JP2543363B2 - Fax machine - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus that displays a usage fee to a user when a facsimile apparatus is installed and a document or image transmission service is performed.

[Prior Art] A facsimile apparatus is one of well-known data communication terminal apparatuses. Until now, facsimile machines have generally been installed mainly in offices and the like, and are used only by staff members. However, in recent years,
For example, a stationery store or the like installs a facsimile machine, and provides a service for transmitting documents and the like to unspecified general customers.

In order to provide such a transmission service, the store must pay NTT a communication fee according to the time spent using the telephone line and the distance to the destination. Therefore, a customer is charged a device usage fee and a communication fee set according to the number of documents, for example.

For this purpose, the store clerk operates the facsimile machine in accordance with the user's request to perform the transmission process, while measuring the communication time, calculating the communication fee by referring to the destination destination fee table prepared in advance, A transmission service usage fee is obtained by adding the predetermined device usage fee.

For this reason, there is a problem that the user must deposit the transmitted original document with the clerk before transmission, and cannot use the original document for transmitting confidential documents. In addition, when sending a document, it is sometimes desired to save communication charges by sending only a specific required portion of one page. Conventionally, in such a case, there has been an inconvenience that it is necessary to cut out only a portion of a document to be transmitted and set it in a facsimile device.

Further, in general, a facsimile apparatus specifies a linear density for fine reading or coarse reading when reading a document, and a document such as a large character is roughly read and transmitted in a short time, whereby communication charges can be saved. Therefore, when using such a service, it is desired to know the charge in advance and set the line density according to the budget.
However, conventionally, there is an inconvenience that the line density cannot be specified according to the budget because the usage fee is not known until the transmission process is completed.

[Purpose] In view of the above points, an object of the present invention is to provide a facsimile apparatus which allows a user to keep the confidentiality of a transmission original and to transmit the original under the conditions according to the budget.

[Structure] To this end, according to the present invention, a document image is read and image information is stored in a memory before transmission, and a fee is appropriately delivered to a destination specified by the delivered amount. While determining the amount of data that can be transmitted, based on the amount of image information and the amount of data that can be transmitted, the transmittable range of the original image is displayed, and the user pays a fee for transmitting the desired range. After that, when a transmission instruction is issued, the original image in the displayed range is transmitted.

 Hereinafter, examples of the present invention will be described in detail.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, a reading unit 1 reads out an image of a transmission original to extract image information. The linear density in this reading is, for example,
According to the CCITT recommended G3 standard, the main scanning direction is 8 dots / mm, the sub-scanning direction is 7.7 lines / mm or 3.85 lines / mm, but this reading unit 1 is 8 dots / mm in the main scanning direction. It is designed to read at 7.7 lines / mm in the sub-scanning direction.

The line buffer 2 temporarily stores the extracted image information for one line. The CODEC (encoding / decoding unit) 3 encodes image information to be transmitted and decodes received image information in accordance with the G3 standard recommended by CCITT. The line buffer 4 temporarily stores the received image information for one line, and the recording unit 5 records the image information on recording paper.

The image memory 6 temporarily stores image information to be transmitted. The modem 7 transmits and receives a transmission procedure signal under the control of the transmission procedure control unit 8, and modulates image information to be transmitted and demodulates received image information. In this embodiment, the data transmission rate of the modem 7 is, for example,
It is fixed at a fixed speed of 4800bps. The NCU (network control unit) 9 detects an incoming call operation such as capturing a line, sending a selection signal which is a dial number, and an incoming call to perform an incoming call operation. At this time, the automatic transmission unit 10 outputs a predetermined selection signal.

The information counting unit 11 uses the reading unit 1 to make 8 dots in the main scanning direction.
/ mm, sub-scanning direction 7.7 lines / mm The total image information read and coded, that is, the amount of data stored in the image memory 6 is detected, while the main scanning direction is 8 dots based on the amount of data.
/ mm, the amount of data when reading at 3.85 lines / mm in the sub-scanning direction is calculated.

The telephone number storage unit 12 stores a destination telephone number, and the data amount / charge storage unit 13 stores data that can be transmitted at a unit charge when transmitting image information from the installation location of this facsimile device to the transmission destination. It seeks quantity. That is, the time required for the transmission control procedure is T ₁ (seconds), the data amount of image information to be transmitted is D (bit), and the data transmission speed is, for example, 4
If you use 800 BPS, the communication charge per second is C ₁ (yen), and the fee that is set appropriately such as device usage charge is C ₂ (yen), the usage charge
C ₀ (yen) is calculated by the following formula.

