JPH05191559A - Picture processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To efficiently attain a picture processing by setting an index to be applied to transfer paper at each page, and transferring the established index to the transfer paper. CONSTITUTION:An INDEX key displayed at a display part 11 of a control panel 10 is selected, pressed, and an index setting is started. The start page of the first index is preliminarily set to be the first page, and the end page is set by pressing a button 15 on the central upper part of the display part 11. Then, at the time of pressing a 'setting completion' button 12 the increment of (i) is operated, and at the time of the completion of the entire setting, a 'confirmation' button 13 is pressed, and the set content is displayed at the display part 11. Then, when the correction is not necessary, the button 13 is pressed again, and when the correction is necessary, a 'correction' button is pressed. Then, an original is set at a digital copying machine 30, a copy button is pressed, and the original is read by a scanner part 31. For example, an index mark of a transfer size in X and Y directions is synthesized in the Y direction at the edge part of the opposite side to the paper feeding direction of copy paper.

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 such as a digital copying machine.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, not only an image processing apparatus such as a digital copying machine but also a commonly used copying machine,
If you want to distinguish the transfer paper by item such as chapters and sections when bundling the copied transfer paper, prepare a colored paper in advance, and at a certain timing, send this colored paper into the copying machine and transfer it. It was inserted between the pieces of paper to distinguish each item.

[0003]

In the conventional copying machine as described above, the method of distinguishing by the colored paper is used, the transfer paper is fed from the cassette of the copying machine, and the colored paper is fed from the manual feed tray by the operator. However, there is a problem that it is troublesome and the work efficiency is low.

Therefore, the present invention provides an image processing apparatus which can easily distinguish the transfer paper on which the image data is transferred for each item such as a page and has a good working efficiency.

[0005]

According to the present invention, there is provided an image processing apparatus having a function of optically reading a document and transferring the read image data onto a transfer sheet, which should be added to the transfer sheet. There is provided an image processing apparatus including means for setting an index for each page and means for transferring the index set by the setting means onto a transfer sheet.

[0006]

The index is set for each page of the transfer paper by the means for setting the index to be added to the transfer paper for each page. Specifically, an index can be set for each manuscript group in order to distinguish manuscript groups such as chapters and sections of a manuscript by inputting an operator. Further, the set index is added to the image data of the corresponding page by the means for transferring the index mark onto the transfer paper and transferred onto the transfer paper.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An example of a digital copying machine which is an embodiment of an image processing apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 9 is a sectional view schematically showing the construction of an example of the digital copying machine of this embodiment, and FIG. 10 schematically shows the construction of an image processing unit included in the digital copying machine shown in FIG. It is a block diagram.

As shown in FIG. 9, the digital copying machine 30 according to this embodiment comprises a scanner section 31, a laser printer section 32, a multi-stage sheet feeding unit 33 and a sorter 34.

The scanner unit 31 includes a document placing table 35 made of transparent glass, and an automatic document feeder (ADF) 3 compatible with both sides.
6 and the scanner unit 40.

The multi-stage paper feeding unit 33 includes the first cassette 5
It has a first cassette 52, a second cassette 52, a third cassette 53, and a fourth cassette 55 which can be added by selection. In the multi-stage paper feeding unit 33, the transfer papers are sent out one by one from the transfer papers stored in the cassettes of the respective stages, and are conveyed toward the laser printer unit 32. The ADF 36 sets a plurality of originals at one time, automatically feeds the originals one by one to the scanner unit 40, and scans one side or both sides of the original with the scanner unit 40 according to the operator's selection. Is configured to let.

The scanner unit 40 forms a lamp reflector assembly 41 for exposing a document, a plurality of reflecting mirrors 43 for guiding a reflected light image from the document to a charge coupled device (CCD) 42, and a reflected light image from the document on the CCD 42. It includes a lens 44 for imaging. Scanner unit 31
When scanning a document placed on the document table 35, the scanner unit 4 is arranged along the lower surface of the document table 35.
When the ADF 36 is used, the document image is read while the document is conveyed while the scanner unit 40 is stopped at a predetermined position below the ADF 36. Is configured.

The image data obtained by reading the original image with the scanner unit 40 is sent to an image processing unit (not shown), which will be described later, and subjected to various processing, and then temporarily stored in the memory of the image processing unit. In response to the output instruction, the image data in the memory is given to the laser printer unit 32 to form an image on the transfer paper.

