JPH09204277A - Print processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To accelerate the processing speed of the entire system by efficiently recovering printing picture element information for which a rasterization processing is performed in plural arithmetic processors on a network. SOLUTION: At the time of generating print job fragments in a printing job division means 4, fragment tags for describing the management information of the print job fragments and a tag table for describing the management information of a printing job at the time of division/scheduling are generated, and by a printing job transfer means 5, the print job fragments and the corresponding fragment tags are transferred to the arithmetic processors 1a, 1b,... and the tag table is transferred to a printer 2. Partial picture element information for which the rasterization processing is performed in a rasterization processing means 6 is transferred to the printer 2 along with the fragment tags, and in the printing job recovery means 7, partial picture information for which the rasterization processing is individually performed is combined based on the fragment tags and the tag table and the entire picture information is obtained.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print processing system, and more particularly, to a print processing in which a print job described in a page description language or the like is shared and processed by a plurality of arithmetic processing units on a network. Regarding processing system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the development of printing devices suitable for high-speed digital printing such as electrophotography and ink jet printing, images, figures, characters, etc., which have been removed from conventional text-based printing, are handled in the same manner. A print control method using a "page description language" that can freely control enlargement, rotation, deformation, etc. of a document has become popular. Various page description languages were developed in the 1980s, and a typical example is Post.
Script (Postscript, Adobe Systems
tems, Inc.) and Interpress (trademark, Xerox, Inc.), but many page description languages are used in various printers.

In a conventional page description language processing printing apparatus,
The central processing unit (CPU) of the printing apparatus sequentially interprets the data, and the printing apparatus executes the printing operation. One example is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-1883.
No. 74 accepts a printing program (hereinafter referred to as a print job) sent from a computer,
A storage device for storing, an arithmetic processing device for sequentially interpreting the print job, and a printing device for performing a printing operation in accordance with the interpreted print job are provided, and after the print job is once transmitted from the computer to the printing device, It discloses that a printing apparatus translates a print job and performs a printing operation, thereby reducing the load on a computer and improving the processing speed of the entire system. However, it is known that a great deal of processing time is required when converting from a page description language to print pixels (hereinafter, referred to as rasterization processing) by software. Furthermore, in response to recent demands for higher image quality and colorization, there is a concern that an arithmetic processor will be subjected to an ever-increasing load in the future.

Therefore, some techniques have been proposed to process a print job at high speed. As a conventional example related to the present invention, for example, PCT / JP91 / 00456.
And Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-168087 are known. These publications describe a network-distributed print processing system in which a plurality of arithmetic processing devices are loosely coupled via a network and interpret and execute print jobs in parallel.

[0005]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, PCT / JP
In the print processing system described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 91/00456, a client process that divides a print job into a plurality of arithmetic processing devices and instructs parallel rasterization processing, or a print job for a plurality of arithmetic processing devices. The print configuration server that manages the synchronization of the division and parallel rasterization processing is configured to collect the print pixels, synthesize the print pixels on the image memory, and then transfer the print pixels to the printing apparatus that executes the printing operation. That is, in the print processing system, a large amount of rasterized pixel information is transferred at least twice via the network. Therefore, there is a problem that network traffic increases and it takes time to print out, and the effect of parallel rasterization processing by a plurality of arithmetic processing devices cannot be sufficiently obtained.

On the other hand, in the print processing system described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-168087, a management object (or management program) that manages parallel rasterization processing for a plurality of arithmetic processing devices has each arithmetic operation. The print object is configured to instruct the print object in the processing device to print using each CPU, and when the print object receives the print message, the print object controls the printing device to send the rasterized print pixel information to the printing device. There is. Furthermore, print jobs that are divided / rasterized / collected do not consider division within pages,
It is assumed to be in page units. Therefore,
The effect of the distributed processing greatly depends on the number of pages of a given print job, and it is clear that the effect of the distributed processing cannot be sufficiently obtained when the number of pages of the print job is small.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and in a print processing system in which a plurality of arithmetic processing devices are loosely coupled by a network, collection of print pixel information rasterized by a plurality of arithmetic processing devices. It is an object of the present invention to provide a print processing system that efficiently performs printing and improves the processing speed of the entire system.

[0008]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the principle of a print processing system according to the present invention. In the figure, the print processing system according to the present invention is configured based on a configuration including a plurality of arithmetic processing devices 1a, 1b, ... And at least one printing device 2 on a network. .., a print job dividing unit 4, a print job transferring unit 5, a rasterizing processing unit 6, and a print job collecting unit 7.

The resource information management means 3a, 3b, ...
The rasterization processing resource information necessary for performing the rasterization processing is collected and stored in the self and other arithmetic processing devices 1a, 1b, .... Print job dividing unit 4
Receives a print job, and based on the rasterization processing resource information of the resource information managing means 3a, a plurality of print job fragments into which the print job is divided / scheduled, and a tag table in which the management information of the print job is described at the time of dividing / scheduling. , And a fragment tag in which the management information of each print job fragment is described. The print job fragment generated by the print job dividing unit 4 is transferred to a plurality of arithmetic processing units by the print job transferring unit 5 together with the fragment tag corresponding to the print job fragment. The tag table is transferred to the designated printing device 2 by the print job transfer means 5.

The transferred print job fragment is rasterized by the rasterization processing means 6. The pixel information rasterized for each print job fragment is collected by the print job collecting unit 7 of the printer 2 together with the corresponding fragment tag. In the print job collection means 7, based on the partial pixel information rasterized by each rasterization processing means 6, based on the collected fragment tag and the tag table transferred by the print job transfer means 5, the entire one page is printed. Various pixel information is obtained and output by the printing device 2.

Thus, in the print job dividing means 4,
When the print job fragment is generated, information for assembling the partial pixel information obtained by rasterizing the print job fragment by the print job collection unit 7, that is,
Generates fragment tag and tag table at the same time,
Since the fragment tag and the tag table are referred to when the overall image information is obtained from the partial pixel information collected by the print job collecting means 7, the rasterized pixel information need only be transferred once through the network. In addition, the network traffic is not increased, and the time until print output can be shortened.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT An embodiment of a print processing system according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

[First Embodiment] Here, claim 1
The print processing system according to the invention described in claim 2 and claim 2 will be described.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the first embodiment of the print processing system of the present invention. In this figure,
The print processing system includes a plurality of arithmetic processing devices 10, 20,
.. and a printing device 50 connected via a network 40.

The arithmetic processing units 10, 20, 30 ...
It is composed of a personal computer, a workstation, etc., and these arithmetic processing units 10, 20, 30
At least one of the ... Has a document creation program. In the following, an arithmetic processing device having a function of creating a print job with a document creation program, here, the arithmetic processing device 10, will be described in particular when considering the function. It is referred to as a device (client device). Further, the other arithmetic processing devices 20, 30, ... Are represented as the arithmetic processing devices 20, 30 as a representative. The print job of this example is described in, for example, Postscript, but other page description languages such as Interpress or GDI (Graphics Des) are used.
It may be a graphic command such as viceInterface, a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, or Quick Draw (a trademark of Apple Corporation in the United States).

Arithmetic processing device (client device) 10
2, a document creation program 11 for creating a print job 12, a resource information management unit 13, a print job division unit 14, a print job transfer unit 15, a rasterization processing unit 16, and a transmission / reception unit. It is composed of 17 and. Regarding the processing of the print job created by the document creation program, the other processing devices 20 and 30 include at least the resource information management units 23 and 33 and the rasterization processing unit 2.
6, 36 and transmitting / receiving sections 27, 37. Here, the resource information management units 13, 23 and 33, the print job dividing unit 14, the print job transfer unit 15, and the rasterization processing unit 1
6, 26, and 36 are all implemented as software, and the Cs of the respective arithmetic processing units 10, 20, and 30 are installed.
It is executed using PU.

In the arithmetic processing device (client device) 10, the resource information management unit 13 thereof performs arithmetic processing devices 10 and 2 for performing rasterizing processing by network distribution.
It manages 0, 30 resource information databases. The resource information database includes, for example, information specifying an arithmetic processing device, availability, content capable of rasterizing,
Rasterization processing resources, processing restrictions, rasterization processing access class, etc. are recorded. Further, the other arithmetic processing devices 20 and 30 are also provided with the resource information management units 23 and 33, and in order to transfer the resource information of the own device in response to the request of the arithmetic processing device (client device) 10, the resources of the own device. Manage information. The resource information management unit 13 of the arithmetic processing device (client device) 10 collects the resource information of the other arithmetic processing devices 20 and 30 via the transmission / reception unit 17,
Update the resource information database as needed.

The print job dividing unit 14 is used for the print job 12
The print job 12 is divided into a plurality of print job fragments by the document structure analysis, resource dependency analysis, image spatial coherence analysis, and the like. The print job dividing unit 14
Further, based on the resource information database of the resource information management unit 13, a plurality of arithmetic processing devices 1 that perform rasterization processing.
The processing distribution and scheduling of each print job fragment is performed for 0, 20, and 30. Further, the print job dividing unit 14 generates the tag table in which the management information of the print job is described and the fragment tag in which the management information of each print job fragment is described, at the same time as the distribution of the print job fragments. A plurality of print job fragments are generally assigned to each of the arithmetic processing devices 10, 20, and 30, and the spatial interference relationship between the print job fragments is managed by a tag table.

The print job transfer unit 15 sends a plurality of print job fragments obtained by dividing the print job 12 and fragment tags in which management information of each print job fragment is described, via the transmission / reception unit 17, to the plurality of arithmetic processing units 1.
Transfer to 0, 20, 30 (including client device). The print job transfer unit 15 further transfers the tag table in which the management information of the print job is described to the printing device 50 connected via the network 40. In addition, there are a plurality of printing devices, and the arithmetic processing device (client device) 10
When there are a plurality of printing devices designated by, the print job dividing unit 14 generates a plurality of tag tables corresponding to the printing devices, and the print job transfer unit 15 transfers the tag tables to the corresponding printing devices.

The rasterization processing unit 16 converts the print job fragment transferred by the print job transfer unit 15 into
Rasterization processing is performed based on the corresponding fragment tag. The rasterizing process is performed according to the performance (resolution, color reproduction characteristics, gradation, recording size, etc.) of the printing device 50 designated by the arithmetic processing device (client device) 10. The rasterized pixel information is temporarily stored in the storage devices of the arithmetic processing devices 10, 20, and 30, and the print job collection unit 5 is also provided.
1 is notified of the end of rasterization processing of each print job fragment.

The transmission / reception units 17, 27, 37, 57 are composed of a network adapter and network driver software for connecting the arithmetic processing units 10, 20, 30 and the printing unit 50 via the network 40. For example, in order to transfer a large amount of print pixel information via the network 40, a high-speed FDDI (Fiber Distributed D) can be transmitted to the network 40.
When the data interface network is used, the transmission / reception units 17, 27, 37, 57 are compatible with the FDDI network. Note that the TCP / IP protocol is used for communication between the arithmetic devices and between the printing devices.

Further, in FIG. 2, the printing apparatus 50 comprises a transmission / reception section 57, a print job collection section 51, and a printer apparatus 52. The print job collection unit 51
A rasterization process end signal is received from each of the arithmetic processing devices 10, 20, 30 to manage the rasterization process of each of the arithmetic processing devices 10, 20, 30 and a partial processing from each of the arithmetic processing devices 10, 20, 30 based on the tag table. A job collection management unit for collecting specific print pixel information, and a page memory for combining print pixel information for the entire page from partial print pixel information. The print pixel information combined on the page memory is read from the printer device 52 and output.

The printer device 52 uses CMYK (cyan,
This is a color page printer using a laser scanning type electrophotographic system capable of outputting a full color image by repeating exposure, development and transfer for each color of magenta, yellow and black). The performance is, for example, a recording size of A3 and a resolution of 400 dpi (dot per in).
ch) and gradation are 8 bits for each color. Therefore, the page memory included in the print job collection unit 51 is at least 128.
It has a capacity of MB (Mega Byte).

Next, details of main parts of the print processing system will be described. First, the resource information management unit 13, 23, 3
3 will be described, but since they have the same configuration, here, the resource information management unit 1 of the arithmetic processing device 10 is described.
3 illustrates an example.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of the resource information management unit. The resource information management unit 13 includes a self-device resource information management unit 131, a distributed resource information management unit 132, and a resource information database 133.

The self-device resource information management unit 131 dynamically manages the rasterization processing resource information of the self-device, and responds to a resource information acquisition request from the distributed resource information management unit of the self-device or another arithmetic processing device, The current rasterization processing resource information of the own device is notified to the distributed resource information management unit of the own device or another arithmetic processing device.

The distributed resource information management unit 132 manages the resource information database 133, and responds to the rasterization processing resource information update request from the print job dividing unit 14 prior to the division of the print job. Resource information database 1 that collects rasterization processing resource information of arithmetic processing devices and printing resource information of each printing device
33 is to be updated. If the device is not an arithmetic processing device that divides a print job, the distributed resource information management unit 132 is not executed and the resource information database 1
33 is not updated either.