C ₀ = (T ₁ + D / 4800) × C ₁ + C ₂ Data amount / charge storage unit 13 is the amount of data that can be transmitted at a unit charge of, for example, 10 yen based on the above formula when transmitting to various places throughout the country. Is something that is remembered.
It should be noted that the time T ₁ is calculated as an average number of pages with respect to the amount of data, although the time T ₁ is slightly different between the case where there is only one page and the case where there are multiple pages.

On the other hand, the charge delivery unit 14 pays the usage fee required by the user in coins or bills, and the charge counting unit 15 counts the delivered amount.

The transmittable data amount calculation unit 16 calculates the transmittable data amount based on the data amount per unit charge and the delivered amount.

The display control unit 17 displays, on the display unit 18, which range on the document is transmitted, based on the data amount of all image information read from the document and the data amount corresponding to the delivered amount of money. It is a thing. The display unit 18 can display characters such as a CRT or a liquid crystal display.

The operation unit 19 gives instructions for reading a transmission original, inputting a destination telephone number, and starting a transmission process. The system control unit 20 controls each of the above units,
A predetermined image transmission is executed by obtaining the delivered usage fee.

The facsimile apparatus of the present embodiment has the above configuration, and is installed in an unmanned place like a public telephone, for example, and the user operates by himself / herself when he / she wants to use it and pays a predetermined fee each time. Things.

When transmitting a document with this facsimile apparatus, the user first sets the document to be transmitted on the reading unit 1 and then the operation unit 19
After inputting the callee telephone number at, the fee is delivered to the fee delivery section 14 at an appropriate fee. For example, 10 yen or 100
Additional yen coins can be added as needed, so the initial minimum amount will be delivered.

As a result, under the control of the system control unit 20, the reading unit 1 is activated, the read image information is encoded by the CODEC 3 and sequentially stored in the image memory 6. The image information accumulated in the image memory 6 is read at a line density of 7.7 lines / mm in the sub-scanning direction, but the information counter 11 calculates the data amount in this case and 3.85 lines / mm in the sub-scanning direction. In this case, the amount of data in each case is calculated. This is, for example, half the data amount of the former
Then, by using the latter data amount, an approximate value can be obtained.

The data amount / charge storage unit 13 determines the amount of data that can be transmitted to the destination at a unit charge based on the input destination telephone number. The transmittable data amount calculation unit 16 calculates the total transmittable data amount by multiplying the data amount by the delivered amount. The display control unit 17 calculates the ratio of the total amount of data that can be transmitted to the data amount of the two types of image information corresponding to each linear density, and displays the ratio on the display unit 18.

FIG. 2 (a) shows an example of this display when the transmitted manuscript is one page, together with the destination a and the delivered amount b,
"Normal" (3.85 lines / mm in sub-scanning direction) and "Fine" (7.7 lines / m)
Another line density c is displayed. Also, "P1"
Indicates a page, and a part of rectangles d and e is displayed in black. The ratio of the black-painted portions f and g to the rectangles d and e is the ratio of the amount of data that can be transmitted, and if the original image is evenly distributed on the original surface of the page, then the black-painted portions f , g indicates the transmittable range of the image on the page. In other words, in the figure, with the amount of money already delivered, if you set the linear density "normal", you can send about half from the top of the page, and if you set the linear density "fine", you can send about 1/4. ing.

The positions of the black-painted portions f and g can be moved by operating the operation unit 19. Then, the user moves the black-painted portions f and g to the first position on the page to be transmitted. For example, when transmitting from the center position of the page, the black-painted portions f and g are moved so as to be displayed from the center to the right side as shown in FIG. Then, the linear density is determined to be "normal" or "fine", and it is determined whether the desired transmission range is covered by the black-painted portion f or g. Here, when the coverage of the black-painted portions f and g is narrow, when the charge is further appropriately delivered to the charge delivery unit 14, the coverage is expanded according to the amount. Since such a setting does not match the above-mentioned display with the actual image position depending on the distribution state of the image on the page, the display is roughly determined by the eye-catching amount.

Further, FIG. 3 shows a display example in the case where the original has four pages. In this example, when the line density is “normal”, as shown by a black portion h in FIG. It is set that the data is transmitted up to the center position of the page, and when it is "fine", it is transmitted from the center position of the first page to the end of the second page as shown by the black portion i in the figure. It is a thing.

