JPH0789146A - Printing control device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To carry out the printing of high resolution by providing a first interface circuit for receiving a printing data from a computer and a second interface circuit for transmitting synthesized data to a printing mechanism. CONSTITUTION:When a printing data is received from a computer, a receiving data file storage means is started by a CPU-A305, and the printing data is classified into a printing control data and an image data, which are stored into a hard disk drive 309. When printing data from the computer are all input, a printing control file is read out on a dual port memory 308 by the CPU-A305, and a command for indicating to interpret a printing control command group noted therein to the CPU-B310 is written on the memory. When the command is received by the CPU-B310, the command group is read out from the hard disk drive 309, written into the dual port memory 308, and the interpretation is started by the CPU-B310, the result of which is stored in a dynamic memory B311.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control device for controlling printing by a printing device of data created by a computer or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of printing apparatus, one page is received by receiving mixed data such as a print control command and image data created by a computer, etc., and sequentially performing processing in accordance with the print control command. After the raster data for one minute is developed, the printing mechanism is started, and the raster image data thus developed is input to print one page.

[0003]

However, when the resolution of image input devices such as image scanners has become higher in recent years, the amount of image data of the original image has increased, and the print data includes image data. Needs to identify a print control command from a large amount of print data to control the printing device, identify image data, create raster image data for one page, and input the raster image data to the printing mechanism. However, the print processing speed was significantly reduced. Further, since the user of the printing apparatus needs to send a large amount of print data to the printing apparatus, the working time is remarkably reduced due to the increase in the time for creating the print data file.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a print control device capable of high-speed printing of high resolution including image data. .

[0005]

In order to achieve this object, a print control device of the present invention is a print control device for converting print data sent from a computer into data printable by the printing device. A first interface circuit for receiving print data sent from the computer, the print data received by the first interface circuit is stored as a file, and used as a work area when creating raster image data. Storage means for storing the image data in the print data as an image data file and other data as a print control data file for the storage means; and storing in the storage means Data in the print control data file A data converting means for converting the raster image data, image data synthesizing means for synthesizing the raster image data and the image data stored in the storing means, and sending the data synthesized by the image data synthesizing means to a printing mechanism. It has a second interface circuit.

[0006]

In the print control apparatus of the present invention having the above structure, when the print data is received from the computer via the first interface circuit, the received data file storage means displays the image data of the print data as an image. A data file and other data are stored in the storage means as a print control data file. Next, the data is sequentially read from the print control data file, interpreted, line segment information is generated, and sequentially stored in the storage means.
When the interpretation of all the data is completed, the data conversion means sequentially reads the stored line segment information from the storage means and converts it into raster image data having a width of several rasters. Then, when the line segment information indicates the image data, the image data is read from the image data file and is combined with the raster image data by the image data combining means. After that, the second interface circuit sends the combined data to the printing mechanism, and the printing mechanism adjusts the ink amount according to the sent raster image data and prints on the paper. Then, by repeating the operations from the reading of the line segment information from the storage means to the printing, one page of printed output can be obtained.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment in which the print control apparatus of the present invention is embodied as a part of a printing system will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing an example of a connection state of the print control apparatus of the present invention with an external device. The external connector 101 of the computer 100 and the interface connector A301 are connected by a cable A401 so that the computer 100 and the print control device 300 can exchange a print command between them. Also, the print control device 30
0 to the inkjet printer 200 so that the raster image data can be sent to the interface connector B302 and the interface connector 201.
Are connected by a cable B402.

Next, referring to FIG. 3, the computer 10
The configuration of 0 and the print data transmission procedure will be described in detail. C
A ROM 105 in which a program for controlling a print data transmission procedure is stored is connected to the PU 103.
Further, an interface circuit 102 to which an external connector 101 for transmitting print data is connected, and a RAM 104 for temporarily storing work data are connected via a bus 106.

The bus 106 has print control data,
Hard disk device 1 for storing image data
08 is a hard disk drive interface circuit 1
07, the desired data is sequentially read by the instruction of the CPU 103, and the data is transmitted from the external connector 101 to the print control apparatus 300 through the interface circuit 102. Further, the bus 106 has a keyboard 111 for data input.
And a CRT display 110 for data display is connected via a video interface 109.