The laser printer unit 32 includes a manual document tray 45, a laser writing unit 46, and an electrophotographic process unit 47 for forming an image. The laser writing unit 46 is a semiconductor laser that emits a laser beam according to the image data from the memory described above, a polygon mirror that deflects the laser beam at an equal angular velocity, and a laser beam that is deflected at an equal angular velocity is exposed by the electrophotographic process section 47. Body drum 48
It has an f-θ lens and the like for performing correction so that the angular velocity is deflected.

The electrophotographic process section 47 comprises a charging device, a developing device, a transfer device, a peeling device, a cleaning device, a static eliminator and a fixing device 49 around the photosensitive drum 48 in a known manner. A transport path 50 is provided on the downstream side of the fixing device 49 in the transport direction of the transfer sheet on which the image is to be formed, and the transport path 50 communicates with the sorter 34.
7 and a conveyance path 58 leading to the multi-stage sheet feeding unit 33. The transport path 58 is branched in the multi-stage paper feeding unit 33, and the reverse transport path 5 is used as a transport path after the branch.
0a and a double-sided / composite transport path 50b are provided. The reverse conveyance path 50a is a conveyance path for reversing the front and back sides of the transfer paper in the double-sided copy mode in which both sides of the original are copied. The double-sided / composite conveyance path 50b conveys the transfer paper from the reverse conveyance path 50a to the image forming position of the photosensitive drum 48 in the double-sided copy mode, or transfers images of different originals or toners of different colors on one side of the transfer paper. This is a conveyance path for conveying the transfer paper to the image forming position of the photosensitive drum 48 without inverting the transfer paper in the single-sided composite copy mode for performing the composite copy to be formed.

The multi-stage paper feeding unit 33 includes a common conveyance path 56, and the common conveyance path 56 includes the first cassette 51 and the second cassette 51.
The transfer sheets from the cassette 52 and the third cassette 53 are carried out toward the electrophotographic process section 47. The common transport path 56 joins the transport path 59 from the fourth cassette 55 on the way to the electrophotographic process section 47 and communicates with the transport path 60. The conveyance path 60 merges with the conveyance path 61 from the double-sided / composite conveyance path 50b and the manual feed tray 45 at a confluence point 62 to reach an image forming position between the photosensitive drum 48 of the electrostatic photography process section 47 and the transfer device. The confluence point 62 of these three transport paths is provided at a position close to the image forming position.

Therefore, in the laser writing unit 46 and the electrophotographic process section 47, the image data read from the above-mentioned memory is the laser writing unit 46.
The toner image formed as an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the photosensitive drum 48 by scanning the laser beam by the toner is visualized by the toner, and the toner image is transferred onto the surface of the transfer paper conveyed from the multi-stage paper feeding unit 33. It is electrostatically transferred and fixed.
The transfer sheet on which the image is thus formed is sent from the fixing device 49 to the sorter 34 via the carrying paths 50 and 57, or is carried to the reverse carrying path 50a via the carrying paths 50 and 58.

Next, the structure and function of the image processing unit included in the digital copying machine 30 of this embodiment will be described.

As shown in FIG. 10, the digital copying machine 3
The image processing unit included in 0 is an image data input unit 70, an image processing unit 71, an image data output unit 72, a memory 73 including a RAM (random access memory), and C.
A PU (Central Processing Unit) 74 is provided. The image data input unit 70 includes a CCD unit 70a and a histogram processing unit 7.
0b and the error diffusion processing unit 70c.

The image data input section 70 is the CCD 4 of FIG.
The image data of the original read from 2 is binarized and converted, and while the histogram is taken as a binary digital amount, the image data is processed by the error diffusion method and temporarily stored in the memory 73. There is. That is, CC
In the D section 70a, after the analog electric signal corresponding to each pixel density of the image data is A / D converted, MTF correction, black and white correction or gamma correction is performed, and 256 gradations (8 bits)
Is output to the histogram processing unit 70b.

In the histogram processing section 70b, the digital signal output from the CCD section 70a is added for each pixel density of 256 gradations to obtain density information (histogram data), and if necessary, the obtained histogram data is It is sent to the CPU 74 or as pixel data to the error diffusion processing unit 70c. Error diffusion processing unit 70c
Then, the error diffusion method which is a kind of pseudo halftone processing, that is, 2
A digital signal of 8 bits / pixel output from the CCD unit 70a is converted into 1 bit (binary) by a method of reflecting a binarization error of adjacent pixels in a binarization determination, and faithfully reproduces the local area density in the original. A redistribution operation is performed to reproduce the above.

The image processing unit 71 includes multi-valued processing units 71a and 71b, a synthesis processing unit 71c, a density conversion processing unit 71d, a scaling processing unit 71e, an image processing unit 71f, an error diffusion processing unit 71g and a compression processing unit 71h. Contains. The image processing section 71 is a processing section for finally converting the input image data into image data desired by the operator, and this processing is carried out until it is stored in the memory 73 as finally converted output image data. It is configured to be processed by the department. However, each of the above-described processing units included in the image processing unit 71 functions as necessary and may not function.

That is, in the multilevel halftoning processing units 71a and 71b, the data binarized by the error diffusion processing unit 70c is converted again into 256 gradations.

In the synthesizing section 71c, a logical operation for each pixel, that is, a logical sum, a logical product or an exclusive logical sum is selectively performed. The data to be calculated are pixel data stored in the memory 73 and bit data from the pattern generator (PG).

The density conversion processing section 71d arbitrarily sets the relationship between the input density and the output density for the 256 gradation digital signal based on a predetermined gradation conversion table.

In the scaling processing unit 71e, the pixel data (density value) for the scaled target pixel is obtained by performing interpolation processing based on the input known data according to the designated scaling ratio. After the scanning is scaled, the main scanning is scaled.

In the image processing section 71f, various image processings may be performed on the input pixel data, and information collection such as feature extraction may be performed on the data string.

The error diffusion processing unit 71g performs the same processing as the error diffusion processing unit 70c of the image data input unit 70.

In the compression processing section 71h, binary data is compressed by the encoding called runless. Regarding the compression of the image data, the compression functions in the final processing loop when the final output data is completed.

The image data output unit 72 includes a restoration unit 72a, a multilevel halftoning processing unit 72b, an error diffusion processing unit 72c, and a laser output unit 72d.

The image data output unit 72 restores the image data stored in the memory 73 in a compressed state to the original 25
The laser output unit 7 converts the gradation into 6 gradations again and performs error diffusion of the 4-valued data, which is a smoother halftone expression than the binary data.
It is configured to transfer data to 2d. That is,
The decompression unit 72a decompresses the image data compressed by the compression processing unit 71h.

In the multi-value quantization processing unit 72b, the image processing unit 71
Processing similar to that of the multi-value quantization processing units 71a and 71b is performed. In the error diffusion processing unit 72c, the image data input unit 70
Processing similar to that of the error diffusion processing unit 70c is performed.

In the laser output section 72d, the digital pixel data is converted into a laser on / off signal based on a control signal from a sequence controller (not shown), and the laser is turned on / off.

The data handled by the image data input section 70 and the image data output section 72 is basically in the form of binary data in order to reduce the capacity of the memory 73.
It is stored in 3 but 4 in consideration of the deterioration of image data.
It is also possible to process in the form of value data.

Next, the main part of the present invention will be described.

FIG. 1 is a flow chart showing the outline of the index setting operation of the digital copying machine according to this embodiment. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing the size, position, etc. of the index mark transferred to the transfer paper, and FIGS.
Are respectively the display screens on the operation panel of the digital copying machine when setting the indexes.

To set the index, first, the INDEX key 1 displayed on the display unit 11 on the operation panel 10 shown in FIG.
It starts by selecting 9 and pressing it (step S10). Next, in order to set the first index, initialization is performed (step S11), and the first index setting screen shown in FIG. 4 is displayed on the display unit 11 (step S12). FIG. 4 shows an example in which pages 1 to 10 are input as the first index. In this embodiment, the start page of the first index is set to one page in advance, and the end page is set by pressing the "▽ △" button 15 at the upper center of the display unit 11 (step S).
13). Next, it is judged whether or not the index setting is completed (step S14), and when the "setting complete" button 12 is pressed, i is incremented (step S15) and the next index setting display is made for the next index setting. The screen is displayed on the display unit 11.

FIG. 5 shows a case where the second index is set following the index setting display screen shown in FIG. In the example shown in FIG. 4, the first index is 1
Since 0 pages have been set, the start page of the second index is automatically set to 11 pages. Therefore, similarly, only the end page is input using the button 15. After that, if it is desired to set the third index, the input is similarly repeated.

