JP3207445B2 - Facsimile machine - 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 apparatus having a transfer function for temporarily storing received images and transmitting the images to another destination.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When a telephone number of a destination facsimile apparatus is registered in advance and a transfer mode is set, a facsimile apparatus having a transfer function of temporarily storing a received image and transmitting the image to a registered destination is often used. Are known. Here, a facsimile station in which a facsimile apparatus set in such a transfer mode is installed is referred to as a relay station for convenience.

By the way, when such a relay station receives images of a plurality of pages from a transmission source, some pages may be lost due to a transmission error, and only the pages that can be correctly received may be relayed to a transfer destination. .

In this case, the page of the received image is insufficient at the transfer destination, but if no transmission error occurs during the image reception, the transfer destination facsimile apparatus determines that the reception is normal and displays an error display. Do not do.

[0005] For this reason, the transfer destination operator may not notice the shortage of the received image.

On the other hand, when an image is transmitted by a facsimile apparatus, a TTI (Transmitte
r Terminal Identificatio
n) The date and time and the name of the transmission source are added as information. In addition, according to the transmission control procedure signal, R
TI (Remote Terminal Identity)
As the information, the name of the transmission source is notified to the receiving side. The RTI information is information that is displayed on the receiving side during communication or used for displaying a transmission source in a communication management report indicating a communication history.

Conventionally, when a relay station transfers an image, TT
As the I information, the TTI information added to the received image is transmitted as it is without adding the information of the relay station. Also, as the RTI information, the source information is stored when an image is received, and the stored RTI information is transmitted to a transfer destination.

Thus, at the transfer destination, the TT of the received image
The corresponding reception item of the I information and the communication management report recorded the name of the actual transmission source.

By the way, usually, a communication management report includes:
The communication date and time are recorded together with the received item. However, conventionally, the communication time on the communication management report did not match the time recorded in the TTI information of the received image. That is, in the communication management report, the reception time from the relay station is recorded as the communication time, while the TT of the received image is recorded.
The transmission time of the transmission source was recorded in the I information.

[0010]

As described above, in the prior art, when some pages are lost during transmission from the transmission source to the relay station, the transfer destination operator does not notice the lack of the received image. At the same time, at the transfer destination, the TTI information of the received image does not match the time of the communication management report, so that the operator cannot easily manage the received document.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus which solves the above-mentioned problem and makes it possible to easily know a missing page at a transfer destination and to easily manage a received document.

[0012]

The invention according to claim 1 is
In a facsimile machine equipped with a transfer function that temporarily stores an image received from a transmission source and then transmits that image to another destination, some pages are missing due to an error when receiving multiple images from the transmission source In this case, there is provided a means for waiting for a predetermined time and receiving only transmissions from the same transmission source during the waiting period.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in a facsimile apparatus having a transfer function of temporarily storing an image received from a transmission source and transmitting the image to another destination, an image of a plurality of pages is received from the transmission source. When a part of the page is missing due to an error, the image of the missing page is received after waiting for a certain period of time, and the image of the missing page is combined with the image received before the error, and the other page is received. It is characterized by having means for transferring to a destination.

[0014]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, image information from a different destination is not accepted during a predetermined waiting time when a missing page occurs in image information sent from a transmission source. Thus, the image of the missing page sent from the same transmission source can be reliably received.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, even if a missing page occurs, if the missing page can be received thereafter, the image can be transmitted to the transfer destination in a perfect state without the missing page.

[0016]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, a scanner 1 reads a document image to extract image information, and a plotter 2 records an image on a recording sheet. The encoding / decoding unit 3 compresses data of image information to be transmitted by encoding using a known encoding method such as the MH method, and decodes received image information to reproduce the original image information. The image memory 4 temporarily stores image information.

The modem 5 modulates and demodulates image information and transmits the same, and transmits and receives various procedure signals for transmission control. The network control device 6 is connected to a telephone line, and performs predetermined line control when making and receiving calls. The operation display unit 7 displays various states of operation of the apparatus while the operator performs various operations.

The system memory 8 temporarily stores various information necessary for a communication operation. System control unit 9
Is a microcomputer that controls each of the above units,
The system bus 10 is a signal line through which the above-described units exchange various control signals and data with each other.

With the above configuration, it is assumed that the facsimile apparatus of the present embodiment has the above-described transfer function.

When the power is turned on, this facsimile apparatus constantly monitors incoming calls (N loop of process 101) as shown in FIG. Assuming that a call arrives from the transmission source (Y in step 101), a known transmission control procedure is executed with the destination. At this time, the RTI information is transmitted from the transmission source using the NSS signal. Here, the facsimile apparatus extracts the RTI information from the NSS signal and stores it (process 102).

Then, the operation mode is determined (Step 10).
3). In this embodiment, it is assumed that the operation mode includes a normal mode and a transfer mode.

If the normal mode has been set (N in step 103), the transmitted image is received and recorded on a recording sheet (step 104).

On the other hand, if the transfer mode is set (Y in step 103), the transmitted image is received and stored in the image memory 4.

In this embodiment, when an image of a plurality of pages is received, the transmission side is notified of a reception result of normal reception or reception error for each page by a known procedure. In the case of a reception error, the image information of the page is invalidated and not stored in the image memory 4, and the reception of the next page is continued as it is.