Next, referring to FIGS. 4 and 5, the ROM 1
The contents relating to the print data transmission procedure stored in 05 will be described in detail. FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a portion that controls the print data transmission procedure. The print data is stored in the hard disk device 108 according to the procedure of the print data input unit 501.
Image data file to be transmitted from the image data file management mechanism 500 described later,
The print control data follows the procedure of the print control data output unit 506, and the image data is the image data output unit 507 described later.
From the external connector 101 to the print control device 3 according to the procedure
00 is transmitted.

Here, the print control data is a group of commands for controlling the print control device 300, a straight line to be printed,
Image data is data including graphic data such as curves and character data, and image data is data including bitmap data read by an image scanner or the like. There is usually one data file, but there are often multiple image data files.

The image data file management mechanism 500 includes a print data division unit 502 and an image data print position calculation unit 5.
03, an image data file name acquisition unit 504, and an image database search unit 505. The print data dividing unit 502 is a procedure for dividing the print control data file and inserting the image data when the print control data and the image data are not separately transmitted. Control device 3
If the image data is stored in the unreceivable format of 00, it is activated to include the image data in the print control data for transmission.

The image data printing position calculation unit 503 is a procedure for calculating numerical data transmitted at the same time when inserting a control command instructing the position, size, color, etc., of printing image data into the print control data. . When the user replaces only the image data file of the data printed last time and prints, it is activated to adjust the difference in resolution from the image data file used last time. The image data file name acquisition unit 504 is a procedure for acquiring the image data file name described in the print control data file and storing it in the hard disk device 108 or the RAM 104. If the image data file name is given by another method, it will not be started. The image database search unit 505 is a procedure for searching the image data corresponding to the file name stored by the image data file name acquisition unit.

Next, the procedure of the image data output unit 507 will be described with reference to FIG.
Will be described in more detail with reference to. If there is no image data to be printed, the image data output unit 507 is terminated without executing the following processing (S10). If they exist, the processing from S11 to S17 is repeated for the number of image data files acquired by the image data file name acquisition unit 504. First, the file name is displayed on the CRT display 110, and the user is made to judge whether or not the file may be transmitted (S11). When it is desired to replace the image data file with a high-resolution image data file or the like, the replacement file name is input in S11.

Next, the image database is searched to find an image data file (S12). If a corresponding file is found, the process proceeds to S14, and if not found, S1.
It returns to 1 (S13). In S14, the image print position data is transmitted as a header portion of the image data. Next, when the format conversion of the image data is necessary, the format is converted into a format receivable by the print control apparatus 300 (S15, S16). For example, if the print control apparatus 300 can only receive image data in dot-sequential format, it is necessary to convert all image data into dot-sequential format in S16. Then, the image data (excluding the header) is transmitted (S17).

Next, referring to FIG. 1, the print control device 300
The configuration will be described in more detail. Interface connector A to which print data from the computer 100 is input
An interface circuit A303 for receiving the data is connected to 301.

Further, a received data file storage means 320 is connected to the interface circuit A303, whereby the received data is stored in the hard disk drive 309.
To store. Similarly, the interface connector B30
An interface circuit B350 is connected to 2 so that data can be transmitted. A bus A313 is connected to the other ends of both interface circuits so that data can be transferred to and from the CPU-A305.

The bus A313 also includes a dynamic memory A306 for storing data, an interface circuit C307 for interfacing with the hard disk drive 309, and a CPU-B which will be described later.
A first port of a dual port memory 308 that has two ports for communicating with the 310 and can access the same memory cell from both ports, and a DMAC 314 for performing direct memory transfer between these devices.
And are connected. The hard disk drive 309 stores in advance a procedure of interpreting a print control command and a procedure of combining image data with raster image data.

On the other hand, the bus B312 of the CPU-B310 is connected to the above-mentioned second port of the dual port memory 308 and the dynamic memory B311 for storing data. Incidentally, various control signals such as an address bus and a chip select signal are not specifically shown in the figure.

When the interface circuit A303 receives the print data, the received data file storage means 320 regards the first received print data as the print control data as shown in FIG. 6, and uses the file name "PRINT.Data", The print data received thereafter is regarded as image data, image data numbers are assigned in ascending order, and "IMAGE_
000 "," IMAGE_001 ", ...," IMA
The file name is written to and stored in the hard disk drive 309 with the file name "GE_nnn".

