JPH03141767A - Image communication equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To record a received picture, which is longer than a recording sheet, to the recording sheet in a routine size without degradating picture quality by over reduction by excluding a recording object based on the count value of the number of blank lines according to a result to discriminate whether each line of received picture information is blank line or not. CONSTITUTION:The received picture information are passed through a MODEM 2, decoder 3 and parallel/serial converter 4 and in a blank line decision part 13, it is decided whether each line of the information is the blank line or not. Further, the number of the continuous blank lines is counted by continuous blank line counter 14. In a write control part 7 to which the result of this decision and the count value are supplied, the received picture information passing through a serial/parallel converter 5 are controlled to be written into a memory 6 and the picture part in a page tip part until the discrimination of a non-blank line and the picture part in a page rear part to the continuous blank lines are excluded and not written into the memory 6. This memory 6 is read out and recording is executed through a main scanning reduction processing part 10, etc., to the recording sheet. Then, without the degradation of the picture quality caused by the over reduction, the received picture longer than the recording sheet is recorded to the recording sheet in the routine size.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image communication apparatus that prints and records received image information on sheet-fed recording paper that is precut to a standard size.

2. Description of the Related Art In conventional devices of this type, when a long image longer than the recording paper is received, the entire received image is compressed into the length of the recording paper, as shown in FIG. The image was recorded after being reduced in size.

Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 6, one page of received images was divided and recorded on two sheets of recording paper.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention However, with this configuration, when a long image longer than the recording paper is received, there is a problem that the recorded image quality deteriorates due to excessive reduction, or wasteful blank recording occurs. there were.

The above problem arises for the following reasons.

In other words, in a device that preserves and reduces long received images and records them, if there are many margins at the leading and trailing edges of the page of the received image, the entire received image including those margins will fit on a standard size recording paper. As a result, significant image parts other than the margins, such as characters and figures, are unnecessarily reduced in size and shredded.

As a result, the recorded image quality of significant image portions deteriorates due to excessive reduction, making it difficult to read.

With a device that divides and records a long received image without reducing it, if there is a large margin at the end of the page of the received image, the image that covers only that margin will be divided and recorded. I have something to say. As a result, wasteful blank recording occurs.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and it is possible to print a long received image longer than the recording paper to a standard size without deteriorating the recorded image quality due to excessive reduction or without unnecessary blank recording. An object of the present invention is to provide an image communication device that can appropriately record on sheet-fed recording paper.

Means for Solving the Problems In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention determines, for each line of received image information, whether or not the image information within that line is a white line containing substantially only white information. At the same time, the number of consecutive white lines determined is counted, and the image information part in 1 where non-white lines are determined at the leading edge of the page of the received image information, and at the trailing edge of the page of the received image information. The image information portion having the number of lines corresponding to the number of continuous white lines to be counted is excluded from being recorded on the recording paper.

Effect of the Invention With the above-described configuration, the present invention automatically cuts off the margins at the leading edge and trailing edge of the page of received image information, so that only significant image information such as characters and figures are effective for recording. Because it is extracted as image information, it is possible to transfer long received images that are longer than the recording paper onto standard-sized sheet-fed recording paper without deteriorating the recorded image quality due to excessive reduction or unnecessary blank recording. It becomes possible to record appropriately.

Example Embodiments of the present invention will be described below based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of an image communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention, in which 1 is an NC that controls the line.
U (network control unit), 2 is a modem that demodulates encoded image information from a received signal, 3 is a decoder that decodes the demodulated encoded image information, 4 is a decoder that converts the decoded received image information into parallel data in line units 5 is a P/S (parallel/real) converter that converts the received image information into dot-based serial data, and 5 is a P/S (parallel/real /parallel converter), 6 is a memory that stores the received image information that has been converted back into parallel data line by line, 7 is a write control unit that controls writing of image information to the memory 6, and 8 is a memory that stores the received image information that has been converted back into parallel data. A readout control unit 9 controls the readout of image information, a P/S converter 9 converts the image information read line by line from the memory 6 into real data in dot units, and 10 indicates the image converted to serial data. 11 is a main scanning reduction processing section that performs reduction in the main scanning direction by thinning out dots of information; 11 is a sub-scanning reduction processing section that performs reduction in the sub-scanning direction by thinning out lines of image information read out from the memory 6; 12 is a recording unit that prints and records received image information on sheet-fed recording paper pre-cut to a standard size;
Reference numeral 13 denotes a white line discriminator that discriminates whether each line of received image information is a white line or not; 14 a white line discriminator 1;
This is a continuous white line counter that counts the number of consecutive white lines determined by 3.

Here, the white line determination unit 13 counts the number of black dots in each line of the received image information by receiving the received image information serialized by the P/S converter 4. , when the number of black dots is less than a certain setting value,
It is determined that the image information within that line is a white line containing substantially only the own information. When the number of black dots is greater than the set value,
It is determined that it is a non-white line.

The continuous white line counter 14 increments the count value by 1 each time the white line discrimination section 13 discriminates a white line, and clears the count value to O when a non-white line is discriminated. The number of white lines consecutively arranged in the sub-scanning direction of the screen, that is, the number of consecutive white lines Wn is counted.

The write control unit 7 has a presettable write address counter 71 that generates a write address for the memory 6, and an input line number counter 72 that counts the number of input lines Ln of received image information. In this case, the update operation of the write address counter 71 is performed after the first line of the page of received image information has been input, after the white line determination section 13 has determined a non-white line, or after the white line determination section 13 has determined that the white line is continuous. The display is made after waiting for the number Wn of white lines counted by the number counter 14 to reach a predetermined set value Pn (for example, the length of the recording prohibited portion at the leading edge of the recording paper).

