JPH0416985B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an image processing device that can read and process documents at high speed.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, when reading an image of a document, a rotating drum around which the document is wrapped and a spot type sensor that can be moved on the rotating drum are provided, and the sensor is gradually moved on the rotating drum while the drum is rotating. It was configured to read the manuscript from the computer.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, the above-described conventional image reading apparatus has a problem in that it takes time to read an image because the original is read by a spot type sensor.

In view of this, it is conceivable to read the original using a line sensor in order to read the original at high speed. However, in such a method, for example, when reading a color image, multiple line sensors may be required. There are still many points that need to be improved regarding efficient arrangement when using multiple line sensors.

In view of this problem, it is an object of the present invention to provide an image processing device that can read and process images efficiently and at high speed using a plurality of line sensors.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, an image processing apparatus of the present invention is a reading means for line-reading a document by moving relative to the document on a document table, A reading means having a plurality of line-shaped sensors having different reading positions and different spectral sensitivities in the movement direction, a first image signal from a first line sensor among the plurality of line sensors, and a first image signal from a second line sensor. A first image signal outputted from the linear sensor by adjusting the relationship between reading and writing of the storage means; The present invention is characterized in that it has an adjusting means for time-aligning the two image signals.

〔Example〕

The present invention will be specifically described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the overall configuration of a copying apparatus that is an embodiment of the present invention.

A copying apparatus 100 shown in FIG. 1 is composed of a reading section 101 for reading information carried on a document surface and a writing section 102 for writing the read information onto a recording medium such as paper. There is.

As shown in FIG. 1, a document table 103 made of glass or the like is formed above the reading section 101.
A document to be copied is placed on this document table 103. Information on two points separated by a distance D on the document is read by a light receiving element, which will be described later. At the bottom of the document table 103, there are bar-shaped light sources 104-1, 104-2 such as fluorescent lamps for illuminating the document.
The light emitted from the light source 104 effectively illuminates the document table 10.
Reflecting mirrors 105-1 and 105-2 provided to irradiate the surface of the original placed on 3, a first plane mirror 106 for scanning (sub-scanning) the original, and a second plane mirror 10
7. Optical lens 10 that forms a light image of the document surface
8. A beam splitter 109 for color separation, and self-scanning type light receiving elements 110-1, 110-2, 110-3 each having a large number of light receiving elements arranged in a straight line are provided. Light sources 104-1, 104-2, reflecting mirrors 105-1, 105-2, and first plane mirror 1
06 is integrated by a support 111 and fixed to a base 112. The base 112 moves forward on the guide rail 113 from left to right in the figure (direction F) and back from right to left.

The second plane mirror 107 moves on the guide rail 113 in the same direction as the first plane mirror 106 at a speed that is half the moving speed of the first plane mirror 106 . That is, during forward scanning, the plane mirrors 106 and 107 move to the positions indicated by dotted lines in the figure. At this time, the document table 103
from the lens 108 through plane mirrors 106 and 107.
The optical path length is always kept constant.

Light receiving elements 110-1, 110-2, 110-3
The main scanning direction of both is perpendicular to the drawing, and while the plane mirrors 106 and 107 are moving, the light receiving element 1
If the signals from the light receiving elements 10-1, 110-2, and 110-3 are read out in order, the light receiving element 11
From 0-1, 110-2, and 110-3, sequential signals obtained by raster scanning the original surface can be obtained.

The reading section 101 is provided with three light-receiving elements due to the arrangement of the writing head for printing in two colors, for example, red and black, in the writing section 102, which will be described later. Two of them are placed on the same side, and the remaining one is placed on the opposite side.

A beam splitter 10 is provided behind the lens 108 in the optical path of the incident light incident on the light receiving element 110.
9 is installed so that the light transmitted through the lens 108 forms a readable information image of the document surface on the light receiving surface of each light receiving element 110.

The beam splitter 109 has two beam splitters, for example, red and black.
When writing in color, it is constructed with a dichroic mirror that transmits short wavelengths (blue side) in the visible light range and reflects long wavelengths (red side). This dichroic mirror and three light receiving elements 110-1,
110-2 and 110-3 discriminate between a red signal and a black signal, and these signals are transferred to the red writing head and the black writing head of the writing section 102, respectively.

In the above explanation, the concept was explained using two colors, red and black, for convenience, but the present invention is not limited to these two colors, and other two colors may be combined. However, three or more colors may be combined.

In addition, as shown in FIG.
Instead of using a dichroic mirror, a half mirror is used as the optical path between the half mirror and the light receiving surface of the light receiving element 110 or in the light receiving element 1.
A configuration may be adopted in which a predetermined color filter is provided for each light receiving element on the light receiving surface of 10 or on the output side of the half mirror to recognize two colors.

