JPH10175356A - Imaging device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To fractionate securely by providing a first image quality judging means for judging good or not and a second image quality judging means for judging whether a supports match or not and assorting good products, defective products and incorrectly-arranged good products on a paper ejection section based on the judgement result. SOLUTION: When a plurality of supports (for example, envelopes enclosing product catalogs) accumulated on a paper feed section are transferred to an imaging means 2 formed of an ink jet printer, the image information is read out by an information storage means 1, and the imaging of the information (mail codes, addresses and names of companies) is performed on the supports by the imaging means 2. Then the supports are transferred to a second image judging means 3, and whether the imaging is good or not is judged, and then whether the support are incorrectly-arranged good products or not is judged by a second image quality judging means 4. Based on the judgement result by respective judging means 3 and 4, the supports are assorted into good products, defective products and mismatching good products by first and second assorting means 6 and 7 and accumulated on a paper ejection section.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus for sequentially imaging regularly arranged information on a support.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, mails and the like are sometimes sent to customers after being sorted by zip code. Such sorting can be easily performed if customer information is regularly arranged in advance in the order of postal codes, and imaging is sequentially performed on a support (envelope, catalog, etc.) using an imaging method such as an ink jet printer. it can.

However, in such imaging, if a misimage of customer information occurs (a support in which a misimage occurs is referred to as a defective product), the defective product is removed, and the customer information is transferred to another support. Although re-imaging will be performed, when re-imaging is performed, there is a case where information of a customer having a different postal code has already been imaged, and in this case, classification becomes inaccurate.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and provides an imaging apparatus capable of imaging information such as addresses and easily performing accurate classification. The purpose is to provide.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an imaging apparatus comprising: an information storage unit for storing regularly arranged information; and an imaging unit for sequentially imaging the information stored in the information storage unit on a support. First image quality determining means for determining whether the imaging on the support is good or bad; second image quality determining means for determining whether the support is aligned if the quality is good; If the determination is made, the re-imaging instructing means for instructing the imaging means to perform re-imaging, and the result of the judgment by the first image quality judging means and the second image quality judging means, discharge of non-defective, defective and inconsistent non-defective products. And a first sorting means for sorting the parts.

A second aspect of the present invention is based on the imaging apparatus of the first aspect, and further comprises at least a second sorting means for sorting the non-conforming non-defective product into a predetermined non-defective paper discharge section. It is characterized by the following.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an embodiment of an imaging apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an imaging apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. The imaging apparatus shown in FIG. 1 includes, for example, a computer system including control means such as a CPU, storage means such as a hard disk, display means such as a CRT, input means such as a keyboard, and the like.
This is realized by an imaging mechanism including a paper feeding unit of the support, a conveying unit, an imaging unit such as an ink jet, a sorting unit, and a paper discharging unit.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes information storage means for storing information such as customer information. The information stored here (one example is shown in FIG. 2) is regularly arranged for a specific field (postal code in FIG. 2). The work of regularly arranging the information may be performed before storing the information in the information storage means, or may be performed in the information storage means.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 2 denotes an imaging means for sequentially imaging information such as an address stored in the information storage means on a support supplied from a paper feeding unit. Specifically, there is an imaging method capable of imaging individually different information, such as an ink jet printer, a laser beam printer, and a thermal transfer printer.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 3 denotes a first for judging good or bad of imaging of information imaged on a support.
Image quality determination means. Here, the method of judging good or bad is not particularly limited. For example, information on the support is read by a two-dimensional image sensor such as a CCD, and binarized data is created. The information stored in the storage unit is compared with the bit-mapped data using a font used for imaging. as a result,
It is possible to use a determination method of determining good if the correlation is large and determining bad if the correlation is small.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 4 denotes a second image quality judging means for judging whether or not the supports are aligned (in a state where they are arranged in the order of regular information) when judged as good. Here, the method of determining whether the information is consistent or not is not particularly limited. For example, a flag indicating that the support is a re-imaged support is held in the imaging apparatus, and the presence or absence of the flag is determined. Judgment can be used. As another determination method, data obtained by recognizing information on the immediately preceding support by an OCR (OPTICAL CHARACTER READER) or a bar code is stored, and the information is compared with data obtained by similarly recognizing information on the support. I do. As a result, if the information is ordered from smallest to largest,
If the value of the data of the support is the same as or larger than the data of the immediately preceding support, it is determined to be consistent, while if smaller than the data of the immediately preceding support, it is determined to be unmatched. A judgment method can be used.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 5 denotes re-imaging instructing means for instructing the imaging means to perform re-imaging when the first image quality judging means judges that the imaging is defective. This is provided for imaging all information stored in the information storage means.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 6 denotes sorting means for sorting the non-defective products, defective products, and inconsistent non-defective products according to the judgment results of the first image quality judging means and the second image quality judging means. That is, in the paper discharge section, non-defective products are regularly arranged in order, defective products are removed, and a non-conforming non-conforming support that is non-defective is referred to as non-conforming non-defective product.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 7 denotes a second sorting means for sorting the non-conforming non-defective products into a predetermined non-defective paper discharge section. More specifically, it comprises a moving means such as a robot arm and a computer system for controlling the moving means. By this second sorting means, the non-conforming non-defective product moves to the original position in the non-defective product. The operation of the second sorting means may be performed sequentially each time a nonconforming non-defective product is generated, or may be operated after accumulating non-conforming non-defective products to some extent.