When all the settings have been completed, the "confirm" button 13 is pressed to display the set index settings as shown in FIG. 6 on the display section 11 (step S1).
6). This display is for confirming the index setting, and the start page and end page of the first, second, ... Indexes are displayed. Confirm the setting contents, and if there is no correction, press the "confirm" button 13 again to finish the setting. If there is a correction, the "correction" button 16 is pressed to correct the setting contents. When the correction is selected, the screen returns to the previous screen. In this example, as shown in FIG. 7, the screen returns to the second index setting display screen. On this display screen, a "correction" button 17 is added to the index setting display screen shown in FIG.
When this "correct" button 17 is pressed, the button 15 is pressed again.
It is possible to input the end page using. In addition, when the "cancel" button 14 is pressed in the state shown in FIG. 7, the set index is erased and the screen immediately before is returned. Further, when the "previous screen" button 18 is pressed, the display screen for modifying the first index is moved to without modifying the second index setting.

When the "confirm" button 13 is pressed on any of the index correction screens, the display of the INDEX key 19 shown in FIG. 3 is reversed in black and white, indicating that the index setting is confirmed (FIG. 8).

The means for setting an index for each page in order to distinguish each page of the transfer paper corresponds to steps S10 to S18 in the flow chart shown in FIG. Further, means for transferring the set index to the transfer paper is included in the image data output unit 72 shown in FIG.

Next, the process from setting the index to transferring the index mark on the transfer paper will be described.

ADF of the digital copying machine 30 shown in FIG.
When the document is set on 36 and the copy button is pressed, the document is read by the scanner unit 31. As described above, the read data is stored in the memory 73 via the image data input unit 70 shown in FIG. 10 and then output through the image data output unit 72 through various image processes.

As shown in FIG. 2, the index mark is, for example, 3% in the X direction of the transfer paper size from the position of the transfer paper size 5% in the Y direction at the end portion of the transfer paper opposite to the paper feeding direction. Index mark 2 with a size of 5% in the Y direction
0a, 20b, 20c ... Are combined with the output image data and output. When the end page of the first index mark 20a has passed, the second index mark 20b
The first index mark 2 so that its upper part overlaps with the lower part of the first index mark 20a.
The first index mark 20 of the same size as 0a
It is synthesized and transferred under a. In this way, the corresponding index marks are combined with the image data of each page for the designated page and output.

The index portion need not be exactly transferred to the edge of the transfer paper as shown in FIG.
You may make it protrude from an image area. This is because the toner image is transferred to the end portion of the transfer paper even if the transfer paper is slightly conveyed, so that the indexes can be easily discriminated when the completed transfer papers are stacked.

In this way, by setting the index, by combining the index mark with the image data on the transfer paper at the time of transfer and outputting it, the original can be easily distinguished for each original group such as chapters and sections. Therefore, this makes it possible to improve production efficiency without the need to insert colored paper or the like.

[0047]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, a means for setting an index to be added to a transfer sheet for each page, and the index set by the setting means are transferred to the transfer sheet. Since it is provided with the means, it is possible to easily distinguish them by adding an index to each document group such as chapters and sections of the document and transferring them to the transfer paper. Therefore, this makes it possible to improve production efficiency without the need to insert colored paper or the like.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing an outline of an index setting operation of a digital copying machine according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing dimensions, positions, etc. of index marks transferred onto a transfer sheet.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a display screen on an operation panel of a digital copying machine when setting an index.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a display screen in the case of the first index setting in the index setting.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a display screen in the case of the second index setting in the index setting.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a display screen when setting contents are displayed in index setting.

FIG. 7 shows an example of a display screen for index setting correction in index setting.

FIG. 8 shows an example of a display screen in the case of index setting confirmation in index setting.

FIG. 9 is a sectional view schematically showing the configuration of an example of a digital copying machine according to the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram schematically showing a configuration of an image processing unit included in the digital copying machine according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 operation panel 11 display device 20a, 20b, 20c index mark

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An image processing apparatus having a function of optically reading a document and transferring the read image data to a transfer sheet, and a unit for setting an index to be added to the transfer sheet for each page. An image processing apparatus comprising: a unit configured to transfer the index set by the setting unit to a transfer sheet.