Facsimile and static presentation processing – Static presentation processing – Emulation or plural modes
Reexamination Certificate
1997-06-19
2004-10-12
Garcia, Gabriel I. (Department: 2624)
Facsimile and static presentation processing
Static presentation processing
Emulation or plural modes
C358S001100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06804016
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a control apparatus for a scanner/printer having functions of interpreting page description languages supplied from a host and of controlling a scanner for scanning original images.
In addition, this invention relates to a server for a scanner/printer connected to a host through a network.
2. Related Background Art
It is common to interconnect computers and other peripherals as a network, allowing users to share the same software, printers and other devices. There is, however, no idea of a “network scanner” of which the scanning operation is controlled by a remote host in a network. A host needing to received an image could read the image through a scanner connected to the host itself. Alternatively, the image may be transferred, through the network, from another scanner to the host issuing a request.
Thus, to print the image scanned by the scanner after being synthesized with other characters and graphic information, the image scanned by the scanner connected to the host or supplied from another host is generally stored in a memory as a file. The file is then supplied to a printer or a server directly or through the network together with characters and a page description language indicating the graphic information, i.e., describing how an image will be printed on a page.
Recently, a digital scanner/printer may sometimes be connected to the host. In the system architecture of the type described, the scanned image is communicated between the digital scanner/printer and the host, which results in unnecessary transmission of data. In this respect, a processor for synthesizing images may be provided between the host and the digital scanner/printer. However, it is necessary in any case to store the scanned image in a memory of the host or the processor in addition to the synthesized image disadvantageously using a memory having a large capacity. In addition, the host is required to produce commands for controlling the scanner apart from commands for controlling the printer with the respective command languages, which degrades the operability of the host.
Further, there has been no device for transferring to the host the image produced by synthesizing an image scanned by the scanner with an image described in the page description language, thereby allowing the host to process the synthesized image. In this respect, the host may comprise means (an interpreter) for interpreting the page description language to obtain the image produced by synthesizing the image scanned by the scanner with the image described by the page description language. The host comprising such an interpreter could synthesize the image described in the page description language with the image scanned by the scanner. However, this method requires a memory for storing image data supplied from the scanner in addition to the memories required for the interpreter and a work-area thereof. It is especially serious when a full-colored image is directed to synthesis because a memory having an extremely large capacity should be used. In addition, an interpreter should be implemented in the printer side to ensure a normal printing operation. In other words, an interpreter for the language being resident in a printer makes it possible to send short programs, instead of huge volumes of pixel data, to the printer. As a result, the host and the associated printer have similar interpreters, making the construction for the image synthesizing operation wasted or useless.
To meet an image input/output request supplied from host computers managed by different operating systems, the server should have a plurality of interpreters for carrying out data communication processing matched to the respective operating systems. This imposes on the server the serious burden of data processing, making the device expensive.
A plurality of host computers may be connected to each other in the network to drive and control a plurality of input/output devices. In this event, each host computer independently produces an image input/output processing request irregularly, so that two or more input/output devices may produce the requests at the same time. It is, however, impossible to carry out a succeeding printing or scanning job in preference to, if any, a preceding printing or scanning job in a wait state. As a result, the efficiency of the image input/output processing will be degraded.
Color input/output devices of the type described are relatively expensive as compared with a monochrome one. In addition, an interface device for interfacing the color input/output device with the host costs much more than the one for interfacing the monochrome device with the same host. The major cause of this is that processing of a color image results in a huge amount of data. Further, the data should be abstracted in a certain method to transmit the color image. More particularly, image and character data should be coded while graphic data should be vectorized, which contributes to abstract the data as much as possible to reduce the amount of data and the coded or vectorized data can be described in a form independent of the device where it is used.
On the other hand, a device that receives the data described in the above mentioned form is required to have an interface to convert the received data into a bit image that is optimum for the receiving device itself. To provide such an interface is disadvantageous in that the cost of the entire system will be increased. It is especially true when a color input/output device is used because a host computer having a color interface and a color input/output device becomes extremely expensive.
A network may comprise a plurality of personal computers and one scanner/printer. If the scanner/printer is free to be accessed from these personal computers, it becomes impossible to meet the demand of a user who wants to use specifically the scanner/printer connected thereto in the network. A particular user may have to wait for a long period before his request of access to the scanner/printer is finally accepted.
The scanner/printer may comprise means for memorizing image input/output commands supplied from a plurality of users. When the scanner/printer is in a ready state and no processing is carried out with commands designating a particular printer or image input/output device (scanner) being stored in the memorizing means of the scanner/printer, the designated printer or scanner may be disabled due to paper jam in the printer or burning out of an exposure lamp of the scanner. Conventional image input/output devices having a communication function carry out scanning and printing operation according to the order of accepting the multiple accesses supplied from the hosts. Accordingly, the input/output processing is not restarted until the designated device is rest from the trouble even if there is one or more enabled input/output devices the waiting state. The only reason any other enabled devices are not operated is that they are not the destination at that time. Such “first-access first-execution” degrades the operational efficiency of the input/output devices.
Various other problems of the conventional input/output devices lie in printers. More particularly, a printer is a device that merely produces images on paper or film according to the received data described in the page description language. This means that it is not necessarily possible to obtain a fine and satisfactory result. For example, the image data generated by an image generating unit may first be compressed and stored in an image memory. In this event, the image memory stores the data of one page that is extended later upon printing. In some cases, it may be worth providing the image memory in the printer and trying to compress the data. However, the capacity of the memory is limited and the image data is thus compressed at a higher compression rate than required. This causes degradation of the image. The degradation could be minimized when the image is compressed at the compressi
Fukuda Yasuo
Hashimoto Yasuhiko
Kobayashi Shigetada
Mita Yoshinobu
Negishi Tsutomu
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Garcia Gabriel I.
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