JPH08317188A - Image processing unit - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To allow the processing unit to recognize outline of image data even when a memory capacity to execute image processing in an image memory is deficient. CONSTITUTION: When a residual memory in an image memory exceeds a capacity required for image processing, the image processing of all the image data is executed. On the other hand, even when the residual memory capacity is less than the required capacity, the reception is not interrupted and the image processing is executed for only part of the image data in response to the residual memory capacity.

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 for performing image processing such as rotation processing, compression / expansion processing, and enlargement / reduction processing on input image data, and more particularly to executing each image processing. The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus capable of recognizing the outline of the image data on the processing side even when the memory capacity for the above is insufficient.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, information processing systems have become widespread in which image data such as graphics and photographs can be exchanged between devices via a communication network like document data. Figure 7
FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a conventional information processing system.

In this type of information processing system, the transmission-side host device 50 compresses and expands image data such as image data read by the image scanner 52 and graphic data drawn by an operator in the image processing device 51. After appropriately compressing (not shown) or without compressing, a destination is designated and transmitted to the communication network 70.

On the other hand, the receiving side upper device 60 which has received the image data transfers the image data to the image processing device 61. The image processing apparatus 61 decompresses the compressed image data, executes image processing such as rotation processing, enlargement processing, and reduction processing in accordance with an instruction from the host device, and returns the image data to the host device 60 again. The host device 60 transfers the image data after the image processing to the laser beam printer 62. The laser beam printer 62 prints out the image data after the image processing on the recording paper.

By the way, in the information processing system having the above-mentioned configuration, when the remaining memory capacity of the image processing device 61 is less than the capacity required for receiving the image data, the image memory overflows during the reception, and the overflow occurs. There was a problem that the line hold time up to wasted. In order to solve such a problem, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-105770, in facsimile communication, the data amount of image data is calculated in advance on the transmission side,
At the time of sending, the data amount information is added to the image data and sent, and at the receiving side, the data amount of the image data is analyzed based on the added data amount information, and the data amount exceeds its own memory remaining amount. And a technique for interrupting the reception of image data.

[0006]

In the information processing system having the above-mentioned structure, the image processing device 61 has the image memory for executing the instructed image processing separately from the storage area of the received image data. More work area is needed.

In FIG. 8, the image processing device 61 has an image memory 1
FIG. 1 is a diagram schematically showing a memory capacity to be secured on a first storage medium, and at least a temporary storage area 111 in which image data to be processed is expanded and an image after expansion (including execution of both expansion and rotation). An enlargement work area 112 in which the image data is expanded and a rotation work area 113 in which the rotated image data is expanded are secured. In such a configuration, when the rotation process is instructed, the rotation process is performed on the image data in the temporary storage area 111, and the processed image data is expanded in the rotation work area 113. Further, if the enlargement process is also instructed, the enlargement process is executed on the image data in the rotation work area 113, and the image data after the process is enlarged.
Expanded to 2.

However, in the above-mentioned prior art, no consideration has been given to the memory capacity for the work area, which is essential for image processing. Therefore, it cannot be directly applied to the image processing apparatus. further,
In the above-mentioned conventional technique, when it is found that the data amount of the received image data exceeds the remaining memory capacity of the device itself, the reception of the image data is immediately interrupted. Therefore,
On the receiving side, let alone the contents of the image data,
There is a problem that the sender name, importance, urgency, etc. of the image data cannot be recognized at all.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art and to provide an overview of image data even when the memory capacity required for image processing of image data exceeds its own memory capacity. An object of the present invention is to provide an image processing device that allows the receiving side to recognize.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention is characterized in that the following means are taken. (1) A means for detecting the data amount of the input image data, a means for detecting the remaining memory capacity of the image memory, and a method for performing the image processing based on the content of the image processing to be executed and the data amount of the image data. A means for calculating a required memory capacity, a means for comparing the required memory capacity of the image memory with the remaining memory capacity, and executing scheduled image processing on at least a part of the image data according to the comparison result. The image processing is executed for all the image data when the remaining memory capacity exceeds the required memory capacity, and only for a part of the image data when the remaining memory capacity falls below the required memory capacity. To be executed. (2) When the remaining memory capacity falls below the required memory capacity, the image processing is executed only for the amount of image data corresponding to half or less of the remaining memory capacity.