Next, the structure of the interface circuit B350 will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. CPU-A
The data input terminal of the first-in first-out memory device FIFO 351 is connected to the bus A 313 so that data can be written from 305 or the like. A driver 352 for outputting data to the interface connector B302 is connected to the data output terminal of the FIFO. Interface connector B30
Control circuit 3 receives the ready signal from 2
A receiver 353 is provided for input to 54. In order to generate the read signal 359 of the FIFO 351 and the data clock signal 356 output to the interface connector B via the driver 352,
A control circuit 354 is provided, and a clock generation circuit 355 is provided to generate a clock signal 360 for controlling the timing of the control circuit 354.
Is provided. The empty flag 357 of the FIFO 351 is input to the control circuit 354.

Next, the structure of the ink jet printer 200 to which the present invention is applied will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 8 and 9. The data and data clock signal 221 input to the interface connector 201 are transferred to the FI
The receiver 202 for inputting to the data input terminal of the FO 205 and the interface control circuit 204 is connected. Also, the interface connector 20
A driver 203 for outputting the ready signal 220 generated by the interface control circuit 204 is connected to the terminal 1.

Further, in order to prevent the overflow of the FIFO 205, the full flag signal 22 of the same FIFO 205.
3 is connected to the interface control circuit 204. A write signal 222 is connected from the interface control circuit 204 to write data in the FIFO 205.

A CPU is provided at the data output end of the FIFO 205.
A bus 224 is connected so that data can be read by 206, and a dynamic memory 207 for data storage and a data storage are provided on the bus so that data can be exchanged between them.
Data memory A209 for storing print data described later
, Data memory B210, and data memory C211
And the data memory D212 are connected to each other. The data output terminal of the data memory A is connected to the head control circuit A213 so that the print data A can be sent out, and the read signal 228 of the data read control circuit 208 is used to control the reading of the print data A.
It is connected to the.

On the other hand, in the head control circuit A213, a head control signal 229 is connected to the ink jet head 251, so that the ejection amount of ink from the nozzle 256 can be controlled. A pipe 26 for supplying ink
0 is connected. The connection from the data memory A is the same for the data memories B, C and D. Here, for example, four different inks of black, yellow, magenta, and cyan are supplied through the respective pipes 260, 261, 262, 263.

A drum 269 around which a paper 264 is wound is disposed rotatably around a shaft 265 so as to face the four ink jet heads, and a rotation timing signal is sent to the coaxial 265 to read a data read control circuit 208. An encoder 266 capable of sending data is attached. Further, a belt 268 is wound around the coaxial 265 to transmit the rotation of the motor 267. The four inkjet heads are mounted on a bed (not shown) and are configured so as to be integrally movable in the axial direction.

A series of printing operations of the printing system having the above configuration will be described with reference to FIGS. CPU-
Upon receiving the print data from the computer 100, the A 305 activates the received data file storage means, classifies the print data into print control data and image data, and stores the print data in the hard disk drive 309. At this time, since the print data is not received while being interpreted, the computer 100 can be released from communication quickly, and further stored in the hard disk drive 309, so that the capacity of the dynamic memory 306 for storing the print data can be reduced. When all the print data from the computer 100 is input, the CPU-A 305 determines that the dual port memory 3
In step 08, the CPU-B3 reads the print control file and interprets the print control command group described therein.
Write a command instructing to 10.

On the other hand, when the CPU-B 310 receives this command, it reads the command group from the hard disk drive 309 and similarly writes a command instructing the CPU-A 305 to write it in the dual port memory 308 in the dual port memory 308. When the instruction group is written in the dual port memory 308, the CPU-B 310 starts its interpretation and outputs the result to the dynamic memory B 311.
It will be stored in. The procedure of the interpretation will be described in detail with reference to FIGS.

First, the procedure for interpreting the print control command and the procedure for reading the image data composition procedure will be described with reference to FIG. A command for requesting to read the procedure of interpreting the print control command and the procedure of image data composition from the hard disk 309 is written in the dual port memory 308 (S
1). The CPU-A305 is a dual port memory 30.
8 is read, the procedure of interpreting the print control command and the procedure of image data composition are read from the hard disk 309, and written in the dual port memory 308 (S2).

The CPU-B 310 reads the procedure of interpreting the print control command written in the dual port memory 308 and the procedure of synthesizing the image data, and the dynamic memory B is read.
Write to 311 (S3). Dynamic memory B31
When the procedure for interpreting the print control command and the procedure for synthesizing the image data are written in 1, the CPU-B 310 starts interpreting the print control command from the start address of the procedure for interpreting the print control command (S4).

Next, the procedure of interpreting the print control command will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 11 and 12. First, one print control command is read (S20), and it is determined whether the command is an image insertion command (S21). If it is not the image insertion command, it is understood that it is a graphic (character) print command, and the graphic (character) data is expanded to the line segment information 610 (S22). If it is an image insertion command, the image data number (file name number assigned by the received data file storage means 320) is expanded in the line segment information 610 (S2).
3). Next, the line segment information 610 is stored in the dynamic memory B3.
It is stored in 11 (S24). Dynamic memory B31
If there is no free area in 1, the hard disk drive 309 is regarded as a virtual memory and stored in the hard disk drive 309.

The hard disk drive 309 may be used as the storage destination of the line segment information 610 from the beginning. The processing from S20 to S24 is repeated until there are no print control commands (S25). An example of the line segment information 610 is shown in FIG.
2 shows. The shaded area in FIG. 12A shows the pixel 600 occupied by the straight line obtained by interpreting the graphic data.
Data obtained by expanding this into line segment information 610 is shown in FIG.
Is. When the width direction of the print result is the X coordinate and the height direction is the Y coordinate, the line segment information 610 in the X direction is added to the corresponding position of the Y coordinate. The line segment information 610 is added one after another in a list format. The line segment information 610 includes a line segment start position 602, an end position 603, color information 604,
In the case of image data, the image data number is written in the position of the color information 604. Here, the image data number is the file name number assigned by the received data file storage means 320,
In order to distinguish it from the color data, for example, the color data is 0 to 25.
If the value is in the range of 5, a value obtained by adding 256 to the number is written.

Upon completion of the above interpretation, the CPU-B31
0 issues a command to the dual port memory 308 to inform that it is the start of printing. When the CPU-A 305 receives the command, the CPU-A 305 writes an activation command for the inkjet printer 200 in the interface circuit B350. The interface control circuit B350 uses the ready signal 35
If 8 is true, then command 1 from FIFO 351
The data is read out byte by byte and the data clock signal 356 is sent out one pulse at a time. The interface control circuit 204 in the inkjet printer 200 outputs the above command to the FIFO in synchronization with the data clock signal 356.
Capture in 205. The above operation is not interrupted until the FIFO 351 in the print control apparatus 300 becomes empty or the FIFO 205 in the inkjet printer 200 becomes full.

The interface control circuit 204 also informs the CPU 206 that data is being input to the FIFO 205. When the CPU 206 sequentially reads the data and recognizes that it is a start command, the mechanism control circuit (not shown) starts the motor 267 and rotates the drum 269.

Subsequently, the CPU-B 310 starts the processing from the head address of the procedure of image data composition in the dynamic memory B 311. Here, the procedure of image data composition will be described with reference to FIG. First, the line segment information 610 for one raster is read from the dynamic memory B311 (S31), and the line segment information 610 is sequentially taken out one by one from the line segment information 610 for one raster (S32), 1
The processes of S33 to S35 are repeated until the line information 610 of the raster segment is lost. And the line segment information 6
The color information 604 of 10 is checked to determine whether it is image data (S33), and if it is not image data, the line segment information 610 is expanded to raster image data (S3).
4). If it is image data, the image data is read from the image data file indicated by the image data number and written in the position designated by the line segment information 610 of the raster image data (S35). The CPU-B 310 writes the raster image data for which the image data combination has been completed to the dual port memory 308.

The CPU-A305 is a dual port 30
8 is stored in the dynamic memory 306, and the DMAC 314 is instructed to write the raster image data to the interface circuit B350. The capacity of the dynamic memory required at this time is a minimum amount of data for one raster, and may be remarkably small as compared with the case of having one page of raster image data. The DMAC 314 suspends writing when the FIFO 351 becomes full, and starts writing again when the FIFO 351 becomes empty. While this direct memory transfer is suspended, the CPU-A305
Displays the line information 610 of the next raster in the CPU-B310.
It is possible to transfer the raster image data to the other side from the hard disk drive 309, and it is also possible to store the raster image data that has been developed in another area of the dynamic memory A306. The CPU-B310 is the bus 22
Raster image creation can be continued regardless of whether or not No. 4 is in use, so high-speed processing is possible.