In this way, only the image of each page normally received is stored in the image memory 4 (process 105). When the image reception is completed, as shown in FIG. 3, a management table T indicating the reception result of each page and the storage position of the image information of each page in the image memory 4 is created (Process 10).
6).

Next, the reception result is determined (Step 10).
7) For example, as shown in FIG. 3A, if there is an error on the second and fourth pages (Y in step 107), the incoming call is monitored for a certain period of time (step 10).
8. From N of processing 108 to processing 109, from N of processing 109 to processing 108).

By the way, at the transmission source, if an error occurs during transmission, the facsimile apparatus displays an error page using, for example, a transmission result report. In this case, the operator sends the error page again.

When the facsimile apparatus of the relay station receives an incoming call while waiting (Y in step 108), it responds and determines whether or not the received image is the same as the other party based on the received RTI information (step 110). ).

Now, if the retransmission is from the transmission source, they are the same destination. In this case (processing 11
0, Y), the transmitted image is received and stored in the image memory 4. In the present example, the images of the second and fourth pages are retransmitted here. At this time, FIG.
As shown in (1), each received page is made to correspond to each page in which an error has occurred in the previous reception (process 111).

Upon completion of the reception, it is determined whether or not there is a transfer error (step 112). If there is no error (Y in step 112), the communication is terminated.

Thereafter, a call is made to a preset transfer destination telephone number (process 113). When the destination responds, it executes a known transmission control procedure. At this time, as shown in FIG. 4A, the RTI information received and stored from the transmission source is transmitted as it is to the transfer destination by the NSS signal (processing 11).
4).

Thus, the RTI information is displayed on the destination facsimile machine.

In the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 4 (b), in the stored received image, the date and time a of transmission, the name b of the source, and the number of pages c of the image are displayed at the transmission source. It is assumed that it is added as TTI information.

This facsimile apparatus corrects the date and time a in the received TTI information of the image to the date and time at that time (process 115). Then, the corrected image is transmitted (process 116).

Thus, the transmission image is recorded and output in the destination facsimile machine. On the other hand, if there is an incoming call from a source other than the transmission source during the standby, the communication is immediately stopped after responding (from N of processing 1110 to processing 109
What).

If no transmission is made from the transmission source during the waiting period and a predetermined time has elapsed (Y in processing 109), a call is made to the transfer destination in the same manner as described above, and the RTI information and the time are stored. The image is transmitted (processing 117 to 120). After that, an error report notifying that the page is missing is transmitted (process 121).

FIG. 5 shows an example of an image of the error report. That is, the title d is the report name, and the message e is a missing image or other notification text. The date f and the time g are the date and time of transmission from the relay station, and the transmission source h is the transmission source RTI information. The error page i indicates the page number that could not be transferred.

As described above, in the present embodiment, when a page of a received image is missing, it is waited for retransmission for a certain period of time, and when it is retransmitted, it is put together with the previously received image. To send to. As a result, it is possible to reduce the frequency of transferring an image with a missing page.

If the missing page has not been resent, a report document indicating that fact is transmitted after the image transfer, so that the transfer destination operator can easily know that there is a missing page.

When transferring an image, the RTI of the transmission source is used.
The information is transmitted to the transfer destination, and the date and time of the TTI information is corrected to the transmission time.

Assume that a communication management report is recorded and output at the transfer destination in the example shown in FIG. Generally, in each communication item of the communication management report, an actual communication date and time and RTI information received in the communication are recorded.

Accordingly, in this case, the communication management report includes, as shown in FIG.
The date and time when the image was received from the relay station and the name of the transmission source are recorded. As a result, the recorded content matches the content of the TTI information of the received image, and the operator can easily manage the document.

[0044]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, image information from a different destination is not accepted during a predetermined waiting time when a missing page occurs in image information sent from a transmission source. Thus, the image of the missing page sent from the same transmission source can be reliably received.

[0044]

As described above, according to one aspect of the present invention, when an image of a plurality of pages is received and an image of a part of the page is missing, after the image transfer, it is determined that there is a missing page. Since the message document is transmitted, the transfer destination operator can easily know that there is a missing page in the received image.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, even if a missing page occurs, if the missing page can be received thereafter, the image can be transmitted to the transfer destination in a perfect state without the missing page. Become like

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an operation flowchart of a transfer process.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of management information of a received image.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of each processing in a transmission source, a relay station, and a transfer destination.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of an image of an error report.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Scanner 2 Plotter 3 Encoding / decoding part 4 Image memory 5 Modem 6 Network controller 7 Operation display part 8 System memory 9 System control part

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04N 1/32-1/34 H04N 1/00-1/00 108

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] In a facsimile apparatus having a transfer function of temporarily storing an image received from a transmission source and transmitting the image to another destination, when an image of a plurality of pages is received from the transmission source, an error occurs. A facsimile apparatus comprising: means for waiting for a predetermined time when a page is lost, and receiving only transmissions from the same transmission source during the waiting period. 2. A facsimile apparatus having a transfer function of temporarily storing an image received from a transmission source and transmitting the image to another destination. Means for, when a page is lost, waiting for a certain period of time and receiving the image of the missing page, and transferring the image of the missing page to the other destination together with the image received before the occurrence of the error. A facsimile machine characterized by the above.