JPH1110961A - Print processor and printing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To ensure high speed print processing by detecting an order independent writing element based on the application characteristics of a document data and the attributes of an inserting image element, determining the order independence based on a characteristic data and information concerning to each inserting image element and then generating a conversion data and arranging the data in parallel. SOLUTION: A document data generated from an application is inputted to a document data analyzing section 10 and converted, along with a data read out tram a document information memory section 11 as required, into a data concerning to the order independence, a command and parameters thereof which are then delivered to a describing language generating section 12. The data is converted into a comment of print data based on a particular notation and delivered to the print data 2 input section, converted into a data related to token and order dependence at the lexical analyzing section 30 in a conversion processing section 3 and then interpreted at an intermediate data generating section 31. Finally, it is converted into a data basically comprising a trapezoidal data divided in units of band and an order dependence data and arranged in parallel.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a print processing apparatus and a print processing method capable of performing print processing in page units based on a page description language. In particular, the present invention relates to a print processing apparatus and a print processing method that enable high-speed print processing by changing the hardware configuration that executes the expansion processing and executing parallel processing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the development of an electrophotographic page printer suitable for small, high-speed digital printing, images, figures, characters, and the like, which have escaped from the conventional printing of mainly character information, are handled in the same manner. Print processing apparatuses using a page description language in which enlargement, rotation, deformation, and the like of an image can be freely controlled have been widely used. As a typical example of such a page description language, PostScript (Adobe)
Systems, Inc.), Interpress
(Trademark of Xerox), Acrobat (Adobe)
Systems, Inc.), GDI (Graphics)
Device Interface, Microsoft
ft company trademark) and the like are known.

[0005] Print data created in a page description language is composed of a drawing command and a data string in which images, graphics, and characters at arbitrary positions in a page are arranged in an arbitrary order. In order to print with the page printer according to the present invention, the print data must be rasterized before printing. Rasterization is the process of developing a raster scan line by developing it into a series of individual dots or pixels that traverse a page or portion of a page, and generating successive scan lines below the page. However, this rasterizing process is a process with a very large load, and requires a large amount of printer resources. Therefore, the speed of rasterization of the page description language is controlled by an IOT (Image Output Terminator) which is an output device.
There are problems that the processing speed is slower than the processing speed of 1), a sufficient printing speed cannot be obtained, and a large amount of memory is required to store raster data.

[0004] As the prior art relating to the problem of the processing speed, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-28126 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.
No. 71, a page description language is divided into a certain area unit such as a page unit and a band unit, and parallel processing is performed. As shown in JP-A-07-104987, a PDL command itself can be expressed in parallel. Some printers perform the same parallel processing.

[0005] In addition, the need for a large amount of memory is called band memory technology.
Rather than rasterizing all print data for a page,
The data is converted into intermediate data of one page having a smaller data amount than the page buffer and stored, and two buffers are provided for bands obtained by dividing a page into bands, and one band corresponds to each band. The intermediate memory is sequentially raster-developed, and the raster-developed data of the other band is subjected to IOT transfer. This is performed while switching buffers, thereby reducing the buffer memory. However, in order to use this method in the xerographic IOT, it is necessary to expand the intermediate data of the next band into raster data before the transfer of the raster data of a certain band to the IOT is completed. It was necessary to speed up the rasterization processing to raster data. For this purpose, dedicated hardware is used, or a plurality of such hardware are provided and parallelized.

[0006]

As described above, as a configuration for processing a page description language at high speed with a small amount of memory, conventionally, dedicated hardware and its parallelization have been used. . However, in a page description language, different drawing objects such as images, figures, and characters must be handled at the same time, and many functions are required when dedicated hardware is used. For example, in the case of an image, resolution conversion, affine conversion, interpolation accompanying these processes, color processing, and the like are performed. In the case of a graphic, coordinate conversion, vector / raster conversion, filling processing, and the like are required. In the case of a character, conversion of outline coordinates, hint processing, vector / raster conversion, filling processing, and the like are required. For this reason, the amount of hardware is increased even if each processing is simply implemented as dedicated hardware. In particular, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-28
When trying to parallelize in page units or band units as in Japanese Patent Publication No. 126 or Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6295271, similar hardware is required for each parallel processing module. There was a drawback that it would be.

On the other hand, it is conceivable to parallelize each drawing object. However, when trying to parallelize on a drawing object basis, the page description language uses a drawing model called an opaque model, so if it is overwritten, some objects will be hidden and will be aware of the drawing order. There is a need. In order to solve this, it is necessary to perform the overlapping relationship between drawing objects for each drawing object. JP-A-07-104
Japanese Patent No. 987 attempts to parallelize in command units by using a parallel description of a page description language, but cannot cope with the parallelization of the drawing command of which parallelism is most important for the above reason.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and does not provide hardware for all functions in parallel but reconfigures hardware programmability or structure. The purpose of this is to realize many functions at high speed with a small amount of hardware. Furthermore, parallel processing of functions is introduced in order to improve processing speed and effectively realize functions having different hardware scales with reconfigurable hardware. Then, by utilizing the characteristics of the application, information for parallelization is more easily extracted, and the information is added at the time of creating the page description language, thereby reducing the load of the parallelization preprocessing.

As described above, the present invention is intended to realize high-speed printing processing by efficiently using a small amount of hardware.

[0010]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a print processing apparatus and a print processing method for achieving the above object. The print processing apparatus according to the present invention includes: an input unit that inputs document data constituted by a drawing element having at least one of a character, a graphic, and an image; and a document information storage unit that stores characteristic data relating to an application for creating document data. Based on at least the characteristic data and the attribute of the drawing element, an order dependency determining unit that determines the order dependency of the drawing element, and based on the order dependency determination result and the document data by at least the order dependency determining unit, Print data generating means for generating print data;
A print data generating unit for inputting the generated print data, and interpreting the print data;
Lexical analysis means for detecting a drawing element included in the print data and an order dependency determination result associated with the drawing element; overlap determination means for determining overlap of the drawing elements included in the print data; A conversion unit configured to convert the print data into a format of conversion data including hardware configuration change information based on the determination result of the content and order dependency and the determination result of the overlap determination, and the conversion data included in the conversion data converted by the conversion unit Hardware means for changing the configuration in accordance with the hardware configuration change information and executing conversion data expansion processing, and output means for outputting the conversion data expanded by the hardware means .

Further, in the print processing apparatus according to the present invention, the hardware configuration change information changes the hardware configuration based on the possibility of parallel processing in the conversion data expansion process.

The conversion means in the print processing apparatus according to the present invention includes: a) for a rendering element whose order dependency determination result has a result having no order dependency, the contents of print data and the result of order dependency determination; For the drawing element whose order dependency determination result has the result having the order dependency, the print data is hardware-configured based on the determination results of the overlap with the contents of the print data, and both the determination results a) and b). The data is converted into a format of conversion data including change information.

