JPH08242361A - Facsimile equipment and its controlling method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To make it possible to automatically control the rotation of a source document to a correct direction even when a user set up the source document in any direction, e.g. an upper, lower, right, or left direction, by rotating an image in accordance with the direction of the source document detected by a detecting means and the vertical direction of the source document judged by a judging means. CONSTITUTION: A source document on one page read out by a reading part 1 is stored in a raw image memory 4. Then the direction of characters in the source document is read out by an OCR analyzing part 5 to judge the vertical direction of the source document. A rotation control part 3 aligns the direction of the source document by electrically and rotationally controlling the source document image stored in the memory 4 in each 90 deg. based upon the vertical direction of the source document and source document setting direction information recognized by a means for electrically checking the size of an image read out by a sensor on a source document platen and stores the aligned source document in the memory 4 again. Since a user can execute facsimile transmission without being conscious of the setting direction of a source document at all, it is unnecessary to be conscious of a difference in the treatment of a source document even in a composite equipment to be used also as a copying device.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus for controlling rotation of an image read according to a state of a document placed, and a control method thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, a multifunction peripheral having a copy function and a facsimile function has been put into practical use, but there are some problems in copying and facsimile, each of which has its own method of handling originals. The greatest difference lies in the direction in which the original is placed. In facsimiles, the direction in which an original is electrically scanned is generally the lateral direction, whereas in copying, it is the opposite. As a solution to this problem, a method of electrically rotating a document that has been read once in a memory has been proposed.

[0003]

As a result, regardless of whether the original is placed vertically or horizontally, the original can be rotated in a fixed direction and sent at the time of sending, but there is still a problem.
First, it is impossible to prevent the document from being sent in the opposite direction to the direction of the characters when the user puts the document upside down or left and right. That is, in copying, either direction does not matter, but in a facsimile, generally, the date and time information, the address, the sender, etc. are printed on the upper edge of the transmitted original, and the original is sent. The direction of the characters in these headers is reversed and it looks unnatural.

In addition, in general copying, many of the two-sided originals can be copied, but when this function is used in a facsimile, a serious problem occurs. That is, when reading the back side of a copy, it is usually mechanically 1
Since the image is rotated by 80 ° for reading, the vertical orientation of the document (when the lateral direction is the upward direction of the character) is reversed when reading the back side. Moreover, since some documents may be laterally oriented, the orientation of the original at the time of reading the back side depends on the content and cannot be controlled.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and provides a facsimile apparatus and a control method thereof in which a user automatically controls the rotation of a document in a correct direction in any of the up, down, left and right directions. The purpose is to

Another object of the present invention is to print a double-sided original in the vertical direction.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus and a control method thereof that always controls rotation in the correct direction regardless of the orientation of a document placed horizontally or horizontally regardless of the difference between documents.

A further object of the present invention is to automatically control functions that require rotation control, such as reading two pages and reducing and sending them to one page. It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus and a control method thereof that are easier to use by allowing the apparatus side to automatically cope with the difference.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, a method of controlling a facsimile apparatus according to the present invention has the following steps.

A method of controlling a facsimile apparatus for controlling the rotation of an image read according to the placed state of an original, which comprises a detecting step of detecting the orientation of the original and a determining step of determining the vertical direction of the original. And a rotation control step of rotating the image in accordance with the orientation of the document detected by the detection step and the vertical direction of the document determined by the determination step.

Further, in order to achieve the above object, the facsimile apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration.

A facsimile device for controlling the rotation of an image read according to the state of placement of a document, comprising a detection means for detecting the orientation of the document, a determination means for determining the vertical direction of the document, and A rotation control unit that rotates the image according to the orientation of the document detected by the detection unit and the vertical direction of the document determined by the determination unit is provided.

[0012]

In this structure, the orientation in which the original is placed,
It operates so as to rotate the image according to the vertical direction of the document.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the arrangement of a facsimile apparatus according to this embodiment. In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a reading unit that optically reads a document to be copied or transmitted, photoelectrically converts it into image data, and outputs it. A recording unit 2 records the image data read by the reading unit 1 and the received image data. Reference numeral 3 denotes a rotation control unit that electrically rotates the image data in 90 ° units. A raw image memory 4 temporarily stores image data. An OCR analysis unit 5 analyzes characters in the original document and determines the direction of the characters and the vertical direction of the original document. Reference numeral 6 denotes a coding / decoding unit, which performs coding of image data or decoding of coded data by coding such as MH, MR, MMR. A code memory 7 stores code data. A communication control unit 8 sends and receives data according to a predetermined facsimile transmission procedure.

The rotation control unit 3 in this embodiment will be described below with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of rotation control depending on how the document is placed with the top and bottom fixed. OCR in the manuscript
The characters to be analyzed are not shown. In addition, A and B are written as a model showing the direction. In this example, a document in the vertical direction (the upper side of the character is the shorter side of the document) is taken as an example.