When the raster image data is written in the FIFO 351 by the DMAC 314, the data is sent to the ink jet printer 200, and the CPU 206 temporarily stores the data in the dynamic memory 207, as described in the sending of the start command. Store. Further, the CPU 206 sequentially stores only the cyan data component for one raster in the data memory 212, and when the storage is completed, issues a command to the data read control circuit 208 to print for one raster. When the data read control circuit 208 receives the command, the encoder 2
The contents of the data memory D212 are sent to the head control circuit D216 in synchronization with the output signal of 66.

The head control circuit D216 determines the drive amount based on the data and drives the head 254. The head 254 ejects the ink amount corresponding to the driving amount onto the paper 264. As a result, the cyan 1 on the paper 264 on the drum 269
The raster image is printed. The CPU 206 then moves the head in the axial direction for one raster, and repeats the above operation for the next one raster image of cyan. Then, when the head 253 reaches the first cyan raster position, the same thing is repeated with respect to the magenta and cyan data.

If the required data is dynamic memory 2
If it is not on 07, wait until data is input.
By repeating the above for yellow and black and further stopping the raster printing from cyan at the end of the print data, full-color printing can be performed on the paper 264. At this time, the capacity required for the dynamic memory 207 in the inkjet printer 200 is at most the product of the data amount for one raster and the maximum offset raster number of the head, and if the heads are arranged in the drum circumferential direction, the offset number becomes one. It is possible to obtain the same printed matter with an extremely small memory amount for the raster image memory for one page.

As described above, if the operation of printing while developing raster image data for one raster is executed for all the stored line segment information 610, the image printed in full color can be finally obtained. it can.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described in detail above, and various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. For example, the printing device may be a sublimation type thermal transfer system, or a magneto-optical disk device or a tape drive device may be used instead of the hard disk drive. The format of the image data that the print control apparatus 300 can directly receive is not limited to the dot sequential format, the line sequential format, the area sequential format, etc., and is generally known TIFF (Ta.
g Image File Format), PICT, etc., and can be configured to be able to receive multiple formats.

[0042]

As is apparent from the above description, in the print control apparatus of the present invention, when print data is received from the computer, the received data file storage means converts the image data of the print data into an image data file. , Other data is stored in the storage means as a print control data file, and then the data is sequentially read from the print control data file, interpreted, line segment information is generated, and sequentially stored in the storage means. When the interpretation of is completed, the data conversion means sequentially reads the stored line segment information from the storage means, converts it into raster image data having a width of several rasters, and if the line segment information indicates image data, ,
Read the image data from the corresponding image data file,
Since it is combined with the raster image data by the image data combining means, it is possible to create a high-quality output image at high speed and perform print processing.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment embodying an electrical configuration of a print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing a connection state of an external device of the print control device of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a computer shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a portion related to transmission of print data by the computer shown in FIG.

5 is a flowchart showing an operation relating to transmission of image data by the computer shown in FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining a received data file storage unit in the print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an interface control circuit in the print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an inkjet printer to which the print control device of the present invention is applied.

9 is a diagram schematically showing an internal configuration of the inkjet printer shown in FIG.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a procedure of interpreting a print control command and a procedure of synthesizing image data into a dynamic memory in the print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a procedure of interpreting a print control command in the print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining line segment information in the print control apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart showing a procedure of creating raster image data and synthesizing image data in the print control apparatus of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 301 Interface Connector A 302 Interface Connector B 303 Interface Circuit A 305 CPU-A 306 Dynamic Memory A 307 Interface Circuit C 308 Dual Port Memory 309 Hard Disk Drive 310 CPU-B 311 Dynamic Memory B 313 Bus A 314 DMAC 320 Received Data File Storage Means 350 Interface circuit B

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A print control device for converting print data sent from a computer into data printable by a printing device, the first interface circuit receiving print data sent from the computer, A storage unit that stores the print data received by the first interface circuit as a file and is used as a work area when creating raster image data, and an image of the print data is stored in the storage unit. Received data file storage means for storing data as an image data file and other data as a print control data file, and data for interpreting the data of the print control data file stored in the storage means and converting it to raster image data Converting means, the raster image data and A print control comprising: an image data synthesizing unit for synthesizing the image data stored in the storage unit; and a second interface circuit for sending the data synthesized by the image data synthesizing unit to the printing mechanism. apparatus.