JPH01147660A - Picture information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an image information processing apparatus that can process a mixed document in which image information and document information, each of which is independent, is combined.

[Conventional technology] Recently, in the field of office automation, pictures, graphics,
Devices that can process image information such as photographs as document information, combine it with other document information created with a word processor, etc., and send and receive that document information to and from other devices via communication networks are now available on the market. It's starting to appear. In this type of device, image information is input from an image input device such as an image scanner, and document information is input manually from a keyboard or the like. Each piece of information is developed into a pattern in an image memory or the like and displayed on a CRT or the like, and the document information is edited and created using a mouse, keyboard, or the like.

When transmitting this document information, the character information of the document information is compressed and encoded, and the image information is compressed and encoded, and then transmitted to another device via the communication section. On the other hand, the device that has received this document information temporarily stores the received document in its auxiliary storage section and notifies the operator of the presence of the received document through a message on the LED %CRT or the like. The operator looks at this display and outputs the received document, or in the automatic output mode, automatically outputs the received document after receiving the document information. When outputting this received document, code information such as characters is expanded into character patterns using a character generator and stored in the image memory, and compressed and encoded image information is decoded and encoded using a compression/expansion section. Decompressed and expanded into image memory. When one page of document information has been developed in this manner, the information stored in the image memory is printed out on recording paper using a recording device such as a laser beam printer.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In such a device, when a received document has multiple pages, it takes time to display and output it, and if it is set to automatic output mode, printing is performed each time each page is received. The disadvantage was that a large amount of recording paper was consumed.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional example, and by reducing received document information and outputting multiple pages of document information on one page, multiple pages of document information can be viewed at a glance. An object of the present invention is to provide an image information processing device that can economically output received documents.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the image information processing apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, a means for pattern-expanding document information consisting of code information, a compression/expansion means for compressing/expanding image information, a reduction/enlargement means for reducing/enlarging the pattern-expanded document information, and a pattern-expanded document. Display means for combining and displaying information and the image information on the same page, and reducing and compressing the pattern-developed document information and the image information, respectively, and displaying a plurality of pages at the same time on the display means. and means.

[Operation] In the above configuration, the document information consisting of code information is pattern-developed, the compression/expansion means compresses/expands the image information, and the reduction/enlargement means reduces/enlarges the pattern-developed document information.

In this way, the pattern-developed document information and image information are combined and displayed on the same page by the display means. Further, the pattern-developed document information and image information are respectively reduced and compressed, and a plurality of pages are simultaneously displayed on the display means.

[Embodiments] Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[Description of Image Processing Apparatus (FIG. 1)] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 indicates a display unit such as a CRT that displays images based on image data in the display memory 3, and reference numeral 2 indicates a key input unit such as a keyboard that creates and edits document information. A display memory (video RAM) 3 stores display data such as character pattern data and image data in the form of dot images. A DMA controller (DMAC) 4 performs DMA transfer of one image data, etc. between each memory and between the image information input/output unit 5.6 and each memory.

5 is an image information output unit such as a laser beam printer, which forms an image on a recording medium based on the image information outputted via the input/output control unit 7; 6 is a photoelectrically read original image; This is an image information input unit such as an image scanner that inputs image information in the form of signals. Reference numeral 7 denotes an input/output control section that controls the interface between the image information input/output section 5.6 and the system bus 9. 8 is a communication unit that transmits and receives various data to and from other devices via the communication line 16.

1o is a large-capacity auxiliary storage unit such as a hard disk that stores encoded document information and compressed image data;
1 is an MPU such as a microprocessor that controls the entire device, and is an RO shown in the flowchart of FIG.
The entire device is controlled by outputting various data signals and control signals according to the control program stored in M12-1.

A character pattern memory is also stored in this ROM 12-1. The RAM 12-2 is used as a work area for MPtJll, and temporarily stores various data such as image data.

Reference numeral 13 denotes a reduction/enlargement section that reduces or enlarges the image data 6 input from the image information input section 6 or the image data read from the image memory 14. Reference numeral 14 denotes an image memory that stores document information subjected to pattern development and also stores image data input from the image information input section 6. 15 is a compression/expansion unit that compresses/expands image information.

With the above configuration, image data is input from the image information input section 6 under the control of the input/output control section 7, and is DMA-transferred to the image memory 14 by the DMAC 4. Further, this image data is reduced to % by the reduction/enlargement section 13, stored in the display memory 3, and displayed on the display section 1. Then, the operator can edit the image information using the key manual section 2 while viewing the reduced image data on the display section 1.

On the other hand, regarding document information, character code data is input by the key human power section 2, and MPU II uses the code to input the character code data.
A pattern is developed using the character pattern data in the ROM 12-1, stored in the display memory 3, and displayed on the display section l.

Further, the document information consisting of the input code data is sequentially stored in the RAMI 2-2. When image data and document information for one page are created in this way, the document information is stored in the auxiliary storage unit 10 as character code string data, and the image data is compressed by the compression/expansion unit 15 and stored in the auxiliary storage unit. 10 is stored.

[Description of structure of document information (FIG. 2)] FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the structure of mixed document data obtained by combining document information input from the key input section 2 and image data input from the image information input section 6. The mixed document data received by the communication unit 8 also has the same configuration.