The resource information database 133 is composed of a rasterization processing resource information table of the arithmetic processing device and a printing resource information table of the printing device. Specific examples of the rasterization processing resource information table and the printing resource information table are shown below.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a rasterization processing resource information table of the resource information database. The rasterized resource information table 133a in the resource information database 133 is composed of columns of arithmetic processing unit address, memory size, CPU speed, transfer speed, access class, accelerator, font, load status, and service status. The Internet address of the arithmetic processing unit is registered in the arithmetic processing unit address column. In the memory size column, the memory size is registered for the mounted RAM memory amount / RAM free area / magnetic disk free space. Raster / Graphics /
The font relative to the standard processor is registered. In the transfer rate column, the network data transfer rate (M
The peak value of (bit / sec) is registered. The access class column is for registering the rasterizing process access class, and the values include 0 / always highest priority, k / process priority <k, and -1 / inhibited during user process. Accelerator column registers the presence / absence of accelerators, and the values are 0 / none, 1 / color t
It represents a translate, 2 / JPEG compress. The file name of the registered font is registered in the font field. 0 / nota in the load status column
live, 1 / alive (no job), 2 / al
ive (on job) and 3 / alive (reservation) are registered. And 0 / sl is entered in the service status column.
eep, 1 / interwait, and 2 / run are registered. Among these, the free space of the magnetic disk, the load status, and the service status dynamically change, and are dynamically managed via the own device resource information management unit 131.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a print resource information table of the resource information database. In the print resource information table 133b in the resource information database 133,
It is composed of columns of printing device address, resolution, data format, color space, single-sided / double-sided, outputable paper size / type, post-processing, support processing, and service status. The Internet address of the printing device is registered in the printing device address column. In the resolution column, the data resolution is dpi, in the data format column, the depth bit number of the data is registered, and in the color space column, the color space to be passed to the printer is registered. 0 / duplex, 1 / single-sided are registered in the single-sided / double-sided column, and 0 / A6, 1 / A5, 2 / A4, 3 / A3 are registered in the outputable paper size / type column.
4 / A2, 5 / B6, 6 / B5, 7 / B4, 8 / B3
9 / B2, and the type is registered as 0 / plain paper and 1 / OHP. In the column of post-processing, 0 / none, 1 / collation, 2 / stepper stop, 3 / bookbinding, 4 / bag packing, -1
/ Registered during failure, 0 / none, 1 / JPEG is registered in the support process column, and the service status column is registered in the service state column.
0 / power off, 1 / standby, 2 / output processing, -1
/ It is registered as being out of order. Among these, the size / type of outputtable paper and the service status dynamically change.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an example of the arrangement of the print job dividing unit of the arithmetic processing unit. The print job dividing unit 14 of the arithmetic processing device 10 includes a lexical analysis unit 141 that receives the print job 12, a syntax analysis unit 142, and a document structure analysis unit 1.
43, a resource dependency analysis unit 144, a spatial coherence analysis unit 145, and a print job fragment generation unit 146.

The lexical analysis unit 141 recognizes the print job 12 as an operation command of a predetermined page description language (Postscript in this example) and an operand value necessary for executing the command, and internally recognizes it as a token string. To express. The processing technique of this lexical analysis is described in, for example, Aho, A .; , Sethi,
R. , And Ullman, J .; D. , Compil
ers-Principles, Technique
s, and Tools, Addison-Wesle
Y, 1986, introduces an analysis technique using a finite state machine.

The syntactic analysis unit 142 constructs each token formed in the lexical analysis unit 141 into a syntactic tree as a sequence of tokens conforming to the grammar. In general, an interpreter-type page description language such as Postscript is interpreted and executed sequentially by the stack machine, and therefore does not hold a representation of a syntax tree separately.
In order to perform optimization and command division in consideration of the entire print processing information without performing step 2 sequentially, it is necessary to express a syntax tree as the basis of the print processing information. Hereinafter, the syntax tree format print job analyzed by the syntax analysis unit 142 will be particularly referred to as a command sequence. The command sequence of the print job includes an environment command sequence indicating status information and resource information when rasterizing the print job, and a drawing command sequence that is a target of the direct rasterization process. For a detailed description of the command sequence related to PostScript, refer to "PostScript Reference Manual Part 2".
Edition ”(by Adobe Systems, published by ASCII Corporation, 1991).

The command sequence of the print job includes document configuration information such as the number of pages or recording size, information relating to the printer such as resolution or double-sided output, font or OPI (Open Prepress).
There is resource information for rasterizing processing such as an interface server, and drawing information directly related to the rasterizing processing. Here, a command sequence related to document configuration information, printer-related information, and resource information is defined as an environment command sequence, and a command sequence related to drawing information is defined as a drawing command sequence. Furthermore, a series of environmental command sequences necessary for rasterizing processing is defined as environmental content, and a series of drawing command sequence groups under which the same type of rasterizing processing is performed under the same environmental content conditions are defined as drawing content. doing.

The document structure analysis unit 143 extracts the environmental contents and the drawing contents from the command sequence of the print job. A conceptual diagram of the document structure extracted by the document structure analysis unit 143 is shown below.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the concept of the document structure extracted by the document structure analysis unit. In the figure, in the document structure analysis unit 143, from the command sequence of the print job, the environmental content (1) E1, the environmental content (2)
E2, environmental content (6) E6, drawing content (1) D1, environmental content (3) E3, environmental content (4) E4, drawing content (3) D3, environmental content (7) E7, drawing content (2) D2 , Environment content (5) E5, and drawing content (4) D4 are extracted. Here, environmental contents (1) E1
Is, for example, the document configuration information of the entire document, that is, the total number of pages, the recording size, the output resolution, etc. The environmental content (2) E2 is, for example, the environmental information indicating the first page, and the environmental content (6) E6 is, for example, environment information for drawing the drawing content (1) D1, that is,
If the drawing content (1) D1 is image data drawing such as photographic data, it is environmental information such as input resolution and input color signal, and the environmental content (3) E3 is environmental information indicating the second page, for example. . In this way, the environment content and the drawing content extracted from the command sequence of the print job are input to the resource dependency analysis unit 144, and the environment parameter for each page and the dependency of the drawing command sequence are analyzed. An example of analysis by the resource dependency analysis unit 144 is shown below.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the dependencies analyzed by the resource dependency analysis unit. The resource dependency analysis unit 144 analyzes the dependency between the environmental parameters for each page and the drawing command sequence extracted by the document structure analysis unit 143 to determine the dependency of the environmental content required for the rasterization process for each rendering content. Will be expressed as shown. Although the environmental contents (7) E7 under the environmental contents (5) E5 are shown in the right diagram of FIG. 8, this is inherited from the environmental contents (7) E7 under the environmental contents (4) E4. It is a thing.

After the analysis by the resource dependency analysis unit 144 is completed, the spatial coherence analysis unit 145 then extracts spatially independent image groups within the same page and analyzes the overlapping relationship within the image groups. Be seen. Here, an example of a document in which there are spatially independent image groups in the same page and there is an overlapping relationship in the image groups is shown below.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of an independent image group and a document having an overlapping relationship in the image group. According to the illustrated example, the rendering content is divided into three groups and displayed with different types of rasterizing processing. That is, the drawing content t indicating the text image,
The drawing content g indicates a graphic image, and the drawing content im indicates an image image such as a photograph. In addition, a serial number is attached to each drawing content group for easy understanding, but it may be a serial number that does not depend on the content type.