In the present embodiment, when the original is placed vertically, horizontally, or upside down with respect to the automatic paper feeder or the original table, 90 °, −90 °, 180 °
The orientation of the transmitted document is aligned depending on whether or not the rotation control of ° is performed. The information to be judged includes how to place the document, which is the method of detecting the width and length by the sensor when the document is placed on the platen or the automatic feeder, and the length of the document in the sub-scanning direction after reading. There is a method of making a decision based on this. There is also a method of using these methods in combination.

As another piece of information, there is a determination result in the OCR analysis section 5. The OCR analysis unit 5 will be described later.

As described above, the rotation control unit 3 electrically rotates the document in 90 ° units based on the result of the upper / lower determination of the document in the raw image memory 4 by the OCR analysis unit 5 and the above-mentioned placement information. Then, it is stored again in the raw image memory 4.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a case where a double-sided original is read and two transmission originals are read. FIG. 3A shows an example of a portrait document. When reading the back side, the automatic paper feeder mechanically rotates the document 180 ° with respect to the insertion direction and reads it. Upside down is upside down. Therefore, the back surface is electrically rotated by 180 °. Further, FIG. 3B shows an example of a horizontal document, and since the back side in the memory 4 has the same direction as the front side, the rotation process is not performed.

Next, the analysis processing in the OCR analysis unit 5 will be described below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

First, in step S101, one of the four types of character orientations is set, and the next step S10.
In step 2, the manuscript is searched for a legible character. This process is a process of searching for a character that can be recognized regardless of the size while changing the size of the character as a parameter. The upper limit of the number of characters to be searched is limited to K. Then, when up to K characters are found or the search for the entire page ends, the search for the direction of one character ends.

Next, in step S103, it is determined whether or not the four types of character directions have been searched. If not searched, the process returns to step S101 to repeat the above-described search processing. However, if the search in the four directions has been completed, the process proceeds to step S104, and determination is performed based on the search result. Here, if no character is found, it is unclear, and if a character is found, the direction of the most frequent character is determined as the direction of the entire document.

Next, the operation of the facsimile apparatus according to this embodiment will be described below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

First, in step S201, the one-page original read by the reading unit 1 is stored in the raw image memory 4. Next, in step S202, the OCR analysis unit 5 reads the direction of characters in the original document and determines the vertical direction of the original document. Then, in step S203, the rotation control unit 3 generates the document based on the vertical direction of the document and the information of the orientation of the document recognized by the sensor of the document table and the means for electrically checking the size of the read image. The original image in the image memory 4 is electrically rotated in 90 ° units to control the original orientation, and the original image is stored in the raw image memory 4 again. Next, in step S204, the image is encoded by the encoding / decoding unit 6 and stored in the encoding memory 7. Then, in step S205, it is checked whether or not there is a document on the document table, and if there is a document, the process returns to step S201 to repeat the above-described processing. After that, when there is no document, the process proceeds to step S206, and the communication control unit 8 causes the code memory 7 The code data stored in is transmitted.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the user can perform the facsimile transmission without paying attention to the orientation of the original, and the difference in the handling of the original is recognized even in the multi-function apparatus which is also used for copying. There is no need.

As a means for determining the top and bottom of the original,
In addition to the means for determining based on the direction of characters, it is also possible to use a method of attaching a mark or the like that can determine the vertical relationship to the format of the document itself. Further, the present invention is similarly applied to rotation control associated with enlargement / reduction, rotation control of an application for reading two or more originals and reducing and sending the originals, in addition to the double-sided reading.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of one device.

Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0030]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible for the user to improve the convenience of the user by automatically correcting and transmitting the original in any of the up, down, left, and right directions.

[0031]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a facsimile apparatus in this embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of rotation control depending on how to place a document with the top and bottom fixed.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a case where a double-sided original is read and two transmission originals are read.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an analysis process in the OCR analysis unit 5.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the facsimile apparatus in this embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Reading Section 2 Recording Section 3 Rotation Control Section 4 Raw Image Memory 5 OCR Analysis Section 6 Encoding / Decoding Section 7 Code Memory 8 Communication Control Section

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A facsimile apparatus for controlling the rotation of an image read according to the state of a document placed, comprising: a detection unit that detects the orientation of the document; a determination unit that determines the vertical direction of the document. A facsimile apparatus, comprising: a rotation control unit that rotates an image according to the orientation of the document detected by the detection unit and the vertical direction of the document determined by the determination unit. 2. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the deciding means decides in accordance with a ratio of characters in four directions in a document. 3. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit makes a determination based on a direction of a character recognized by OCR analysis. 4. A method of controlling a facsimile apparatus for controlling the rotation of a read image according to the state of placement of a document, the method comprising: a detection step of detecting the orientation of the document; and a vertical direction of the document. A method of controlling a facsimile apparatus, comprising: a determination step; and a rotation control step of rotating an image according to the orientation of the document detected by the detection step and the vertical direction of the document determined by the determination step. . 5. The method of controlling a facsimile apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the determining step determines according to a ratio of characters in four directions in a document. 6. The method of controlling a facsimile apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the determining step determines based on a direction of a character recognized by OCR analysis.