Here, the mixed document data has a tree structure,
Each mixed document data 20 has a document name, type, number of pages, and page reference information 21 that refers to each page.

Page data 22 referenced by page reference information 21
is the page ID.

It includes block reference information 23 and control information.

24 is block data of image data designated by the block reference information, and 28 is block data of document data. In the image block data 24, 25 is type information indicating that it is image data, 26 is image reference information, and the image data 27 referenced by this reference information 26 is the original image data.

On the other hand, in the block data 28 of document information, 29 is type information indicating that it is document information, 30 is text reference information, and the reference information 30 refers to the original character string data 31.

These block data 24, 2B include position, size information, etc., the position information indicates the position of image data and character information on the screen, and the size information indicates the position of the image data and character information on the screen.
4 indicates the size of image data and characters to be expanded, and serves as reference information for expansion and expansion by the compression/expansion section 15 and the reduction/enlargement section 13.

Mixed document data having such a structure is read out from the auxiliary storage unit 10 by an operator's transmission instruction from the key human power unit 2, and sent to the communication unit 8 via DM by the DMAC 4.
A is transferred and sent.

At this time, the reduction/enlargement section 13 or the compression/
After decompression and enlargement by the decompression unit 15, the communication unit 8 may transmit the data.

[Description of Reception Process (Figure 3)] Figure 3 is a flowchart showing the reception process when mixed document data including image data and document data is received in the apparatus of the embodiment.
-1, and is started when the communication unit 8 receives data from the line 16 and outputs a reception processing request to the MPU 7. Note that the format of this mixed document data is the same as the format shown in FIG.

In step S1, the mixed document data received from the communication unit 8 is transferred to the RAM 12-2 by the DMAC 4 and stored therein, and the mixed document data is analyzed. Step S2
In step S3, the page reference information 21 of the mixed document data is read, and in step S3, the block reference information 23 is read. Thus, in step S4, it is determined whether the block data is character string (text) data or image data based on the type data of the block data.

If it is text data, the process advances to step S5, the block data 28 of the document data is referred to, and the text reference information 3 is
Read character string data 31 from 0 and analyze it, step S
At step 6, the code data string of the character string data 31 is expanded into a character pattern and stored in the position of the image memory 14 indicated by the position and size of the block data.

On the other hand, if it is image data in step S4, the process advances to step S7, where the image data 27 is read out and analyzed based on the image reference information 26 of the image data block 24, and in step S8, it is DMA-transferred to the compression/expansion unit 15 to create an image. The data 27 is expanded based on the size information of the block data 24. The block data 24 is then stored in the image memory 14 based on the position information. When the block data processing of all blocks of the mixed document data is completed in step S8, the process proceeds to step SIO, and the reduction/enlargement unit 13 is used to convert the image data developed in the image memory 14 to 1/(2
X number of pages). And DM on step Sll
It is DMA transferred by AC4 and stored in the auxiliary storage unit 1o.

In step S12, it is determined whether all pages of the mixed document data have been completed, and if not, the process returns to step S2 to process the next page. If the processing for all pages has been completed, the process advances to step S13, and the reduced image data for all purges is stored in the auxiliary storage unit 1.
0 to the image memory 14 using DMAC4,
Expand and display all purges.

Then, in step S14, the image data in the image memory 14 is transferred to the input control section 7 using the DMAC 4, and is outputted from the image↑brochure output section 5.

In this embodiment, the reduction rate is simply set to 172x the number of pages, but this is possible for both stations and groups, and an arbitrary reduction rate can be selected to obtain an easy-to-read reception output.

In addition, in this embodiment, the number of pages is included in the mixed document data for communication, but this number of pages can also be counted and used in the communication section, and in this way, a specific communication protocol is not required. .

Further, in this embodiment, one document is outputted within one page, but the number of pages outputted within one page may be fixed, and a plurality of documents may be outputted.

As explained above, according to this embodiment, by reducing the received output to one page and outputting it, recording paper can be saved, and the information on the necessary pages can be stored in the auxiliary storage again by looking at the output. Since it is only necessary to take out the data and output it, efficient operation is possible.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to see document information spanning multiple pages at a glance, and there is an effect that a received document can be outputted economically.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the schematic configuration of the image information processing device of this embodiment, FIG. 2 is a structural diagram showing the structure of a mixed document of this embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing output processing of a received document of this embodiment. It is a flowchart. In the figure, 1...Display section, 2...Key manual section, 3...
Display memory, 4...-DMA controller (DMAC
), 5... Image information output unit, 6... Image information input unit, 7... Input/output control unit, 8... Communication unit, 9... System bus, 10... Auxiliary storage unit , 11...MPU
, 12-1...ROM%12-2...RAM, 13
... Reduction/enlargement section, 14... Image memory, 15...
- Compression/expansion unit, 16... is a line. Patent applicant Canon Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] means for pattern-expanding document information consisting of code information; compression/expansion means for compressing/expanding image information; reduction/enlargement means for reducing/enlarging the pattern-expanded document information; display means for combining and displaying the image information on the same page; and means for reducing and compressing the pattern-developed document information and the image information, respectively, and displaying a plurality of pages at the same time on the display means. An image information processing device comprising: