JP3515736B2 - Split processing method and apparatus therefor - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for performing tally processing on a plurality of documents forming one set and an apparatus therefor (hereinafter referred to as tally processing apparatus).

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When two documents are made as a pair, it may be necessary to confirm later that these documents are a pair. For such confirmation, it has been conventionally practiced to put a tally mark on a pair of two documents, but it is most common for a person to manually imprint such a tally mark. It was However, recently, various tally processing apparatuses have been proposed which automatically print or print a stamp image as a tally on a document.

As an example of a tally processing device, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-3
An example is the tally processing printer described in Japanese Patent No. 0742. This tally printer includes a stamp pattern division printing unit that prints two stamp patterns obtained by dividing the stamp pattern into two at corresponding positions on the two sheets of paper to be stamped. In the printing process of the stamp pattern, the division position of the original stamp pattern is randomly determined by utilizing the random number function of the computer. Therefore, it is possible to determine whether two documents are a pair by combining two stamp patterns printed on two documents and checking whether or not the original stamp pattern can be reproduced. Has been done.

As another example of the tally processing apparatus, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 11
The image forming apparatus described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 136497 is exemplified. This image forming apparatus provides a stamp image for confirming after cutting that two documents formed by cutting one document are a pair, such as a tally stamp straddling a stub of a ticket. It is printed on documents before cutting. In the stamp image printing process, the position at which the image is printed and / or the rotation angle of the image is randomly determined using a random number function of a computer. Therefore, it is possible to determine whether or not two documents are a pair by checking whether or not the original stamp image can be reproduced by combining the two stamp images printed on the two cut documents. It is said to be possible.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In the above-mentioned tally printer, a predetermined stamp pattern is simply 2 in vertical or horizontal lines.
Since it is only divided, there is a problem that it is relatively easy to forge a seal pattern as a tally. Further, in the method of simply dividing the predetermined stamp pattern into two by using vertical or horizontal straight lines, it is difficult to visually identify even a slight difference in division position. Therefore, the number of tally patterns that can actually be used with the above tally printer is not very large, and when trying to attach different tally marks to a large number of documents, the same tally mark may be attached to multiple different documents. There is a nature. If this happens, it will not function as a tally.

On the other hand, in the above-mentioned image forming apparatus, more tally patterns are created by variously changing the printing position of the stamp image and / or the rotation angle of the image. However, since this image forming apparatus prints a stamp image on a dividing line provided on one document, it is not possible to add a tally mark that extends over two or more documents.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to print tally images on a plurality of sheets with various patterns and to print the tally images. An object of the present invention is to provide a tally processing method that is difficult to forge and an apparatus therefor.

[0008]

The present invention made to solve the above problems is a tally processing method for printing tally images on a plurality of sheets forming one set, wherein a given stamp image of a stamp image is printed. Unit is the area divided into a grid for data
As a step of generating a plurality of complementary stamp images by performing a mask process using a plurality of masks for extracting a part of the stamp image with different patterns,
And a step of printing one of the tally images at a predetermined position on the plurality of sheets, the tiling processing method being provided.

Further, the present invention is a tally processing apparatus for printing tally images on a plurality of sheets forming one set,
Storage means for storing the data of the stamp image, a region divided into a grid for the data of the stamp image
As a stamp image generating means for generating a plurality of complementary tally images by performing a mask process using a plurality of masks for extracting a part of the stamp image with different patterns, and the plurality of sheets. There is provided a tally processing apparatus comprising: a printing unit that prints any of the tally images at a predetermined position above.

Furthermore, the present invention is a tally processing apparatus for printing data of an electronic document by attaching tally images to a plurality of paper sheets, and for the data of a given stamp image,
In order to generate a plurality of complementary tally images by performing mask processing using a plurality of masks for extracting a part of the stamp image with different patterns in units of regions divided in a grid pattern A tally image generating means, a data storing means for associating tact data necessary for generating a tally image by the tally image generating means with electronic document data, and storing the data in an electronic file; and an electronic document from the electronic file. Data and tally data are read, the tally image generating means generates tally images corresponding to each sheet from the tally data, page images to be printed on the respective sheets are generated from the electronic document data, and each page image is generated. A tally processing device provided with document display means for combining and displaying a tally image corresponding to the page image at a predetermined position above. To.

[0011]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION In the tally processing method and apparatus according to the present invention, a plurality of complementary tally images are all part of a given stamp image, and all the images are other images. A plurality of images that do not have a portion that overlaps with the above image and satisfy the condition that the original stamp image is obtained by combining all the images. Such a tally image can be generated by performing mask processing using a plurality of different masks on the data of the stamp image. The mask used in the above process may be created in advance, or may be created each time the tally image is created.