After setting the desired transmission range in this way, the user specifies the linear density and performs a transmission start operation. As a result, the automatic transmission unit 10 reads the destination telephone number from the telephone number storage unit 12 and controls the NCU 9 to perform a predetermined transmission process. When the partner facsimile machine responds, the transmission procedure control unit 8 performs a predetermined transmission control procedure, and the image information in the image memory 6 is transmitted by the modem 7. In this case, when the transmission start position of the original image is designated by the above operation, the reading is started from the image information of the corresponding line in the image memory 6, while the image information is stored with the linear density "fine". Therefore, when "normal" is designated, the image information in the memory is converted into predetermined linear density data, for example, every other line. When this transmission is completed, each unit is restored to the initial state.

By the way, when the calling process is started and the other party line is busy or there is no response even if it is called for a certain period of time, the fee paid by the fee paying unit 14 is refunded.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the service usage fee is appropriately paid before the transmission, and the amount of data that can be transmitted to the designated destination is calculated by the delivered amount, while the original image While storing the image information in the memory and calculating the data amount by line density when reading the transmission document at each line density, based on the data amount by line density and the above-mentioned transmittable data amount, The transmittable range is displayed for each line density. In addition, this range is
It can be moved by the operation of 19. Here, the user pays a fee for transmitting the desired range, and when the user starts the transmission by designating the linear density, the original image in the designated range is transmitted with the designated linear density. There is.

As a result, the user can perform the operation by himself / herself, so that there is no need to show the transmitted document to a clerk or the like, and the confidentiality of the document or the like can be protected. Further, since the linear density at the time of transmission and the transmission range of the original can be set arbitrarily, it becomes possible to transmit documents, drawings, etc. under the conditions according to the budget.

In the above embodiment, two kinds of linear densities are provided in the sub-scanning direction, but any number of linear densities may be provided, and it is natural that a plurality of linear densities may be provided in the same manner. . Further, although the transmission speed is fixed, it may be arbitrarily set before the use of the device according to the condition of the line and the communication distance.

Further, the charge is calculated based on the data amount, the communication time, and a fixed basic charge, but it is not limited to this, and can be set freely. Further, since the facsimile apparatus is generally provided with a copy function, when a user makes a copy of a document, for example, a charge is calculated based on the amount of image information data and the copyable range is displayed in the same manner. Should be specified.

[Effect] As described above, according to the present invention, when the usage fee is paid before the transmission, the range of the manuscript image that can be transmitted to the destination specified by the paid amount is displayed and used. Since the person pays enough to send the desired range and performs the sending operation, the manuscript image in the displayed range is sent, so the user can operate the sent manuscript by himself or herself. Since it is not necessary to show the document, the confidentiality of the document can be protected, and the transmission range of the document at the time of transmission can be arbitrarily set, so that the document can be transmitted under the condition according to the budget. Further, by performing the above-described display for each line density, it becomes possible to further transmit the document or the like with a budget corresponding to the content of the transmission original.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 2A and 2B are explanatory diagrams showing a display example of a manuscript transmittable range when the number of manuscripts is one page. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a display example of the original transmittable range when the number of originals is four pages. 1 ... Reading unit, 2,4 ... Line buffer, 3 ... CODEC
(Encoding / decoding unit), 5: recording unit, 6: image memory, 7: modem, 8: transmission procedure control unit, 9: NCU
(Network control device), 10 ... Automatic transmission unit, 11 ... Information amount counting unit, 12 ... Telephone number storage unit, 13 ... Data amount / charge storage unit, 14 ... Fee delivery unit, 15 ... Fee Counting unit, 16 ... Transmittable data amount calculation unit, 17 ... Display control unit, 18 ... Display unit, 19 ... Operation unit, 20 ... System control unit.

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. Corresponding to the destination designation means for designating a destination, a charge delivery means for delivering a transmission charge, and the delivered amount when the image information is sent to the designated destination. A transmittable data amount calculating means for obtaining a transmittable data amount, an image information storing means for reading a document image and storing image information, and an image information data amount calculating means for calculating a data amount when transmitting the stored image information. And display means for displaying the transmittable range of the document image based on the data amount and the transmittable data amount, and image information transmitting means for transmitting the transmittable range of the document image by a transmission operation. A facsimile device characterized by the above. 2. The display device according to claim 1, wherein the display means transmits an image based on the data amount by linear density and the transmittable data amount when the transmission original is read and transmitted at each linear density. A facsimile machine characterized by displaying the possible range for each line density. 3. A facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising setting means for setting the transmittable range of image information at an arbitrary position.