JPH0946491A - Electrophotographic recorder and facsimile equipment using the recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To print the image data of high resolution and a large size which are supplied from an external computer without increasing much the memory capacity by using a page printer of a facsimile equipment as a printer of the external computer. SOLUTION: An image data reception processing means processes the image data sent from an external computer on every line and discriminates whether a single line is entirely equal to '0' (1), or '1' (2) or whether a single line includes '0' and '1' (3). Then the processing means stores the result of this discrimination in a line-based area 3A and also stores in sequence only the line data of (3) in a page memory area A4. A print data output processing means successively reads the information out of the area A3 and generates the '0' or '1' data equivalent to a single line to supply them to a printer part for the line of (1) or (2) and then reads the corresponding line data out of the area A4 to supply them to the printer part for the line (3) respectively.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electrophotographic recording apparatus, and more particularly to an electrophotographic recording apparatus having a small page memory and a facsimile apparatus using the same.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, many offices equipped with facsimile machines are equipped with various information processing devices such as personal computers, word processors, workstations and office computers (these are generally called computers). Is used. Particularly in recent years, a LAN system is often constructed by interconnecting a large number of computers in an office or the same building, and this tendency has become a major trend of computerization of offices.

Further, many recent facsimile machines have an electrophotographic page printer called a laser printer. Since this page printer is extremely high-performance and uses plain paper, it has sufficient performance as a personal computer or word processor printer.

In response to such circumstances, some facsimile machines are connected to a personal computer or word processor (this is called an external computer), and the image data from the external computer is printed out by a page printer of the facsimile machine. And a function of transmitting and outputting image data from an external computer to a facsimile communication network.

RS-23 is used in many personal computers and word processors.
A standard interface such as 2C or Centronics is provided, and this interface is used to connect the facsimile machine and an external computer. In general,
A facsimile machine and an external computer are connected by Centronics, which is widely used as a printer interface.

[0006]

As is well known, a page printer attached to a facsimile machine has basically the same structure as a page printer for a general personal computer,
Its resolution is high enough and it has the same performance as that for personal computers. On the other hand, the resolution of the image data transmitted by facsimile is not so high (limited by the resolution of the image scanner that reads the document) and lower than the resolution of the attached page printer.

As is well known, the image data to be transmitted by facsimile is highly efficiently compressed by the MH coding system or the MR coding system, and the coded image data is printed at the page printer. The image data in the bitmap format is decoded in a page unit, expanded in a memory (often called a page memory), and printed page by page. Although the facsimile apparatus has memories used for various purposes, the page memory prepared for storing the image data in the bitmap format to be printed by the page printer has the largest capacity. Even though the page memory has the largest capacity, the resolution of the image data handled by the dedicated facsimile machine is low as described above, so it is considerably smaller than the page memory provided in a general personal computer page printer. . In the case of page printers for personal computers, various applications operated on personal computers generate extremely high resolution image data (including document data created by word processors), so the resolution of such image data is not reduced. It has a page memory with a sufficient capacity according to the resolution of the printer itself so that it can be printed.

As can be seen from the above description, in the case where the page printer of the facsimile machine can also be used as the printer of the external computer, if the page memory has the same capacity as that of the facsimile machine, the external computer can When high resolution and large size image data is sent, a memory shortage occurs, and such data cannot be handled. This problem is logically very easy to solve by increasing the amount of page memory. However, since the amount of image data in the bitmap format is extremely large, increasing the page memory, which has the largest capacity in the device, by several times, will lead to a significant increase in price.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to significantly increase the memory capacity in a page printer of a facsimile machine which can be used as a printer of an external computer. Instead, it is to be able to receive and print high resolution and large size image data from an external computer.

[0010]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides all-white information for each line of received image information,
A first storage unit that stores all-black information and information indicating general information; a second storage unit that stores, as raw data, image information of only the general information and the information stored in the first storage unit; A storage unit, a recording unit that prints out the image information stored in the second storage unit, and when all white information and all black information is stored in the first storage unit, the corresponding information is stored in the recording unit. The information stored in the first storage unit as general information is read from the second storage unit according to the line and is output from the recording unit. is there.

Further, the present invention is characterized by comprising a memory unit for transmitting and receiving, and using the memory unit as the second storage unit when the second storage unit is full. is there.

The present invention further comprises a connection unit for connecting to an external terminal and transmitting information, and when receiving information from this connection unit, the information is stored using the first storage unit and the second storage unit. Is stored, and the obtained image information of the facsimile is provided with a configuration in which the information is stored by using only the second storage section.

