JPH10271288A - Picure reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To execute appropriate signal processings corresponding to respective picture signals in parallel by providing first and second signal processing means executing a prescribed processing on respective picture signals, which are obtained by prescanning and scanning. SOLUTION: A picture which is color space-converted is stored in a first signal processing means and a prescanning picture storage device 15 being a first storage means in the case of prescanning. In the case of a scanning picture, it is compressed by a picture compression device 14 being a compression means and it is stored by a scanning picture storage device 16 being a second storage means. The picture compression device 14 and the scanning picture storage device 16 constitute a second signal processing means. The pictures stored in the storage devices 15 and 16 are displayed by a monitor device 19 being a display means and is taken into a CPU being a control means. Then, a prescribed processing is executed. A picture reader starts scanning after prescanning terminates.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an image reading apparatus, and more particularly to an image reading apparatus that reads an image by pre-scanning and main scanning.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when an image on a film document is read by an image reading apparatus, the image is generally read by two scans, a prescan and a main scan.
First, an image read by prescanning at a low resolution is temporarily transmitted to the host computer, and is displayed as a preview image for monitoring the document image read by the operator. The operator confirms the state of the read document image based on the displayed preview image, and issues an instruction for setting conditions for the main scan as necessary. Then, the main scan is performed according to the operator's instruction based on the set conditions, and the read image is transmitted to the host as image data on the same color space as the prescan, and is displayed or stored in the storage device. Had become.

[0003]

However, in the above-described conventional image reading apparatus, after the pre-scan is completed, it is necessary for the operator to set the reading conditions in the main scan and to give an instruction to start reading, so that many originals are read. Even in such a case, it is necessary to set the reading conditions and perform the operation of starting reading for each document, which is very troublesome.

Further, the data obtained by the main scan has a high resolution and therefore has a large data amount and a large file size. Therefore, when performing tone correction or color correction, complicated calculations are required, and the load on the system has increased. Furthermore, as the number of images to be handled increases, the processing speed from pre-scan to main scan becomes slower, and it takes a lot of time and effort to scan many documents at once and edit the images. .

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and in the image reading apparatus according to the first aspect, a main scan is performed under the conditions set by the prescan. A first signal processing unit for performing predetermined processing on an image signal obtained by performing a prescan by the reading unit, and a main scanning by the reading unit. A second signal processing unit different from the first signal processing unit for performing a predetermined process on the image signal.

Further, in the image reading apparatus according to the present invention, a reading means for reading an image by performing a main scan under the conditions set by the pre-scan, and displaying the image read by the reading means. A display unit; and a control unit configured to control a start of the main scan by the reading unit before the display of the prescan image by the display unit is completed.

[0007]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

<< First Embodiment >> FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of an image reading apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The light source 1 is for irradiating the film original 3, and its light amount can be changed by the dimmer 2. The light emitted from the light source 1 and transmitted through the original 3 passes through an ND filter for adjusting the amount of light reaching the CCD 7 and a filter unit 4 in which a negative base removing filter inserted when scanning the negative film is incorporated. And lens group 6
Is condensed on the CCD 7 serving as a reading unit. Here, the switching of the filters in the filter unit 4 is performed by the switching device 5.

The transmitted light of the film original arriving at the CCD 7 is converted into an image signal, the converted image signal is subjected to an electrical offset and a gain by an analog signal processing circuit 8, and converted into a digital signal by an A / D converter 9. Is converted. The digital signal converted by the A / D converter 9 is
The gradation is corrected by a look-up table (LUT) 10. The table in the LUT 10 is
It is set by the LUT setting device 11. Further, in the matrix circuit 12, color space conversion is performed by a 3 × 3 matrix set by the matrix setting device 13. The conversion means is constituted by the matrix circuit 12 and the matrix setting device 13.

In the case of a prescanned image, the color space converted image is stored in a prescanned image storage device 15 which is a first signal processing means and a first storage means. Further, in the case of a main scan image, the main scan image is compressed by an image compression device 14 as a compression unit and stored in a main scan image storage device 16 as a second storage unit. The image compression device 14 and the main scan image storage device 1
6 constitutes second signal processing means. Each storage device 15,
The image stored in the display unit 16 is displayed by a monitor device 19 as a display unit, and a CPU as a control unit.
17 and a predetermined process is performed. The operation by the operator is performed via the input device 18. Further, the IX information reading section 20 reads IX information attached to a document.

Next, the reading operation in the image reading apparatus having such a configuration will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a communication state between the host and the scanner.

When a user inputs a pre-scanning reading condition from the input device 18, the inputted reading condition is transmitted to the scanner (S201). The scanner performs setting so as to satisfy the transmitted reading conditions (S205), and performs pre-scanning (S206). The pre-scan image is transmitted to the host (S202), and the host analyzes the transmitted pre-scan image and calculates main scan conditions (S203). Then, the calculated main scan conditions are set on the scanner side (S207), and the main scan is performed under the set conditions (S208). The main scan image is sent to the host, and a series of reading operations ends (S2).
04).

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a detailed flow of the entire reading operation with reference to FIG. The device power is O
When the answer is N, the software is activated on the host to start the reading operation (S1), and the type of the film to be scanned is input from the displayed film type input window on the software (S2). The host instructs the scanner to set pre-scanning conditions in accordance with the input film type, switches the filters by the filter switching device 5 (S3), adjusts the light amount of the light source 1 by the dimmer 2 (S4), The electrical gain amount and the like and the offset level in the analog signal processing system 8 are set (S5).

