JPH09238209A - Image input/output system, image reader and its control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image input output system having each function of copying, facsimile transfer and printing or the like, the image reader and its control method for the user at a low cost by realizing the image input output system having each function of copying, facsimile transfer and printing or the like through the combination of a host device, an image reader and a printer. SOLUTION: In the case that a host device 100, an image scanner 200, and a printer 300 and they are in operation as print system components, the image scanner 200 transfers data from the host device 100 to the printer 300. In the case of operating the system as a copying machine, an image read by the image scanner 200 is printed out by the printer 300. In the operating the system as a facsimile equipment, the image read from the image scanner 200 is sent to the host device 100, from which the image is sent to a telephone network via a MODEM 400 at transmission and received data are printed out in the same gist as that with the case with the operation of the print system at reception.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention is a combination of a host device such as a host computer having a communication function, an image reading device such as an image scanner, and a printing device such as a printer, and a printing system, a copying system, a facsimile system, etc. The present invention relates to an image input / output system, an image reading apparatus, and a control method therefor, which realize many functions of all image input / output.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a copying machine is used for copying documents, a facsimile machine is used for transmitting and receiving documents through a telephone line, and a printing system in which a host computer and a printer are connected for printing documents. In this way, different hardware configurations were used depending on the functions.

[0003]

However, although the conventional apparatus uses the same device for the image input unit and the image output unit of the copying machine, the facsimile apparatus, and the printing system, each function is realized by different hardware. Therefore, there is a problem that the user has to purchase separate hardware to use each function, resulting in an increase in cost.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and realizes image input / output functions such as copying, facsimile, and printing with a combination of a host device, an image reading device, and a printing device. It is an object of the present invention to provide a user with an image input / output system and an image reading apparatus having the above-mentioned functions at low cost and a control method thereof.

[0005]

The image input / output system of the present invention which achieves the above object has the following configuration.
That is, a host system, an image reading device, and a printing device are provided, and by appropriately combining the respective devices, a printing system that prints out data from the host device by the printing device, and the image reading device. It functions as a copying system that prints out the read image data by the printing device, and a facsimile system that sends the image read by the image reading device through the communication means of the host device.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. (First Embodiment) FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the configuration of a computer system (multifunction system) according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG.
Is a host computer such as a workstation (WS) or a personal computer (PC), and provides a user with a work environment such as a word processor or a spreadsheet.
A modem 400 can be installed in the host computer 100 as an option. The host computer 100 is controlled by the CPU 103 executing a program stored in the main memory 102. Further, it is provided with an external memory 101 for storing or supplying programs and data, and an I / O interface 104 for connecting to peripheral devices.

The image scanner 200 has at least two
More than one I / F is provided, and each I / F line 500,
It is possible to connect to the host computer 100 and the printer 300 via 501. The printer 300 receives a control language (hereinafter, page description language) unique to the printer and creates an output image based on the control language (hereinafter, page description language printer type), and a type that directly receives the output image (hereinafter, image). Printer type) and a configuration that can operate as either type.

In the multi-function system configured as described above, a case of realizing a printing system will be described first. In FIG. 1, a document, drawing, or the like created by the host computer 100 is converted by a printer driver software installed in the host computer 100 into a page description language consisting of print information (character code, etc.), form information, or macro instructions, It is sent to the image scanner 200 via the signal line 500.

The flow of data in the page description language input to the image scanner 200 will be described below with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the image scanner 200. In the figure, reference numeral 230 is an operation panel, and the user can operate the operation panel to perform various settings for the scanner. 212 is a CPU
Based on the control program stored in the ROM 213, the host I / F 211, the printer I / F 216, the image reading unit I / F 217, etc. connected to the system bus are collectively controlled. The control program stored in the ROM 213 includes the execution steps shown in the flowchart of FIG. The RAM 214 is a memory that stores information set from the operation panel 230 and serves as a work for the CPU 212. The image memory 215 is an image reading unit 2.
A buffer memory for temporarily storing the image read in 17.

