JPH089170A - Image processing unit - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the print cost and to decrease the print time. CONSTITUTION:The processing unit incorporates a black/white printer 26 and connects to a color printer 34 via an external interface 32. A color black/white discrimination circuit 14 discriminates whether or not a color image is included in image information to be printed. When the color image is included, the image information to be printed is fed to the color printer 34 and when no color image is included, the image information is fed to the black/white printer 26.

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,
More specifically, the present invention relates to an image processing apparatus that prints image information in which a color image and a black-and-white image may be mixed by a black-and-white printer and a color printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Facsimile systems for transmitting black-and-white images via a communication line are well known, but a color fax machine capable of transmitting and receiving color images via a communication line has been proposed. In order to ensure the connectivity of a conventional monochrome image facsimile apparatus, it is common to have a G3 or G4 standard monochrome image transmission function.

Facsimile machines usually have a printer for printing out a received image. In the case of a color facsimile machine, a color printer will be equipped. That is, in the conventional color facsimile apparatus, regardless of whether the received image is a monochrome image or a color image, the color printer included in the conventional color facsimile device prints out.

[0004]

However, in general, the printing cost of a color printer is not only very high, but also it takes time to print out. Therefore, even if all the received images are black and white, or a black and white page and a color page are mixed, the conventional color facsimile apparatus is costly and takes a long time to print out.

In addition to the color / facsimile apparatus, an apparatus for printing out image information in which a black-and-white image and a color image may coexist has the same problem.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an image processing device that solves such problems.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an image processing apparatus which can reduce the chances of using a color printer and can reduce the cost.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an image processing apparatus which appropriately uses a color printer and a monochrome printer, respectively.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus which is easy to use when a color printer and a monochrome printer are used properly.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus suitable for a color facsimile machine.

[0011]

According to the present invention, there is provided an image processing apparatus for printing out image information in which a color image and a black and white image may coexist, and a black and white printer, a color printer and a printer. In the case where at least one color image is included in the series of image information according to the color / black and white discrimination means for discriminating whether or not the series of image information includes the color image and the discrimination result of the color / monochrome discrimination means. To
And a supply control unit that supplies the series of image information, that is, all of one document to the color printer, and supplies the series of image information to the monochrome printer when a color image is not included. There is provided an image processing device that does.

According to the present invention, there is also provided an image processing apparatus for printing out image information in which a color image and a black and white image may coexist, the black and white printer, the color printer and a series of images to be printed. Color / monochrome discrimination means for discriminating whether information includes a color image on a page basis, and image information of a page containing a color image is supplied to the color printer according to the discrimination result of the color / monochrome discrimination means. An image processing apparatus comprising: a supply control unit that supplies image information of a page not including a color image to the monochrome printer.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention in which the present invention is applied to a color facsimile apparatus. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 10 is a main control circuit for controlling the whole, and is composed of, for example, a microcomputer including a CPU, a ROM and a RAM. Reference numeral 12 is an image encoding / decoding circuit that encodes an image to be transmitted and decodes a received encoded image signal. Reference numeral 14 is a color / monochrome discrimination that determines whether or not a color image is included for each received page. The circuit includes a γ conversion circuit that converts image data from RGB system to CMYK system. Color / monochrome discrimination circuit 14
Also has a conversion function from a multi-valued image to a binary image.

The color / monochrome discriminating circuit 14 determines whether or not a color image is included for each received page from a header (indicating whether the received image data is monochrome or color) attached to each page of the received image data. Determine whether.

Reference numeral 16 is a memory for storing image data to be transmitted and received, and other data, and 18 is a DMA control circuit for transferring the data stored in the memory 16 and other memories without passing through the main control circuit 10. Reference numeral 20 is a communication control circuit that controls communication via a communication line, for example, an ISDN line. 21 is a character that generates a character pattern to be printed on various reports, page headers, page margins, etc.
It is a generator.

Reference numeral 22 denotes a key input device (for example, one-touch key, ten-key pad, start button, stop button, etc.) for the user to input various instructions, 24
Is a display device for displaying various information such as no paper, running out of ink and communication status, 26 is an image scanner for reading an image of a document, 28 is a monochrome printer for printing out a received image and a report of communication status, These are directly controlled by the I / O control circuit 30. I
A color printer 34 is also connected to the / O control circuit 30 via a color printer interface 32.

36 is a well-known SCSI interface,
A hard disk 38 temporarily stores the received image data.

Reference numeral 40 is an image data bus dedicated to image data, 42 is a control bus for system control, and the image data bus 40 includes circuits 10, 12, 14, 16, 18,
20, 21, 26, 28, 32 are connected to each other, and
The control bus 42 interconnects the circuits 10-21, 30, 36.

