JPH04314260A - Picture processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To use a scanner/printer by implementing longitudinal and lateral conversion of a raster form and a shuttle form and processing of data in dupli cate with a minimum capacity of a memory quantity and making a host com puter not notify a special form. CONSTITUTION:A buffer memory 100 allocates one address per one picture element so as to access two different addresses thereby implementing longitudinal and lateral conversion of a raster form and a shuttle form. The buffer memory 100 is divided into a main block 101 and a sub block 102, it is controlled that a data written in the sub block 102 is aborted at scanning and a data is copied from the sub block 102 to the main block 101 at print and the duplicate data processing is hidden from the host computer.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, and more particularly to a memory control technique for inputting image information, performing predetermined processing, and outputting the resultant image information.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, a buffer memory is provided between a computer and a peripheral device, and this memory absorbs differences in processing speed and transfer speed between the computer and the peripheral device. In most peripheral devices that are image data input and output devices, the image scanning format is raster format.

0003

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the above conventional example, the image scanning format of the scanner and printer is not a general raster format but a format as shown in FIG. 2 (hereinafter referred to as shuttle format). In some cases, it is necessary to perform horizontal and vertical conversion in the scanning direction between the raster format on the computer side and the shuttle format on the scanner/printer side, and to process duplicate data.

[0004] The shuttle format will be described in detail below.

[0005] In FIG. 2, 201 represents one page of a manuscript or paper. 202 represents the head of a sensor or printer, and this head 201 itself moves in the raster direction indicated by the arrow 204. On the other hand, in the head 202, each pixel of the sensor or the nozzle of the printer head is lined up in a direction perpendicular to the raster direction 204, and data flows in the vertical direction shown by the arrow 203. Therefore, by moving the head 201 once, the memory area number 205 can be changed.
．． Part 1 is scanned or printed. In such a shuttle format, vertical and horizontal conversion is required for each area in order to convert the data into raster format data that is normally handled by the computer.

Furthermore, because one page is divided into areas like the head 202, several raster lines for the preceding and succeeding areas may be required in image processing. For example, when referring to the vicinity of a pixel of interest in smoothing processing, etc., it is necessary to refer to the data of the previous or subsequent area in the upper or lower part of the area. Considering this, in shuttle format, data from Sukiyana is
Extra data is added in the vertical direction of arrow 203, and although there is no overlapping nozzle in the printer head itself, extra data is added in the direction of arrow 203 for internal processing as data sent to the printer. must be added. Therefore, as shown at 206, data overlap occurs for each scan, and vertical/horizontal conversion must also be performed in units of this size.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned drawbacks of the conventional example, and its object is to have a shuttle-type I/F so that the head cannot be stopped during one shuttle scan. do not have. In other words, the objective is to provide an image processing device that can configure a buffer with a minimum amount of memory when connecting a scanner/printer device that must continuously receive or supply data to a host computer. be.

[0008]

[Means for solving the problem] Solving the above problems,
To achieve the object, an image processing apparatus according to the present invention includes a storage means for storing data, a first access means for accessing the storage means in a raster format, and a second access means for accessing the storage means in a shuttle format. means of access, and
It is characterized by comprising a control means for controlling the storage means by switching between the first access means and the second access means.

[0009]

[Operation] According to this structure, the first access means accesses the storage means for storing data in raster format, the second access means accesses the storage means in shuttle format, and the control means accesses the storage means for storing data in raster format. The storage means is controlled by switching between the first access means and the second access means.

0010

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an image processing apparatus according to the present invention. In the figure, 1 indicates the image processing device of this embodiment, and 107 and 108 indicate a host computer and a scanner/printer device connected to the device 1, respectively. In the device 1, 109 is a data bus, 110 is an address bus, and 106 is a CPU that controls the entire device. A buffer memory 100 has a main block 101 and a sub-block 102. 103 is a selector for a data bus and an address bus, and can switch the bus to the buffer memory 100 between the CPU side and the video side according to instructions from the CPU 104. The CPU side is the raster format host computer 107 side, and the video side is the shuttle format scanner/printer device 108 side. Further, 105 indicates an external IF (interface) for communicating with the host computer 107, and 106 indicates a video I/F for communicating with the scanner/printer device 108. 121 is a ROM which stores a program for operating the CPU 104, such as a program according to the flowchart of FIG. 122 is RAM
It functions as a work area for the program in the ROM 121.

