JP2966907B2 - Communication device - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication device, and more particularly to a communication device that encodes and compresses input image data and transmits the image data.

[Prior art] Conventionally, in G3 and G4 facsimile machines, MH,
A technique for encoding and compressing image data using an encoding method such as MR or MMR and transmitting the encoded data is known. These coding schemes are also defined in various CCITT recommendations.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, at the time of encoding, a large difference may occur in the compression result of the image data depending on the characteristics of the image data (for example, depending on the size of characters). Normally, since the communication speed is constant, the transmission time may differ depending on the characteristics of the image data even for images having the same number of pages.

Therefore, in the conventional device, it is difficult for the user to predict the transmission time of the image data to be transmitted. Further, in a device that can use a plurality of various coding methods as described above, information such as which coding method is suitable for a transmission image cannot be obtained by a conventional device.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems and to provide a communication device capable of displaying a compression result of transmission image data and displaying expected data regarding the transmission.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above problems, according to the present invention, in a communication device that encodes and compresses input image data and transmits the encoded image data, the result of encoding and compression of the input image data Means for displaying the result of encoding and compression of the input image data, and displaying the amount of image data obtained as a result of encoding and compression in comparison with the amount of image data before encoding and compression. Adopted.

[Operation] According to the above configuration, when input image data is encoded and transmitted, the image data amount obtained as a result of the encoding compression is compared with the image data amount before the encoding compression. It can display and notify the user of the result of the encoding process.

EXAMPLES Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on examples shown in the drawings.

 FIG. 1 shows the structure of a communication device employing the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a CPU including a microprocessor, which is connected to a ROM 1a and a RAM 1b as a work area, and controls the operation of the entire apparatus according to a program stored in the ROM 1a. CPU1 address bus,
The following components are connected to a system bus such as a data bus.

The scanner 2 includes a CCD line sensor and a document transport system, and is used for reading a document image. The binarized image data read by the scanner 2 is stored in the memory 3.

The memory 3 is used as a work area for the CPU 1 and as a storage area for image data in image transmission described later, and is composed of a RAM or the like.

The printer 7 includes a thermal recording head and a recording paper transport system, and is used for recording a received image or recording an image read by the scanner 2 at the time of copying a document.

The display unit 4 is composed of an LCD display or the like, and is used for displaying a current time, displaying an operation state, and the like.

The operation unit 6 includes an LCD display and a keyboard such as numeric keys and function keys.

The coding converter 5 is a circuit that mainly performs coding compression to MH codes, MR, MMR codes, and the like, and conversion from those codes to binary in order to suppress the redundancy of the transmission image signal. In particular, in image transmission, the encoding converter 5 encodes the binarized image data read from the scanner 2 into a predetermined area of the memory 3 and stores the encoded data in another predetermined area of the memory 3. .

The communication control unit 8 includes a modem, an NCU, a call signal detection unit, and the like, and interfaces with a communication line such as a telephone line via the communication control unit 8.

Next, the operation in the above configuration will be described. In this embodiment, the hardware structure of each part of the facsimile apparatus described above is almost the same as that of a known device, but is characterized by the control of the CPU 1 at the time of image transmission and the display method of the display unit 4.

That is, in the present embodiment, the data amount of the transmission image after being encoded into the MH, MR code, or the like is calculated, and the compression ratio is displayed.
At this time, the amount of memory occupied by the raw data and the encoded data is displayed.

The communication speed (use an appropriate fixed value,
Use the one determined based on the communication procedure with the receiving station.)
And the remaining time required for communication based on the amount of transmitted image data after encoding.

Further, at the time of the above display, a more intuitive and easy-to-understand user interface is provided by performing display in a bar graph format as necessary.

FIG. 2 shows how the information is displayed on the display unit 4 during transmission.

