JP3085834B2 - Facsimile storage switch - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile exchange which temporarily stores image data sent from a certain facsimile terminal in a memory in a facsimile communication network and then transmits the image data to a facsimile terminal designated as a destination.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In general, as a method of performing facsimile communication, a method of directly connecting a facsimile terminal to an existing telephone network has been widely used. However, in this case,
There is a problem that the transmission speed is greatly limited. In addition, there is a problem that a service that needs to temporarily store information such as broadcast communication and confidential communication in a communication network cannot be provided.

In order to solve these problems, it is conceivable to develop a dedicated facsimile network. However, in this method, there arises a new problem that the cost is high and that it is difficult to spread it early.

[0004] For this reason, conventionally, a part of the facilities and exchanges of the subscriber system use those of the existing telephone network, and a facsimile storage exchange having an image data storage function is installed in the communication network. Communication networks are being developed.

According to the facsimile communication network, services requiring an image data storage function, such as broadcast communication and confidential communication, can be provided inexpensively and quickly.

[0006]

However, the conventional facsimile storage and exchange system transmits the received image data to the destination terminal in units of received pages.

For this reason, in a conventional facsimile storage and exchange, a service of transmitting a plurality of received pages as one page in accordance with a request from a destination terminal, or combining received data with image data generated in the facsimile exchange. There has been a problem that a service of transmitting the image data as one page cannot be provided.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a facsimile storage and exchange device which can provide the above two services.

[0009]

To achieve the above object of the Invention The, present invention, in a facsimile store and forward unit, off
One or more pages of images to send to the facsimile terminal
Image data storage means for storing data, and image data storage means
The image data stored in the column is a block unit of a specified number of bytes.
Image data management means managed by the
One or more pages of image data storage
Read all or part of the image data from the column
And combine them in block units to create an arbitrary transmission
Image data to be sent to a facsimile terminal
A communication means is provided.

[0010]

In the above arrangement, the image data (received data or internally generated data) stored in the image data storage means is provided.
Are read out in predetermined block units and transmitted to the destination terminal. Therefore, the transmission page is formed by combining blocks.

According to such a configuration, the size of the transmission page can be appropriately set by appropriately setting the number of blocks to be synthesized. This makes it possible to provide a service for transmitting image data in units of requested pages of the destination terminal.

Further, by appropriately selecting the blocks to be combined, the contents of the data included in the transmission page can be appropriately set. As a result, a service for synthesizing the received data and the internally generated data and transmitting it as one page of image data, or a part of the received data or the internally generated data may be used.
A service of transmitting as one page of image data can be provided.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

The illustrated facsimile storage and exchange machine has a line processing unit 10 connected to a telephone line (not shown) and a data storage unit for storing image data sent from a facsimile terminal and image data generated in the facsimile storage and exchange machine. 20, a main control unit 30 that controls the line processing unit 10 and the data storage unit 20, and a control bus 40 that interconnects these.

In the line processor 10, a line controller (G3LU) 11 is provided for each telephone line and controls the G3 FAX communication procedure. This line control unit 11
Performs control of a built-in modem and decompression processing and compression processing for unifying the encoding method at the time of storing the received data in the disk to the MR method. Also, the line control unit 11
Has a function of transferring received data to the accumulation control unit 20 in units of a predetermined number of bytes n (n is a positive integer of 1 or more).

Reference numeral 12 denotes a communication control unit (CCM) which controls the corresponding line control unit 11 while communicating with a central control processing unit (CPM) 31 described later via the control bus 40.

In the storage control unit 20, a hard disk (HD) 21 stores image data to be transmitted to the destination terminal, that is, image data transmitted from the transmission terminal and image data generated in the facsimile storage exchange. It is. The hard disk 21 stores the image data in the block units. Further, on the hard disk 21, an image data management table for managing the image data stored in the hard disk 21 on a block-by-block basis is set.

The communication unit 22 communicates with a central control processing unit 31 to be described later via a control bus 40.
A hard disk drive (DKC) that drives the hard disk 21.

In the main control unit 30, a central control processing unit 31 is connected to the communication control unit 12 and the hard disk drive unit 22 via a control bus 40, and controls central processing such as control of image data and control of each line. (CPM).