Further, according to the present invention, a receiving section for receiving the received image information line by line and whether the line of the image information received by this receiving section is all white information, all black information or general information. A determining means for determining, and the determining means determines whether the line is all-white information, all-black information, or general information,
It is characterized by comprising a first storage means for storing the type of information of the line at a position corresponding to the line, and a configuration for storing the type in the storage means when the determination means determines that the information is general information. It is a thing.

[0014]

According to the present invention, with the above configuration, all white information, all black information,
The general information is identified, the type of the information of the line is stored in the first storage unit according to the information, and when the information is general information, the fact is stored and the raw data is stored in the second storage unit. It is what makes me.

Further, according to the present invention, when the second storage unit is full, the memory unit used for transmission and reception is allocated to be used as the second storage unit.

Further, the information is determined as information as facsimile data or information from an external terminal, and it is determined whether the information is stored using the first storage unit or only the second storage unit is used.

Further, according to the present invention, when the type of line information stored in the first storage unit is all-white information or all-black information, predetermined all-white or all-black is output, and when it is general information, This is output from the second storage unit.

[0018]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows a schematic structure of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The facsimile apparatus of this embodiment has an image reading unit 1 for reading an image of an original, a printer unit 2 including a laser printer for printing an image on a sheet, and an operation panel unit including an input unit and a display unit as a user interface. 3, a data storage unit 4 for temporarily storing image data and other various data, a compression / decompression unit 5 for converting compression-encoded image data into image data in bitmap format and inverse conversion, and a facsimile communication network. Network control unit 6 that controls the connection of the computer, a general personal computer 9 that is an external computer, and Centronics
A Centronics interface unit 8 connected by a cable 10 and a main control unit (microprocessor) 7 which controls these units and performs overall sequence control and various data processing are provided. The image data read by the image reading unit 1 is transmitted to the facsimile communication network directly or via the data storage unit 4, and the image data received from the facsimile communication network is mainly used for software processing by the main control unit 7. It realizes a facsimile communication control means for printing by the printer unit 2 via the storage unit 4. Various other auxiliary functions of the facsimile machine and main PC processing functions including "image data receiving processing means" and "print data output processing means" related to the main part of the present invention described in detail below It is realized mainly by software processing by the control unit 7.

Regarding the "image data receiving processing means" and the "print data output processing means" according to the present invention, the data storage section 4 in FIG. 1 has a run length area A1, a line memory area A2, and a line type as shown in FIG. It is divided into area A3 and page memory area A4,
It can be used as follows. As described in detail above, the capacity of the page memory area A4 is significantly larger than the others.

The flowchart of FIG. 3 shows the operation procedure of the "image data receiving processing means", which will be described below with reference to FIG.
The operation of the "image data receiving processing means" will be described in detail together with the memory map of FIG.

In this embodiment, the image data transmitted from the personal computer 9 to the facsimile machine is MR.
It is assumed to be compressed by the encoding method. Main control unit 7
Receives image data from the personal computer 9 through the Centronics interface unit 8, converts the data into run length units, and stores the run length units in the run length area A1 (step 100). Then, each run length information is sequentially checked to see if the entire line is "0".
"1" for the entire line or "0" and "1" for one line
It is discriminated whether or not is included, and the discrimination result is sequentially stored in the line type area A3 in the data storage unit 4. That is, in FIG. 3, the code "1" is written in the line type area A3 for the all white line determined to be (steps 101 → 102), and the code "2" is written to the line type area A3 for the all black line determined to be. Is written (steps 101 → 103 → 104), the code “3” is written in the line type area A3 for the black and white line (steps 101 → 103 → 10).
5).

For the black and white lines judged to be the same time, bit string data (raw line data) of the black and white lines are sequentially generated from the corresponding run length information and developed in the line memory area A2 (step 106), 1
When the raw data for the line is completed, the raw line data is transferred to the page memory area A4 (step 10).
7). The above processing is repeated line by line until the image data for one page is completed.

The page memory area A4 uses an image memory used for transmission / reception of a facsimile machine,
At this time, the page memory area A4 has a run length area A4 so that the range of the area can be changed according to the amount of information.
1, below the line memory area A2 and the line type area A3. This is because the amount of information in the run length area A1, the line memory area A2, and the line type area A3 is fixed.

It is also possible to use a completely different hardware for the page memory and use the image memory when the page memory area A4 is full.

Information as facsimile data,
That is, since the page memory is not required so much for the information received from the telephone line and the information read by the image reading unit 1, a normal process, that is, the page memory area A4 is performed.
Only one may be used. Run length area A
1, the line memory area A2, and the line type area A3 are not used.