[0013] In the print processing apparatus of the present invention, the order dependency judging means has a simple order dependency judging means and a detailed order dependency judging means. Based on the data and the command for each drawing element in the document data, a drawing element having no order dependency is detected from each drawing element, and the detailed order dependency determining means determines the characteristic data of the application and each drawing element in the document data. It is characterized in that the order dependency of the drawing element is determined based on the color information on the element and the circumscribed rectangle.

Further, in the print processing apparatus according to the present invention, the print data has a flag indicating whether or not the data relating to the order dependency of the drawing elements is included in the print data.

Further, in the print processing apparatus of the present invention, the print data is characterized in that data relating to the order dependency of drawing elements is included in a comment portion in the print data.

Further, in the print processing apparatus according to the present invention, the overlap judging means executes the overlap judging process only when the print data does not include data relating to the order dependency of the drawing elements.

Further, according to the print processing method of the present invention, there is provided a step of inputting document data constituted by a drawing element having at least one of a character, a graphic, and an image; An information storage step, an order dependency determining step of determining order dependency of the drawing element based on at least the characteristic data and the attribute of the drawing element, and an order dependency determination result and the document data by at least the order dependency determining step. A print data generating step of generating print data, a print data generating step of inputting the generated print data by the print data generating step, interpreting the print data, and rendering elements included in the print data. A lexical solution for detecting an order dependency determination result associated with the drawing element Step, an overlap determination step of performing overlap determination for the drawing element to which the result having order dependency is added in the lexical analysis step, and a determination result of the print data content and the order dependency and a determination result of the overlap determination step. Converting the print data into a format of conversion data including hardware configuration change information based on the hardware configuration change information, and changing the configuration according to the hardware configuration change information included in the conversion data converted in the conversion step. In the modified hardware, and an output step of outputting the converted data expanded by the hardware.

Further, in the print processing method according to the present invention, the order dependency determining step includes a simple order dependency determining step and a detailed order dependency determining step, and the simple order dependency determining step includes a characteristic of the application. Based on the data and the command for each drawing element in the document data, is a step of detecting a drawing element having no order dependency from each drawing element, the detailed order dependency determination step,
The method is characterized in that it is a step of determining the order dependency of the drawing elements based on the application characteristic data, the color information on each drawing element in the document data, and the circumscribed rectangle.

[0019]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

[First Embodiment] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a first embodiment according to the present invention. 1, the image processing apparatus includes a print data creation unit 1, a print data input unit 2, a conversion processing unit 3, a development processing unit 4, and an output unit 5. Further, the print data creation unit 1 includes a document data analysis unit 10, a document information storage unit 11, and a description language creation unit 12, and the conversion processing unit 3 includes a lexical analysis unit 30, an intermediate data generation unit 31, , A parallel processing determination unit 32, and an intermediate data storage unit 33. The expansion processing unit 4 includes a reconfigurable expansion unit 40 and a reconfiguration control unit 41.
And a configuration data management unit 42.

A print data creation unit 1 comments data on the order dependency of drawing elements in the document data from document data generated by an application program for processing document creation and editing in a personal computer or a workstation. It has a function of creating a description language added as "." The description language targeted in the present embodiment is, for example, print data (Page Description Language) such as PostScript.
age). The print data creation unit 1 includes a document data analysis unit 10, a document information storage unit 11, and a description language creation unit 1.
Consists of two.

The document data analysis unit 10 receives and interprets the document data created by the application as standard data, generates a command and a parameter for the command, and requests to receive information stored in the document information storage unit 11. Based on the received information such as the order dependency determination method, the attributes of the drawing elements, and the color information,
The order dependency of the drawing elements is determined, and the determination result of the order dependency, the command, and the parameter for the command are sent to the description language creating unit 12. The standard data described here is
For example, a system output I / F such as GDI.

The document information storage unit 11 stores a method of determining the order dependency on the standard data command for each application, stores font metrics information corresponding to the font resources of the system, and stores a request from the document data analysis unit 10. Provide their data in accordance with

The description language creating unit 12 generates print data that can be interpreted by the conversion processing unit 3 based on the order dependency determination result, the command, and the parameter corresponding to the command input from the document data analyzing unit 10. The result of the determination of the order dependency is added to the print data in the form of a comment. This is to make it possible to cope with another conversion processing device that does not use the determination result of the order dependency when the print data is described in the standard format.

The print data input unit 2 has a function for inputting print data generated by the print data generation unit 1 and print data generated by a device other than the print data generation unit 1.
It is provided with a function for temporarily storing print data until it is output to the conversion processing unit 3.

The conversion processing section 3 has a function of converting print data input from the print data input section 2 into intermediate data in order to enable the expansion processing section 4 to expand the print data. The conversion processing unit 3 includes a lexical analysis unit 30
, An intermediate data generation unit 31, a parallel processing determination unit 32,
And an intermediate data storage unit 33.

The lexical analysis unit 30 cuts out the print data input from the print data input unit 2 as a token in accordance with the syntax of a predetermined description language, and outputs the token to the intermediate data generation unit 31. Also,
What is described by a special notation from the comment part of the print data is interpreted as data relating to order dependency, and the result is also output to the intermediate data generation unit 31.

The intermediate data generation unit 31 includes a lexical analysis unit 30
Receives the tokens and the data related to the order dependency output from, and executes the drawing command, generates data in a trapezoidal basic unit for each drawing command, and sends the intermediate data to the parallel processing determination unit 32. The purpose of generating the intermediate data is to enable high-speed expansion processing in the expansion processing unit 4. Therefore, the intermediate data is represented by a set of simple figures (trapezoids). In addition, data on attributes and order dependency of each drawing element is added to the intermediate data.

The parallel processing determining unit 32 sequentially reads the intermediate data output from the intermediate data generating unit 31, and if the data on the order dependency is valid intermediate data, based on the data on the order dependency, If it is invalid, the overlap determination between the rendering elements of the intermediate data is performed, and based on the result, the intermediate data that can be processed in parallel is determined to be within the range in which it is determined that there is no order dependency between the continuous intermediate data. As a group, the reconfigurable expansion unit 4 of the expansion processing unit 4
A hardware configuration ID, which is an identifier for the configuration data of the hardware that performs parallel processing and is written to 0, is added to the data and output to the intermediate data storage unit 33.

The hardware configuration ID is code information for a plurality of different hardware configurations in which the contents of the expansion process to be executed by each of the plurality of processing resources constituting the hardware for executing the expansion process are set.

The intermediate data storage unit 33 divides and stores the transmitted intermediate data in band units, and reads the intermediate data from the expansion processing unit 4 in band units as needed.

The expansion processing unit 4 reads the intermediate data stored in the intermediate data storage unit 33 of the conversion processing unit 3 in band units, and reads the band buffers 422 and 42 in the expansion processing unit 4.
3. Create print data. This processing is alternately stored in the two band buffers 422 and 423 in the expansion processing unit 4. The expansion processing unit 4 includes a reconfigurable expansion unit 40, a reconfiguration control unit 41, and a configuration data management unit 42.