Reference numeral 32 denotes a flexible disk drive (FDD) for driving the flexible disk, 33 denotes a console (MAC) for maintenance,
34 is a line printer (LP).

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the configuration of an image data storage area set on the hard disk 21 for storing image data.

As shown in the figure, the image data storage area is
It has a plurality of block storage areas for storing image data of each block. Each block storage area has an identification number #
1, # 2,...

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of an image data management table set on the hard disk 21 for managing image data.

As shown in the figure, management information is registered in the image data management table for each message (M1, M2,...).

The management information of each message includes information indicating the number of pages included in the message and information of each page (P1, P2,...). Each page information includes information indicating the number of blocks included in the corresponding page and each block (B1, B
2,...) Are stored and information indicating the identification number of the block storage area.

The operation of the above configuration will be described. First, a description will be given of a data receiving process of receiving image data transmitted from a transmitting terminal and writing the image data to the hard disk 21.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a part of the processing of the line control unit 11 and the hard disk drive unit 22 in the data reception processing.

In this case, the image data sent from the transmitting terminal via the telephone line is received by the line control unit 11. The received data is subjected to decompression processing and compression processing for unifying the encoding method to the MR method. This processing is performed in byte units. The image data that has been processed is
The data is written to a local memory built in the line controller 11. Hereinafter, similarly, the processing described above for each byte,
, Are repeated.

When the image data for one block described above is stored in the local memory in this way, the image data for one block is transferred to the hard disk drive unit 22. This transfer is performed via the communication control unit 12. Hereinafter, similarly, each time one block of image data is accumulated in the local memory, this transfer process is repeated.

When the transfer of the image data of the first page is completed, the completion is notified to the hard disk drive 22. Thereafter, the above-described processing,..., Is performed on the image data of the second page.
Hereinafter, similarly, these processes are performed for each page.
, Are repeated.

The image data transferred to the hard disk drive 22 is temporarily written to a local memory built in the drive 22. The write data is read out when a page transfer end notification is received from the line control unit 11 and written into the image data storage area of the hard disk 21. When the writing is completed, the number of blocks of the writing end page and the identification number of the storage area of each block are written in the image data management table of the hard disk 21.

In the same manner, each time a page transfer end notification is received from the line control unit 11, the above-described processing,.
Is executed. When the writing of all the received pages is completed in this way, the number of pages of the received message is written in the image data management table.

The above is the data reception processing. This data reception process is executed by the line control unit 11, the communication control unit 12, and the hard disk drive unit 22 under the control of the central control processing unit 31, as described above.

Although detailed description is omitted, the image data and its management information generated inside the facsimile storage and exchange machine are also controlled under the control of the middle control processing unit 31 like the received data and its management information. Are written to the hard disk 21 by the hard disk drive unit 22.

Next, a data transmission process for transmitting image data stored in the hard disk 21 to a destination terminal will be described.

The data transmission process is performed by the central control processing unit 3
1, the line controller 11 and the hard disk drive 2
It is started by booting 2.

First, referring to FIG. 5, a data transmission process (T1) for transmitting image data in units of received pages, as in the related art, will be described. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a part of the processing of the line control unit 11 and the hard disk drive unit 22 in this case.

In this case, first, the hard disk 21
The image data of the first page of the message desired to be transmitted is read from the image data storage area. This reading is performed in block units based on the management information in the image data management table.

The image data read from the image data storage area is transferred to the line controller 11. This transfer is
This is performed via the communication control unit 12 as in the case of data reception. The image data transferred to the line control unit 11 is transmitted to a destination terminal.

When the transfer of the image data of the first page is completed, the hard disk drive unit 22 sends the image data to the line control unit 11.
This end is notified. Thereby, the line control unit 11
Facsimile communication control procedure (CC
The exchange of the page end is performed according to the ITT recommendation).

Thereafter, the above-described processing,..., Is performed again on the image data of the second page. Less than,
Similarly, for each page, these processes,
, Are repeated. When the processing for the last page is completed, the central control processing section 31 causes the line control section 11
Then, the activation of the hard disk drive unit 22 is released. Thus, the data transmission process (T1) ends.

This data transmission process (T1) is also executed by the hard disk drive 22, the communication controller 12, and the line controller 11 under the control of the central control processor 31, as described above.

