JPH05265668A - Image printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To attain interrupting printing in an image printing system using a client/server system by temporarily interrupting printing processing under execution at present, and after executing printing processing with high urgency, restarting the interrupted printing processing. CONSTITUTION:The server/client system consisting of plural slients 21 on 2N for requesting image printing and a server 1 connected to these clients 21 to 2N through an LAN 3 to control plural printers and print out images in accordance with requests outputted from the clients 21 to 2N by using these printers in used for this image printing system so that urgent printing processing can be introduced by interruption on the way of normal printing processing.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a plurality of clients that request printing of images and a plurality of clients connected via a LAN to control a plurality of printers and utilize these printers. The present invention relates to an image printing system using a server / client method including a server that prints an image in response to a request from a client.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, when constructing a system in a network environment, a machine having high specifications and a large number of connected peripheral devices is used as a server machine, and an inexpensive machine is used as a client such as a LAN. A client-server model has been developed and put to practical use, in which a system is built around a server by connecting online via a communication line.

In such a system, a print job is processed by a spooler (SPOOL: Simultaneous) in the processing requested by the client to the server.
Peripheral Operation On L
ine), which allows the server to support asynchronous print processing.

As processing on the server side, print requests from clients are set in a print queue according to a priority order, and the first one in the print queue is sequentially taken out to execute the print processing. Therefore, it is impossible to perform more urgent print processing than the print processing currently being executed.

Therefore, there is a demand for an interrupt printing in which the print processing currently being executed is temporarily interrupted, the print processing with a high degree of urgency is performed, and then the interrupted print processing is restarted.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION As described above, according to the present invention, the print processing currently being executed is temporarily interrupted, the print processing with a high degree of urgency is performed, and then the interrupted print processing is restarted. An image that can be interrupt-printed by interrupting printing is currently required. The currently executing printing process is temporarily interrupted, the printing process with high urgency is performed, and then the interrupted printing process is restarted. The purpose is to provide a printing system.

[0007]

An image printing system according to the present invention includes a plurality of first devices requesting image printing, and a plurality of first devices connected to each other via a communication line. A second device that controls a printer and uses these printers to print an image in response to a request from the first device, wherein a normal image print request is sent to the first device. Is provided and an urgent image print request is output, and output means is provided for executing print processing to the second device in response to a normal image print request from the first device. During execution of the print processing by the executing means, the print processing according to the normal image print request is interrupted in response to the emergency image print request from the first device, and the emergency image print is performed. And a resuming means for resuming the print processing by the normal image print request when the print processing by the urgent image print request by the processing means is completed. ..

The image printing system of the present invention is connected to a plurality of first devices requesting image printing and a communication line with these first devices to control a plurality of printers. A second device for printing an image in response to a request from the first device using the printer of No. 1, the normal image print request and its priority are output to the first device. As well as
Providing an output means for outputting an urgent image print request,
Storage means for storing the normal image print requests from the first apparatus in the order of priority, and print processing is executed in accordance with the priority order image print requests stored in the storage means. And executing the print processing by the executing means, the print processing according to the normal image print request is interrupted in response to the emergency image print request from the first device, and the emergency image print is performed. There are provided a processing means for executing the print processing according to the request, and a restart means for restarting the print processing according to the normal image print request when the print processing according to the urgent image print request by the processing means is completed.

[0009]

According to the present invention, in the above-mentioned structure, a plurality of first devices requesting image printing are connected to these first devices via a communication line to control a plurality of printers. Then, using these printers,
To print images in response to requests from other devices
An image from the first device while the second device is performing print processing in response to a normal image print request from the first device. When a print request is supplied, the normal print process is interrupted, the print process according to the urgent image print request is executed, and when the urgent print process is completed, the normal print process is restarted. It was done.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an image printing system according to the present invention, which comprises a plurality of image processing devices (nodes) 1 and 2.
1 ... 2N are connected via a communication line 3 such as a LAN. Image processing apparatus (node) 1, 21 ... 2N
Is a device that processes and stores images and other information inside. The image processing device 1 is a device for a server, and is a machine having a large number of connected peripheral devices. The image processing devices 21 to 2N are devices for clients and are inexpensive devices with few connected peripheral devices.

The image processing apparatus 1 has a central control processing unit (CPU) 10 therein, as shown in FIG.
The CPU 10 controls the entire image processing apparatus 1. The image processing apparatus 1 is the CPU 1
0 to the first interface 11, the main memory 12, the page memory 13, the display memory 14, the image processing unit 15, the second interface 16 and the communication interface 1.
7 and the like are connected via a system bus 18.

The system bus 18 transmits information between the above-mentioned devices and the CPU 10. The first interface 11 includes a keyboard 19, a mouse 20, and a magnetic disk device 21 for driving the magnetic disk 21a.
Are connected. This first interface 11 is
It mainly controls the input / output of devices related to man-machine interface. This first interface 11
Sends information input from the keyboard 19, mouse 20 and magnetic disk device 21 to the system bus 18.

The information sent from the system bus 18 is sent to each keyboard 19, mouse 20 and magnetic disk device 21. Further, in the main memory 12, a program and data for controlling the image processing apparatus 1,
The data used temporarily is stored. Data such as images handled by the image processing apparatus 1 is temporarily stored in the page memory 13. Further, the display memory 14 has a CR
A display device 22 such as T is connected to the display device 2
The data to be displayed is stored in 2.

The image processing section 15 is a section for performing image processing such as encoding, decoding, linear density conversion, enlargement and reduction of image data handled by the page memory 13 and the display memory 14. Further, an optical disk driver 24 that drives the optical disk 23, a scanner 25, and a plurality of printers 26, ... Are connected to the second interface 16. The second interface 16 mainly controls input / output of image information.