The reconfigurable expansion unit 40 has a reconfiguration hardware unit 46 for expanding the actual intermediate data and band buffers 422 and 423 for storing the expansion data.
The reconfiguration hardware unit 46 is reconfigured by configuration data indicating the contents of the target expansion processing (such as the type and the number of parallel drawing elements).

The reconfiguration control unit 41 determines whether or not to reconfigure the reconfigurable hardware unit 46 based on the hardware configuration ID added by the intermediate data and the current configuration of the reconfigurable hardware unit 46. And when you need to reconstruct,
The configuration data of the hardware corresponding to the hardware configuration ID is read from the configuration data management unit 42, and the reconfigurable hardware unit 46 is reconfigured.

The configuration data management unit 42 stores and manages the configuration data of the reconfigurable hardware unit 46 in a format corresponding to the hardware configuration ID added to the intermediate data. As will be described later, the output unit 5 used in this embodiment is a color page printer,
The print data alternately stored in the output units 22 and 423
Corresponds to the print data of the recording color printed by. Subsequently, the print data stored in the band buffer memory is alternately output to the output unit 5 in response to a print data request from the output unit 5.

The output unit 5 receives the print data output from the band buffers 422 and 423 of the expansion processing unit 4, prints the print data on recording paper, and outputs the print data. More specifically, a color page printer using a laser scanning type electrophotographic system capable of outputting a full-color image by repeating exposure, development, and transfer for each of CMYBk (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) colors.
The output unit 5 may be an ink jet type color printer. In this case, the print data output from the band buffers 422 and 423 of the expansion processing unit 4 to the output unit 5 is the same for four colors.

Next, the flow of print data in the print processing apparatus configured as described above will be summarized. System output I corresponding to the document created by the application
/ F is input to the document data analysis unit 10 of the print data creation unit 1. The input document data is converted by the document data analysis unit 10 into data, commands, and parameters related to order dependency based on data read from the document information storage unit 11 as necessary.
It is sent to the description language creation unit 12. In the data sent to the description language creating unit 12, the command and its parameter are converted into the corresponding command and parameter of the print data, and the data on the order dependency is written in the comment of the print data based on a special notation. To form print data, which is input to the print data input unit 2. The print data input unit 2 can also input print data created by a device other than the print data creation unit 1. The print data input to the print data input unit 2 is input to the conversion processing unit 3. Then, in the lexical analysis unit 30, the data is converted into tokens representing commands and their parameters and data on order dependency, and input to the intermediate data generation unit 31. The token and the data relating to the order dependency are interpreted, converted into data having the basic configuration of trapezoid data and order dependency data divided in band units, and input to the parallel processing determination unit 32. This data is divided into groups that can be processed in parallel based on the data on the order dependency or the overlapping of the drawing elements, and is converted into intermediate data to which a hardware configuration ID is added for each group that can be processed in parallel. One page is stored in the storage unit 33 in band units. After that, in the expansion processing unit 4,
The hardware configuration ID of the intermediate data is used to obtain configuration data from the configuration data management unit 42, and the obtained configuration data is used to reconfigure the reconfiguration hardware unit 46 under the control of the reconfiguration control unit 41. To be consumed. Further, the rendering element data based on the trapezoid of the intermediate data is subjected to raster expansion processing by the reconfiguration hardware unit 46 and stored in the band buffers 422 and 423. As for this data, print data is transferred from the band buffers 422 and 423 to the output unit 5 in accordance with the recording speed of the output unit 5 and used for printing. Printing is repeated for each color or simultaneously for four colors until print data for one page is processed.
Further, when the print data includes a plurality of pages, the process is repeated until the output of all pages is completed.

The outline of the print processing apparatus of the present invention has been described above. Next, the main part of the print processing apparatus will be described in more detail.

First, the document data analysis unit 10, the document information storage unit 11, and the description language creation unit 12, which constitute the print data creation unit 1, will be described. The document data analysis unit 10
As shown in FIG. 2, it is composed of a command interpretation unit 100, an application characteristic storage unit 101, a simple order dependence determination unit 102, a detailed order dependence determination unit 103, and a parameter storage unit 104. The command interpreter 100 receives, as document data, an application ID and a system output command corresponding to a document created by the application,
The ID of the application is sent to the application characteristic storage unit 101, the system output command is interpreted, and the command and the parameter for the command are sent to the simple order dependency determination unit 102. The application characteristic storage unit 101 fetches from the document information storage unit 11 information on the application order dependency determination method corresponding to the received application ID, and stores the information. The simple order dependency determining unit 102 determines whether the command order dependency can be determined without detailed analysis based on the information on the order dependency determining method stored in the application characteristic storage unit 101 for the received command. In this case, an order dependency determination is performed, and the order dependency determination result, the command, and the parameter are sent to the detailed order dependency determining unit 103 or the description language creating unit 12 as necessary. If a detailed analysis is required, the command and the parameter are sent to the detailed order dependency determination unit 103 without performing the order dependency determination of the command. The detailed order dependency determination unit 103 determines whether the sent command, the parameter, and the color information and the circumscribed rectangle related to the previous drawing command stored in the parameter storage unit 104, and the font metrics from the document information storage unit 11 if necessary. The information is obtained, the order dependence of the command is determined by performing operation comparison, and the result of the order dependence determination, the command, and the parameter are sent to the description language creating unit 12. The parameter storage unit 104 stores data for the detailed order dependency determination unit 103 to perform order dependency determination on the command. The data includes color information of a previous drawing command and information on an area determined to have no order dependency. A circumscribed rectangle is included.

The document information storage section 11 mainly stores data indicating a method for determining the order dependency of an application and font metrics data. The data indicating how to determine the order dependency of the application means that if a certain application does not cause characters to overlap regardless of how parameters are specified, the character drawing system output When determining the order dependency of a command, it is possible to determine that there is no order dependency even if the overlap determination processing is omitted for the character string in the command or the preceding and following character drawing commands. As described above, the data describes whether or not the overlap determination processing can be omitted as the order dependence determination in units of commands.

The description language creation unit 12 includes a command conversion unit 120 and an order-dependent data insertion unit 12 as shown in FIG.
1. Descriptive language storage unit 122 The command conversion unit 120 receives a command and a parameter corresponding to the system output command from the document data analysis unit 10,
The print data is converted into the corresponding command and parameter in the description format of the print data, and the converted data is sent to the description language storage unit 122. The order dependency data insertion unit 121 converts the order dependency determination result input for each drawing command of the system output command into comment data expressed in a description format of the print data, and stores the comment data in the description language storage unit 122. Send. The description language storage unit 122 includes a command conversion unit 120
When the print data of the entire document is created, an output instruction is received from the command conversion unit 120, and the print data is output to the print data input unit 2. . In addition, a special command indicating that the print data is added with the order-dependent data is inserted into the head comment portion of the print data created in the description language storage unit 122 to the conversion processing unit 3. Order-dependent data insertion unit 121
Is added immediately before adding the command and parameter converted by the corresponding command conversion unit 120.

