JPH06169404A - Facsimile equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To shorten a communicating time by searching an encoding system optimal to an original by an arithmetic operation from the plural encoding systems, and encoding picture data by the encoding system whose compressibility is the most satisfactory, and transmitting it, at the time of facsimile transmission. CONSTITUTION:A picture is read by a picture reading part 1, and the read picture is binarized by a binarizing part 2. The binarized data are encoded by an encoding part 3 for storage, and stored in a picture storage memory part 5. At the same time, encoding amounts at the time of encoding the picture data by the plural encoding systems are calculated by a compressibility computing element 6, the encoding system whose compressibility is the most satisfactory is selected, and an encoding selection signal 9 is outputted. The data in the picture storage memory part 5 are decoded by a decoding part 4 for storage, and encoded by the selected encoding system by a communication encoding part 7. Then, the compression optimal to the original can be attained. Thus, the encoding system optimal to the original can be selected, so that the total communicating time can be shortened.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile machine, and more particularly to a facsimile machine which binarizes an original and stores it in a memory for transmission.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional facsimile apparatus, an image reading unit reads an original document, a binarizing unit stores binarized data, and the data is encoded by an encoding method selected from the capabilities of a communication partner. The following four types of methods have been known as transmission methods.

First, the first method is M
MR, MR, and MH are selected in order of the compression method, which is generally considered to have a good compression rate, with a fixed priority order, and the stored data is decoded by a storage decoder. This is a method of performing encoding by the selected encoding method and transmitting.

The second method is that all the coding methods such as MMR, MR and MH are coded and stored in memory respectively, and the compression ratio is generally in the order of MMR, MR and MH according to the capability of the partner machine. Is a method of shortening the coding time at the time of transmission by selecting a coding method considered to be good in a fixed priority order and selecting and transmitting the data accumulated by the selected coding method.

The third method has an MH encoder A and an encoder B for encoding the run lengths of white and black with a run length code of white, and compares the accumulated data with an encoding comparator. This is a method of shortening the communication time by selecting an encoder having a short code amount of the encoding result of A and B according to the result, adding an additional code indicating which one has been selected and transmitting.

The fourth method has an MH coder C for accumulated data and an coder D for MH coding by inverting white and black of a picture signal, and C according to a comparison result of a coding comparator. ,
There is a method of shortening the communication time by selecting an encoding method having a short code amount of the D encoding result, adding an additional code indicating which one has been selected, and transmitting.

The third method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 62-1595.
The fourth method is disclosed in JP-A-61-22597.
These are the contents respectively described in Japanese Patent No.

[0008]

However, the above-mentioned conventional facsimile apparatus has the following problems for each system.

According to the first method and the second method, the image information is used, and the code amount according to the encoding method is as shown in Equation 1.

## EQU1 ## MMR>MR> MH may be satisfied, and there is a disadvantage that the communication time becomes longer if the coding method is determined with a fixed priority.

The second method requires a coding memory for each coding method, so that the memory is used in a redundant manner, which leads to an increase in cost due to the redundant memory mounting in the facsimile apparatus. There are drawbacks.

Since the third method and the fourth method perform the process of adding the additional code, they have a drawback that they are limited to the receiving terminals that can recognize the additional code.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional circumstances, and therefore an object of the present invention is to provide a novel facsimile apparatus capable of solving the above-mentioned drawbacks inherent in the prior art. Especially.

[0013]

In order to achieve the above object, a facsimile apparatus according to the present invention calculates a compression rate of a code amount when a document is stored in a memory and encoded by a plurality of encoding methods. It is configured so that the encoding method calculated by the device is selected and the most suitable encoding method for the read original is selected, and the communication encoding unit performs encoding according to this selected encoding method. The rate is increased and the transmission time is shortened. Further, the image accumulation is fixedly encoded by one encoding method and accumulated. When sending,
The storage memory capacity can be minimized by performing the decoding by the storage decoder and performing the encoding by the most suitable encoding method for the original.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a facsimile coding system selection circuit according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, the image information read by the image reading unit 1 is binarized by the binarizing unit 2,
The data is encoded by the storage encoding unit 3 and stored in the image storage memory unit 5. The image information binarized by the binarization unit 2 at the same time is subjected to a plurality of encoding methods by the compression ratio calculator 6, and here, as an example, MH encoding, MR encoding, MMR encoding, Wy.
The code amount is calculated at the same time in each of the five coding methods of le coding and raw data coding.