An example of printing a tally image on three sheets according to the method of the present invention will be described below.

(Tallying method 1) A method of generating the same number (three) of tally images as the sheets to be tally and printing different tally images on all the sheets. This method is, for example, 3
It can be applied when a sheet of paper corresponds to the first to third pages of a set of documents. When three sheets of paper with the tally image printed on top of each other are stacked and viewed as a watermark,
If it is confirmed that the original stamp image is reproduced, it is determined that the three sheets are truly one set of documents. On the other hand, if the original stamp image is not reproduced, it is determined that the three sheets are not truly one set of documents.

(Tmarking method 2) Two tally images are generated,
The first tally image is printed on the first sheet and the second and third images are printed.
The method of printing the second tally image on the paper. This method can be applied, for example, when three documents are created with the same content, one of them is used as the original, and the other two are copied. That is, the first tally image is printed on the original, while the second tally image is printed on both copies. When it is confirmed that the original seal stamp image is reproduced when the original and the copy printed with the tally seal image are superposed on each other, the original copy and the copy are truly a pair of documents. To be judged. On the other hand, if the original stamp images are not reproduced, it is determined that they are not truly a pair of documents.

As described above, in the tally processing method and apparatus according to the present invention, the tally image is created by performing the mask processing on the given stamp image, so that the mask pattern is complicated and the printing pattern is printed. By randomly changing the mask pattern for each, various and complicated tally patterns can be created. Since it is difficult to forge the tally image created in this way, the reliability of the collation of the document by the tally becomes extremely high.

In the tally processing method according to the present invention, the step of randomly determining an imprint position, which is a position for printing the tally image on each sheet, and the rotation angle of the tally image printed on the sheet. It is preferable to provide a step of randomly determining. By doing so, since various stamp patterns can be created by changing the stamp position and the rotation angle of the stamp image, it is possible to deal with stamp processing for a large number of documents. Further, if the seal image which is the source of the tally image is created or selected based on the personal identification code, it is more difficult to forge the tally image and the reliability of collation by the tally is further enhanced.

[0017]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the tally processing apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of the tally processing apparatus of this embodiment, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a procedure for creating a tally image from a stamp image, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing two documents printed with the tally image. It is a figure which shows the procedure which collates.

The tally processing apparatus 10 shown in FIG. 1 includes an interface section 11 for receiving information regarding printing from an application, and a page image storage section 1 for storing image data of a page to be printed page by page.
2. A seal image storage unit 13 in which image data of a plurality of seals is stored in advance, a mask creating unit 14 that generates mask data used in a process of creating a stamp image, mask data for storing the created mask data. The storage unit 15, the tally image creating unit 16 that processes the image data of the seal and the mask data to create the tally image, the tally image storage unit 17 for saving the created tally image, the process of creating the tally image, etc. A random number generator 18 that generates a random number to be used, an image synthesizer 19 that synthesizes a page image and a tally image to generate final print image data, a printing device 20 that prints an image on paper, and processing Print control unit 2 that controls the whole
1 is provided. Such a tally processing device is, for example, C
It can be configured using a personal computer system (personal computer) including a PU, a memory, a storage device, a printer, and the like.

The procedure of the tally processing by the tally processing apparatus 10 is as follows. First, the application running on the personal computer sends the image data and print information of each page to be printed to the print control unit 21 through the interface unit 11. The print information includes the number of pages to be printed, the number of copies to be printed, an instruction as to whether or not to imprint, a type of seal selected for printing (image data of a plurality of seals is stored in advance in the seal image storage unit 13). Information), information on the tally method, etc. is included. Two types of tally method are used: one that uses different tally marks for each type of paper (type 1), and one that uses two tally marks for the original and copy (type 2).
Choose from two. In order to select the type 2 tally method, it is necessary that the number of print copies is 2 or more.

Upon receiving the above data and print information, the print control unit 21 first saves the image data of each page in the page image storage unit 12. Next, if the print information includes a tally instruction, the print control unit 21 sends data indicating the number of tally marks to be created to the mask creating unit 14. For example, the number of pages is 3, the number of copies is 1, and the tally method is type 1.
, The number of tally marks to be created is three. When the number of pages is 3, the number of prints is 2, and the tally method is type 2, the number of tallys to be created is 2. Print control unit 21
Upon receiving the above data from, the mask creating unit 14 creates mask data as many as the instructed tally marks and saves the mask data in the mask data saving unit 15. In this example, the number of prints is 2
Then, it is assumed that the tally method is type 2. in this case,
The mask creation unit 14 creates mask data for two masks (first mask and second mask). An example of a method of creating these mask data will be described later.