In this figure, one page has a drawing content g1, a drawing content im1 and a drawing content im2. The drawing content g1, the drawing content t1, the drawing content t4 and the drawing content t6 are overlapped, and the drawing content g1. And drawing content i
drawing content t2, drawing content t3 on m1,
The drawing content t5 is overlaid, and the drawing content g2 is overlaid on the drawing content im2. Here, the drawing content im2 and the drawing content g2
Forms one image group, and all other drawing contents spatially independent of this image group form another image group.

In a document having a drawing content overlapping relationship as shown in FIG. 9, such a drawing content overlapping relationship can be expressed as follows.
FIG. 10 is a diagram showing independent image groups and the overlapping relationship within the image groups.

In FIG. 10, the entire page corresponds to one page, and the image formed by the drawing content at the start of the arrow is overwritten on the image formed by the drawing content at the start point of the arrow. Is shown.

After such spatial coherence analysis by the spatial coherence analysis unit 145, the drawing content sequence is input to the print job fragment generation unit 146 so as to be rasterized by a plurality of arithmetic processing devices. A detailed configuration example of the print job fragment generation unit 146 is shown below.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing the arrangement of the print job fragment generator. In the figure, the print job fragment generation unit 146 includes a spatial coherence analysis unit 14
5, a drawing content discriminating unit 1461 that discriminates a drawing content type by receiving the rendering content whose spatial coherence is analyzed, and an image load predicting unit 146 that predicts a load when the discernible drawing content type is an image.
2, a graphic load prediction unit 1463 that predicts a load when the drawing content type is graphic, a text load prediction unit 1464 that predicts a load when the drawing content type is text, and a job fragment based on the load prediction. And a job division / fragment tag generation unit 1465 for generating a fragment tag and a process scheduling / tag table generation unit 1466. Here, the image load prediction unit 1462 and the graphic load prediction unit 1
Details of the 463 and the text load prediction unit 1464 are shown below.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram showing a more detailed configuration example of the load prediction unit. In the figure, the image load prediction unit 1462 refers to another file server when the number of pixels to be rasterized, the input color signal, and the image to be rasterized from the corresponding environmental content are OPI based on the drawing content and resource dependency information. whether,
Parameters such as are extracted and the standard processing time is predicted by referring to the standard processing time table for load prediction.
Similarly, the text load prediction unit 1464 extracts font parameters such as font size and number of fonts to be rasterized, refers to the standard processing time for load prediction, and predicts the standard processing time. Further, the graphic load prediction unit 1463 extracts the graphic parameter of each graphic operator, refers to the processing time evaluation library for each graphic operator, and predicts the standard processing time.

Further, the standard processing time table and the processing time evaluation library used for the load prediction are for the standard processor and are different from the actual processing time in the arithmetic processing unit. The processing time in the actual arithmetic processing device is the processing scheduling / tag table generation unit 14
At 66, the CPU speed performance of each arithmetic processing unit and the presence or absence of an accelerator are determined. In addition, the load predicting units 1462, 1463, and 1464 predict the processing time and the processing storage amount necessary for the rasterizing process for each drawing content by parameter analysis at the same time.

Next, in the job division / fragment tag generation unit 1465, the spatial coherence analysis and load prediction units 1462, 1463, 146 by the spatial coherence analysis unit 145 are performed.
Based on the estimated processing time for each drawing content according to 4,
The drawing content group is divided into job fragments and the fragment tag attached to each job fragment is generated. A configuration example of this fragment tag is shown below.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a fragment tag. In the figure, the fragment tag 147 is
Identifier, table identifier, job issuing device, allocation destination, printing device, paper type identifier, paper size identifier, standard processing time prediction value, required storage amount prediction value, synchronization destination fragment identifier, job type, layout, and page number Has been done. The identifier is this fragment tag 14
7 is an identifier for identifying the table 7, and the table identifier is an identifier for the tag table. The job issuing device address is described in the job issuing device, the job fragment allocation destination address is described in the allocation destination, and the printing device address is described in the printing device. Paper type identifiers are 0 / plain paper, 1 /
OHP is described and the paper size identifier is 0 / A
6,1 / A5,2 / A4,3 / A3,4 / A2,5 / B
6, 6 / B5, 7 / B4, 8 / B3, 9 / B2 are described. As the standard processing time prediction value and the required storage capacity prediction value, the prediction time and the prediction storage capacity in the load predicting units 1462, 1463, 1464 are described. The synchronization destination fragment identifier describes the identifier of another fragment that should wait for completion when executing a fragment, and is "-1" when there is no such fragment to be waited for.
Is described. The job type indicates the fragment processing type, and its value is 1: raster operation,
It means 2: graphics, 3: font, -1: raster operation (test run), -2: graphics (test run), -3: font (test run). The arrangement describes the information indicating the coordinate points (lower left point and upper right point) of the circumscribed rectangle of the image object generated by the fragment implementation, and the page number describes the page number where the fragment exists. Among these, the table identifier, the allocation destination, and the value of the printing device are determined by the processing scheduling / tag table generation unit 1466 and added. In addition, the arrangement information is also added after the rasterizing process of each arithmetic unit.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing an example of the structure of the tag table. In the figure, the tag table 148 includes an identifier, a job identifier, a job issuing device, a printing device,
Single-sided / double-sided identifier, paper type identifier, paper size identifier, post-processing identifier, total number of pages, and synchronization destination fragment identifier corresponding to the job fragment, processing state, arithmetic processing unit, standard estimated time, arithmetic It is composed of an estimated device time, an estimated storage amount, and a job type. The identifier is for identifying the tag table 148, and the job identifier is the identifier of the job including the job fragment. The job issuing device address is described in the job issuing device, and the printing device address is described in the printing device. For single-sided / double-sided identifiers, 0 / duplex, 1 /
One side is described, and as the paper type identifier and the paper size identifier, the values defined by the fragment tag 147 are described. Post-processing identifiers are 0 / none, 1 / collation, 2 /
One of stepper stop, 3 / binding, 4 / bag packing, and -1 / in trouble is described. The processing status indicates the processing progress status of the fragment, and its values are described as 0: not received, 1: reception completed (processing in progress), 2: processing completed, 3: collected. The address is described in the arithmetic processing unit. Returning to FIG. 11, the processing scheduling / tag table generation unit 1466 allocates each job fragment to the arithmetic processing devices, specifies the printing device to output, and generates a tag table based on the results of the job fragment generation and addition to the fragment tag. Enter the data. Regarding distribution of each job fragment to the arithmetic processing units, after the arithmetic processing units to be processed and distributed are determined based on the load state and service state of each arithmetic processing unit in the rasterization processing resource information table of the resource information database 133, each calculation is performed. The processing unit to which each job fragment is distributed is determined by the CPU speed of the processing unit, the presence / absence of an accelerator, the network transfer rate, the usable memory size, the type of each job fragment, the estimated standard processing time, and the estimated required storage amount. . In addition, the resource information database 133
On the basis of the print resource information table, the user of the client determines whether or not the printing device designated in advance can output, and the printing device to output is determined.