In the image scanner 200 having the above configuration, when the page I / F 211 receives the page description language from the host computer 100, the control shown in FIG. 3 is executed. First, after performing the initialization process (step S101), the CPU 212 arranged in the control unit 210 determines that this is print data (step S102-).
(Printing), the printer I / F 216 is passed through the system bus, and is sent to the printer 300 via the signal line 501 (step S103).

The flow of data in the page description language input to the printer 300 will be described below with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the printer 300. In the figure, reference numeral 330 denotes an operation panel, which can be operated by the user to make various settings for the printer. Reference numeral 312 is a CPU, and ROM3
The control program and the output image creation program stored in 13 are executed, or the font is read. The control program stored in the ROM 313 includes the execution steps shown in the flowchart of FIG. A RAM 314 serves as a work area for the CPU 312. A page memory 315 stores print information expressed in the page description language. An image memory 316 stores the output image pattern.

In the printer 300 having the above-described configuration, when the scanner I / F 311 receives the page description language from the image scanner, the printer 300 of FIG.
Execute the control of. First, the device is initialized (step S201). When the data is received (step S202-
If YES, the video controller 310 first stores it in the page memory 315 (step S203). 1
When pages have been stored (step S204-YE
S) Next, based on the data of the page description language stored in the page memory 315, the corresponding character pattern or form pattern is read from the ROM 313, and an output image is created in the image memory 215 (step S20).
5). When the creation of the output image is completed, the video controller 310 sends the output image and the printer engine control signal to the printer engine 3 via the engine I / F 317.
20 (step S206). Then, printing is performed by a series of electrophotographic processes. In the present embodiment, the printer is the page description language printer type described above, but it may be an image printer type. The above is repeated until the page to be printed is completed.

Next, a case where a copying system is realized in the multifunction system of the present invention will be described. When a document is set on the image scanner 200, image reading is started, and it is determined that the system is operating in the copy function (step S102-copy in FIG. 3), the image scanner 200 sets the read image to the predetermined image data set. Image memory 21 in FIG.
6 and sequentially converts it into a page description language interpreted by the printer and sends it to the printer 300 (step S10).
4). At this time, the page description language after conversion is only the image description and does not include the description such as the character code.

The printer 300 receives the page description language from the image scanner and creates an output image as shown in FIG. However, in this case, since the data is received as the page description language, the page description language is converted into bitmap data when the data is stored in the page memory in step S203. After that, a series of electrophotographic processes are performed to output on recording paper so that copying can be performed. Further, by operating the printer 300 as an image printer type, the image scanner 200 may transmit the read image data as a bitmap image.
It is also possible to reduce the load on the control unit 210 of the image scanner 200.

Finally, a case of realizing a facsimile system in the multifunction system of the present invention will be described. A modem is attached to the host computer 100, and facsimile application software (hereinafter, facsimile software) is further installed. First, in the case of reception, the data sent through the public line is temporarily stored in the main memory 102 or the external memory 101 in the host computer 100 by the facsimile software. Then, the received data can be viewed on the screen of the host computer 100 by a viewer provided as a utility of the facsimile software. In addition, if it is necessary to store the received data, the received data is stored in the external memory 1 in the host computer
01, or the multifunction system may be switched to the printing system for printing.

Next, in the case of transmission, the host computer 1
If it is a document created by a 00 word processor or the like, the document data is converted into a bit map image by facsimile software, further replaced with a predetermined code for facsimile and transmitted through a public line. Further, when it is desired to read a prepared document or the like on a sheet of paper and send it, the image data may be read using the image scanner 200 and passed to the facsimile software. In the control by the scanner 200 in that case, in FIG. 3, it is first determined that the multifunction system is operating as a facsimile (step S102-facsimile), and after reading the image, it is passed to the host computer 100 (step S104). ).

The host computer 100 transmits the received image data to the public line via the modem 400. It should be noted that the operation panel 230 on the image scanner determines which function the multifunction system operates.
You can also set it in the host computer 100
You can also set from. FIG. 7 shows a control procedure by the host computer when setting from the host computer 100.

