JPH04351167A - Facsimile equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce a communication time by coding a picture in two ways of scanning directions with respect to the insertion direction an original, adopting the main scanning and subscanning directions with less coding information quantity so as to encode the picture and sending coding picture information. CONSTITUTION:A facsimile equipment is provided with a memory 2 in which picture information entered from an input section 1 subject to binarizing is stored. Then a coding decoding section 3 encodes the stored picture information in two ways in which the direction of main scanning and subscanning are different and a control circuit 4 compares the information quantities generated in the two ways of coding to send coding information with less information quantity through a communication section 5. That is, the control circuit 4 compares picture information sets A, B caused by the coding in the scanning direction and the coding in the unique scanning direction sent from the coding decoding section 3 and when the information quantity B is larger than the information quantity A, a flag is set and in other cases, the flag is cleared. As a result, which of the scanning directions is coded with less quantity.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile machine having a memory transmission/reception function.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional facsimile machine, a document is read line by line using a line sensor, etc., and the code is sequentially encoded in the sub-scanning direction, and the encoded information is transmitted to the other party's device. Furthermore, even in facsimile machines having a memory transmission/reception function, the main scanning and sub-scanning directions are determined depending on the direction in which the document is read, and encoding is performed in accordance with the direction.

0003

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] In the conventional method, the amount of information may be reduced if the orientation of the document is swapped between the main scanning direction and the sub-scanning direction. Since encoding was performed according to the reading direction, there was a problem in that communication time was unnecessarily long.

0004

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides an input means for inputting a manuscript, a storage means for storing image information obtained by the input means, and a storage means for storing image information stored in the storage means in a plurality of different scanning directions. an encoding means for encoding, and a selection means for comparing the amounts of encoded image information encoded in a plurality of scanning directions by the encoding means and selecting the image information having the smallest amount of information; and a communication means that is connected to a communication line and transmits the image information with the least amount of information selected by the selection means.

[0005]

[Operation] The encoding means performs multiple encodings of the image information inputted by the input means and stored in the storage means in different scanning directions, and the selection means performs multiple encodings of the image information encoded by the encoding means in different scanning directions. Since the image information having the smallest amount of information is selected from among the image information, and the communication means transmits the image information selected by the selection means, the usage time of the communication line for transmitting the image information can be shortened.

[0006]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a facsimile apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a facsimile machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, F is a facsimile machine, which is connected to a telephone line K. The facsimile machine F has an input unit 1 as an input means such as an image sensor that inputs a document to be transmitted as binary image information, and stores image information read by the input unit 1 and image information received from the other party's device. A memory section 2 serves as a storage means, and an image stored in the memory section 2 is read out and encoded,
The coder/decoder unit 3 serves as an encoding means for decoding encoded information sent from the other party's device, and is composed of a modem, an NCU, etc., and executes communication control procedures of the facsimile device F.
A communication unit 5 as a communication means for transmitting and receiving encoded information to and from a communication line, an operation unit 6 for an operator to operate the facsimile machine such as sending and receiving, a telephone unit 7 for making voice calls, and a memory. The amount of information is minimized from the output unit 8 such as a thermal printer that outputs the image stored in the unit 2 onto recording paper, and the encoded information in different scanning directions encoded by the overall control and encoding/decoding unit 3. The control unit 4 is provided as a selection means for selecting image information. The encoding/decoding unit 3 includes a memory capable of storing a plurality of encoded images to be transmitted.

A case will be described in which such a device communicates with a facsimile device having a similar configuration.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the main scanning and sub-scanning directions during encoding according to an embodiment of the facsimile apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of one embodiment of the facsimile apparatus of the present invention.

First, the case of transmitting image information to the other party's facsimile machine will be explained.