Here, an example in which a document having an overlapping relationship as shown in FIG. 9 is divided into job fragments, and a synchronization relationship in the tag table is shown below.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing an example of dividing a job related to the document of FIG. 9 into job fragments. As shown in the figure, each of the job fragments F1 to F6 is a set of drawing contents of the same type that have no spatial interference relationship and environment contents attached to the drawing contents. That is, the job fragments F1 to F4 are respectively the drawing contents g1 and im having no spatial interference relationship.
1, im2, g2 and their environmental contents, and the job fragments F5 and F6 are the drawing contents g1, and the drawing contents t1, t4, t6 and their environmental contents that interfere with the drawing contents g1 and im1. And a set of drawing contents t2, t3, t5 and their environmental contents. In this way, the job fragment divided by the print job dividing unit 14 is transferred to the print job transferring unit 15 in the next stage.
From the above, fragment tags are respectively added as headers and transferred as a set of job fragments to the rasterization processing units 16, 26 and 36.

FIG. 16 shows the tag table of the divided job fragments. According to the tag table T for job fragments F1 to F6 shown in FIG. 15, fragment identifiers are registered corresponding to the respective job fragments F1 to F6, and synchronization destination fragment identifiers are described in each. That is, regarding the job fragments F1, F2, and F3, since there is no other job fragment to wait for completion in executing these, "-1" is described as the synchronization destination fragment identifier. Since the job fragment F4 needs to wait for the completion of the job fragment F3, its fragment identifier is described. The job fragment F5 waits for the completion of the job fragment F1, and the job fragment F6 is the job fragments F1 and F.
Since it is necessary to wait for the completion of step 2, each fragment identifier is described.

Next, an example of the construction of the rasterization processing units 16, 26, 36 for executing the job fragments transferred by the print job transfer unit 15 will be described. Assuming that the rasterization processing units 16, 26, and 36 have the same configuration, the rasterization processing unit 16 of the arithmetic processing device 10 will be described as an example here.

FIG. 17 is a block diagram showing an example of the arrangement of the rasterize processing section. In the figure, the rasterization processing unit 16 includes a job fragment temporary storage unit 161, a Postscript interpreter unit 162, an imager unit 163, a compression processing unit 164, and a pixel information transfer control unit 1.
65, a color conversion hardware accelerator 166,
It is composed of a JPEG compression hardware accelerator 167 and a pixel information temporary storage unit 168.

The job fragment temporary storage unit 161 stores
A storage unit for temporarily storing the job fragment transferred from the print job transfer unit 15 of the arithmetic processing device 10. The Postscript interpreter unit 162 interprets the environment content and the drawing content of the job fragment and converts them into code data that can be interpreted by the imager unit 163 in the next stage. The imager unit 163 is a block that is the center of the rasterizing process, and converts the code data into raster image data corresponding to the designated image printing apparatus. The compression processing unit 164 compresses the raster image data in order to transfer the raster image data to the designated printing device via the network 40, and the compression adopts the best compression method according to the job type. .
The pixel information transfer control unit 165 notifies the designated printing device of the end of the rasterizing process, and also, in response to a pixel information transfer request from the printing device, the pixel information temporary storage unit 168.
From the pixel information to the printing device. The color conversion hardware accelerator 166 is a circuit for performing high-speed color conversion for each pixel, which requires processing time in the imager unit 163. The JPEG compression hardware accelerator 167 is effective for an image image whose compression efficiency cannot be improved by simple run-length compression because the data is different between adjacent pixels.
This is a circuit for processing PEG compression at high speed.

JPEG is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
By Joint Photographic Codin
g Experts Group is an abbreviation for JPEG
The compression encoding method is DCT (discrete cos).
This is a variable-length coding system called an in Transform system. For details, see, for example, Journal of the Institute of Image Electronics Engineers of Japan, Vol. 18, No. 6, 398-407. The pixel information temporary storage unit 168 is a storage unit that stores the compressed raster image data as pixel information together with the fragment tag and the compression information header.

The rasterization processing section 16 is provided with a color conversion hardware accelerator 166 and a JPEG compression hardware accelerator 167 in order to reduce the amount of network data transfer and high-speed rasterization processing in image processing. It is specially added according to the processing purpose, and does not show a block diagram of all rasterization processing units.

Next, the structure of the pixel information for each job type of which the fragment type is text, graphics and image, the corresponding compressed data format, and the structure of the pixel information header will be described.

FIG. 18 is a diagram showing a configuration example of pixel information for each job type, a compressed data format, and a configuration of a pixel information header. In the figure, each type of pixel information is composed of a fragment tag, a pixel information header, Mask data, and Color data. Further, Color data is a ConstantColor data, an image for a text image and a graphics (graphic) image. For an image, it is composed of Sampled Color data. Here, the Mask data is binary data indicating the shape, and the Constant Color data is the same Color such as text or graphics.
Color data with consecutive values, Sampled Co
The color data indicates Color data having different Color data values between adjacent pixels. For details, see, for example, “Interpress” (Steven J. et al.
Harrington and Robert R.
Buckley, A BloodyK (US
A), 1988).

Regarding the image data portion of pixel information,
Mask data is run-length compressed, Constant
Color data is run-length compressed, Sample
The dColor data is JPEG compressed. The pixel information header is a Colo such as YMCK or RGB.
r data type, C corresponding to Color data type
Number of color data, presence / absence of data compression, Mask data start address, start address of each Color data,
The Mask data size and the size of each Color data are described. The printer to which the pixel information of the next stage is transferred refers to the pixel information header and performs restoration processing to raster image data.

Here, the job fragment F1 of FIG.
.. to F6 are represented as follows by the configuration of pixel information for each job type as described above. FIG. 19 is a conceptual diagram of pixel information corresponding to a job fragment.

In the figure, the identifier shown in FIG. 15 is 0.
Job fragments F1 to F6 of 001h to 0006h
According to the pixel information of, the job data F1 and F4 to F6 whose fragment types are Text and Graphics in Color data are Constan
t Color data, Sample for job fragments F2 and F3 whose fragment type is image
It is d Color data.

Pixel information that has been rasterized and compressed by a plurality of rasterization processing units for each of the job fragments F1 to F6 is collected by the print job collection unit 51 of the printing device 50 via the network 40 and restored to raster image data. Processing is performed. A configuration example of the print job collection unit 51 will be described.