When each setting is completed, a prescan is started (S6). Here, the resolution in the pre-scan is set lower than the resolution in the main scan. The image signal obtained by pre-scanning the document is converted into a digital signal by the A / D converter 9 (S7), and the LUT 10 performs gradation correction from a 10-bit signal to an 8-bit signal using a pre-scan table (FIG. 7). S8). The LUT 10 also performs gamma correction as needed. Further, color correction is performed by a 3 × 3 masking operation in the matrix circuit 12 (S9), and is stored in the prescanned image storage device 15 of the host (S10).

The CPU 17 displays the stored prescan image on a monitor (S11). When displaying the pre-scanned image on the monitor, the IX information read by the IX information reading unit 20 or the film information input from the host is used to convert the original to a sufficient representation according to the type of film. And then display.

The CPU 17 creates a histogram of the prescan image, analyzes the average density and density distribution of the film, and extracts the features of the original (S12). Then, based on the result of the analysis, the filter is switched by the filter switching device 5 so that the optimal main scan condition is obtained (S1
3), resetting the light amount of the light source 1 by the dimmer 2 (S1
4) The gain and offset level in the analog signal processing circuit 8 are set (S15).

The main scan is performed under the main scan conditions set as described above (S16). Light from the document 3 illuminated by the light source 1 passes through the filter, and
Is converted to an image signal, and then A / D converted by the A / D converter 9 (S17).

Here, in the present image reading apparatus, after the pre-scan is completed, the main scan is started as soon as the main scan conditions can be set, and scanning of a large number of originals such as one film is continuously performed. When performing the main scan, the main scan is immediately started immediately after the prescan of all the frames is completed and the main scan conditions are determined. At this time, conversion and display of the prescanned image of the frame which has been prescanned earlier to display data are also performed. That is, before the display of the prescanned image is completed, the main scan of the image is started.

Thereafter, the LUT set by the LUT setting device 11 and the matrix setting device 13 to the conditions for the main scan.
Tone correction by UT10 (S18), matrix circuit 1
2 is performed (S19). Therefore, the image is compressed by the image compression device 14 and then transmitted to the host, and the image is converted to another color space before the compression to further increase the compression ratio (S20). By compressing a main scan image having a large file size and a large transmission load in this manner, many images can be accumulated and processed by the host.

The transmitted main scan image is stored in the main scan image storage device 16 of the host (S21).
Here, the main scan image storage device 16 is, for example, a hard disk or the like, and has a larger capacity than the pre-scan image storage device 15. Then, the main scan result is displayed on the monitor (S22).

In this embodiment, the storage devices for the pre-scanned image and the main-scanned image are provided on the host, but may be provided on the scanner.

[0021]

As described above, in the image reading apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention, the reading means for reading the image by performing the main scan under the conditions set by the prescan, and the reading means Performs a predetermined process on an image signal obtained by performing a pre-scan according to
And a second signal processing means different from the first signal processing means for performing predetermined processing on an image signal obtained by performing a main scan by the reading means.

With this configuration, the image signal obtained by the pre-scan and the image signal obtained by the main scan can be appropriately subjected to appropriate signal processing in parallel.

Further, in the image reading apparatus according to the present invention, a reading means for reading an image by performing a main scan under the conditions set by the pre-scan, and displaying the image read by the reading means. And a control unit configured to control the reading unit to start a main scan before the display unit displays the prescanned image.

With this configuration, the time interval from the end of the pre-scan to the start of the main scan can be greatly reduced, and the reading time can be greatly reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image reading apparatus according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a communication state between a host and a scanner according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a detailed flow of the entire reading operation in the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 7 CCD 12 Matrix circuit 14 Image compression device 15 Prescanned image storage device 16 Main scan image storage device 17 CPU 19 Monitor device

Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code FI H04N 1/46 H04N 1/46 Z

Claims (11)

[Claims] A reading unit for reading an image by performing a main scan under conditions set by a prescan; and a first unit for performing a predetermined process on an image signal obtained by performing a prescan by the reading unit. And a second signal processing unit different from the first signal processing unit for performing predetermined processing on an image signal obtained by performing a main scan by the reading unit. Image reading device. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said first signal processing means has first storage means for storing a pre-scan image, and said second signal processing means has a second storage means for storing a main scan image. An image reading device comprising storage means. 3. An image reading apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the storage capacity of said second storage means is larger than the storage capacity of said first storage means. 4. The conversion device according to claim 1, further comprising a conversion unit configured to convert the image signal into a predetermined color space, and the conversion unit converting the pre-scan image and the main scan image into different color spaces. An image reading apparatus, comprising: control means for performing control for conversion. 5. The image reading apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the second signal processing unit includes a compression unit that compresses the image. 6. A reading means for reading an image by performing a main scan under conditions set by a prescan, a display means for displaying an image read by the reading means, and a prescan image by the display means And control means for starting the main scan by the reading means before the display of the image is completed. 7. The image processing apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising: first signal processing means for performing predetermined processing on an image signal obtained by performing pre-scanning by said reading means; and main scanning by said reading means. And a second signal processing means different from the first signal processing means for performing predetermined processing on the image signal to be obtained. 8. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein said first signal processing means has a first storage means for storing a pre-scan image, and said second signal processing means has a second storage means for storing a main scan image. An image reading device comprising storage means. 9. An image reading apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the storage capacity of said second storage means is larger than the storage capacity of said first storage means. 10. The image processing apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising a conversion unit configured to convert the image signal into a predetermined color space, wherein the control unit controls the conversion unit to output a prescan image and a main scan image. An image reading apparatus for controlling the conversion into different color spaces. 11. An image reading apparatus according to claim 7, wherein said second signal processing means includes compression means for compressing said image.