JPH09240062A - Color printer memory-saving system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To execute high speed printing by reducing the capacity of a memory reguired for full-color and full-size printing. SOLUTION: A cyan drawing command is read from a disk C to be developed in a drawing memory. Cyan printing data wherein development of drawing is ended is outputted to be printed. For one plain memory, the next drawing is started after completing output of C printing, and a memory necessary for a full color and full sized one us reduced to 1/4. When two plain memories are mounted, a magenta drawing command is read from a disk M simultaneously at start of printing to be developed in the drawing memory. By completion of cyan printing and completing of drawing of magenta, magenta printing data is outputted to be printed. Thereby, the capacity of a memory required for the full-color and full-size printing is reduced to 1/2.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a memory saving system in a color printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In virtual memory, memory saving control is performed by reading from a disk or writing to a disk in an area that does not exist in the real memory under the control of hardware virtual memory. When this virtual memory is used, in the sequence of receiving, drawing, and storing the print control data, it is necessary to perform the processing of storing the print control data in the disk, which is not the case in the full memory. This disk access is much slower than memory access. At the time of drawing, host busy can deal with the loss between disk accesses.

[0003]

However, at the time of output, the drawing data is output to the printer in parallel with the reading of the drawing data from the disk. Since the laser printer cannot hold the printer in the middle of printing, disk access must always meet the engine speed. Further, it is necessary to compress and decompress the data based on the data amount and the disk access time, and depending on the image data, the decompression may take a long time, and the engine speed cannot be met in time, resulting in a printing error. As described above, when the virtual memory is used, the memory saving effect is great, but a printing error may occur.

[0004]

According to a first aspect of the invention, a drawing command is read from a disk and expanded in a drawing memory,
The print data that has completed drawing development is printed out, and in the case of 1-plane memory, the next drawing is started after waiting for the completion of print output. Therefore, the memory required for full color and full size is 1 / 4 (for one plane of C, M, Y, and K), and the possibility of printing error is set to 0.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the drawing command is read from the disk, expanded into the drawing memory, and the print data whose drawing expansion is completed is printed out. The drawing command of the next color is read from the color disk, expanded to the drawing memory, and the next color print data is printed out when the previous color printing is completed and the next color drawing is completed.Therefore, the memory required for full color and full size. 1/2 (C, M, Y, K 2
It is possible to reduce the number of prints to a plane) and to perform high-speed printing equivalent to that in full memory.

The invention of claim 3 is characterized in that, except for full-color output, only the color for which the drawing command is created is output, so that only K or C, Y,
When printing of all Cs, Ms, Ys, and Ks such as M is not required, printout of colors that are not drawn is not performed, and page printing is speeded up.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a main part configuration diagram for explaining an example of a color printer to which the present invention is applied. In the drawing, 10 is a control unit, and the control unit 10 is a general control unit. 1, a disk control unit 2, a disk 3, a communication control unit 4, a printer control unit 5, a drawing memory 6 and the like. The general control unit 1 includes a disk control unit 2, a communication control unit 4, a printer control unit 5, and a drawing memory. Control 6 The disk control unit 2 stores the drawing command in the hard disk 3.
The communication control unit 4 receives print data from the host computer 11. The color print data is expanded in the drawing memory 6, and the printer control unit 5 sets the drawing memory 6
The color print data expanded in the above is output to the color laser printer 12. The color laser printer 12 is C
It is a system of separately coloring each color of (cyan), M (magenta), Y (yellow), and K (black), and printing control is possible for each color.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the expansion of the print control data. As shown in FIG. 2, the print control data is C,
Each color of M, Y, K is expanded into a drawing command.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a drawing command and a drawing memory. Each drawing command includes a drawing X pixel position, a drawing Y pixel position, a drawing L pixel size, a mode (line-time image), a gradation number, and image data. In the case of line data, lines of gradation number are drawn in pixel size, and in the case of image data, image data of pixel size is developed.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart for explaining the operation from C (cyan) printing to K (black) printing, in which a cyan drawing command is read from the C disk and expanded in the drawing memory. The cyan print data that has completed drawing expansion is printed out. When the two-plane memory is installed, the magenta drawing command is read from the M disk at the same time as the printing is started and expanded in the drawing memory. In the case of the 1 plane memory, drawing is started after the completion of C print output, and print output and drawing do not operate in parallel. Magenta print data is printed out upon completion of cyan printing and magenta drawing. Thereafter, the black print is printed out in the same manner.

FIGS. 5 to 7 are flowcharts showing the control flow of page printing. When the communication control unit 4 receives print control data from the host computer 11, the disk control unit 2 receives the print control data.
Creates a drawing command and saves it on the disk 3.
The printer control unit 5 sequentially prints the color print data in the drawing memory 6 in accordance with this drawing command, but if there is no drawing command for that color, it jumps to printing to the next color. Similarly, page printing is sequentially performed.

[0012]

According to the invention of claim 1, full color
Since full-color / full-size drawing can be performed with 1/4 of the drawing memory required for full size, the memory cost can be significantly reduced in a color printer that requires a large amount of memory.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, full-color / full-size drawing can be performed with half the drawing memory required for full-color / full-size. Further, since the print output and the drawing process operate in parallel, the memory cost can be reduced by half and high-speed print output can be performed.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, monochrome output and monocolor output are automatically discriminated and only the drawn color is printed out, so that page printing other than full color can be speeded up.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a main part configuration diagram for explaining an example of a color printer to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of expansion of print control data.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a drawing command and a drawing memory.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a flow of color printing.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a part of a page printing control flow.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing another part of the control flow of page printing.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing still another part of the control flow of page printing.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Overall control unit, 2 ... Disk control unit, 3 ... Disk,
4 ... Communication control unit, 5 ... Printer control unit, 6 ... Drawing memory, 10 ... Control unit, 11 ... Host computer,
12 ... Color laser printer.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A drawing command is read from a disk, expanded into a drawing memory, and print data whose drawing expansion is completed is printed out. In the case of a 1-plane memory, the next drawing is started after the completion of the print output. A color printer memory saving method characterized by. 2. A drawing command is read from a disk, expanded in a drawing memory, print data for which drawing expansion is completed is printed out, and when a 2-plane memory is mounted,
A color printer memory saving method characterized by reading the drawing command of the next color from the next color disk at the same time as printing is started, expanding it to the drawing memory, and printing the next color print data upon completion of printing the previous color and drawing the next color. . 3. A memory-saving system characterized in that, except for full-color output, only the color for which a drawing command is created is output.