FIG. 20 is a block diagram showing an example of the arrangement of the print job collection unit of the printing apparatus. In the figure, the print job collection unit 51 includes a job collection management unit 511, a pixel information expansion unit 512, a pixel information buffer 513, and an image information restoration unit 5.
14, JPEG restoration hardware accelerator 51
5, page memory 516. The job collection management unit 511 manages the tag table transferred from the print job transfer unit 15, and the processing status identifier for each job fragment in the tag table is notified by the rasterization processing end notification transferred from the rasterization processing unit of each arithmetic processing unit. To update. Also, the job collection management unit 511
Process scheduling of the print job dividing unit 14 /
A job identifier acquisition request is output after the printer to be output is determined in the tag table generation unit 1466, and the job identifier is also transferred in response to the job identifier acquisition request. Further, the image information rasterization unit 512 performs rasterization of each arithmetic processing unit via the job collection management unit 511 after the rasterization processing of the job fragment for at least one page is completed or after the rasterization processing of the entire job fragment is completed. Pixel information transfer requests are sequentially output to the processing unit based on the synchronization destination fragment identifier information of the tag table, fetched in the pixel information buffer 513, and raster image data is expanded in the page memory 516 via the image information restoration unit 514. In addition, the pixel information expansion unit 512 outputs a print request to the printer device 52 after the raster image data for the job fragment of the entire page is completed, and outputs the page data. Further, after the print output of the entire job is completed, the job output end notification is transferred to the arithmetic processing device (client device) 10 and each arithmetic processing device via the job collection management unit 511. The image information decompression unit 514 decompresses the compressed data of the pixel information based on the pixel information header, and the JPEG decompression hardware accelerator 515 decompresses the JPEG compressed image image data.

Next, the overall operation of the print processing system including the above-described components will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 21 is an operation explanatory diagram of the print processing system.

The user of the arithmetic processing unit (client unit) 10 uses the document creation program to print the job 12
Is created and output to the printing device 50 is instructed. The print job 12 is divided by the print job dividing unit 14 into a plurality of print job fragments based on the resource information database of the resource information management unit 13, and a fragment tag and a tag table are created. Further, prior to the creation of the tag table, the printing apparatus 5 determined by the print job dividing unit 14
A job identifier acquisition request is output to 0 to obtain a job identifier. In the print job transfer unit 15, the print job fragment and the fragment tag include a plurality of arithmetic processing devices 10 and 2 including an arithmetic processing device (client device) 10.
The tag table is transferred to the job collection management unit 61 in the print job collection unit 51 of the printing apparatus 50.

The print job fragments transferred to the plurality of arithmetic processing units are sequentially rasterized and compressed by the rasterization processing unit based on the fragment tag information to generate pixel information for each print job fragment.
It is temporarily stored in the pixel information temporary storage unit 168. continue,
The rasterization processing end notification is transferred from the pixel information transfer control section 165 of the rasterization processing section to the job collection management section 511 of the print job collection section 51 of the printing device 50. The job collection management unit 511 of the print job collection unit 51 changes the processing state of the tag table. After the rasterization processing for each page or all is completed, the job collection management unit 511 collects the pixel information from the pixel information temporary storage unit 168 in the plurality of arithmetic processing devices based on the synchronization destination fragment identifier of the tag table to obtain the pixel information. The pixel information expansion unit 512 stores it in the buffer 513, restores it in the image information restoration unit 514, expands it in the page memory 516, and outputs it in the printer device 52.

After the output of all pages to the printer device is completed, the pixel information expansion unit 512 notifies the job collection management unit 511 and also the client device and other arithmetic processing units via the job collection management unit 511 of the completion of the job. To do. Subsequently, the print job fragment, the fragment tag, the tag table, and the pixel information regarding the job are discarded in the job collection management unit 511, the client device, and the other arithmetic processing device.

As described above, according to the present invention, in a print processing system in which a plurality of arithmetic processing devices are loosely coupled via a network, the rasterized print pixel information is transferred only once over the network, which is a comparison with the prior art. As a result, it is possible to shorten the time until print output without increasing the network traffic. Further, in the print processing system of the present invention, since one page can be divided into a plurality of print job fragments, even a job with a small number of pages can be rasterized by a plurality of arithmetic processing devices. It is possible to use the processing resources effectively.

[Second Embodiment] Here, claim 3
A print processing system according to the described invention will be described. The difference from the first embodiment is the part related to the collection of pixel information, and the overall conceptual configuration is the same as the configuration example of FIG. 2 relating to the first embodiment. The detailed block diagram of the rasterization processing units 16, 26, 36 related to this example is also the same as that of FIG. 17, but the operations of the pixel transfer control unit 165 and the pixel information temporary storage unit 168 are the same as those of the first embodiment. Different from That is, after the print job fragment is converted into raster image data, compression processing is performed, and the compressed raster image data is temporarily stored as pixel information together with a fragment tag and a compression information header.
This is the same as the embodiment. However, in the first embodiment, after the rasterization processing is completed, the pixel information regarding a plurality of print job fragments is temporarily stored until it is collected from the print job collection unit 51 of the printing device 50, whereas in the second embodiment. In this embodiment, the pixel information is transferred to the print job collecting unit 51 immediately after the rasterizing process completion notification is given to the print job collecting unit 51. The rasterization processing unit 16 transferred to the print job collection unit 51,
The pixel information of 26 and 36 is discarded.

FIG. 22 is a block diagram showing an example of the arrangement of the print job collection unit of the printing apparatus in the second embodiment of the printing system of the present invention. In the figure, the block diagram (FIG. 20) of the print job collection unit 51 of the printing apparatus 50 according to the first embodiment is different in that the pixel information buffer 513 is replaced by the pixel information temporary storage unit 517. .
That is, in this example, as described above, the rasterization processing unit 1
The pixel information corresponding to each print job fragment needs to be temporarily stored because the pixel information is transferred to the print job collecting unit 51 immediately after the rasterization processing in 6, 26, and 36. Image information development unit 5
12 indicates the pixel information sequentially based on the synchronization destination fragment identifier information of the tag table after the temporary storage of the pixel information of the job fragment for at least one page is completed or the temporary storage of the pixel information of the entire job fragment is completed. Image information restoration unit 514
The raster image data is expanded in the page memory 516 via the, the print request is output to the printer device 52, and the page data is output. Further, after the print output of the entire job is completed, the arithmetic processing unit (client unit) 10
The job output end notification is transferred to the job collection management unit 511.

FIG. 23 shows the second part of the print processing system of the present invention.
6 is an explanatory diagram of an operation in the embodiment of FIG. As shown in the figure, the same operation as that of the first embodiment is performed until the rasterizing process. Immediately after the rasterization processing, the pixel information is transferred to the image information temporary storage unit 517 of the print job collection unit 51. The transferred pixel information in the pixel information temporary storage unit 168 of the rasterization processing unit is discarded. The pixel information transferred to the print job collection unit 51 is temporarily stored in the image information temporary storage unit 517, and after all the temporary storage of the job fragment pixel information for at least one page is completed, or the pixels of the entire job fragment are stored. After the temporary storage of information is completed, the pixel information is expanded and output to the printer device 52. After that, the tag table is discarded, and the pixel information in the pixel information temporary storage unit 517 is discarded.

