JPH04192874A - Image processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To economize the copy paper by holding temporarily each reduced image of plural pieces of documents which are read successively as one piece of composite image, and outputting it as one piece of composite image. CONSTITUTION:The system is constituted of a control means 1, an image reading means 2, an image holding means 3, an image output means J4, and a rotating means 5. In such a state, each reduced image of plural pieces of documents which are read successively is held temporarily as one piece of composite image in the image holding means 3, and outputted as one piece of composite image. In such a way, even in an electronic apparatus provided with an automatic document feed paper mechanism, images of plural pieces of documents can be outputted efficiently, and copy paper, etc., can be economized.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an image processing method that is used in an electronic device having an image reading section, such as a digital copying machine, and processes an image read by the image reading section.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, when a user wants to make copies of, for example, two A4-sized originals using a so-called pressure plate type copying machine in which originals are manually set, the user places the two originals side by side on the original table and makes equivalent copies. By setting an A3 size document to A4 and reading it by selecting the reduction process to A4 size, it is possible to copy the images of two A4 size documents onto one A4 size copy paper. Furthermore, if double-sided copying is selected, images from four A4-sized originals can be copied onto one A4-sized copy paper. In this manner, the user can save on copy paper.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In this way, conventionally, if a pressure plate type copying machine is used,
By arranging multiple manuscripts, users can
Although it is possible to save copy paper, the automatic document feeder (AD)
When a copying machine equipped with F) is used to make a copy of an original, there is a drawback that it is not possible to save paper as described above.

Further, such problems occur not only in copying machines but also in electronic devices such as facsimile machines.

The present invention provides an image processing method that can efficiently output images of multiple sheets of originals even in electronic equipment equipped with an automatic original feeding mechanism, and that can save copy paper, etc. The purpose is to

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an image reading means for reading an image of a document, an image holding means for holding a reduced image obtained by reducing the read image at a predetermined reduction ratio, and a reduced image held in the image holding means. and an image output means for outputting a reduced image of a plurality of originals, and when each image of a plurality of documents is sequentially read by the image reading means, the image holding means outputs a reduced image of the plurality of documents read sequentially. Each reduced image of the original is held as one composite image, and the image output means reads and outputs one composite image held in the image holding means.

Further, a rotation means for performing rotation processing on each reduced image is further provided, and when the rotation processing is performed by the rotation means, the image holding means is configured to rotate each reduced image at a predetermined angle before being subjected to the rotation means. Each reduced image resulting from rotation is 1
The composite image is held as one composite image, and the image output means reads and outputs the single composite image.

Further, when the image output means is a printing device, 1
The present invention is characterized in that two composite images are output on one sheet of paper, and when the image output means is a communication device, one composite image is transmitted to the other party.

[Effect]

In the present invention, each reduced image of a plurality of documents read sequentially is temporarily held as one composite image and output as one composite image.

At this time, each reduced image may be subjected to rotation processing, and the resulting reduced image rotated at a predetermined angle may be held as one composite image.

Furthermore, when the image output means is a printing device, one composite image is output on one sheet of paper, and when the image output means is a communication device, one composite image is transmitted and output to the other party.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a control means 1 for controlling the whole, an image reading means 2 for reading an image of a document, and a read image can be read in its original form or On the other hand, an image holding means 3 that holds the image in a form that has been subjected to reduction processing, etc., and an image output means 4 that outputs the image held in the image holding means 3 are provided. A rotation means 5 is further provided for performing rotation processing such as 90° rotation on the image.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of an electronic device such as a digital copying machine or a facsimile machine to which the present invention is applied.

In FIG. 2, a processor 1 is connected to the system bus B1.
1, an operation unit 10 that gives predetermined instructions to the processor 11, a ROM 12 in which a control program for the processor 11, etc. is stored, a data transfer processor 13 that controls data transfer, and a rotary processor 14 are connected. The data bus B2 also includes a scanner 15 for reading original images, an image memory 16 such as a RAM in which read image data is stored, and an image memory 16.
An output device that outputs the image data stored in the! 17, the data transfer processor 13, and the rotation processor 14 are connected.

Note that as the output device 3F17, a printing device (printer) is used when the electronic device is a copying machine, and
When the electronic device is a facsimile, a communication device (facsimile control unit) is used.

Further, in FIG. 2, the control means 1 of FIG. 1 is a processor 11. Operation unit 10. ROM12. The image reading means 2 is realized by the data transfer processor 13, and the image reading means 2 is realized by the scanner 15.
The image holding means 3 is realized by the image memory 16, the image output means 4 is realized by the output device 17, and the rotating hand 1''ff15 is realized by the rotation processor 14.

With the above configuration, in this embodiment, even when an electronic device is equipped with an automatic document feeder (ADF), multiple documents can be automatically fed and read in sequence, and multiple documents can be read. It becomes possible to output an image as, for example, one image.

Next, such a processing operation will be specifically explained.