Writing section 10 of copying machine 100 shown in FIG.
Reference numeral 2 denotes a paper feed cassette 121 that stores recording paper 120 as a recording medium, a paper feed roller 122 and a timing roller 123 for feeding the recording paper 120 in the cassette 122 in the transport path direction, and a timing roller 123 for feeding the recording paper 120 in the cassette 122 in the conveying path direction. A rotary drum 124 is rotatably mounted to transport the ink while winding it, two sets of ink jet heads 125 print in black and red,
125R, a fan 126 for drying the ink adhering to the recording paper, a paper discharge tray 127, a black ink tank 128 for supplying black ink to the ink jet head 125B, and a tank 128 for supplying red ink to the ink jet head 125R. red ink tank 129 and two sets of heads 125
A drive unit 130 and the like containing a drive circuit for driving the drive circuit B and 125R are provided.

A large number of suction holes arranged at minute intervals are arranged on the surface of the rotary drum 124, and is rotated at a constant speed in the direction R in the figure by a drive source (not shown), and is driven by a commonly known suction means (not shown). (illustrated), the air inside the drum 124 is sucked and exhausted.

The recording paper guided to the rotating drum 124 by the paper feed roller 122 and the timing roller 123 is wound onto the drum 124 by the suction hole, and as it rotates together with the drum 124, it receives the image signal from the reading unit 101. Therefore, two sets of heads 125B, 1
Writing is performed by 25R. The part of the paper on which writing has been completed moves to the upper part of the drum 124 in the figure, and the recording paper is separated by the separation belt 131 and the separation claw 13.
2 from the surface of the rotating drum 124,
The fan 126 stored in the paper ejection tray 127 operates as needed, and when the recording paper on which writing has been completed reaches the top of the drum 124 shown in the figure, the fan 126 forcibly dries the ink adhering to the recording paper and removes the ink. It has the role of speeding up the adhesion of the semi-frozen material to the recording paper and assisting the conveyance of the recording paper toward the paper discharge tray 127.

The ink jet heads 125B, 125R are
For example, in a full-line multihead, ejection orifices for ejecting ink are arranged in a line with a density equal to the required resolution and a length approximately equal to the width of the recording paper.

Therefore, the main scanning direction of the self-scanning light-receiving element constituting the reading section, the ejection orifice arrangement direction of the full-line multi-ink jet head, and the sub-scanning direction F of the document surface and the rotational direction R of the recording paper are the same, respectively. A copy of the original can be obtained by scanning the surface of the original and writing the image information onto recording paper on the rotating drum 124.

The ink jet head 125B is for black printing, and the ink jet head 125R is for red printing, and the heads are arranged around the outer periphery of the drum 124 so that they are separated by a distance D, which is the interval between the landing points of ink droplets on the recording paper. However, in reality, drum 1
If you try to install it at an accurate distance D on 24 using mechanical adjustment, it will become very complicated.
An embodiment of the present invention in which the distance between the beds is electrically finely adjusted will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a system for controlling color misregistration correction, and input/output data is two-color signals, black and red in this embodiment, and is output from the document reading device 203. For example, if the head spacing is smaller than the design value D, and the image recorded on the red head is out of alignment with the image recorded on the black head, the red must be delayed.
When red is specified in the color set register 201, the input discrimination circuit 204 selects the document reading device 203.
The black signal from is transmitted to shift register 205, and the red signal is transmitted to shift register 212. If the color specified in the color set register 201 is black, the signal transmission method is reversed. The black signal input to the shift register 205 can be converted from a serial signal to a parallel signal, for example, a block signal of 32 bits. This serial black block data is temporarily held in units of 32 bits in a latch 206. Since the black signal is output to the recording head 208 without delay, the gate 207 is opened at the adjusted timing and input to the output discrimination circuit 208. Since the color set register 201 is now set to red, the discrimination circuit 208 transmits the signal that has not passed through the memory 214, that is, the black signal, to the black drive circuit 209. The output discrimination circuit operates so that the signal passing through the memory 214 is transmitted to the red drive circuit 217. The shift timings of the shift registers 205 and 212, the latch timings of the latches 206 and 213, and the opening timings of the gates 207 and 216 are synchronized with a signal from the clock generation circuit 211. The drive circuit 209 generates the voltage and pulse width necessary to operate the black recording head 210, and drives the black recording head 210. On the other hand, the red signal to be delayed is input to the shift register 212 by the discrimination circuit 204 and made into parallel signals.
It is held in latch 213 in units of 32 bits. The red signal, which is temporarily stored in the memory 214 while the timing is adjusted, passes through the gate 216 and the output discrimination circuit 208, and then is transmitted to the red drive circuit 217, and the red recording head 218 is driven. The color set register 201 has been explained using an example in which the color is red, but when black is set, the input discriminator circuit 201 sets the color of the color set register 201 so that the black signal and the red signal go through different routes.
4 and an output discrimination circuit 208.

Writing and reading of color signals to and from the memory 214 is performed using 32 bits as 1 block and 1 line as 64 blocks, but the address is generated by the address generation circuit 212, which is sent to the line counter 2.
16 and the contents of block counter 217.