According to this print processing system, since the storage resources of the rasterized pixel information can be centrally managed, it is not necessary to constantly manage the storage resources of a plurality of arithmetic processing units, and the system configuration is reduced. Will be simpler.

[Third Embodiment] Here, claim 4
A print processing system according to the invention of claim 6 will be described.

FIG. 24 shows the third part of the print processing system of the present invention.
It is a block diagram showing an embodiment. According to the print processing system of FIG. 1, the print job management unit 28 is provided in one of the plurality of arithmetic processing devices, here the arithmetic processing device 20, in the first and second embodiments. Different from the print processing system.

The print job management unit 28 temporarily stores the print job fragment transferred by the print job transfer unit 15, the tag table and the fragment tag, and manages the permission / end of the print job and the end of each print job fragment. To do. Further, in the first and second embodiments, it is configured to manage the entire print processing system, such as generation of a job identifier performed by the printing device 50. The operation of the system will be described below with reference to the operation explanatory diagram.

FIG. 25 shows the third part of the print processing system of the present invention.
6 is an explanatory diagram of an operation in the embodiment of FIG. In the figure, the user of the arithmetic processing device (client device) 10 creates a print job 12 using the document creation program 11,
The output to the printing device 50 is instructed. The print job 12 is
The print job dividing unit 14 divides the print job into a plurality of print job fragments based on the resource information database of the resource information management unit 13, and creates a fragment tag and a tag table. Also, prior to the creation of the tag table, a job identifier acquisition request is output to the print job management unit 28 to obtain the job identifier. In the print job transfer unit 15, the print job fragment, the fragment tag, and the tag table are transferred to the print job management unit 28, and at the same time, the print job fragment and the fragment tag include a plurality of arithmetic processing devices including the arithmetic processing device (client device) 10. 1
At 0, 20, and 30, the tag table is transferred to the print job collection unit 51 of the printing device 50. After transfer to each device, the print job fragment, fragment tag, and tag table of the arithmetic processing device (client device) 10 are discarded.

The print job fragments transferred to the plurality of arithmetic processing units are sequentially rasterized and compressed by the rasterization processing unit 16 based on the fragment tag information to generate pixel information for each print job fragment, and the pixel information temporary storage unit. It is temporarily stored in 168. Next, the pixel information transfer control unit 165 to the print job management unit 2
The rasterization processing end notification is transferred to the print job management unit 8 and is further transferred from the print job management unit 28 to the print job collection unit 51. Print job management unit 28 and print job collection unit 51
Then, the processing state of the tag table is changed, and the print job collecting unit 51 immediately transfers the pixel information to the pixel information temporary storage unit 517 of the print job collecting unit 51. 1
After receiving the pixel information for each page or all the pixels, the pixel information expansion unit 512 of the print job collection unit 51 uses the pixel information temporary storage unit 517 to store the pixels based on the synchronization destination fragment identifier of the tag table of the job collection management unit 511. The information is collected, developed in the page memory 516, and output by the printer device 52.

After the output of all pages to the printer device is completed, the pixel information expansion section 512 notifies the job collection management section 511 and the print job management section 28 via the job collection management section 511 of the completion of the job. Then, in the print job collection unit 51 and the print job management unit 28,
The print job fragment, fragment tag, tag table, and pixel information regarding the job are discarded.

Note that the printing system according to the present embodiment is advantageous over other printing systems in the case of error processing. In the print job management unit 28, after each print job fragment is transferred to a plurality of arithmetic processing devices, after α times of the estimated processing time described in the tag table (α is a safety coefficient and varies depending on the job type), When the rasterization processing end notification is not transmitted from the arithmetic processing device that is performing the rasterization process of each print job fragment, the processing state is inquired to the arithmetic processing device. The print job management unit 28 determines whether to continue the processing, read the print job fragment from the temporary storage and retransfer it, or transfer it to another arithmetic processing unit, depending on the processing status. When transferred to another arithmetic processing device, the tag table in which the management information of the print job is described is rewritten and the tag table transferred to the printing device is rewritten. The operation of this error processing is described below.

FIG. 26 is an operation explanatory diagram of error processing of the printing system. As shown in the figure, the print job management unit 28 includes a rasterization processing status management unit 281 in which the transfer of the rasterization processing end notification is monitored from the arithmetic processing unit that is rasterizing the print job fragment, and the tag table is displayed. Α of the estimated processing time described in
If there is no notification within the doubled time, the operation processing device is inquired about the rasterization processing status. Here, if there is a notification that the rasterization processing is impossible, the rasterization processing status management unit 281 changes the tag table and requests another arithmetic processing device to perform the rasterization processing of the fragment. The requested arithmetic processing unit performs rasterization processing of the transferred fragments. The rasterization processing status management unit 281 transfers the changed tag table to the job collection management unit 511 of the print job collection unit 51. When the rasterization processing in the other arithmetic processing device is completed, the rasterization processing status management unit 281 is notified of the rasterization processing completion, and the rasterization processing status management unit 281 confirms the rasterization processing completion to the job collection management unit 511.

Therefore, in the print processing system provided with the print job management unit 28, it is possible to centrally process the error handling, so that the output of the print job can be surely obtained.

[Fourth Embodiment] FIG. 27 is a block diagram showing a print processing system according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

Here, the configuration of another print processing system different from the third embodiment according to the present invention will be described. In the print processing system shown in FIG. 1, a dedicated arithmetic processing device, here, the arithmetic processing device 10 includes a resource information management unit 13, a print job dividing unit 14, and a print job transfer unit 1.
5, a rasterization processing unit 16 and a print job management unit 18 are provided, and the document creation program 2 is stored in a client device, here, an arithmetic processing device (client device) 20.
1. Rasterization processing unit 26 and resource information management unit 23
Is provided. That is, the arithmetic processing unit 10 is provided with the print job management unit 18 and is a dedicated arithmetic processing unit for managing the permission / division / termination of the print job. Further, in this print processing system, a print job 22 is created by the document creation program 21 provided in the arithmetic processing device (client device) 20, and the print job dividing unit 14 of the arithmetic processing device 10 prints the print job 22. Each print job fragment is rasterized by the rasterization processing units 16, 26 and 36, and the partial image information subjected to the rasterization processing is printed together with the fragment tag through the network 40 through the network 40. Collected by the collecting unit 51, partial image information is combined based on the collected fragment tags and the tag table that has been transferred in advance to obtain the entire image information, and the whole image information is output to the printer device 52.