When an electronic device with the configuration shown in Figure 2 is equipped with an automatic document feeding mechanism, for example, two A4-sized documents are automatically fed and read one after another, and then one A4-sized document is read. When the user wants to output the image as an image, the user should do the following:
An instruction to that effect is given from the operation unit 10.

As a result, the processor 11 first activates the automatic document feeding mechanism (not shown) and the scanner 15. The automatic document feeding mechanism first automatically feeds the first document to the scanner 15, and the scanner 15 reads the image data of the automatically fed first document and converts it to a predetermined position. Reduce by the reduction ratio.

The image data of the first original that has been subjected to the reduction process is stored in the image memory 16. Then, the automatic original feeding mechanism automatically feeds the second original to the scanner 15, and the scanner 15.

The image data of the read second document is subjected to a reduction process and stored in the image memory 16 in the same way as the first document.

As a result, the image memory 16 stores the reduced image data of the first original and the reduced image data of the second original, which are the results of the predetermined reduction processing, in accordance with the reduction ratio. For example, the images are stored as a single A4-sized composite image.

Thereafter, the processor 11 can read out one A4 size image stored in the image memory 16 as a composite image from the image memory 16, provide it to the output device 17, and output it from the output device 17. Here, if the electronic device is a copying machine and the output device 217 is a printing device, copies of two A4-sized originals are
If the electronic device is a facsimile and the output device [17 is a communication device, A4 size copy paper can be used to save copy paper.
Images of two originals of the same size can be sent as one composite image to a destination by facsimile, and in this case, communication time can be saved.

Furthermore, after sequentially reading the image data of the two originals with the scanner 15 and performing reduction processing on them, for example, 9
It may be convenient to have the image rotated by 0°. In this case, when an instruction to that effect is given to the processor 11 from the operation unit 10, the processor 11 causes the scanner 15 to read the image data of the two originals, reduce the size, and then starts the rotation processor 14. . Thereby, the rotation processor 14 can rotate the reduced image data of each document by, for example, 90 degrees, and store the reduced image data rotated by 90 degrees in the image memory 16.

Note that this process may be performed after the reduced image data of the two documents are once stored in the image memory 16. In this case, each reduced image data of each document stored in the image memory 16 The data may be rotated separately and stored in the image memory 16 again, or the reduced image data of each document stored in the image memory 16 may be regarded as one composite image, and the data may be rotated as a whole. The image may be rotated and stored in the image memory 16 again.

If the electronic device is a copying machine, by performing such rotation processing on the image data of two originals, the image images of the two originals rotated by 90 degrees can be output on one copy paper. Furthermore, if the electronic device is a facsimile, images of two documents rotated by 90 degrees can be transmitted by facsimile as one composite image.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, in order to save the capacity of the image memory 16, the image data read by the scanner 15 is reduced and then stored in the image memory 16.
If the image memory 16 has sufficient capacity, the image data read by the scanner 15 is initially stored in the image memory 16 as is, and then the image data is stored in the image memory 16.
The image data stored in the image memory 16 may be subjected to reduction processing and then stored in the image memory 16 again.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, each reduced image of a plurality of documents read sequentially is temporarily held as one composite image in the image holding means, and is output as one composite image. Therefore, even in an electronic device equipped with an automatic document feeding mechanism, images of a plurality of documents can be efficiently output, and copy paper and the like can be saved.

At this time, each reduced image may be subjected to rotation processing, and the resulting reduced image rotated at a predetermined angle may be held as one composite image.

Further, when the image output means is a printing device, one composite image is output on one sheet of paper, but when the image output means is a communication device, one composite image is transmitted and output to the other party, In this case, communication time can be saved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of an electronic device to which the present invention is applied. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Control means, 2... Image reading means, 3... Image holding means, 4... Image output means, 5... Rotating means, 10... Operating unit, 11... Processor , 12...
・ROM, 13... Data transfer processor, 14... Rotation processor, 15... Scanner, 16
...Image memory, 17...Output device, B1...System bus, B2...Data bus Patent applicant Rico Co., Ltd. - Figure 1

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1) An image reading means for reading an image of a document, an image holding means for holding a reduced image obtained by reducing the read image at a predetermined reduction ratio, and an image held in the image holding means. and an image output means for outputting a reduced image, and when each image of a plurality of manuscripts is sequentially read by the image reading means, the image holding means is configured to output a reduced image of each of the plurality of manuscripts sequentially read. An image processing method characterized in that a reduced image is held as one composite image, and the image output means reads and outputs one composite surface image held in the image holding means. . 2) In the image processing method according to claim 1, a rotation means for performing rotation processing on each reduced image is further provided, and when the rotation processing is performed by the rotation means, the rotation means is applied to the image holding means. Each reduced image obtained by rotating each previous reduced image at a predetermined angle is held as one composite image, and the image output means reads and outputs the one composite image. An image processing method characterized by 3) In the image processing method according to claim 1 or 2, when the image output means is a printing device, one composite image is output on one sheet of paper, and when the image output means is a communication device, An image processing method characterized in that a single composite image is sent to the other party.