When the mask creating process is completed, the print control section 21 instructs the tally image creating section 16 to create a tally image. Upon receiving this instruction, the tally image creating unit 16 executes the process of creating the tally image. The procedure of this process will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. First, the tally image creating unit 16 reads the data of the previously selected stamp image 30 from the stamp image storage unit 13 and executes the rotation process of the stamp image 30. The angle at which the stamp image 30 is rotated is determined based on the output signal of the random number generator 18. Next, the tally image creating unit 16 reads the mask data from the mask data storage unit 15 and executes the mask process for the stamp image 30 based on the mask data. The mask used for this processing is created as follows, for example. First, stamp image 30
The rectangular area 31 including is divided into a grid of 8 rows and 8 columns and a total of 64 unit areas. Then, the first mask 3 is a mask having a pattern that is off (the stamp image can be seen) in the unit area where the sum of the row number and the column number is even.
2, and a mask having a pattern that is off in the unit area where the sum is odd is used as the second mask 33. By performing mask processing on the stamp image using these two masks, two complementary tally images (first tally image 34 and second tally image 35) are created. The data of the created tally image is stored in the tally image storage unit 17
Stored in.

When the creation of the tally image is completed, the print control section 21 first instructs the image synthesizing section 19 to synthesize the image of the first page and the first tally image 34. Upon receiving this instruction, the image combining unit 19 generates print data of an image in which the image of the first page and the first tally image 34 are combined. At this time, the image synthesizing unit 19 determines the position where the first tally image 34 is printed on the paper based on the output signal of the random number generating unit 18. This position is represented by, for example, a distance X from the left edge of the sheet to the left edge of the tally image and a distance Y from the upper edge of the sheet to the upper edge of the tally image. When the print data thus generated is sent to the printing device 20,
The first page with the first tally image 34 (that is, the original copy 36 of the first page) is output from the printing device 20.
Next, when the generation of the print data of the first page is completed, the print control unit 21 causes the image of the first page and the second tally image 35.
The image synthesizing unit 19 is instructed to synthesize and. Upon receiving this instruction, the image combining unit 19 generates print data of an image in which the image of the first page and the second tally image 35 are combined. At this time, the position (X, Y) at which the second tally image 35 is printed on the paper is the same as the position determined when printing the original. The print data generated in this way is used by the printing device 20.
Then, the first page (that is, a copy 37 of the first page) to which the second tally image 35 is attached is output from the printing device 20.

When the number of pages to be printed is two or more, the print control unit 21 issues an appropriate instruction to the tally image creating unit 16 and the image synthesizing unit 19 in the same manner as described above, so that the second page and the second page The original and a copy of each subsequent page are sequentially output from the printing device 20. In addition,
In the printing process of a new page, the rotation angle of the stamp image 30 and the print position of the tally image on the paper are newly set.

If the original copy 36 and the copy 37 on which the tally images 34 and 35 are printed as described above are truly a pair, when the originals are superposed as shown in FIG. The stamp image 30 is completely reproduced. In this way, the user can easily visually confirm whether the original copy 36 and the copy 37 are truly a pair.

Next, a procedure for creating a tally image when the number of printed pages is 3 and the tally method is type 1 will be described below. In this case, since different tally images are printed on each page, it is necessary to create three tally images. Therefore, the mask creating unit 14 creates three different masks. For example, the following method can be considered as a method of creating a mask. First, a rectangular area including a stamp image is divided into a grid pattern having a total of 81 unit areas in 9 rows and 9 columns. Then, a mask having a pattern that is off in a unit area where the sum of the row number and the column number is divisible by 3 is used as a first mask, and the unit area in which the remainder obtained by dividing the sum by 3 is 1 is off. A mask having such a pattern is used as a second mask, and a mask having a pattern which is off in a unit area in which the remainder obtained by dividing the sum by 3 is 2 is used as a third mask. By performing mask processing of the stamp image using these three masks, three complementary stamp images are created.