A description will be given of how actual data is processed. The page as shown in FIG.
And a print request is made. First, the document data analysis unit 10 receives the application ID A from the application, interprets it by the command interpretation unit 100, and stores the characteristic data of the application A in the application information storage unit 101 in the document information storage unit 11
And ask them to remember it. Also,
Through the simple order dependency determination unit 102, the order language dependency data indicating a special command indicating that the print data has the order dependency data added to the description language creating unit 12 as a comment “% ODER: FLAGON”. ". This is used in the generation processing unit 3. The application characteristic storage unit 102 stores characteristic data of the application A based on the instruction. In this case, it is assumed that it is not necessary to determine the overlap of the characteristic data of the application A between the character drawing commands and between the character drawing commands. In other words, in application A,
There is no function to overlap characters.

Subsequently, the application A sends the document data shown in FIG. 13 which is a system output command corresponding to FIG. The command interpreting unit 100 sequentially interprets commands and parameters, and sends them to the simple order dependency determining unit 102. Simple order dependency determination unit 1
In 02, if the transmitted command is other than the drawing command, the received command and parameters are sent to the description language creating unit 12 as they are. This determination is based on the characteristic data of the application A. However, the commands related to the color and the position are sent to the description language creating unit 12 once through the detailed order dependency determining unit 103 to be used for order dependency determination. Detailed order dependency determination unit 103
Then, the transmitted color and position parameters are stored in the parameter storage unit 104.

For example, in the case of the document data shown in FIG.
"Gray (0.0)", "movepen (30, 2
00) ”indicates that the simple order dependency determination unit 102 does nothing,
The values are sent to the detailed order dependency determination unit 103, and the color and position values are stored in the parameter storage unit 104, and then sent to the description language creation unit 12. In the next “drawext”, when input to the simple order dependence determination unit 102, the “drawext” stored in the application characteristic storage unit 101 is output.
fetch order-dependent processing data for "t". In this case, since there is no drawing command before and this command itself does not need to determine the overlap, the result of the order dependence determination is set to “NOCAR” without performing the overlap determination.
E ". The command is stored as a character drawing command before. Then, the command and the argument are sent to the detailed order dependency determining unit 103.

The detailed order dependency determining unit 103 obtains font metrics from the document information storage unit 11, calculates a circumscribed rectangle of the character string of the argument from the current point stored in the parameter storage unit 104, and calculates the result. Return to the parameter storage unit 104. Then, the command and the argument are sent to the description language creating unit 12. The following "movepen",
The same processing as described above is repeated for “drawext”, but the circumscribed rectangle calculated by the detailed order dependency determination unit 103 is “NOCARE” because the order dependency determination result is “NOCARE”.
The difference is that the area is expanded to the "OR" area. "L
"ineattribute (1)" is sent from the simple order dependency determination unit 103 directly to the description language creation unit 12. “Linewidth” is used in obtaining the circumscribed rectangle in the detailed order dependency determination unit 103, and is therefore treated in the same manner as “gray” and “movepen”. "Growstrokeval"
When input to the simple order dependence determination unit 102, the “gramstr” stored in the application characteristic storage unit 101
fetch the order-dependent processing data for “okaval”. In this case, since data indicating that it is necessary to determine the overlap is received, the detailed order dependency determination unit 103 receives the data as it is.
Sent to

The detailed order dependence determining unit 103 receives color information for the previous drawing command and the currently set color information from the parameter storage unit 104 and compares them.
In this case, since the gray value is (0.0) in both cases, even if the order is changed, the drawing is not affected. Therefore, the order dependency determination is “NOCARE”, and the description language is created together with the command and the argument. It is sent to the unit 12. The “OR” of the circumscribed rectangle is taken and returned to the parameter storage unit 104. “Gray” has been described above and will not be described. When “drawfillrectangle” is input to the simple order dependence determination unit 102, “drawfillrectangle” is stored in the application characteristic storage unit 101.
Rectangle ”is fetched. In this case, since data indicating that it is necessary to execute the overlap determination is received, the data is sent to the detailed order dependence determination unit 103 as it is. The detailed order dependency determining unit 103 receives color information for the previous drawing command from the parameter storage unit 104 and currently set color information and compares them. In this case, the circumscribed rectangles are compared next because the gray values are different. In this case, the circumscribed rectangle to be compared stored in the parameter storage unit 104 is “drawfill”.
It is determined that the circumscribed rectangle of “rectangle” is included, that is, they overlap, and the order dependency determination is “CARE”, which is sent to the description language creating unit 12 together with the command and the argument. The circumscribed rectangle stored in the parameter storage unit 104 is the “drawfillrecta”
The value of the circumscribed rectangle of “ngle” and the color of the previous drawing command are also changed to the gray value 0.5. Finally, "grawi
When “image” is input to the simple order dependency determining unit 103, order dependent processing data for “grawimage” stored in the application characteristic storage unit 101 is fetched. In this case, since data indicating that it is necessary to determine the overlap is received, the data is sent to the detailed order dependency determination unit 103 as it is. The detailed order dependency determination unit 103 immediately compares the circumscribed rectangles without performing color information comparison because it is an image command. In this case, "drawfi
llrectangle ”and the“ graim ”
Since the circumscribed rectangles of “age” do not overlap, the order dependency determination is “NOCARE” and is sent to the description language creating unit 12 together with the command and the argument. The value is changed to a value obtained by ORing the circumscribed rectangle, and the color information is changed to “NOTDEFINED” and returned to the parameter storage unit 104. The data processed by the document data analysis unit 10 as described above is input to the description language creation unit 12. Among these data, the command and the parameter are stored in the command conversion unit 120.
The system output commands and parameters are converted into commands and parameters of the print data. The order dependency determination result is stored in the order dependency data insertion unit 1.
21 and converted into a comment expressing the result in a special description format. The command, the parameter, and the comment are sent to the description language storage unit 122. The description language storage unit 122 additionally stores them in the print data format shown in FIG. 14 and outputs the created print data to the print data input unit 2 based on an instruction from the document data analysis unit 10.

Next, the print data input section 2 will be described. The print data input unit 2 receives print data and stores it. The print data input thereto need not be the print data created by the print data creation unit 1 as long as the print data can be processed by the conversion processing unit 3. That is, the order dependency data need not be included in the comment. Data that does not include the order-dependent data is processed by the conventional overlap determination method.

Next, the lexical analyzer 30, the intermediate data generator 31, the parallel processing determiner 32, and the intermediate data storage 33 constituting the conversion processor 3 will be described.

The lexical analysis unit 30 receives and interprets the print data from the print data input unit 2, cuts out the part other than the comment part as a token, sends it to the intermediate data generation unit 31, and describes the comment part in the special notation. The order-dependent data is interpreted and sent to the intermediate data generating unit 31 as a token attribute.