In FIG. 3, when transmitting a document using the facsimile machine F, the operator first inserts the document to be transmitted into the input section 1 that reads the document. When the input section 1 detects that a document has been inserted, it reads the document using an image sensor, converts it into binary image information, and stores it in the memory section 2 (step 301). After the storage of the image information in the memory unit 2 is completed, the control unit 4 instructs the encoding/decoding unit 3 to encode the image information stored in the memory unit 2. When the encoding/decoding unit 3 receives an encoding instruction from the control unit 4, it first starts in the scanning direction of encoding (1) shown in FIG. Encoding is performed in the sub-scanning direction (hereinafter referred to as the conventional scanning direction) (step 302). The encoding/decoding unit 3 stores the encoded image information in the memory within the encoding/decoding unit 3 when the encoding in the conventional scanning direction is completed, and also stores the amount A of encoded image information in the control unit. Tell 4. Next, the encoding/decoding unit 3 converts the image information stored in the same memory unit 2 in the scanning direction of encoding (2) in FIG. Then, with respect to the document insertion direction, the document transport direction is the main scanning direction, the vertical direction is the sub-scanning direction, and hereinafter referred to as the unique scanning direction).
Step 303). The encoder/decoder 3 stores the encoded image information in the memory within the encoder/decoder 3 when encoding in the unique scanning direction is completed, and also controls the amount B of the encoded image information. Tell it to Section 4.

The control unit 4 compares the amounts A and B of image information generated by encoding in the conventional scanning direction and encoding in the unique scanning direction, which are transmitted from the encoding/decoding unit 3 (step 304 ). In this comparison, if the amount of encoded information B in the original scanning direction is larger than the amount of encoded information A in the conventional scanning direction, the control unit 4 sets a flag (step 305).
), otherwise clear the flag (step 3
06).

[0015] Through the above operations, it is possible to know which of the conventional scanning direction and the unique scanning direction allows the image to be encoded with a smaller amount when encoding the image. If there are multiple pieces of image information to be sent, step 301
Repeat the operations from 306 to 306.

When the main scanning and sub-scanning directions of the image to be transmitted are determined, the control section 4 displays the following from the display section provided in the operation section 6.
The operator is requested to input the telephone number of the destination device to which the document is to be sent (step 307).

The operator who is requested to input a telephone number inputs into the telephone section 7 the telephone number of the other party's device to which the manuscript is to be transmitted. The telephone unit 7 makes a call to the input telephone number and connects the line with the communication partner (step 308). After confirming the line connection, the operator presses a transmission switch provided on the operation unit 6 to request image transmission.

When the control unit 4 receives a transmission request from the operation unit 6 by pressing the transmission switch, it instructs the communication unit 5 to check the function of the other party's facsimile machine (step 309).
).

The communication unit 5 receives information such as the functions of the other party's facsimile machine from the other party's facsimile machine and transmits it to the control unit 4 . The control unit 4 checks whether or not the other party's facsimile machine is equipped with the encoding/decoding function in the unique scanning direction of the present invention based on the function of the other party's facsimile machine transmitted from the communication unit 5 (step 310). Step 3
If it is confirmed in step 10 that the other party's facsimile device is equipped with the encoding/decoding function in the unique scanning direction of the present invention, the process proceeds to step 311 to check whether the above-mentioned flag is set.

When the control unit 4 confirms that the flag is set in step 311, it instructs the communication unit 5 to transmit image information encoded in the unique scanning direction (step 312).

Based on the instruction from the control unit 4, the communication unit 5 informs the other party's facsimile machine that the transmitted image is image information encoded in a unique scanning direction, and then transmits the image information (step 313). ). The image information to be transmitted is the image information encoded and stored in the unique scanning direction by the encoder/decoder 3 in step 303.

[0022] When the facsimile machine on the receiving side detects that the image information being sent is image information encoded in a unique scanning direction, the subsequently received image information is decoded by the encoding/decoding section 3. It is stored in the memory section 2, and at the stage of outputting at the output section 8, the vertical and horizontal directions are converted and output.