Here, the operation of the imaging apparatus will be described with reference to FIG. 2 showing the contents of information stored in the information storage means.
And a flowchart (FIG. 3). still,
Since the imaging apparatus handles a plurality of supports at the same time, these operations are performed in parallel for each support.

[In the case of a non-defective product] Of a plurality of supports (for example, an envelope enclosing a product catalog) stored in the paper feeding unit,
The first support was transported under the imaging means (step 1). The information to be imaged (the first record in FIG. 2) was read from the information storage means, and the information (postal code, address, company name) was imaged on the support by the imaging means comprising an ink jet printer (step 2). Then, after the support was conveyed to below the first image quality judging means, the first image quality judging means judged good or bad in the imaging, and it was found to be good (step 3). Next, when the second image quality judging means judges whether or not there is an inconsistent non-defective product, there is no flag indicating that the support is a re-imaged support in the imaging apparatus, so that it is judged that there is a match (step 5). ). Further, based on the results of the first image quality judgment means and the second image quality judgment means, the support was accumulated in the non-defective paper discharge section by the sorting means (step 6). Finally, in determining whether there is any other information to be imaged, since the information exists up to the ninth record, the procedure returns to step 1 (step 8).

[Case of Defective Product] One of the plurality of supports accumulated in the paper feeding section was transported under the imaging means (step 1). The information to be imaged is read from the information storage means, and the imaging means on the support,
The third record in FIG. 2 was imaged (step 2). Then, when the first image quality judging means judged good or bad of the imaging, since the address was not completely imaged, it was judged to be bad (step 3). Next, a command for re-imaging the third record was issued to the information storage means (step 4), and the support was accumulated in the defective paper discharge section by the sorting means (step 6). Finally, in determining whether there is any other information to be imaged, since the information exists up to the ninth record, the procedure returns to step 1 (step 8).

[Re-imaging of Defective Product] Of the plurality of supports accumulated in the paper feeding section, one of the supports was transported under the imaging means (step 1). The information to be imaged was read from the information storage means, and the third record in FIG. 2 was imaged again on the support by the imaging means (step 2). Then, the first image quality judging means judged good or bad of the imaging on the support, and it was good (step 3). Next, when the second image quality judging means judges whether or not there is an inconsistent non-defective product,
Since there is a flag in the imaging device indicating that the support has been re-imaged, it was determined that there was a mismatched non-defective product (step 5). Further, based on the results of the first image quality determination means and the second image quality determination means, the support was accumulated in the non-defective non-defective sheet discharge section by the sorting means (step 6). Finally, the operation of the imaging device was terminated because there was no information to be imaged. The nonconforming non-defective products were sorted into non-defective "100" paper discharge units by the robot arm (step 7). Finally, in determining whether there is any other information to be imaged, since the information exists up to the ninth record, the procedure returns to step 1 (step 8).

In this embodiment, the postal code of the customer information is used as the regularly arranged information. However, if the support is a treasure lottery, the postal code may be a lottery number.

[0020]

According to the imaging apparatus of the present invention, information such as an address can be imaged on a support, and it can be classified into non-defective products, defective products and inconsistent non-defective products. Therefore, if non-conforming non-defective products are accumulated in the discharge section where non-defective products should be, accurate classification can be performed.

[0021]

[Brief description of the drawings]

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

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing contents of information stored in an information storage unit according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the imaging apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 information storage means 2 imaging means 3 first image quality determination means 4 second image quality determination means 5 re-imaging command means 6 first sorting means 7 second sorting means

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An information storage means for storing regularly arranged information, an imaging means for sequentially imaging information stored in the information storage means on a support, and determining whether the image quality on the support is good or bad. A first image quality judging means for judging, a second image quality judging means for judging whether or not the support is aligned if judged good, and a command for reimaging to the imaging means if judged bad. At least a re-imaging command unit, and a first sorting unit that sorts a non-defective product, a defective product, and an inconsistent non-defective product based on the determination results of the first image quality determining unit and the second image quality determining unit. An imaging apparatus, comprising: 2. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a second sorting unit that sorts the non-conforming non-defective products into a predetermined non-defective paper discharge unit.