[0011]

According to the configuration (1) described above, when the remaining memory capacity exceeds the required memory capacity, the scheduled image processing is executed for all of the image data, while the remaining memory capacity falls below the required memory capacity. However, the image processing is executed only on a part of the image data without interrupting the processing. Therefore, even when the remaining memory capacity is less than the required memory capacity, image processing can be executed and the receiving side can recognize the outline of the image data.

According to the above configuration (2), when the remaining memory capacity falls below the required memory capacity, image processing is executed only for image data of an amount corresponding to half or less of the remaining memory capacity. Therefore, even when image processing that requires a work area equivalent to the input image data is instructed, for example, rotation processing, the image processing can be executed.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a main part of an image processing apparatus 1 which is an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the image processing apparatus 1 is connected to the host device 60 via the general-purpose bus interface 4. A CPU bus 5 is connected to the general-purpose bus interface 4, and an image bus 12 is further connected via a bus interface 14. The CPU bus 5 includes a CPU 2 and a cache memory 1.
7 and an image processing device control register 16 are connected, and an image memory 11 is connected to the image bus 12. The CPU 2 executes overall control of the image processing apparatus 1. A command block (FIG. 2) sent from the host device 60 together with the image data is sent to the cache memory 17.
(Reference; detailed later) is stored.

The enlargement / reduction device 8, the rotation device 9, and the compression / expansion device 10 as the image processing execution means 13 are CPs.
It is connected to both the U bus 5 and the image bus 12.
The enlarging / reducing device 8 performs enlarging or reducing processing on the image data stored in the image memory 11 and stores it in the image memory 11 again. The rotating device 9 includes an image memory 11
90 °, 180 °, 2 for the image data stored in
A rotation process of 70 ° or the like is executed and the image memory 11 is stored again. The compression / decompression device 10 compresses image data according to MR / MH / MMR or other rules, and executes decompression processing on the compressed data.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the image processing apparatus. In step S1, the host device 6
The command block is read from 0 and stored in the cache memory 17. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the format of the command block. Command block is word 0
11 to 11 and each word is composed of 32 bits.

In the word 0, command types such as rotation, enlargement / reduction, compression and decompression are registered. The error status generated during command processing is registered in word 1. In word 2, the address of the input data is registered. In the word 3, the number of pixels in the main scanning direction of the input data is registered. In the word 4, the number of pixels in the sub-scanning direction of the input data is registered. The return destination (upper device) address of the image data after the image processing is registered in the word 5. In word 6, the memory size of the image data return destination is registered. In the word 7, a variable (auxiliary flag) of each image processing such as a rotation angle or an image quality mode at the time of enlargement / reduction is registered. A compression / decompression auxiliary flag is registered in word 8. In the word 9, the number of pixels in the main scanning direction after enlargement or reduction is registered. In the word 10, the number of pixels in the sub-scanning direction after enlargement or reduction is registered. The size of the image data to be returned is registered in the word 11.

Returning to FIG. 3 again, in step S2, an initial process for determining whether or not the memory capacity for executing the image process specified by the command block can be secured in the image memory 11 is executed. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the initial process.

In step S21, the cache memory 1
The number of pixels in the main scanning direction (word 3) and the number of pixels in the sub scanning direction (word 4) of the command block stored in 7 are referred to, and the product thereof is calculated as the image data size Di. In step S22, word 0 of the command block is referred to, and it is determined whether enlargement or reduction processing is instructed. If the enlargement / reduction processing instruction bit (bit 2) of the word 0 is set and the enlargement or reduction processing is instructed, the process proceeds to step S23. If not, whether the rotation processing is instructed or not. A rotation process check for determining is executed.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the operation of the rotation processing check. In step S31, the word 0 of the command block is referred to, and this time, it is determined whether or not the rotation processing is instructed based on the rotation processing instruction bit (bit 1). If the rotation process is not instructed, the data size Di of the received image data is compared with the image memory remaining amount in step S33. That is, if the determination in step S31 is negative, it means that no image processing that requires a work area, such as enlargement processing or rotation processing, has been instructed for the image data, so that the image memory 11 is not stored. Is an area for temporarily storing image data (temporary storage area 11 in FIG. 8).
It would be good if only 1) existed. Therefore, in step S33, the remaining memory capacity is equal to the data size Di.
If it is determined that the above, it ends the initial processing,
If it is determined that it is below the range, error processing is executed.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S31 that the rotation processing is instructed, the work area for storing the rotated image data (work area 11 in FIG. 8).
3) is further required in addition to the temporary storage area 111. Therefore, in step S32, the size twice the data size Di (2 * Di) is compared with the image memory remaining amount. If the memory remaining amount exceeds the data size (2 * Di), the initial process is performed. If it is below the limit, error processing is executed.