In step 310 or step 311, if the control unit 4 determines that the other party's facsimile machine does not have the encoding/decoding function in the unique scanning direction of the present invention, If the amount of information generated is smaller than when encoded in the original scanning direction, the communication section 5 is instructed to transmit the image information encoded in the conventional scanning direction (step 314). The communication section 5 is the control section 4
The image information encoded and stored in the conventional scanning direction by the encoder/decoder 3 in step 302 is transmitted to the other party's facsimile machine based on the instruction from the sender (step 315).

When the transmission of the original to be transmitted is completed, the communication line is disconnected according to the conventional line disconnection procedure (step 316), and the communication operation is terminated.

In the above embodiment, the encoding/decoding section 3 stores the image information encoded in step 302 and step 303, but there is no particular need to store it. For example, in steps 302 to 304, only checking which scanning direction, the conventional scanning direction or the unique scanning direction, can be encoded with a smaller amount of information, and without storing the encoded information, steps 310 and 311 By re-encoding the image information when the encoding scanning direction of the image information to be transmitted is determined, the memory provided in the encoding/decoding section 3 can be omitted.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, if it is determined in the function check at the start of communication that the other party's facsimile machine does not have the encoding/decoding function in the unique scanning direction of the present invention, Although the amount of image information encoded in the original scanning direction is smaller than the encoding in the original scanning direction, the image information encoded in the conventional scanning direction is transmitted, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, even if the other party's facsimile machine does not have the encoding/decoding function in the unique scanning direction of the present invention, if the amount of image information generated during encoding is smaller in the original scanning direction, encoding can be performed in the original scanning direction. It is also possible to send image information. At this time, the image will be displayed horizontally on the receiving side, but the time it takes to occupy the communication line can be reduced compared to the conventional case of transmitting image information encoded in the scanning direction. Also,
If it is determined during the function check at the start of communication that the length of the image information to be transmitted in the main scanning direction is longer than the length of the receiving facsimile machine in the main scanning direction, the image information Reduce and send.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, in addition to the conventional scanning direction in which the direction perpendicular to the document insertion direction is the main scanning direction and the document conveyance direction is the sub-scanning direction, the main scanning direction and the sub-scanning direction are exchanged. We compared the amount of image information during encoding by setting the scanning direction (with respect to the document insertion direction, the document transport direction is the main scanning direction, and the vertical direction is the sub-scanning direction), but it is particularly limited to this scanning direction. It's not a thing. Since the image information to be encoded is stored in the memory section 2 mentioned above,
A wide variety of scanning directions can be set depending on the order in which the information is read. For example, the diagonal scanning direction can be set by setting the diagonal direction inclined at 45 degrees with respect to the document insertion direction as the main scanning direction, and setting the direction perpendicular to the main scanning direction as the sub-scanning direction. In addition, the facsimile apparatus of the present invention has simultaneous encoding and decoding functions in two or more scanning directions, which are different from the conventional scanning directions, such as the main scanning direction and the sub-scanning direction. It is also possible to select the scanning direction that minimizes the amount of converted image information.

[0028]

According to the present invention, when encoding image information, there are cases where the main scanning direction is the direction perpendicular to the insertion direction of the original, and when the main scanning direction is the direction perpendicular to the insertion direction of the original. The scanning direction is encoded in two scanning directions, and the main scanning and sub-scanning directions, which provide the least amount of encoded information, are used to encode and transmit the encoded image information, so the conventional scanning direction is fixed. Compared to conventional facsimile machines, when sending the same document, it can be sent in the same or shorter communication time than conventional facsimile machines.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a scanning direction during encoding according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart diagram for explaining the operation according to an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Input section 2 Memory section 3 Encoding/decoding section 4 Control section 5 Communication Department 6　　　　Operation section 7　　　　Telephone section 8 Output section F Facsimile machine K Telephone line

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An input means for inputting a manuscript, a storage means for storing image information obtained by the input means, and an encoding means for encoding the image information stored in the storage means in a plurality of different scanning directions. , a selection means for comparing a plurality of encoded image information amounts encoded in a plurality of scanning directions by the encoding means and selecting image information having the least amount of information; 1. A facsimile apparatus comprising: communication means for transmitting image information with the least amount of information selected by the means.