A schematic diagram of the memory 214 is shown in FIG. 4, and the addresses of this memory 214 consist of two parts, upper and lower, and the number of the line in the upper address (this line stores pixel signals equivalent to one scan of the original). The lower address indicates which block in one line it is.

The count value of the line counter 216 corresponds to the upper address, and the count value of the block counter 217 corresponds to the lower address. The line set register is used to previously set a certain line in FIG. It is controlled so that it becomes the first line. A start signal for one line is generated from the clock generation circuit 211 to the line counter 219.
19 counts the signal. Then, when the count advances to the desired line number (the number of lines set in the line set register), the line number comparison circuit 2
The line counter 219 is cleared by the signal from 21 and starts counting the number of lines again from the address. The line set register 218 is composed of a switch, a register, etc., in which the number of lines for color misregistration correction is set.

The stored color signal for one line is sequentially transmitted block by block to the recording head, with each block consisting of 32 bits. The clock generation circuit 211 generates a clock every 32 bits and outputs it to the block counter 217. Therefore, the block counter 220 informs the address generation circuit 215 of the block position information in one line of the color signal being input/output. This block counter 22
The contents of 0 are cleared by the line synchronization signal. The address generation circuit 215 generates an address based on the contents of a line counter 219 indicating the line count and a block counter 220 indicating the block position. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the address generation circuit.

In FIG. 3, the value of line counter 219 is held in line register 222 and delayed by one line in line delay register 223. Line register 222 is for reading, line delay register 2
24 is used as an upper address bit for writing. The contents of block counter 220 are also latched once in block register 226 and used as lower address bits of memory 214. Since the line counter 219 counts up until it is cleared by the comparison circuit 221, the number of lines stored in the line set register 202 is stored as the number of delay lines. The color signal of one line is determined by counting the line n in which the line counter 219 (line register 222) is located according to the contents of the block register 226, and counting the line n in which the line delay register is located.
-1 and the block register 226 is counting m. First, the gate 22
5 with the clock generator 211 and the memory 21
The information of the mth block of the nth line of 4 is read out block by block, and then the gate 224 is opened and the information of the mth block of the nth line of the memory 2 is read out.
The operation of writing one block of information stored in the latch 213 into the mth block of the (n-1) line of 14 is repeated to complete the reading of the n line and the writing of the n-1 line. n+
The process moves to reading one line and writing n lines. is sequentially counted up, and by switching gates 224 and 225 for one block, the line address for writing and the line address for reading are determined alternately. The memory line address for writing is always one value less than the memory line address for reading, except when the correction number is negative, and when the next line synchronization signal is input, the memory that was used for reading at the time of the previous line synchronization signal is Line address is used for write address. When the line counter 219 reaches the correction value, it is cleared and the read memory line address is restored to the original value, so that the memory is used within the specified correction value. When the number of corrections is small, that is, when there is no need to delay any color signal, there is no delay between the line register 222 and the line delay register 223, and the memory-line address is the same. Therefore, only the block address changes and writing and reading are performed using the same block address, so there is no data delay.

The present invention has been specifically described above with reference to the drawings, but in the above description, it is preferable to use an inkjet head as the writing head constituting the writing section 102 in order to avoid the complexity of the description. Although the embodiment has been described as an example, the present invention is not limited thereto, and the reading section of the present invention may be combined with a writing section employing a thermal head or the like.

Further, although the embodiment has been described with black and red two-color recording, it goes without saying that the present invention may be implemented in other color combinations or recording in three or more colors. Furthermore, although the line counter and block counter have been described as counters that increase each time a pulse is input, they may also be counters whose count value decreases each time a pulse is input. As explained above, according to the present invention, since the reading positions of the first line sensor and the second line sensor are made different, the arrangement of the line sensors can be made free. Since the amount of delay is adjusted when delaying the signal from the second line sensor with respect to the signal from the second line sensor, even if the relative time delay with respect to the document between the outputs of the two line sensors fluctuates, it will not depend on such fluctuations. It can be read easily without any problems.

In particular, according to the present invention, the image signals output from the plural line sensors are temporarily stored in the storage means, and the relationship between reading and writing to the storage means is adjusted. Time adjustment can be performed, and color images can be read satisfactorily.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view of a copying apparatus to which the present invention is applied;
FIG. 2 is a circuit diagram of the copying apparatus, FIG. 3 is an address generation circuit diagram, and FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of the memory. Here, 203 is a document reading device, 202 is a line set register, 214 is a memory, 215 is an address generation circuit, 219 is a line counter, 2
20 is a block counter, and 221 is a comparison circuit.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A reading means for reading a line of a document by moving relative to the document on a document table, comprising a plurality of line shapes having different reading positions and different spectral sensitivities in the direction of movement. a reading means having a sensor; a memory storing a first image signal from a first line sensor among the plurality of line sensors for each line so as to delay a second image signal from a second line sensor; means, adjusting means for adjusting the time of the first image signal and the second image signal respectively output from the linear sensor by adjusting the relationship between reading and writing in the storage means. Image processing device.