The read control unit 8 includes a presettable read address counter 81 which generates a read address of the memory 6, and a number H of lines of image information to be read from the memory 6 for recording.
It has a recording range control section 82 that determines n. In this case, the number of lines Hn of the read image information is determined by the number of input lines Ln counted by the input line number counter 72 and the number of continuous white lines counter at the time when the input of the last line of the page of the received image information is completed. The difference in the number of consecutive white lines Wn at the rear end of the page that was counted by 14 (Ln - W
n).

The operation of the image communication apparatus configured as described above will be described below.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an outline of the operation of the image communication apparatus described above, in which a leading margin processing mode is executed in which the margin at the leading edge of the page of the received image is processed without shredding.

In the leading margin processing mode, even if received image information is input,
By not updating the write address, the write operation to the memory 6 is not substantially performed, and only the received image information is monitored.

That is, each time one line of received image information is input, it is determined whether the input line is a white line or not, and the number of consecutive white lines Wn is counted (S l-83).
.

When the input line is determined to be an egg white line, when the number of consecutive white lines Wn reaches a predetermined setting value Pn, the number Wn of consecutive white lines is cleared to O, and then the rear edge side of the page of the received image is The process shifts to a trailing edge margin processing mode for processing the margins located in (S2.S4.S5).

In trailing margin processing mode, the write address An of memory 6 is set to 1217 every time one line of received image information is input.
By updating the input image information one line at a time, the input image information is sequentially written into the memory 6 one line at a time (S6 and S7).

At the same time, the number Ln of input lines of image information written in the memory 6 is counted (S6 and S7).

The number Wn of consecutive white lines is also counted (S91).

The number Wn of consecutive white lines is cleared to 0 every time a non-white line is input (892).

When the page ends, the difference (L n -Wn) between the number of input lines Ln counted at 1 and the number Wn of consecutive white lines counted at this time is calculated.

The calculated difference (L n - Wn) is assumed to be the number of lines Hn of image information read out for recording from the memory 6 (S1
0.5ll).

In other words, memory 6 is used between the start and end of the page.
Of the input image information for Ln lines written in 1, only the image information on line 1 excluding the last Wn5in is extracted as valid recorded image information.

As described above, the image information of the margin area at the leading edge of the page can be obtained during 1 when non-white lines are manually added, or when the number of consecutive white lines Wn reaches a predetermined set value Pn. During this time, the input image information is written to the memory 6 and truncated.

Furthermore, the image information in the margin at the rear end of the page is not read out from the memory 6 and is discarded.

As a result, when a long piece of image information that is longer than the recording paper is received, the margins at the leading and trailing edges of the page of the received image information are automatically cut off to remove significant text, graphics, etc. Only the image information portion can be extracted as image information effective for recording.

Therefore, when recording a long received image in a reduced size,
As shown in FIG. 3, since it is only necessary to reduce the net portion excluding the margin portion, it is possible to record the image on a standard size recording paper without increasing the reduction ratio too much.

Furthermore, when recording the original size without reducing it, as shown in FIG. 4, by cutting off the margin portion, it is possible to prevent only the margin portion from being divided and recorded. Also,
In many cases, the net portion is not divided and recorded on a single sheet of standard size recording paper.

In this way, without deteriorating the recorded image quality due to excessive reduction or unnecessary blank recording,
A long received image, which is longer than the recording paper, can be appropriately recorded on a standard size sheet-fed recording paper.

Effects of the Invention As is clear from the above description, the present invention determines, for each line of received image information, whether or not the image information in that line is a white line containing substantially only white information. , the number of consecutive white lines determined is counted, and the numbers are counted at the front edge of the page of received image information, where non-white lines were determined in the past, and at the rear edge of the page of received image information. By excluding the image information portion of the number of lines corresponding to the number of consecutive white lines from being recorded on the recording paper, the margins at the leading and trailing edges of the page of the received image are automatically truncated. , only significant image information such as characters and figures are extracted as image information that is effective for recording, so there is no deterioration of recorded image quality due to excessive reduction, or unnecessary blank recording, and it is better than recording paper. This has the effect that a long received image can be appropriately recorded on a standard size sheet of recording paper.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an image communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an outline of the operation of the device, and FIG. Figure 4 is a diagram showing an example of recording a long received image in its original size using the same device, and Figure 5 is an example of recording a long received image in reduced size using a conventional image communication device. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of recording a long received image in its original size using the same device. L-...Line, 1...NCU (Network Control Unit), 2
...Modem, 3...Oi number unit, 4...P/S (
Parallel/Noreal) Conversion L 5...S/P (
serial/parallel converter), 6... memory 7.
...Write control section, 8.Read control section, 9..P/S converter, 1o..Main scanning reduction processing section, 1]...Sub-scanning reduction processing section, I2.. Recording section , 13...White line discrimination unit, 14...Continuous white line number counter, 71...Write address counter, 72...Input line number counter, 81...Read address counter, 82...
Recording range control section.

Claims (1)

[Claims] An image communication device that prints and records received image information on recording paper that is pre-cut to a standard size, and for each line of received image information, the image information within that line is a white line that is substantially only white information. white line discriminating means for discriminating whether or not the white line discriminating means; a continuous white line counter for counting the number of consecutive white lines discriminated by the white line discriminating means; An image information portion until the means determines a non-white line, and an image information portion of the number of lines corresponding to the number of consecutive white lines counted by the continuous white line counter at the rear end of the page of the received image information. and means for excluding each of the following from being recorded on the recording paper.