First, the operator inputs a desired function using an input device such as a keyboard of a host computer (step S71). Next, set the function
Send to the image scanner 200 (step S
72). In the image scanner 200, the settings thus transmitted are used as the judgment material in step S102 of FIG.

In this way, the functions of printing, copying and facsimile can be realized by the combination of the host computer, the image scanner and the printer. FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view showing the internal structure of a laser beam printer (hereinafter abbreviated as LBP) which is an example of the engine 320 in the printer 300 of the present embodiment. Can be printed on.

In the figure, 740 is an LBP body,
An image is formed on a recording paper, which is a recording medium, based on the supplied character pattern and the like. Reference numeral 700 denotes an operation panel on which a switch for operation, an LED display, and the like are arranged.
Is a printer control unit for controlling the entire LBP 740 and analyzing character pattern information and the like. The printer control unit 701 mainly converts character pattern information into a video signal and outputs the video signal to the laser driver 702.

The laser driver 702 is a semiconductor laser 70.
And a laser beam emitted from the semiconductor laser 703 in response to an input video signal.
04 is turned on / off. The laser beam 704 is swung right and left by a rotary polygon mirror 705 to scan on an electrostatic drum 706. Thus, an electrostatic latent image of a character pattern is formed on the electrostatic drum 706. This latent image is developed by a developing unit 707 around the electrostatic drum 706,
Transferred to recording paper. A cut sheet is used as the recording paper. The cut sheet recording paper is stored in a paper cassette 708 mounted on the LBP 740, is taken into the apparatus by a paper feed roller 709 and transport rollers 710 and 711, and is supplied to the electrostatic drum 706. Is done.

Although the laser beam printer has been described as an example of the image forming apparatus of the present embodiment, the image forming apparatus is not limited to this and is applicable to an ink jet printer described below. (Second Embodiment) Next, in the second embodiment, an OCR function (character recognition function) is added to the control unit of the image scanner when a copying system is realized, and the read document is character-recognized. The character image is converted into a character code and transmitted to an external device.

First, a case where a copying system is realized in the multifunction system of this embodiment will be described. Similar to the above-described first embodiment, when a document is set on the image scanner 200 in FIG. 1 and image reading is started, the image scanner 200 converts the read image into set predetermined image data, and in FIG. The image data is stored in the image memory 216, converted into a page description language which is sequentially interpreted by the printer while operating the OCR function, and sent to the printer 300. At this time, the page description language describes the character code, font, and size.

FIG. 6 shows a conversion procedure to the page description language. The procedure of FIG. 6 is performed in step S104 of FIG.
Executed in First, when an image is read (step S61), it is determined whether a character is recognized from the image (step S62). This criterion is the image scanner 2
00 may or may not have the character recognition function, or may be limited to the case where the character recognition function and the copy function are executed. In addition, the host computer 100
Alternatively, the setting from the operation panel 230 may be followed.
If it is determined that the character is recognized, the character recognition process is performed. This may be a known technique in which a feature is extracted from an image, and the feature is compared with a predetermined pattern to measure the degree of similarity and recognize as a character pattern (step S6).
3). When the character is recognized in this way, it is converted into the printer control language according to the character portion and the image portion (step S64).

The printer 300 includes an image scanner 20.
The page description language is received from 0, and an output image is created while reading font information and the like in the same way as in the printing system shown in the first embodiment. However, the received page description language includes a character code, a font, and a size, and when generating image data, it is necessary to convert such data into an image. Once the image has been generated, it can be copied by outputting it to recording paper by a series of electrophotographic processes. When the OCR function is provided in the image scanner and the copying system is configured as described above, the font provided in the printer is used for the character code and the like, so that a high-quality copy output independent of the image scanner resolution can be obtained.

[0026]

[Other Embodiments] Even if the present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), an apparatus (for example, a copying machine) Machine, facsimile machine, etc.). The object of the present invention is
A storage medium in which a program code of software that realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments is recorded is supplied to a system or apparatus, and the computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus reads the program code stored in the storage medium. It can also be achieved by doing.

