the sub-scanning direction is thinned out, FIG. 9 shows a specific example of CRT scanning, and FIGS. 10 and 11 show the transmission procedure. It is a flowchart. 1 ... MPU, 2 ... Document reading circuit, 3 ... Encoding circuit, 4 ... Page memory, 5 ... Decoding circuit, 6 ... Image control circuit, 7 ... Image memory, 12 ... CRT

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) H04N 1/00 H04N 1/21 H04N 1/387

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] An image of a document to be transmitted is stored, an image of the document is displayed on display means based on the stored image information, and the displayed image is transmitted via a communication line.
A facsimile apparatus that receives at least a first resolution image via the communication line; a document reading unit that reads the document to be transmitted at a first resolution; and image information of the document read by the document reading unit. Storage means for storing image information of an image received via the communication line; means for thinning out the image information stored in the storage means to generate image information relating to an image having a second resolution lower than the first resolution And selecting means for selecting image information stored in the storage means or image information generated by the means, displaying an image according to the image information of the selected resolution on the display means, and displaying the displayed image. Facsimile apparatus for transmitting an image at a resolution of