The flowchart of FIG. 4 shows the operation procedure of the "print data output processing means", and the operation of the "print data output processing means" will be described in detail below together with the memory map of FIG.

In the above-mentioned "image data reception processing means", the line type area A3 and the page memory area A4
When printing one page of image data stored in the printer unit 2, the "print data output processing unit" operates as follows in synchronization with the raster scan operation of the printer unit 2. First, the type code of the first line is read from the line type area A3 (step 200), and the process is changed depending on the code.

If the read code is "1", that is, if the corresponding line is an all-white line, a "0" signal for one line is generated and transferred to the printer unit 2 at a predetermined speed (step 201). → 202). If the read code is "2", that is, if the corresponding line is an all black line, a "1" signal for one line is generated and transferred to the printer unit 2 at a predetermined speed (step 201 →
203 → 204).

On the other hand, when the read code is "3", that is, when the corresponding line is a black and white line, the page memory area A according to the read pointer P4 described below.
4 is accessed to read the corresponding line data and transferred to the printer unit 2 at a predetermined speed (step 201 → 20).
3 → 205). In the next step 206, the read pointer P4 is incremented by one line.

Then, in step 207, the read pointer P3 of the line type area A3 is incremented to 1
Until the processing of the final line for the page is completed, the process returns to the first step 200 and the above processing is repeated. In this way, the printer unit 2 performs raster scan on the image data for one page, and the image data transmitted from the personal computer 9 is printed by the printer unit 2 of the facsimile apparatus.

In the present invention, when the received information is all white, all black, and others, it is not limited to this, and many variations can be taken.

[0032]

According to the present invention, all-white information, all-black information, and general information are identified by the above configuration, and the type of information of the line is stored in the first storage unit according to these information, and these information are general. When the information is stored, the fact is stored and the raw data is stored in the second storage unit, so that the usage amount of the page memory area is reduced in each stage, and the electrophotographic recording apparatus can be provided at a low cost.

Further, according to the present invention, by allocating the memory section used for transmission and reception when the second storage section is full to be used as the second storage section, even if a small amount of page memory is used, it can be used without any problem. be able to.

Further, the efficiency can be improved by discriminating between the information as the facsimile data and the information from the external terminal and determining whether the information is stored using the first storage unit or only the second storage unit. In addition to being able to perform good memory management, it can be used as a printer even when the image memory unit cannot be used as a facsimile machine.

Further, according to the present invention, when the type of line information stored in the first storage section is all-white information or all-black information, predetermined all-white or all-black is output, and when it is general information, By outputting from the second storage unit, the usage amount of the page memory area is reduced in each stage, and it is possible to provide an electrophotographic recording apparatus which is easy to cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a memory map showing the concept of the allocation status of the data storage unit in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of “image data receiving processing means” which is a main part of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of “print data output processing means” which is a main part of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 image reading unit 2 printer unit 3 operation panel unit 4 data storage unit 5 compression / expansion unit 6 network control unit 7 main control unit 8 Centronics interface unit (external computer interface unit) 9 personal computer (external computer) 10 Centronics cable ( Data transmission path) A1 Run length area A2 Line memory area A3 Line type area A4 Page memory area

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A receiving unit that receives the received image information in units of lines, and a determination that determines whether the line of the image information received by the receiving unit is all white information, all black information, or general information. Means and this determination means, the line is all white information,
First storage means for discriminating all black information or general information and storing the type of information of the line at a position corresponding to the line; and if the discriminating means discriminates the general information, the type is stored in the storage means. And an electronic photographic recording device including a storage unit that stores corresponding information. 2. The electrophotography according to claim 1, further comprising a memory unit for transmitting and receiving, and when the second storage unit is full, the memory unit is used as the second storage unit. A facsimile machine using a recording device. 3. A connection unit for connecting to an external terminal and transmitting information, and when receiving information from this connection unit, stores information using the first storage unit and the second storage unit. 2. The facsimile apparatus using the electrophotographic recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the obtained image information of the facsimile is controlled to store the information using only the second storage unit. 4. All-white information for each line of the received image information,
A first storage unit that stores all-black information and information indicating general information; a second storage unit that stores, as raw data, image information of only the general information and the information stored in the first storage unit; A storage unit, a recording unit that prints out the image information stored in the second storage unit, and when all white information and all black information is stored in the first storage unit, the corresponding information is stored in the recording unit. An electrophotographic recording apparatus, comprising: a control unit that outputs information from the first storage unit as general information stored in the first storage unit and is read from the second storage unit according to the line and output from the recording unit.