In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention. As a storage medium for supplying the program code, for example, a floppy disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, C
A D-ROM, a CD-R, a magnetic tape, a non-volatile memory card, a ROM, etc. can be used.

Moreover, not only the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by executing the program code read by the computer, but also the OS (operating system) running on the computer based on the instructions of the program code. ) And the like perform some or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written in the memory provided in the function expansion board inserted into the computer or the function expansion unit connected to the computer, based on the instruction of the program code, This also includes a case where a CPU or the like included in the function expansion board or the function expansion unit performs some or all of the actual processing and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

[0030]

As described above, according to the image input / output system, the image reading apparatus and the control method thereof of the present invention, many image input / output functions such as printing, copying and facsimile can be realized at low cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a multifunction system according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an image scanner.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a control flow of the image scanner.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printer.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a control flow of the printer.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a control flow of the image scanner.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a control flow of a host computer.

FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view showing a configuration of a laser beam printer.

[Explanation of reference numerals] 100 host computer 200 image scanner 210 control unit 211 host I / F 212 CPU 213 ROM 214 RAM 215 image memory 216 printer I / F 217 image reading unit I / F 220 image reading unit 230 operation panel 300 printer 310 Video controller 311 Scanner I / F 312 CPU 313 ROM 314 RAM 315 Page memory 316 Image memory 317 Engine I / F 320 Printer engine 330 Operation panel 400 Modem 500, 501 Signal line

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page (72) Inventor Shigeru Ueda 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc. (72) Inventor Minoru Kobegawa 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Kya Non-Incorporated (72) Inventor Masao Hayashi 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc. (72) Inventor Hidenobu Suzuki 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc.

Claims (12)

[Claims] 1. A printing system comprising a host device, an image reading device, and a printing device, wherein the respective devices are appropriately combined to print out the data from the host device by the printing device, and the image. It functions as a copying system that prints out image data read by a reading device by the printing device, and a facsimile system that sends an image read by the image reading device through a communication unit of the host device. Characteristic image input / output system. 2. The image reading device has a conversion unit for converting the read image data into a page description language, and sends the data converted into the page description language by the conversion unit to the printing device to perform the printing. The image input / output system according to claim 1, wherein the apparatus has an interpretation unit that interprets a page description language to generate image data. 3. The image input / output system according to claim 1, wherein the printing unit receives the image data as it is and prints it out. 4. The image input / output system according to claim 1, wherein the image reading device has a character recognition means for recognizing a character from the read image. 5. An image reading device connected to a host device and a printing device, wherein image reading means for reading an image, setting means for setting a function to be executed, and setting by the setting means are first. If it is a setting,
The data received from the host device is transferred to the printing device, and in the case of the second setting, the image read by the image reading unit is transferred to the printing device,
And a control unit that transfers the image read by the image reading unit to the host device. 6. The image reading apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising conversion means for converting an image read by the image reading means into a page description language. 7. The image reading apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising character recognition means for recognizing a character from an image read by the image reading means. 8. The image reading apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the setting unit receives setting of a function to be performed from the host apparatus. 9. A method for controlling an image reading device connected to a host device and a printing device, comprising: an image reading step of reading an image; a setting step of setting a function to be performed; and a setting by the setting step. If it is the first setting,
The data received from the host device is transferred to the printing device, and in the case of the second setting, the image read by the image reading step is transferred to the printing device,
And a control step of transferring the image read in by the image reading step to the host device, the control method of the image reading apparatus. 10. The method of controlling an image reading apparatus according to claim 9, further comprising a conversion step of converting an image read by the image reading step into a page description language. 11. The control method of the image reading apparatus according to claim 9, further comprising a character recognition step of recognizing a character from the image read by the image reading step. 12. The method of controlling an image reading apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the setting step receives the setting of a function to be performed from the host apparatus.