Next, a data transmission process (T2) for transmitting image data in page units requested by the destination terminal will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a part of the processing of the line control unit 11 and the hard disk drive unit 22 in this case. FIG. 6 shows a case where a request is made to transmit two received pages as one page.

Also in this case, the data transmission processing (T
As in 1), the above-described data readout processing (), data transfer processing (), and data transmission processing () are executed in block units.

However, the process () for notifying the end of the page transfer is executed not when the transfer of the first page is completed but when the transfer of the second page is completed.

Thus, the exchange of the page end ()
This is also executed when the transmission of the second received page is completed, not when the transmission of the first received page is completed. As a result, the destination terminal combines the received data of the first page and the received data of the second page and receives the data as the image data of the first page.

Although not shown in the drawing, the above-described page combination is performed for the third and subsequent received pages.

Next, a data transmission process (T3) for synthesizing the received data and the internally generated data and transmitting it as one-page image data will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a part of the processing of the line control unit 11 and the hard disk drive unit 22 in this case. In FIG. 7, the number of pages of internally generated data is one,
A case where this is combined with the first page of the received data is shown as a representative.

In this case, for example, transmission starts from internally generated data, and when this transmission ends, transmission of the first page of the reception data starts. When this transmission ends, a page transfer end notification is made. As a result, the composite data of the internally generated data and the received data of the first page has been sent to the destination terminal as the image data of the first page.

For the second and subsequent pages of the received data, the above-described data transmission processing (T1) or data transmission processing (T1)
Sent according to 2).

In this embodiment, as described above,
Image data is divided into predetermined blocks, and the blocks are combined to form a transmission page. Therefore, the above-described data transmission processing (T2),
Data transmission processing other than (T3) can also be performed.

For example, the data transmission processing (T
In 2), the case where two reception pages are combined to form one transmission page has been described. However, in this embodiment, three or more received pages can be combined to form one transmitted page.

In the data transmission process (T2) described above, a case has been described where received pages are sequentially combined from the top. However, in this embodiment, only necessary pages can be intermittently combined.

In the data transmission processing (T2) described above, a case has been described where received data is combined in page units. However, in this embodiment, when there are a plurality of pages of the internally generated data, the internally generated data can be combined in page units.

In the above description, the case where image data is combined in page units has been described. However, in this embodiment, it is also possible to combine only necessary portions of each page.

As described in detail above, according to this embodiment,
Since image data is managed in a predetermined block unit and is transmitted in this unit, a transmission page can be formed by combining blocks.

Thus, the size of the transmission page can be appropriately set by appropriately setting the number of blocks to be synthesized, so that it is possible to provide a service for transmitting image data in units of requested pages of the destination terminal. .

Further, since different telegrams can be synthesized by appropriately selecting the blocks to be synthesized, a service of synthesizing the received data and the internally generated data and transmitting it as one page of image data can also be provided. .

Further, not only a service for synthesizing image data in page units as described above, but also a service for synthesizing only a necessary portion in a page can be provided.

Although one embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various other embodiments may be made without departing from the gist of the present invention. Of course, it can be modified.

[0064]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to provide a facsimile storage switch capable of providing a service of transmitting image data in units of a request page of a destination terminal and a service of combining received data and internally generated data and transmitting the data as one page of image data. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of an image data storage area in one embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of an image data management table in one embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a data receiving process in one embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a data transmission process according to an embodiment;

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing another example of the data transmission process in one embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing still another example of the data transmission process in one embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Line processing part, 20 ... Storage control part, 30 ... Main control part, 11 ... Line control part, 12 ... Communication control part, 21 ... Hard disk, 22 ... Hard disk drive part, 31 ... Central control processing part, 32 ... Flexible Disk drive, 33
... Maintenance console, 34 ... Line printer.

Continuation of the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04N 1/21 H04L 12/54 H04L 12/58 H04N 1/00 104

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] [Claim 1] The 1 for transmission to the facsimile terminal
Management information of image data storage means, and image data management means for managing the image data stored in said image data storage means in blocks of a predetermined number of bytes, the image data management means for storing the image data of multiple pages Based on the image
Data of the one or more pages of image data from the data storage means.
Parts or parts are read out in block units as appropriate, and
A facsimile storage and exchange device comprising: an image data transmitting unit that forms an arbitrary transmission page by synthesizing in lock units and transmits the page to the facsimile terminal.