The communication interface 17 also controls the transmission / reception of communication signals to / from the communication line 3. In addition, the main memory 12, page memory 13, display memory 14, image processing unit 15, and second interface 1 that handle images.
6 and the communication interface 17 are connected via the image bus 27. The image bus 27 transmits the image information of each layer replacement. Since the image information is usually a huge amount, the system buses 18 are mixed by transmitting and receiving on the system buses 18. Therefore, the image bus 27 is provided in order to efficiently transmit the image information. The image bus 27 has a bit width expanded and strengthened as compared with the system bus 18.

Further, the other image processing devices 21 ...
Although the configuration is almost the same as that of the image processing apparatus 1,
The scanner 25 and the plurality of printers 26, ... Are not connected.

In the image processing system, the image processing apparatus 1 or the optical disk 2 of the image processing apparatus 21, ...
An image stored in a medium such as 3 is searched, and the printer 26 of the image processing apparatus 1 prints the image.

The print job including the offline job of the image processing apparatus 1 is issued from a plurality of other image processing apparatuses 21 ... 2N. The issued print requests include a normal print request with priority and an interrupt print request in an emergency. Spooler of image processing device 1 (print business)
Prints according to a print request.

As the medium in which the image to be printed is stored, it is possible to use both the image processing apparatus 1 on the server side and the image processing apparatuses 21 to 2N on the client side.

Image processing devices 21 on the client side, ... 2
When N media are to be printed, the first method is that the image processing apparatus 21 ... 2N on the client side transfers all the images to be printed to the image processing apparatus 1 on the server side, The image processing apparatus 1 temporarily stores in a temporary storage file such as the magnetic disk 21a or the page memory 13 and then starts printing.

As a second method, an application program for transferring images in synchronization with the spooler of the image processing apparatus 1 on the server side by the image processing apparatuses 21 on the client side, ... It is activated at the request of the spooler and is operated until the end of printing.

The former is effective when printing by energizing day and night, and the latter is an image processing apparatus 1 on the server side for the time being.
If it is not necessary to transfer to the temporary storage file of, it is possible to print in a short time.

The spooler of the image processing apparatus 1 on the server side is
As shown in FIG. 3, provided in the main memory 12,
It has a normal print queue 12a and an interrupt print queue 12b, and allocates and sets each request. As for normal print, normal print requests are processed according to the order of being accumulated in the normal print queue 12a in order of priority.

On the other hand, the urgent print is stored in the interrupt print queue 12b and is immediately printed when the print is not being executed. During the normal print, the normal print is temporarily interrupted even if the request is in the middle of printing. The interrupt print is executed. When the interrupt print is being executed, the interrupt print request is processed according to the interrupt print queue 12b. Due to the interrupt of the emergency print, the interrupted normal print is resumed once the normal print is interrupted. The print processing by the spooler of the image processing apparatus 1 is as shown in the flowchart of FIG.

As described above, a plurality of clients requesting to print an image, and these clients and LA
Is connected via N, controls multiple printers,
In a server-client method that uses these printers and a server that prints an image in response to a request from the client described above, emergency print processing can be interrupted during normal print processing. It was done.

As a result, in the image printing using the client / server method, the print process currently being executed is temporarily interrupted, the print process with a high degree of urgency is performed, and then the interrupted print process is restarted. Interrupt printing can be done. Further, even when a large number of print requests are stuck in the print queue of the server, when an urgent print occurs, the print can be performed immediately.

[0027]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to provide an image printing system capable of interrupt printing, in which print processing currently being executed is temporarily interrupted, print processing with a high degree of urgency is performed, and then the interrupted print processing is restarted.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an image printing system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of the image processing apparatus of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining a spooler of the image processing apparatus for the server in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the spooler of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

1, 21 to 2N ... Image processing device (node), 3 ... Communication line, 10 ... CPU, 12 ... Main memory, 12a ... Normal print queue, 12b ... Interrupt print queue, 13 ... Page memory, 14 ... Display Memory, 15 ... Image processing unit, 16 ... Optical disk, 22 ... Display device, 25 ...
Scanner, 26, ... Printer.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of first devices requesting to print an image, and a plurality of first devices connected to the first devices via a communication line to control a plurality of printers and use the printers. In an image printing system including a second device that prints an image in response to a request from the first device, a normal image print request is output to the first device, and an emergency image print is performed. An output unit for outputting a request is provided, and an execution unit that executes print processing in response to a normal image print request from the first device, and an execution unit that executes print processing in the second device. In the meantime, the print processing according to the normal image print request is interrupted in response to the emergency image print request from the first device, and the print processing according to the emergency image print request is performed. An image printing system comprising: a processing unit that executes the process; and a resuming unit that restarts the print process according to the normal image print request when the print process according to the urgent image print request by the process unit is completed. .. 2. A plurality of first devices requesting printing of an image and a plurality of first devices connected via a communication line, controlling a plurality of printers and utilizing these printers. In an image printing system including a second device that prints an image in response to a request from the first device, a normal image print request and its priority are output to the first device, and An output unit for outputting an urgent image print request is provided, and a storage unit for storing the normal image print request from the first unit in the second device and a storage unit for storing the normal image print request in the order of priority. Execution means for executing the print processing in response to the image print requests in the order of priority, and, in executing the print processing by the execution means, in response to the urgent image print request from the first device. Processing unit for interrupting the print processing by the normal image print request and executing the print processing according to the urgent image print request, and the normal processing when the print processing by the urgent image print request by this processing unit is completed. An image printing system comprising: a resuming means for resuming print processing in response to an image print request.