In this embodiment, as shown in FIG.
The facsimile apparatus 101 shown by the dotted line in FIG. 1 may be connected to the color printer 34 via the network 105.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the flow charts shown in FIGS. 5, 6 and 7.

Upon reception, the received data is temporarily stored in the memory 1
6 or the hard disk 38 (S02).
Upon receiving this, the page counter is once reset (S04). The image encoding / decoding circuit 12 decodes the stored data, and the color / monochrome discrimination circuit 14 discriminates color / monochrome for each page of the received document (S0).
8) In the case of color, processing such as conversion from RGB data to CMYK data is performed. Further, the hard disk device 38 may be stored after such processing. In addition, according to the determination result in S08,
"1" or "0" is stored in the address N in the RAM shown in (S10, S12). The processing of S04 to S12 is repeated until the reception is completed.

Decoding processing of the image coding / decoding circuit 12,
The processing of the color / monochrome discrimination circuit 14 is normally executed at the time of reception, but may be executed at the time of print output. Besides, the functions and interactions of each circuit are not particularly peculiar, and thus detailed description thereof will be omitted.

When printing the received data (S1
6) In this embodiment, the following processing method I or II of the received image can be selected by the control program of the main control circuit 10 (S18).

In the first processing method I, based on the result of the discrimination by the color / monochrome discriminating circuit 14 prior to the execution of printing, data written in the RAM is being received once, that is, one page in one document. Alternatively, it is determined whether a color image is included in one page (S22). And
If a color image is included in even one document, the image data for one document to be printed is supplied to the color printer 34 via the printer interface 32 (S26). If the color image is not included, the image data to be printed is applied to the monochrome printer 28 (S3).
0).

In this embodiment, the color printer 3
In addition to supplying the image data of one document to be printed in 4,
As shown in FIG. 3, when there is another color printer other than the color printer 34 on the network 105, a free color printer is searched (S2).
6), data for all pages are output.

Further, in the present embodiment, when controlling to output a color image to the color printer 34 or another color printer, the monochrome printer 28 sends data indicating that such control has been performed. Output (S2
8). An example of this printout is shown in FIG. This allows the user to recognize that such control has been performed.

Since only the received image that requires the color printing function is printed in color and the others are printed in black and white, the printing time and printing cost can be reduced.

As a second processing method II, for a page including a color image in one document (called a color page), image data to be printed is printed by a printer.
The data is supplied to the color printer 34 through the interface 32, and for the page not including the color image, the image data to be printed is applied to the monochrome printer 28.

In this second processing method II, in general, 1
In one reception, that is, a part of the page included in one received document is printed by the color printer 34, and the rest is printed by the monochrome printer 28. Therefore, in this embodiment, when the output of each printer 28, 34 is performed, the user is informed that the subsequent page is in another printer 34, 28.

Therefore, in the second processing method II, a subsequent page or page is added to the margin of the last page of the black and white page or the black and white page in which the next page is a page including a color image, or the next printing paper. A message indicating that the color printer 34 will print out is printed in the middle of. Or, if the next page does not include a color image, that is, if the next page is a monochrome page
On the margin of the page or the last page, or on the next print sheet, a message indicating that the black-and-white printer 34 prints the subsequent page or in the middle of the page is printed. These messages are generated by the character generator 21 under the control of the main control circuit 10.

That is, first, R included in the main control circuit 10
From the data written in the AM, it is judged whether or not one document received contains a color page (S3
2) If all pages are black and white based on the result of this determination, all pages are output to a black and white printer (s4
8). On the other hand, if a color page is included in one document, it is determined whether or not there is a color printer on the network 105 that is not printing (S34). This determination may be made by the main control circuit 10 through the printer interface 32 to determine whether each printer on the network 105 is printing.

If there is a color printer that is not printing, it is determined whether the page to be printed out is a color page (S36), and the page determined to be a color page is determined not to be printed in S34. It is output by the selected printer (S42). Further, in order to make the user aware that there is an associated monochrome print when a color print is made, the number of the associated monochrome printer by the color printer 34, that is, the unique monochrome printer 28 in this embodiment. The number and the number of monochrome printed pages are output. An example of this printout is shown in FIG.

On the other hand, if it is determined in S36 that the page to be printed is not a color page, that is, a monochrome page, the page thus determined is output to the monochrome printer 28 (S38).
Then, in order to make the user aware that there is an associated color page, the black and white printer 28 prints out information indicating that there is an associated color page and the number of the printer on which the color print was made.
An example of this printout is shown in FIG.