After the communication is started, the compression ratio calculator 6
In step B, the encoding method of the image information to be transmitted is determined from the capability of the partner device detected by the reception function detecting section 11, and the encoding selection signal 9 is output to the communication encoding section 7.

The image information stored in the image storage memory unit 5 is decoded by the storage decoding unit 4, encoded by the encoding method selected by the communication encoding unit 7, and MOD.
The image information is transmitted after being modulated by the EM unit 8 and output to the communication line 10.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an internal specific example of the compression ratio calculator in the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, the binarized image data 69 input to the image input unit 61 is as it is, the MH code amount calculator 63, the MR code amount calculator 64, and the MMR code amount calculator 65. , Wyle code amount calculator 66, and raw data counter 67. Each of the code amount calculators 63 to 66 and the raw data counter unit 67 counts the code amount when the input image data is encoded by each encoding method by a counter having therein. The counted code amount is input to the code amount comparator 68 via the signal line 72.

The reception function input / counter reset signal generator 62 receives the reception function signal from the signal line 70 and outputs a code amount counter reset signal 71 for an encoding system having no reception function. Code amount calculators 63 to 6
The reset signal 71 is input to each of the 6 and the raw data counter section 67, and the output of the code amount calculators 63 to 66 and the raw data counter section 67 to which the reset signal 71 is input is the code amount "0". Are output to the signal line 72, respectively.

Each of the code amount calculators 63 to 66 and the raw data
The code amount counted by the data counter unit 67 is
2 is input to the code amount comparator 68. The code amount comparator 68 does not treat the code amount “0” input as a comparison target, and detects the code amount other than “0” with the smallest code amount and determines the code with the smallest code amount. The conversion method selection signal 73 is output.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, there are five types of code amount calculators, but it is clear that there may be more than five types or less, and the hardware and block configurations other than those shown in the figure can be easily inferred. Of course.

According to this embodiment, the storage encoding unit 3 is provided in addition to the communication encoding unit 7, but one storage code is assigned to one of the communication codes to encode one storage code. It is also possible to use the encoder in a time division manner, and in that case, the encoder can be shared and the hardware can be reduced.

Next, the selection unit of the coding method will be described. When the circuit is configured based on the above-described embodiment, the selection of the encoding method can be realized by two methods of one transmission unit (plural pages) and page unit.

In the case of one transmission unit, the coding method may be determined from the code amount of all the image information to be transmitted. In the case of one page unit, the code amount is calculated in page units, and the encoding method is changed in page units. If the encoding method of the currently transmitting page and the next page is different,
This can be realized by notifying the other device of the encoding method change in the communication procedure between pages.

[0027]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since the optimum encoding method is determined and transmitted according to the image information to be transmitted, the total communication time can be shortened.

Further, according to the present invention, since a plurality of encoding methods are determined at the time of communication and the storage encoder / decoder is provided, the capacity of the image storage memory is minimized. The effect of being able to be obtained is obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a specific example of compression rate calculation as a main part of the present invention shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Image reading part 2 ... Binarization part 3 ... Storage encoding part 4 ... Storage decoding part 5 ... Image storage memory part 6 ... Compression ratio calculator 61 ... Image input part 62 ... Reception function input and counter Reset signal generation unit 63 ... MH code amount calculator 64 ... MR code amount calculator 65 ... MMR code amount calculator 66 ... Wile code amount calculator 67 ... Raw data counter unit 68 ... Code amount comparator 7 ... Communication coding unit 8 ... MODEM section 9 ... Encoding selection signal 10 ... Communication line 11 ... Reception capability detection section

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A facsimile apparatus for reading a transmission original by an image reading unit and storing binarized data in a binarizing unit in a memory, wherein the binarized data is encoded by a storage encoder. , While storing the coded data in an image storage memory, at the same time obtaining the code amount (compression rate) when the binarized coded data is coded by a plurality of coding methods in a compression rate calculator , The encoding method that can be transmitted at the highest speed to the partner device is selected from the compression rate and the capability of the communication partner device when the data is stored in the storage decoder. A facsimile apparatus, which is decoded, encoded by a communication encoder according to the selected encoding method, and transmitted. 2. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the storage encoder and the communication encoder are integrated and shared, and are used in time division for storage and communication.