In FIG. 2, three bar graph displays 10, 11, and 13 are used. These indications 10, 11, and 13 are expressed in such a manner that the required length inside the thin line is painted in a color different from the ground color of the display unit 4 (a to c portions) as shown in the figure. I do.

First, the shaded portion a of the display 10 indicates the amount of binary image data read from the scanner 2 into the memory 3.

Further, the filled part b of the display 11 is the coding converter 5
Shows the data amount of the encoded image data after encoding.

The displays 10 and 11 are expressed by, for example, associating the entire length represented by a thin line with a predetermined data amount and forming a solid portion over a length corresponding to a ratio between target data and the predetermined data amount. I do. For example, a fixed display may be performed in the vicinity of the displays 10 and 11 in units of bytes, for example, so that the data amount can be directly read.

On the side of the display 11, the ratio between the raw image data amount and the coded image data amount shown in the displays 10 and 11, that is, the compression ratio is numerically displayed (12).

Further, the third bar graph display 13 has a total length of 100, which corresponds to the capacity of the entire image data area of the memory 3, and includes the raw image data shown in the displays 10 and 11, This indicates how much percentage the image data occupies in the memory 3.
The filled portions c and d corresponding to the raw image data and the coded image data are displayed so as to be distinguished by different fill patterns (diagonal lines, satin finish, etc.).

Further, in the lower part, a numerical value is displayed on how long it takes to transmit the image data indicated as described above by the displays 14 and 15. The transmission time can be calculated by dividing the encoded image data amount by the communication speed. As the communication speed, an appropriate fixed value is used, or a value determined based on a communication procedure with the receiving station during communication is used.

As for the transmission time, the range of the approximate value calculated as shown in the figure may be displayed in a number of seconds to a number of seconds (or minutes).

The display described above is performed by reading image data from the scanner 2 into the memory 3 and performing encoding conversion, except for the displays 14 and 15 when displaying the transmission time based on the communication speed determined based on the communication procedure with the receiving station. After encoding by the unit 5,
It can be done continuously. Also, if you are communicating
It is conceivable that the remaining time is updated according to a change in the situation, for example, the progress of communication, or the percentage display (13) is updated according to reading of new image data. Alternatively, it is conceivable to change the meaning of the display during transmission standby and during transmission.

Hereinafter, an example of control for performing the above-described display will be described with reference to FIGS. 3 to 5. Figures 3 to 5
The procedure shown in the figure is assumed to be stored in the ROM 1a as a control program for the CPU 1.

FIG. 3 shows that the image data is read from the scanner 2 to the memory 3, encoded by the encoding converter 5,
Shows processing for storing encoded data.

In step S11 in FIG. 3, the user instructs reading of a transmission image by loading a document on the scanner 2 or further by inputting an appropriate transmission command on the operation unit 6.

The processing after step S12 is executed in units of 64 KB of raw binary data read by the scanner 2. That is, in step S12, it is detected whether or not all document data has been read, and in step S13, it is determined whether or not the binarized data has exceeded 64 KB.

If not all original data has been read and the binarized data does not exceed 64 KB, image reading from the scanner 2 to the memory 3 is continued.

If all the manuscript data has been read, or if the binarized data exceeds 64 KB, the flow shifts to step S14 to start data compression by the encoding converter 5, and then to step S6.
Wait for the end of the compression process.

In step S16, the communication time is calculated based on the calculation of the data compression ratio and the communication speed of an appropriate fixed value.

In step S17, each display illustrated in FIG. 2 is updated based on the calculation result in step S16.

In step S18, it is determined whether or not the original image to be read still remains. If the original image to be read still remains, the processing from step S11 is repeated.

In this manner, by updating the display every 64 KB even while the scanner 2 is reading, real-time display of the latest data is always possible.

 Next, FIG. 4 shows control at the time of transmission.

In step S21, a transmission instruction is issued. This instruction is automatically generated when the user performs a predetermined operation on the operation unit 6 or when the reading is completed.