As shown in FIG. 4, the intermediate data generation unit 31 includes a token interpretation unit 310, an instruction execution unit 311, an image processing unit 312, a drawing state storage unit 313, a vector data generation unit 314, a font Management section 315, matrix conversion section 316, short vector generation section 31
7, a trapezoid data generation unit 318, and a band decomposition management unit 3
And 19 parts.

The token interpreter 310 is provided for the lexical analyzer 30.
, And converts the token into an internal instruction and sends it to the instruction executing unit 311. The command execution unit 311 transfers the command to the image processing unit 312, the drawing state storage unit 313, and the vector data generation unit 314 according to the command sent from the token interpretation unit 310. The image processing unit 312 performs various kinds of image processing based on the input image header and image data, generates an output image header and output image data, and transfers the output image header and the output image data to the trapezoid data management unit 320.

The drawing state storage unit 313 stores the instruction execution unit 31
The information necessary for drawing given by the instruction 1 is stored. The vector data generation unit 314 includes an instruction execution unit 311
Command and information added thereto, drawing state storage unit 313
The vector data to be drawn is generated using the information from the font management unit 315 and the information from the font management unit 315, and is transferred to the matrix conversion unit 316. The font management unit 315 manages and stores outline data of various fonts, and provides outline data of characters in response to a request. The matrix conversion unit 316 performs affine transformation on the vector data input from the vector data generation unit 314 using the conversion matrix of the drawing state storage unit 313, and transfers the vector data to the short vector generation unit 317. Short vector generator 3
In step 17, the vector for the curve in the input vector is approximated by a vector set (short vector) of a plurality of straight lines and sent to the trapezoid data generation unit 318. The trapezoid data generation unit 318 generates trapezoid data to be drawn from the input short vector, and transfers it to the band decomposition unit 319. The band disassembly management unit 319 divides the trapezoidal data over a plurality of bands from the input trapezoidal data into trapezoidal data of each band, and further determines to which band the trapezoidal data divided in band units belongs. , A circumscribed rectangle for a trapezoidal data set divided in band units, data management information and color information input from the drawing state storage unit 313 or an image processing unit 312
Are added to the image data and the order-dependent data, and sent to the parallel processing determination unit 32. Here, each trapezoidal data other than the order dependency data is called an object. The order dependency data is added to each object.

As shown in FIG. 15, the parallel processing determination unit 32 includes an additional information flag 360 and an input buffer 36.
1, an overlap determination unit 362, a configuration data addition unit 363, and an output object buffer 364. If the additional information flag 360 has been set in advance by the execution of the intermediate data generation unit 3, the input buffer 3
The object stored in 61 is the overlap determination unit 362
Output object buffer 364
And the data relating to the order dependency is input to the configuration data adding unit 363. When the additional information flag is not set 360, the object stored in the input buffer 361 is input to the output object buffer 364 via the overlap determination unit 362, and the result of the overlap determination unit 362 is output to the configuration data addition unit. 363. Here, the intermediate data is divided into groups that can be processed in parallel based on the data related to the order dependency or the overlap determination result, and a hardware configuration ID is added to each group and sent to the intermediate data storage unit 33. The intermediate data storage unit 33 stores one page of the intermediate data output by the parallel processing determination unit 32 in band units. The processing from the token interpreting unit 310 to the intermediate data generating unit 31 described above is repeatedly performed each time a drawing command is input. The processing from the parallel processing determination unit 32 to the intermediate data storage unit is performed in band units or page units depending on the case. The transfer of the intermediate data from the intermediate data storage unit 33 to the expansion processing unit 4 is performed after the intermediate data for one page is stored.

Hereinafter, the operations of the lexical analyzer 30, the intermediate data generator 31, the parallel processing determiner 32, and the intermediate data storage 33 will be described with reference to the actual data structure.

In the lexical analyzer 30, the token interpreter 31
“0” interprets the token input from the lexical analysis unit 30, converts the token into an internal command and its parameters, and transfers a set of these internal commands and parameters to the command execution unit 311. For example, the internal commands include a drawing command for executing drawing of characters / graphics / images, and a drawing state command for setting information required for drawing such as color and line attribute.

The instruction execution unit 311 includes the token interpretation unit 31
Execute the internal instruction sent from 0. The commands executed here mainly include a drawing command and a drawing state command. For example, the drawing commands include three types of drawing commands as shown in Table 1, and information necessary for each drawing is shown. Among them, information having an underline is given as an argument in a drawing command, and other information is stored in the drawing state storage unit 313 in advance by initial setting or a preceding command. To execute the drawing command, the received drawing command other than the image drawing is transferred to the vector data generating unit 314 as it is. In the case of image drawing, the received drawing command is transferred to the image processing unit 312, and the vertical and horizontal sizes of the image header are transferred to the vector data generating unit 314. For the drawing state command, the command is stored in the drawing state storage unit 31.
Transfer to 3.

The image processing unit 312 receives the input image header and the input image data, which are the arguments of the command input from the command execution unit 311, and performs affine transformation using the conversion matrix obtained from the drawing state storage unit 313.

The drawing state storage unit 313 stores the instruction execution unit 31
For example, the values of the information without the underline shown in Table 1 are set with the values of the arguments included in the instruction received from No. 1 and stored. The image processing unit 31
2. The values are transferred according to the requests of the vector data generation unit 314, the matrix conversion unit 316, the short vector generation unit 317, the band decomposition management unit 320, and the like.

[0058]

[Table 1]

The vector data generation unit 314 generates vector data for new drawing except for the solid drawing, using the command and argument sent from the command execution unit 311 and the value of the drawing state storage unit 313. I do. First, the case of character drawing will be described. The character code given by the argument and the font ID obtained from the drawing state storage unit are transferred to the font management unit, and character outline data is obtained. Since the acquired outline data does not include information on the drawing origin (current point), the offset of the current point acquired from the drawing state storage unit 313 is added to the outline data.
Generate the desired vector data. In the case of image drawing, a rectangular vector corresponding to the vertical and horizontal sizes of the image header given by the argument is generated, and the drawing state storage unit 3
Then, the target vector data is generated by adding the offset of the current point acquired from. In the case of stroke drawing, an outline vector of a line having a thickness as shown in FIG. 5 is generated from the vector given as an argument and various line attributes acquired from the drawing state storage unit 313. The vector generated in this manner (in the case of a solid drawing, the vector directly received from the instruction execution unit 311)
Is transferred to the matrix conversion unit 316.

The font management unit 315 stores outline vector data for various fonts, and provides outline vector data for the character in accordance with a given character code and font ID.

The matrix conversion unit 316 affine-transforms the vector data received from the vector data generation unit 314 using the conversion matrix acquired from the drawing state storage unit 313. The main purpose of the affine transformation is to convert the resolution (coordinate system) of the application to the resolution (coordinate system) of the printer. A 3 × 3 matrix as shown in the following equation (1) is used for the conversion matrix. The input vector data (Xn, Yn) is converted into output vector data (Xn ′, Yn ′) and sent to the short vector generation unit 317. Sent.