The operation of the above configuration will be explained.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the image processing operation of this embodiment.

First, during scanning, image data is sent in a shuttle format from the scanner section of the scanner/printer device 108. The video I/F 106 generates an address and transfers the sent image data to the buffer memory 10.
0 main block 101 and sub-block 102 (step S2). At this time, the data bus 109 and address bus 110 are set to the video I/F 106 side by the selector 103 (step S1). Next, the selector 103 connects the data bus 109 and address bus 110 to the CPU 104 side, that is, to the external I/F 10.
5 side (step S3), the CPU 104 reads data in raster format from the main block 101, and transfers it to the external I/F 105. This external I/F105
is, for example, SCSI. The image is then transferred to the host computer 107 (step S4). At this time, the data of subblock 102 is discarded. The above operations are repeated until the scanner input is completed (step S5).

In printing operations, a raster image is sent from the host computer 107 to the external I/F 105. The selector 3 sets the bus to the CPU 104, that is, the external I/F side 105 (step S6), and
The image data is divided into main block 101 and sub-block 1.
02 in raster format (step S7)
). Next, the selector 103 connects the bus to the video I/F 10.
6 side (step S8), the video I/F 106 reads data in shuttle format from blocks 101 and 102, and transfers it to the printer section of the scanner/printer device 108 (step S9). The above operations are repeated until printing is completed (step S10). FIG. 3 shows in more detail the access to the buffer memory 100 during printing as described above. In the figure, in state (3), the video I/F 106 reads data in shuttle format as shown by the arrow. Next, in the state (1), the data of the sub-buffer indicated by B is copied to the main buffer section indicated by A1. Next, in the state (2), the CPU 104 writes data in the main buffer portion indicated by A2 and the sub buffer B in raster format. By repeating these three steps, vertical/horizontal conversion and redundant reading of duplicate data are realized.

FIG. 4 shows a buffer memory 10 according to this embodiment.
FIG. buffer memory 10
In the configuration of 0, one pixel has 8 bits for each color of RGBX or CMYK in order to perform vertical and horizontal conversion only by how the address is given.
, that is, it is composed of 32 bits. In this embodiment, as an example, there are 4096 pixels in the raster direction, and 128 pixels and 16 pixels in the vertical direction. At this time, "4096" is a good value, exceeding the number of pixels in the short direction of A4 size paper at 400 dpi, "128" is the number of nozzles in the printer head, and "16" is the number of pixels for image processing. Corresponds to duplicate data. To specifically configure this buffer memory 100 with DRAM, as shown in FIG.
The main block is made up of 16 pieces (it x 4 bit),
4-bit type 256K DRAM (64Kbit×
4 bits) to constitute a sub-block.

As explained above, according to this embodiment,
Vertical and horizontal conversion between raster format and shuttle format and processing of duplicate data can be performed using the minimum amount of memory.
The scanner/printer can be used from the host computer without being aware of the special format.

Now, in the above-described embodiment, the case of a color image was shown, but the same applies to a monochrome image, and in this case, one pixel is composed of 8 bits instead of 32 bits.

[0019] Also, the buffer memory size of 4096 x (128 + 16) is equivalent to a head of 128 nozzles and an A4
The specifications are 400 dpi, and of course memory configurations of different sizes can be obtained depending on the system resolution, paper size, and number of nozzles in the head.

The present invention may be applied to a system made up of a plurality of devices, or to a device made up of one device. It goes without saying that the present invention can also be applied to cases where the present invention is achieved by supplying a program to a system or device.

[0021]

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention,
Vertical/horizontal conversion between raster format and shuttle format and processing of duplicate data can be performed using the minimum amount of memory, allowing the host computer to perform scanner/
Can use a printer.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an image processing apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a general shuttle format.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing three states of access to the buffer memory during printing according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an external perspective view showing the configuration of the buffer memory according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the image processing operation of this embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

101,103 Main block 102,104 Subblock 105 Selector 106 CPU 107 External I/F 108 Video I/F 109 Host computer 110 Scanner/Printer 111 Data bus 112 Address bus 121 ROM 122 RAM

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A storage means for storing data, a first access means for accessing the storage means in a raster format, a second access means for accessing the storage means in a shuttle format, and the first access means for accessing the storage means in a shuttle format. An image processing apparatus comprising: a control means for controlling the storage means by switching between the storage means and the second access means.