Returning to FIG. 4 again, in step S23, the number of pixels in the command block after enlargement / reduction in the main scanning direction (word 9) and the number of pixels after enlargement / reduction in the sub scanning direction (word 10).
Is referred to, and the product is the image data size D after scaling.
It is calculated as s. In step S24, the word 0 of the command block is referred to again, and it is determined whether or not the rotation processing is instructed based on the rotation processing instruction bit (bit 1). Here, if it is determined that the rotation processing is also instructed, the process proceeds to step S25, and if not instructed, the process proceeds to step S27. In step S25, it is determined whether or not the process determined in step S22 is the enlargement process, and if it is the enlargement process, the process proceeds to step S27.

As described above, when both the rotation process and the enlargement process are instructed at the same time, the work area for storing the enlarged image data is stored in the image memory 11 (see FIG. 8).
Work area 112) is required in addition to the temporary storage area 111. Therefore, in step S27, the data size (Di + Ds) is compared with the image memory remaining amount. If the image memory remaining amount exceeds (Di + Ds), the initial processing is terminated, and if it is less than the error processing is performed. To be executed.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step S25 that the enlargement processing is not instructed, in other words, the rotation processing and the reduction processing are instructed, the image memory 11
Above the temporary storage area 1 is a work area (work area 113 in FIG. 8) that stores image data after rotation.
In addition to 11, it is necessary. Therefore, step S
26, the data size Di is twice the size Di (2 *
Di) is compared with the image memory remaining amount, and if the memory remaining amount exceeds the data size (2 * Di), the initial process is terminated, and if it is less than the error process is executed.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing the operation of the error processing. In step S41, it is determined whether or not the data block indicates that the process should be continued even after the error occurs. If the process is not instructed to continue, in step S47, the error occurrence is reported to the higher-level device, and The process ends. On the other hand, if the continuation of the processing is instructed, in step S42, it is determined whether or not the image data size Di is larger than half of the memory remaining amount. The size of the received image data registered in words 3 and 4 is rewritten so that the size of the received image data becomes half or less of the remaining memory. As a result, only half or less of the received image data is the image data to be processed.

In step S44, the word 0 of the command block is referred to, and it is determined whether or not enlargement or reduction processing is instructed. Here, when the enlargement or reduction processing is instructed, in step S45, the size of the enlarged or reduced image data registered in the words 9 and 10 of the command block matches the received image data size Di. Can be rewritten as As a result of the rewriting, even if the enlargement or reduction processing is executed later, the size of the image data expanded on the image memory matches the received image data size Di. Step S4
In 6, the error occurrence is reported to the higher-level device, and then the process ends.

When the initial processing of the image processing is completed as described above, the processing proceeds to step S3 of FIG. In step S3, the word 0 of the command block is referred to, and it is determined whether or not the decompression process is instructed. If the decompression processing instruction bit (bit 3) of word 0 is set and decompression processing is instructed, step S4 is performed.
Then, the number of pixels in the main scanning direction (word 3) and the number of pixels in the sub scanning direction (word 4) registered in the command block.
The image data corresponding to the image data size Di represented by the product of is transferred from the upper level device 60 to the compression / decompression device 10, and the decompression process is executed here. The decompressed image data is expanded on the image memory 11. If the decompression processing is not instructed, in step S5, the host device 60
The non-compressed data transferred from passes through the compression / expansion device 10 and is directly expanded on the image memory 11.

In step S43 of the error processing, when the number of pixels in the main scanning direction (word 3) and the number of pixels in the sub scanning direction registered in the command block are rewritten to be equal to or less than half the memory remaining amount. Therefore, only a part of the image data corresponding to the data amount after the rewriting is developed on the image memory 11.