[0062]

(Equation 1)

The short vector generation unit 317 sets the curve vector to a value smaller than the flatness value obtained from the drawing state storage unit 313 when the input vector includes a curve vector. Then, a process of approximating with a plurality of short vectors is performed. For example, a Bezier curve represented by four control points shown in FIG. 6 is used as a curve vector. In this case, the short vector processing recursively divides the Bezier curve as shown in FIG. 6, and the height (distance d) is flatness (flat).
When the value becomes smaller than the value given by (tness), the division ends. Then, the start point and the end point of each of the divided Bezier curves are connected in order, thereby completing the short vectorization. The generated short vector is sent to the trapezoid data generator 318.

The trapezoid data generation unit 318 generates a set of trapezoid data (in some cases, a triangle, but the data structure is the same as the trapezoid) indicating the drawing area from the input vector data. For example, a polygonal vector indicated by a thick line shown in FIG. 7A has a drawing area indicated by four trapezoids. This trapezoid is a trapezoid having two sides parallel to the scan line of the output device, and one trapezoid has 6 (sx, sy, x0, x1, x2, h) as shown in FIG. 7B. It is represented by two data. The generated trapezoid is sent to the band decomposition management unit 319.

The band decomposition management unit 319 divides the trapezoidal data over a plurality of bands from the input trapezoidal data into trapezoidal data for each band. For example, in FIG. 8, four trapezoidal data are divided into six trapezoidal data by the band decomposition unit. Further, the intermediate data is generated by adding the additional information and the order dependency data to the trapezoid data decomposed for each band (even when there is no order dependency data, only the area is provided). The additional information is management information for managing the intermediate data and color information indicating in what color the trapezoidal data is to be painted. The management information for the character / graphic drawing command is
A band ID for indicating to which band the object belongs, the type of object, the data of the number of trapezoids, and a circumscribed rectangle for the trapezoid data set.

The object ID is an identification number assigned to one drawing command, and the type of object is identification data for an object to be drawn such as a character / graphic / image. The color information is, for example, the value of CMYBk. These pieces of additional information are added before the trapezoidal data for each band generated by the drawing command, as shown in FIG. Therefore, the object is composed of a plurality of trapezoid data to which a set of drawing attributes is attached. Also,
Intermediate data is a set of data for such an object. The management information for the image drawing command is the same as the character / graphic, but the color information is the image header and image data. Further, as shown in FIG. 9B, one image header and one image data are added to each of the trapezoidal data for each band generated by the drawing command.

The image header and the image data are input from the image processing unit 312. The image data added as the intermediate data corresponds to the minimum rectangle of the vector indicating the converted image as shown in FIG. The image data may be image data, or may be image data for a minimum rectangle for each trapezoid as shown in FIG. The image header includes the type of the color conversion process and the type of the compression method, in addition to the parameter indicating the size of the image.

First, when the data relating to the order dependency is added to the intermediate data to be processed, the parallel processing determination unit 32 receives an instruction from the intermediate data generation unit 31 and
The additional information flag is set 360. If data relating to order dependency is not added to the intermediate data, the additional information flag is not set.

The subsequent operation is divided into two types according to the state of the additional information flag. First, the additional information flag 360
Is set.

When the object data is stored in the input object buffer 361, it is sent to the configuration data adding unit 363 immediately. In the configuration data adding unit 363,
Looking at the order dependency data and the object type added to the object, if the order dependency data has no dependency, the object type and the input of the previously input object stored in the output object buffer 364 are stored. If the combination is a combination that can be processed in parallel by the reconfigurable expansion unit 40 of the expansion processing unit 4 based on the object type of the input object, the input object is additionally written to the output object buffer 364. If the combination cannot be processed in parallel by the reconfigurable expansion unit 40 of the expansion processing unit 4, the hardware configuration ID of the parallel processing for the previously input object group stored in the output object buffer 364 is set. In addition, after sending the object stored in the output object buffer 364 to the intermediate data storage unit 33, the input object is written to the output object buffer 364. When the order-dependent data has a dependency, the hardware configuration ID of the parallel processing for the object group input before being stored in the output object buffer 364 is added and stored in the output object buffer 364. After sending the input object to the intermediate data storage unit 33, a process of writing the input object to the output object buffer 364 is performed.

FIG. 11 shows the intermediate data to which the hardware configuration ID has been added. The intermediate data is generated for each band, and a band ID for identifying the band, a hardware configuration I
D, the number of objects included in the band (Ocount
t) and object data (ODn).

Next, a case where the additional information flag 360 is not set will be described. When the object data is stored in the input object buffer 361, the circumscribed rectangle of the input object and the band ID overlap.
62 is input. Subsequent processing of the overlap determination unit 362 is as follows. The overlap determination unit 362 determines the overlap between objects by inputting the coordinate values of the circumscribed rectangle of each object having the same band ID to the objects sequentially stored in the input object buffer 321. The overlap determination between the objects is to determine the overlap between the circumscribed rectangle corresponding to the band ID of the input object and the circumscribed rectangle of the input object among the circumscribed rectangles held for each band by the overlap determination unit. . The circumscribed rectangle held by the overlap determination unit 362 is
It starts with nothing at first, and then becomes the circumscribed rectangle of the first input object.

Then, from the next object, overlap determination is performed. If it is determined that there is no overlap, the circumscribed rectangle held is the same as that of the area where the circumscribed rectangle of itself and the input object is ORed. Changed to a circumscribed rectangle. If it is determined that there is an overlap, the held circumscribed rectangle is replaced with the circumscribed rectangle of the input object. The overlap determination is based on the lower left coordinates (ldx0, ldy0) and upper right coordinates (rux
0, ruy0), lower left coordinates (ldx1, ldy1) and upper right coordinates (rux) of the circumscribed rectangle of the input object
1, ruy1), and when the following expression is satisfied, it is determined that there is no overlap.

[0074]

Ldx0> rux1 or rux0 <ldx1 or ldy0> ruy1 or ruy0 <ldy1

The OR of the circumscribed rectangle when it is determined that there is no overlap is given by the following equation.

[0076]

Ldx0 = min (ldx0, ldx1), ldy0 = min (ldy0, ld1), rux0 = max (rux0, rux1), ruy0 = max (ruy0, ruy1)

The result of the decision made in this way is sent to the configuration data adding section 363. Configuration data adding unit 36
In 3, looking at this determination result and the object type of the input object, if the determination result does not overlap, the object type of the previously input object stored in the output object buffer 364 is input. If the combination is a combination that can be processed in parallel by the reconfigurable expansion unit 40 of the expansion processing unit 4 based on the object type of the object, the input object is additionally written to the output object buffer 364. If the combination cannot be processed in parallel by the reconfigurable expansion unit 40 of the expansion processing unit 4, the output object buffer 36
After adding the hardware configuration ID of the parallel processing to the object group previously input to the object group stored in the output object buffer 4 and sending out the object stored in the output object buffer 364 to the intermediate data storage unit 33, the input is performed. Output object to object buffer 36
4 and the data of the circumscribed rectangle and the band ID are sent to the overlap determination unit 362 so as to reset the held circumscribed rectangle in the input circumscribed rectangle of the object. If the judgment result indicates that there is an overlap, the hardware configuration ID of the parallel processing for the previously input object group stored in the output object buffer 364 is added, and the output object buffer 364 is added.
After sending out the object stored in the intermediate data storage unit 33, a process of writing the input object to the output object buffer 364 is performed.