In the above-mentioned stamp processing device 10, the image data of a plurality of seals is stored in advance in the seal image storage unit 13, and one seal image is selected from among them at the time of printing. It is not essential for the present invention, and for example, only the image data of one seal may be stored in advance. Alternatively, for example, a stamp image may be newly created every time printing is performed.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the functional configuration of the tally processing apparatus 40 which is obtained by adding a means for newly creating a stamp image to the tally processing apparatus 10. The tally processing device 40 includes an input unit 41 for inputting a personal identification code to the print control unit 21, a personal identification code storage unit 42 for storing the input personal identification code, and a seal image based on the personal identification code. And a stamp image creating unit 43 for creating the data of 1. The security code is 0 in ASCII character code.
An 8-digit character string composed of printable characters included in x21 to 0x7e.

An example of a procedure for the stamp image creating section 43 to create a stamp image will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5. When the operator operates the input unit 41 to input a personal identification code (here, abcd1234), the print control unit 21 stores the personal identification code data in the personal identification code storage unit 42.
The image data is stored in the stamp image creating unit 43.
Also send to. Upon receiving this data, the seal image creating unit 43
Creates a lattice-shaped stamp image 44 having 8 rows and 8 columns and a total of 64 dots as follows. That is, the seal image creating unit 43 checks the bit pattern of an 8-digit binary number indicating the character code of each character of the personal identification code. For example, in this example, the first character of the personal identification code is a, and the character code (1
The decimal number 97) represented by an 8-digit binary number is "01
100001 ". Based on this bit pattern, the stamp image creating unit 43 determines a print pattern of eight dots forming the first row of the stamp image 44. Similarly, the seal image creating unit 43, based on the binary bit pattern representing the character code of the second character to the eighth character of the personal identification code, of the dots forming the second line to the eighth line of the seal image 44. Determine each print pattern. The seal image 44 thus created is stored in the seal image storage unit 13. The process of creating the tally images (for example, the first tally image 45 and the second tally image 46) from the seal image 44 can be performed by the same procedure as the process by the tally processing device 10 described above.

The personal identification code stored in the personal identification code storage unit 42 can be used for matching a pair of documents as follows, for example. First, as described above, a tally image created from a stamp image created based on a certain code is attached to a pair of documents (slip, bill, etc.) and printed. Then, the identification code (slip number, bill number, etc.) data of the document is stored in the secret code storage unit 42 in association with the secret code. When the pair of documents printed in this way are collated, first, it is confirmed whether or not the stamp image is completely reproduced when the two documents are superposed and the watermark is viewed. Then, if it is confirmed that the seal image is completely reproduced, it is checked whether the seal image is the same as the seal image created based on the personal identification code corresponding to the identification symbol of the document. If such a double check is performed, the reliability of collation by the tally mark is further increased.

In the above example, the secret code is made up of only 7-bit characters, so the most significant bit in binary notation is always 0. Therefore, the first of the stamp image 44
There are originally no printed dots in the row. However, in the example of FIG. 5, a pair of alignment dots 47 is provided in the first row of the tally images 45 and 46, and these dots are always printed. In this way, even if the position of the first (original) tally image and the position of the second (copy) tally image are deviated due to, for example, the paper feed disturbance, the two tally images are checked at the time of matching. Images can be overlaid correctly.

Although the embodiments of the tally processing method and the apparatus therefor according to the present invention have been described above, the embodiments are not limited to the above. For example, even in the tally processing method described with reference to FIG. 2, it is possible to include the alignment mark in each tally image.

Further, in the above embodiment, the tally image is collated by superimposing the original and the copy and viewing the watermark. However, for example, an image reading device such as a scanner is used to automatically check the tally image. It is also possible to configure a device that performs collation. When configuring such an automatic tally matching device, it is preferable to include the alignment mark as described above in each tally image. As an automatic collation method, for example, an original image and a copy of the stamp image are read using an image reading device, and the coordinates of the alignment mark in each of the stamp images are acquired or manually specified to align the two stamp images. One or both images are rotated and / or translated so that the coordinates of the marks match, and the two stamp images are combined to create the seal image, and the combined seal image and the original seal image are matched. It is conceivable that the degree is evaluated by a predetermined evaluation function, and it is determined whether or not the original and the copy are truly a pair according to the evaluation.

In the above embodiment, the tally image is separately generated in the step of printing the document created by the application for creating the document, and the tally image is combined with the page image of the document and printed (print data is printed). Output to the device), but the application includes a function to save document data and tally data (seal image, mask pattern, stamp position, rotation angle of tally image, etc.) in one file, tally data A function of browsing the document file and a function of outputting the image data of the document with the tally mark to the printing device may be provided.

FIG. 6 shows an example of the flow of creating, browsing, and printing a document file with a tally mark by an application. First, the user activates the application and executes an operation of opening an existing document file to cause the application to read data (step S1).
0). When creating a new document, the user causes the application to read default data (empty data) by executing a new creating operation. The application checks whether or not the read data includes the tally data (step S12). If the read data includes the tally data, the application sets the operation mode to the document browsing mode (step S14), and if not, the application sets the operation mode to the document editing mode (step S3).
0).