Similarly, in step S6, the word 0 of the command block is again referred to, and this time, it is determined whether or not the rotation processing is instructed based on the rotation processing instruction bit (bit 1). When the rotation processing is instructed, in step S7, the rotation processing is executed by the rotation angle registered in word 7.

In step S8, the word 0 of the command block is referred to again, and it is determined whether or not the enlargement / reduction processing is instructed this time based on the enlargement / reduction processing instruction bit (bit 2). When the enlargement / reduction processing is instructed, the enlargement / reduction processing is executed in accordance with the registered data of the words 9 and 10 in step S9. In step S45 of the error processing, the number of pixels in the main scanning direction after enlargement / reduction (word 9) and the number of pixels in the sub scanning direction after enlargement / reduction (word 10) registered in the command block.
However, when the size of the input image data is rewritten, the scaling process is not substantially executed.

In step S10, the word 0 of the command block is referred to again, and this time it is determined whether or not the compression processing is instructed based on the compression processing instruction bit (bit 0). If the compression process is instructed, the compression process is executed in step S11, and if not instructed, the bitmap data is output in step S12. When the image processing instructed by the command block is completed as described above, step S13
Then, the image data after the image processing is returned to the higher-level device 60.

FIG. 9 shows step S43 of the error processing.
In the case where the input image data size Di is rewritten to half of the remaining memory, the input image data [Fig.
] And the return image data [(b) in the figure]. It can be seen that only a part of the input image data is the return image data.

Further, according to the present embodiment, the size of the input image data is rewritten to half or less of the remaining memory, so that the temporary storage area 1 is substantially stored in the image memory 11.
11 and a work area 113 (see FIG. 8) in which the rotated image data is developed are secured. Therefore, if the rotation processing is instructed, it is possible to execute the rotation processing on the part of the image data and return the image data to the higher-level device even when the remaining memory capacity is insufficient.

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention, the following effects can be achieved. (1) According to claim 1, when the remaining memory capacity of the image memory exceeds the memory capacity required for image processing, the image processing is executed for all of the image data, while the remaining memory capacity is the required memory capacity. Even if it falls below, image processing is executed on a part of the image data without interruption of reception. Therefore, even if the receiving side has insufficient memory,
You will be able to recognize the outline of the image data. (2) According to claim 2, when the remaining memory capacity falls below the required memory capacity, the image processing is executed for only half or less of the image data. Therefore, it seems that the rotation treatment is instructed as the image processing. In this case, the receiving side can refer to the image data after the rotation processing. Therefore, it becomes possible to recognize not only the content of the image data but also the presence / absence of the instruction for the rotation treatment.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an image processing apparatus to which the present invention has been applied.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a format of a command block.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of image processing.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an initial process of image processing.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a rotation processing check.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of error processing.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional information processing system.

FIG. 8 is a diagram schematically showing stored contents of an image memory.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a relationship between input image data and return image data.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Image processing device, 2 ... CPU, 4 ... General purpose bus interface, 5 ... CPU bus, 8 ... Enlargement / reduction device, 9 ... Rotation device, 10 ... Compression / expansion device, 11 ... Image memory, 12
Image bus, 13 Image processing execution means, 14 Bus interface, 16 Image processing device control register, 1
7 ... Cache memory, 60 ... King of upper device

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An image processing apparatus for executing at least one of image processing such as rotation processing, compression / expansion processing, and enlargement / reduction processing on an image memory for input image data, A means for detecting the amount of data, a means for detecting the remaining memory capacity of the image memory, and a means for calculating the memory capacity required for the image processing based on the content of the image processing to be executed and the data amount of the image data. And means for comparing the required memory capacity of the image memory with the remaining memory capacity, and means for executing scheduled image processing on at least a part of the image data according to the comparison result, When the remaining memory capacity exceeds the required memory capacity, image processing is executed for all the image data, and when the remaining memory capacity falls below the required memory capacity, only part of the image data is processed. An image processing device characterized by being executed. 2. The image processing according to claim 1, wherein when the remaining memory capacity is less than the required memory capacity, the image processing is executed only for image data of an amount corresponding to half or less of the remaining memory capacity. The image processing device described.