The output object buffer 364 inputs and stores object data. If the number of objects to be input and stored is equal to or more than the maximum number of objects that can be processed in parallel in the reconfigurable expansion unit 40 of the expansion processing unit 4, even if the number of objects is larger, such as a band or a page. Good. In this manner, the data output by the parallel processing determination unit 36 is stored in the intermediate data storage unit 3 in order.
Sent to 3. When the lexical analysis unit 30 interprets a page output command, EOP (End Of Page)
Are the intermediate data generator 31 and the intermediate data order controller 32
Is sent to the intermediate data storage unit 33 via the network, and the final data of each band stored in the intermediate data storage unit 33 includes E
Data representing OD (End Of Data) is added to clarify the end of the band data. This EOP is also sent to the expansion processing unit 4 to activate the processing of the expansion processing unit 4.

Finally, the hardware configuration ID will be described. The hardware configuration ID is code information corresponding to the processing executed by the expansion processing unit 4, and is shown in Table 2 below.
Represents the meaning like.

[0080]

[Table 2]

These correspond one-to-one with the actual configuration of the reconfigurable developing unit 40. In this case, hardware for character processing can be configured to process a relatively small trapezoid, so that reconstructed hardware of the same scale can increase the number of parallel processing compared to graphic processing and image processing. Further, image processing requires color processing and decompression processing in addition to trapezoidal processing, so that the number of parallel pieces of reconstruction hardware of the same scale is reduced. In the case of the embodiment, the size of the reconfiguration hardware is set to a size that can be configured for eight character processing, four graphic processing, and two image processing.

Next, the expansion processing section 4 will be described. FIG. 16 shows a block diagram of the reconfigurable developing unit 40. The intermediate data for each band generated by the conversion processing unit 3 is read by the intermediate data transfer control unit 43, and is stored in the memory unit 41.
0 input buffer A420 or input buffer B42
Written to 1. The reconfiguration hardware unit 46 reads the intermediate data from the input buffer A420 or the input buffer B421, expands it, and
2 or drawing in band buffer B423. The print data transfer control unit 44 includes a band buffer A
2 or read out from the band buffer B 423, converts the read data into serial data for each read word, and outputs it to the output unit 5 in synchronization with the serial output clock signal. The refresh controller 44 includes an input buffer A420, an input buffer B421, a band buffer A422, a band buffer B423, and a work area 424.
Refresh of the memory unit 42 composed of The arbitration unit 45 includes a refresh control unit 47, an intermediate data transfer control unit 43, a print data transfer control unit 44,
When each of the reconfiguration hardware unit 46 and the reconfiguration control unit 41 accesses the memory unit 410, it performs arbitration control according to the access priority assigned to each block.

A method of using the input buffer and the band buffer will be described. FIGS. 17A and 17B show the use states of the buffers while intermediate data is being input to the input buffer A and the input buffer B, respectively.
In FIG. 17A, intermediate data corresponding to band i is being input to input buffer A, and intermediate data corresponding to band (i-1) has already been input to input buffer B. The reconfiguration hardware unit 46 has an input buffer B
Is read out, expanded, and drawn in the band buffer B. The band buffer A stores print data as a result of developing and rendering the intermediate data corresponding to the band (i-2), and the print data transfer control unit 44 reads this to the output unit 5. FIG.
In FIG. 7B, intermediate data corresponding to band (i + 1) is being input to input buffer B, and intermediate data corresponding to band i has already been input to input buffer A. The reconfiguration hardware unit 46 reads out the intermediate data stored in the input buffer A, expands it, and draws the data in the band buffer A. In the band buffer B, print data as a result of developing and rendering the intermediate data corresponding to the band (i-1) is stored, and the print data transfer control unit 44 reads this to the output unit 5.

The work area 424 is used as a temporary work area as needed when the expansion processing section 4 expands the intermediate data input from the conversion processing section 3.

A procedure in which the reconfigurable developing unit 40 expands the intermediate data (see FIG. 11) output by the conversion processing unit 3 shown in FIG. 1 will be described. The configuration control unit 41 inputs the hardware configuration ID and the object ID from the input buffer, and controls the reconfiguration hardware unit 46 according to the flowchart shown in FIG. The processing performed by the configuration control unit 41 includes seven steps from S11 to S17 shown in FIG. First, in S11, a hardware configuration ID of an object to be processed next is input. In S12, it is checked whether the configuration ID to be processed next is the same as the configuration ID just processed. If they are the same, the process jumps to S15 because there is no need to newly write the configuration data to the reconfiguration hardware unit 46. If not, the configuration data is read from the configuration data management unit 42 based on the hardware configuration ID in S13, and the read configuration data is written to the reconfiguration hardware unit 46 in S14. S1
In step 5, the object ID to be processed is output to the reconfiguration hardware unit 46, and a start signal is sent to notify the start of the processing. In S16, the process waits until the processing in the reconfiguration hardware unit 46 ends. In S17, it is checked whether or not there is an object to be further processed in the band currently being processed. If there is, the process returns to S11; otherwise, the process ends.

FIG. 19 shows the configuration of the configuration data management unit 42. The conversion table 415 is a table for inputting a hardware configuration ID and outputting a start address and a data length of the configuration code storage area 411. The configuration code storage area 411 is an area in which configuration data for an actual hardware configuration ID is stored, and each entry has a variable length. A control unit 412 includes a read control unit 413 and an addition / update unit 414. The read control unit 413 receives the read signal and the hardware configuration ID from the reconfiguration control unit 41, and stores the hardware configuration ID in the conversion table 415.
, The address and data length of the configuration data on the configuration code storage area 411 are input. Next, the read control unit 413 outputs the input address to the configuration code storage area 411, and stores the configuration data corresponding to the hardware configuration ID for the data length in the configuration code storage area 41.
1 and output to the reconstruction control unit 41. An adding / updating unit 414 is a control unit for adding / updating configuration data sent via a host computer or the like (not shown). The adding / updating unit 414 adds an entry of the conversion table 415 and configuration data of the configuration code storage area 411. Remove, delete, or update.

[0087]

As described above, according to the print processing apparatus and print processing method of the present invention, a print data which has any one of character, graphic, and image drawing elements and is described by a predetermined drawing command is inputted. To efficiently reconfigure the hardware configuration for executing the expansion process for outputting to the output device, that is, to efficiently select a process capable of parallel processing and to efficiently provide hardware configuration change information be able to. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the amount of hardware necessary for the expansion processing, and to improve the processing speed and effectively realize the functions having different hardware scales by the reconfigurable hardware.