Next, it is determined whether all the pages in one document have been printed out (S46). If not all pages have been printed out, the flow returns to S36.

According to the present embodiment, since the messages shown in FIGS. 8 to 10 are visually output, the user can discriminate which printer the printed document was printed out, and the usability is improved. .

In FIG. 1, the black-and-white printer is built in and the color printer is externally connected, but conversely, the color printer may be built in and the black-and-white printer may be externally connected. The block diagram of the configuration is shown in FIG. Color printer 50
Directly controlled by the I / O control circuit 30, the monochrome printer 5
2 is connected to the printer interface 32. For the control in this case, the color printer and the monochrome printer in FIG. 5 to FIG. 10 may be exchanged.

Although the color / facsimile apparatus has been described as an example, it is needless to say that the present invention can be applied to a general apparatus that prints out an image in which a monochrome image and a color image may be mixed.

It goes without saying that the present invention can be variously modified within the technical scope described in the claims.

[0040]

As can be easily understood from the above description, according to the present invention, an image in which a monochrome image and a color image may be mixed can be printed out at a lower cost in a shorter time.

[Brief description of drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration block diagram of a modified embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a modified example of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a modified example of FIG.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the embodiment shown in FIG.

6 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 8 is an output example in S28 of FIG.

FIG. 9 is an output example in S44 of FIG.

FIG. 10 is an output example in S40 of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10: Main control circuit 12: Image encoding / decoding circuit 14: Color / monochrome discrimination circuit 16: Memory 18: DMA control circuit 20: Communication control circuit 21: Character generator 22: Key input device 24: Display device 26: Image Scanner 28: monochrome printer 30: I / O control circuit 32: printer interface 34: color printer 36: SCSI interface 38: hard disk 40: image data bus 42: system control bus 50: color printer 52 : Monochrome printer 101: monochrome / facsimile device 103: color / facsimile device 105: network 134: color printer 152: monochrome printer

Claims (21)

[Claims] 1. A monochrome printer for printing a received image in monochrome, a color printer provided separately for the monochrome print, a monochrome printer and a color printer for each page of a received document including a plurality of screens. Control means capable of switching between a first mode for selecting and outputting one of the two and a second mode for selecting and outputting one of the monochrome printer and the color printer for a document including the plurality of screens for each document. An image processing device comprising: 2. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the color printer is connected via an external connection interface. 3. The image processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the monochrome printer is connected via an external connection interface. 4. A monochrome printer that prints a received image in monochrome, a color printer that is separately provided for the monochrome print, and it is determined whether a color image is included in a received document including a plurality of screens. An image processing apparatus comprising: a discriminating means and an output means for outputting the received image data to a color printer via a network in accordance with the discrimination result of the discriminating means. 5. The image processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the color printer is connected via an external connection interface. 6. The image processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the monochrome printer is connected via an external connection interface. 7. The image according to claim 4, wherein the output means outputs to the color printer when the determination means determines that at least a part of the received image contains a color image. Processing equipment. 8. The output means outputs a color page in the received image to the color printer and a monochrome page to the monochrome printer.
The image processing device according to item 1. 9. The image processing apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising a receiving unit that receives the received image via a communication line. 10. The image processing apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the communication line is an ISDN line. 11. A monochrome printer that prints a received image in monochrome, a color printer that is separately provided for the monochrome print, and a printer that prints the received image in any one of the monochrome printer and the color printer. An image processing apparatus comprising: output means for selecting and outputting; and visible output means for visually outputting the print output state by the output means as the number of pages. 12. The image processing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the visible output means performs visible output using a printer other than the printer selected and output by the output means. 13. The image processing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the print output status is the number of pages printed by the printer selected and output by the output unit. 14. The image processing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the color printer is connected via an external connection interface. 15. The image processing apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the monochrome printer is connected via an external connection interface. 16. The method according to claim 11, further comprising a determining unit that determines whether or not the received image includes a color image.
The image processing device according to item 1. 17. The image processing apparatus according to claim 16, wherein the output unit selects one of the monochrome printer and the color printer according to the determination result of the determination unit. 18. The image according to claim 17, wherein the output means outputs to the color printer when the determination means determines that at least a part of the received image contains a color image. Processing equipment. 19. The image processing apparatus according to claim 17, wherein the output means outputs the color page in the received image to the color printer and outputs the monochrome page to the monochrome printer. 20. The image processing apparatus according to claim 11, further comprising a receiving unit that receives the received image via a communication line. 21. The image processing apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the communication line is an ISDN line.