[0085]

As described above, according to the present invention,
In a print processing system in which a plurality of arithmetic processing devices are loosely coupled via a network, when a print job fragment is generated by a print job dividing unit, a fragment tag describing print job fragment management information and a print job at the time of dividing / scheduling A tag table describing management information of the printer is generated, the tag table is transferred to the printing apparatus, the rasterized print pixel information is transferred to the printing apparatus together with the fragment tag, and the printing apparatus individually uses the fragment tag and the tag table. The whole image information is obtained by combining the partial image information rasterized. As a result, the rasterized print pixel information is transferred to the network only once, and it is possible to shorten the time until print output without increasing the network traffic, as compared with the conventional technique. Further, in the print processing system of the present invention, since one page can be divided into a plurality of print job fragments, even a job with a small number of pages can be rasterized by a plurality of arithmetic processing devices, and the rasterization processing of the entire system can be performed. It is possible to use resources effectively.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle configuration diagram of a print processing system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of a print processing system of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of a resource information management unit.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a rasterization processing resource information table of a resource information database.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a print resource information table of a resource information database.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a print job dividing unit of the arithmetic processing device.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a concept of a document structure extracted by a document structure analysis unit.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a dependency analyzed by a resource dependency analyzing unit.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of an independent image group and a document having an overlapping relationship in the image group.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an independent image group and an overlapping relationship in the image group.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a print job fragment generation unit.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating a more detailed configuration example of a load prediction unit.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a fragment tag.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a tag table.

FIG. 15 is a diagram showing an example of dividing a job related to the document of FIG. 9 into job fragments.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing a tag table of divided job fragments.

FIG. 17 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a rasterization processing unit.

FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of pixel information for each job type, a compressed data format, and a configuration example of a pixel information header.

FIG. 19 is a conceptual diagram of pixel information corresponding to a job fragment.

FIG. 20 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a print job collection unit of the printing apparatus.

FIG. 21 is a diagram illustrating the operation of the print processing system.

FIG. 22 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration example of a print job collection unit of the printing apparatus according to the second embodiment of the printing system of the present invention.

FIG. 23 is an operation explanatory diagram of the print processing system according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 24 is a block diagram showing a third embodiment of the print processing system of the present invention.

FIG. 25 is an operation explanatory diagram of the print processing system according to the third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 26 is an operation explanatory diagram of error processing of the printing system.

FIG. 27 is a block diagram showing a fourth embodiment of the print processing system of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1a, 1b, ... Arithmetic processing device 2 Printing devices 3a, 3b, ... Resource information managing means 4 Print job dividing means 5 Print job transferring means 6 Rasterizing processing means 7 Print job collecting means 10, 20, 30 Arithmetic processing Device 12 Print job 11 Document creation program 13 Resource information management unit 14 Print job division unit 15 Print job transfer unit 16 Rasterization processing unit 17 Transmission / reception unit 23,33 Resource information management unit 26,36 Rasterization processing unit 27,37 Transmission / reception unit 57 Transmission / reception Part 51 Print job collecting part 52 Printer device

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A print processing system in which a rasterization process for obtaining pixel information for printing from a source file describing a print job is performed by a plurality of arithmetic processing devices loosely coupled via a network, A resource information management unit that manages rasterization processing resource information necessary for performing a rasterization process in a processing device, and a plurality of print job fragments that divide and schedule a print job based on the rasterization processing resource information, A print job dividing unit that generates a tag table in which print job management information is described at the time of scheduling and a fragment tag in which management information for each print job fragment is described; and a plurality of operations for the print job fragment and the fragment tag Transfer to processing unit A print job transfer unit that sends the tag table to the designated printing device, and a plurality of rasterization processes that are provided in each arithmetic processing unit and that rasterize the print job fragments transferred by the print job transfer unit. Means for collecting partial pixel information rasterized in each of the plurality of arithmetic processing devices together with the corresponding fragment tag, and transferred by the collected fragment tag and the print job transfer means. A print job collecting unit that obtains overall pixel information by combining partial pixel information based on the tag table. 2. A temporary storage unit provided in each arithmetic processing unit for temporarily storing pixel information rasterized for each print job fragment until being transferred to the printing unit, and each arithmetic processing unit provided with a temporary storage unit. Rasterization processing is performed from a plurality of arithmetic processing units based on means for notifying the print job collecting means of the end of rasterization processing of each print job fragment and job scheduling information of the tag table provided in the print job collecting means. The pixel information expanding means for collecting the pixel information and expanding it on the page memory is further provided.
The print processing system described. 3. A unit provided in each arithmetic processing unit for transferring the pixel information rasterized for each print job fragment and the corresponding fragment tag to the printing unit upon completion of the rasterization process, and the print job collecting unit. And temporary storage means for temporarily storing pixel information and fragment tags transferred from a plurality of arithmetic processing units, and the temporary storage means provided in the print job collection means and stored in the temporary storage means based on the job scheduling information in the tag table. The print processing system according to claim 1, further comprising pixel information expanding means for expanding the pixel information thus created on a page memory. 4. A print processing system in which a rasterization process for obtaining pixel information for printing from a source file describing a print job is performed by a plurality of arithmetic processing devices loosely coupled via a network. A resource information management unit that manages rasterization processing resource information necessary for performing a rasterization process in a processing device, and a plurality of print job fragments that divide and schedule a print job based on the rasterization processing resource information and generate A print job dividing unit that generates a tag table in which print job management information is described at the time of scheduling and a fragment tag in which management information for each print job fragment is described; and a plurality of operations for the print job fragment and the fragment tag Transfer to processing unit A print job transfer unit that sends the tag table to the designated printing device, and a print job fragment generated by the print job dividing unit and transferred via the print job transfer unit, a tag table, and a fragment. A print job management unit that temporarily stores the tag and manages the permission / end of print jobs and the end of each print job fragment, and notifies the designated printing device of the end of each print job fragment, and each arithmetic processing. A plurality of rasterizing processing units provided in the apparatus for rasterizing the print job fragments transferred by the print job transferring unit; and partial rasterizing processing units provided in the printing apparatus and rasterized in the plurality of arithmetic processing units. Collect pixel information with corresponding fragment tags A print job collection unit that obtains overall pixel information by combining partial pixel information based on the tag table transferred from the print job management unit and the collected fragment tag. Print processing system. 5. A temporary storage unit provided in each arithmetic processing unit for temporarily storing pixel information rasterized for each print job fragment until being transferred to the printing unit, and each arithmetic processing unit provided with a temporary storage unit. Means for notifying the print job management means of the end of rasterization processing of each print job fragment, and pixel information rasterized by a plurality of arithmetic processing devices based on the job scheduling information of the tag table provided in the print job collection means 5. The print processing system according to claim 4, further comprising: a pixel information expanding unit that collects the data and expands it on a page memory. 6. A unit provided in each arithmetic processing unit for transferring pixel information rasterized for each print job fragment and a corresponding fragment tag to the printing unit upon completion of the rasterization process, and a unit provided in the print job collecting unit. And temporary storage means for temporarily storing pixel information and fragment tags transferred from a plurality of arithmetic processing units, and the temporary storage means provided in the print job collection means and stored in the temporary storage means based on the job scheduling information in the tag table. 5. The print processing system according to claim 4, further comprising pixel information expanding means for expanding the extracted pixel information on a page memory.