Further, by utilizing the characteristics of the application of the document data, it is possible to more easily determine the order dependency and extract information for enabling parallelization of the hardware configuration for executing the expansion processing. However, by adding the information at the time of creating the page description language, it is possible to reduce the load of preprocessing for parallelization.

Further, a simpler order dependency determination utilizing the characteristics of the application of the document data can be performed.
The conventional overlap determination can be omitted, and the entire processing can be further speeded up.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a document data analysis unit.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a description language creating unit.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an intermediate data generation unit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an outline vector.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating recursive division of a Bezier curve.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating trapezoidal data.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating division of trapezoidal data at a band boundary.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a data expression of trapezoidal data.

FIG. 10 is a diagram for explaining correspondence of image data to trapezoid data.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing intermediate data added with hardware configuration data.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of data created by an application.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example of a system output command.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example of print data.

FIG. 15 is a block diagram illustrating a parallel processing determination unit.

FIG. 16 is a block diagram of a reconfigurable developing unit.

FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating a method of using an input buffer and a band buffer.

FIG. 18 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure in which a configuration control unit controls a reconfiguration hardware unit.

FIG. 19 is a diagram showing a configuration of a configuration data management unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference Signs List 1 print data creation unit 2 print data input unit 3 conversion processing unit 4 expansion processing unit 5 output unit 10 document data analysis unit 11 document information storage unit 12 description language creation unit 30 lexical analysis unit 31 intermediate data generation unit 32 parallel processing determination unit 33 Intermediate data storage unit 40 Reconfigurable expansion unit 41 Reconfiguration control unit 42 Configuration data management unit 43 Intermediate data transfer control unit 44 Print data transfer control unit 45 Arbitration unit 46 Reconfiguration hardware unit 47 Refresh control unit 100 Command interpretation unit Reference Signs List 101 Application characteristic storage unit 102 Simple order dependence determination unit 103 Detailed order dependence determination unit 104 Parameter storage unit 120 Command conversion unit 121 Order dependence data insertion unit 122 Description language storage unit 310 Token interpretation unit 311 Command execution unit 312 Image processing unit 313 Drawing form Storage section 314 Vector data generation section 315 Font management section 316 Matrix conversion section 317 Short vector generation section 318 Trapezoid data generation section 319 Band decomposition management section 360 Additional information flag 361 Input object buffer 362 Overlap determination section 363 Configuration data addition section 364 Output object Buffer 410 Memory unit 411 Configuration code storage area 412 Control unit 413 Read control unit 414 Addition / update unit 415 Conversion table 420 Input buffer A 421 Input buffer B 422 Band buffer A 423 Band buffer B 424 Work area S11 H / W configuration ID Step of input S12 Step of comparing with the immediately preceding H / W configuration ID S13 Step of reading configuration data S14 To reconfigurable hardware of configuration data Presence determining step of end checking step S17 to process object of the write step S15 the synchronization signal transmission step S16 processing

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. An input unit for inputting document data constituted by a drawing element having at least one of a character, a graphic, and an image; a document information storage unit for storing characteristic data relating to an application for creating the document data; Order dependency determining means for determining the order dependency of the drawing element based on the characteristic data and the attribute of the drawing element; and at least based on the order dependency determination result by the order dependency determining means and the document data. Print data generating means for generating print data, print data input means for inputting the generated print data by the print data generating means, interpreting the print data, and rendering elements included in the print data. Lexical analysis means for detecting an order dependency determination result associated with the drawing element; and the print data Overlap determination means for determining the overlap of the drawing elements included in the content of the print data and the determination result of the order dependence, based on the overlap determination result of the overlap determination means,
A conversion unit configured to convert the print data into a format of conversion data including hardware configuration change information; and changing the configuration in accordance with the hardware configuration change information included in the conversion data converted by the conversion unit. A print processing apparatus comprising: hardware means for executing data expansion processing; and output means for outputting converted data expanded by the hardware means. 2. The printing method according to claim 1, wherein the hardware configuration change information changes the configuration of the hardware based on the possibility of parallel processing in the conversion processing of the conversion data. Processing equipment. 3. The rendering means: a) for a rendering element whose order dependency determination result has no order dependency, the contents of the print data and the order dependency determination result; b) the order For a rendering element whose dependency determination result has an order dependency, the print data has a hardware configuration based on both the contents of the print data and the overlap determination result. 3. The print processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print data is converted into a format of conversion data including change information. 4. The order dependency determining means has a simple order dependency determining means and a detailed order dependency determining means, and the simple order dependency determining means includes a characteristic data of the application and a character data of the document data. A drawing element having no order dependency is detected from each drawing element based on the command related to each drawing element. The detailed order dependency determination means determines the characteristic data of the application and the color related to each drawing element in the document data. 4. The print processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the order dependency of the drawing element is determined based on the information and the circumscribed rectangle. 5. The print processing according to claim 1, wherein the print data has a flag indicating whether or not data relating to the order dependency of the drawing elements is included in the print data. apparatus. 6. The print processing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the print data includes data relating to the order dependency of drawing elements in a comment portion in the print data. 7. The print processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the overlap determination unit executes the overlap determination process only when the print data does not include data relating to the order dependency of the drawing elements. . 8. A step of inputting document data constituted by a drawing element having at least one of a character, a graphic, and an image; a document information storing step of storing characteristic data relating to an application for creating the document data; An order dependency determining step of determining the order dependency of the drawing element based on the characteristic data and the attribute of the drawing element; based on at least the order dependency determination result of the order dependency determining step and the document data A print data generating step of generating print data; a print data inputting step of inputting the generated print data by the print data generating step; interpreting the print data; and a drawing element included in the print data. A lexical solution that detects the order dependency judgment result associated with the drawing element An overlap determination step of performing an overlap determination on the drawing element to which the result having the order dependency is added in the lexical analysis step; and a determination result of the content of the print data and the order dependency and the overlap determination step. A conversion step of converting the print data into a format of conversion data including hardware configuration change information based on the result of the determination, and according to the hardware configuration change information included in the conversion data converted in the conversion step. A printing process, comprising: changing the configuration and executing the conversion data expansion processing on the changed hardware; and outputting the conversion data expanded by the hardware. Method. 9. The printing method according to claim 8, wherein the hardware configuration change information changes the configuration of the hardware based on the possibility of parallel processing in the conversion processing of the converted data. Processing method. 10. The order dependency determining step includes a simple order dependency determining step and a detailed order dependency determining step. The simple order dependency determining step includes a step of determining whether or not the characteristic data of the application is included in the document data. Detecting a drawing element having no order dependency from each of the drawing elements based on a command related to each drawing element. The detailed order dependency determination step includes: 9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising the step of determining the order dependency of the drawing element based on the color information about the element and the circumscribed rectangle.
Or the print processing method according to 9.