In the document browsing mode, the user can display each page of the document on the screen of the application. At this time, the application compositely displays the tally image to be attached to each page on that page (step S1).
6). In this way, when the document with the tally mark is displayed on the screen, the user can select a process from "start document editing", "print document" and "end browsing" (step S18,
S22, S26). When the user selects "start document editing", the application deletes the tally data (step S20) and changes its operation mode to the document editing mode (step S30). By deleting the tally data each time the document is edited in this manner, it is possible to prevent the content of the document to which the tally mark is once added from being edited (tampered) while holding the tally information. When the user selects "print document", the application generates image data of the page of the document with the tally mark displayed on the screen and outputs it to the printing device. When the user selects "end browsing", the application ends.

In the document edit mode, after the user arbitrarily edits a document (step S32), a process of saving data in a file is selected (step S3).
4), the application inquires of the user whether to save the data of the document with a tally mark (step S36). Here, when the user selects "save without tally", only the document data is saved in the file in step S46. When the application next reads this file (step S10), it is determined in step S12 that there is no tally data, and the operation mode is set to the document edit mode (step S30).

When the user selects "save with tally" in step S36, the application displays a screen (not shown) that allows the user to select a seal image (step S38). When the user selects one of the stamp images on this screen, the application randomly determines the stamp position and the angle of the stamp image using the random number function of the computer (step S40), and generates a mask pattern (step S42). ). The number of mask patterns to be generated is, for example, the same as the number of pages of the document when the tally method 1 described above is used, and the number specified separately by the user when the tally method 2 is used. The process of causing the user to select the tally method and specify the number of tally may be performed, for example, between steps S38 and S40. Finally, the application collects the stamp data including the stamp image, the mask pattern, the stamp position and the rotation angle, and the document data (step S44), and saves them in a file (step S46). The structure of the tally data is not limited to the above. For example, instead of the seal image and the mask pattern, individual tally images generated from them may be included in the tally data.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of a tally processing apparatus that is an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a procedure for creating a tally image from a stamp image.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a procedure for collating two documents printed with a tally image.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of another tally processing apparatus which is obtained by adding a means for newly creating a stamp image to the tally processing apparatus of FIG.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining a procedure for creating a stamp image.

FIG. 6 is an example of a flow of processing of creating, viewing, and printing a document file with a tally by an application.

[Explanation of symbols]

10, 40 ... Tally processing device 12 ... Page image storage 13 ... Seal image storage section 14 ... Mask making section 16 ... Tally image creation unit 18 ... Random number generator 19 ... Image composition section 20 ... Printing device 21 ... Print control unit 30 ... Seal image 32, 33 ... First mask, second mask 34, 45 ... First tally image 35, 46 ... Second tally image

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Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A tally processing method for printing tally images on a plurality of sheets forming one set, wherein data of a given stamp image is divided in a grid pattern.
Generating a plurality of complementary tally images by performing a mask process using a plurality of masks for extracting a part of the stamp image with different patterns in units of the divided regions, And a step of printing any of the tally images at a predetermined position on the sheet of paper. 2. The tally processing method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of creating or selecting a seal image based on a separately input secret code. 3. A tally processing device for printing tally images on a plurality of sheets forming one set, wherein the tally processing device stores the data of the tally images, a grid for the data of the tally images. Area divided into
By applying mask processing using a plurality of masks for extracting a part of the stamp image with different patterns in units of regions, a tally image generating means for generating a plurality of complementary tally images, and A tally processing apparatus, comprising: a printing unit that prints any of the tally images at a predetermined position on a plurality of sheets. 4. A tally processing apparatus for printing electronic document data with a tally image on a plurality of sheets, wherein the given tally image data is divided into a grid pattern.
A stamp image generation for generating a plurality of complementary tally images by performing mask processing using a plurality of masks for extracting a part of the stamp image with different patterns in units of the separated area. Means, data storage means for associating the tiling data necessary for generating the tally image by the tally image generating means with the electronic document data, and storing the data in an electronic file, and the electronic document data and the tally from the electronic file The data is read, the tally image generating means generates the tally image corresponding to each sheet from the tally data, the page image to be printed on each sheet is generated from the data of the electronic document, and the predetermined position on each page image is generated. 1. A tally processing apparatus comprising: a document display unit that compositely displays a tally image corresponding to the page image.