In the loop of steps S22 to S24, the displays 10 to 15 in FIG. 2 are updated in accordance with the progress of the transmission until the end of transmission of all data is detected in step S24. For example, display 10, 11
In such cases, the progress of the transmission can be displayed intuitively and intuitively by shortening the filled portions a and b displayed at the start of transmission by the amount of transmission (step
S22).

In addition, it is more accurate to calculate and display the remaining time displays 14 and 15 based on the communication speed determined based on the communication procedure with the receiving station during communication (step S23).

As described above, information such as the amount of raw image data, the amount of encoded image data, the compression ratio, and the memory occupancy can be displayed in real time in an intuitive and easy-to-understand manner and transmitted to the user.

In the display example of FIG. 2, since the compression ratio can be displayed, a configuration in which the compression method is inspected and changed by using the compression ratio can be considered.

Here, FIG. 5 shows an example of a procedure for checking the compression method.

It is known that the compression ratio differs depending on the compression method such as MH, MR, or MMR depending on the image, and the compression ratio may be 1 or more (not compressed).
Therefore, in step S31 in FIG. 5, the CPU 1 causes the encoding converter 5 to perform empty conversion (encoding) on the raw data stored in the memory 3. Here, the process of simply counting the number of output bytes is performed without storing the encoded output of the encoding converter 5 in the memory 3. The output of the encoding converter 5 is controlled by known hardware or software.

In step S32, the compression ratio is calculated in the same manner as described above, and it is determined whether or not it is smaller than 1. If step S32 is affirmed, the same coding process is again commanded to the coding converter 5 in step S34, and the output is written to the memory 3 this time.

On the other hand, if step S32 is denied, step S33
, An appropriate warning message such as "image data not suitable for encoding and compression" is displayed, or the compression ratio is displayed at the same time, and the process is terminated.

In the processing of steps S31 to S34, each display in FIG. 2 is updated at an appropriate interval (for example, every 64 KB of raw data).

As described above, the appropriateness of the encoding method can be displayed, and the appropriate encoding method can be automatically determined.

Note that the result may be displayed by repeating only the above-described compression ratio test by manual operation.

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above, according to the present invention, in a communication device that encodes and compresses input image data and transmits the encoded image data, a means for displaying a result of encoding and compression of the input image data is provided. In the display of the result of encoding and compression of the inputted image data, the image data amount obtained as a result of the encoding and compression is displayed in comparison with the image data amount before encoding and compression. When the input image data is encoded and transmitted, the image data amount obtained as a result of the encoding compression is displayed in comparison with the image data amount before the encoding compression, and the result of the encoding process is displayed to the user. , And the user can be informed of the time required for image transmission and whether or not encoding is appropriate.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus employing the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a display system of the apparatus of FIG. 1,
3 and 4 are flowcharts showing control procedures of the CPU of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing control procedures of a different CPU. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... CPU, 2 ... Scanner 3 ... Memory, 4 ... Display unit 5 ... Encoding converter, 6 ... Operation unit 7 ... Printer, 8 ... Communication control unit

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Fields surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) H04N 1/41-1/419 H04N 1/00

Claims (5)

(57) [Claims] 1. A communication apparatus for encoding and compressing input image data and transmitting the encoded image data, comprising: means for displaying a result of encoding and compression of the input image data; A communication device for displaying the amount of image data obtained as a result of encoding and compression in comparison with the amount of image data before encoding and compression. 2. The image data amount obtained as a result of the encoding compression and the image data amount before the encoding compression are compared, and the ratio between the two is numerically displayed as a compression ratio. The communication device according to claim 1. 3. The communication device according to claim 2, wherein a warning is displayed when the compression ratio is 1 or more. 4. The communication device according to claim 1, wherein a bar graph display is used for a predetermined portion of the display. 5. An apparatus according to claim 1, wherein an estimated transmission time of the encoded image data is displayed.
The communication device according to any one of the above items.