JPH0340995B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to an image data control device for printing or displaying an overlay of a form and data on a page memory.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

In recent years, electrophotographic printers such as laser beam printers have come to be used as output devices for information processing systems. This type of page printer develops (writes) the data to be printed out on one page of printing paper in the form of a dot pattern onto the page memory in the control unit, reads it out, and sends it to the printer to obtain the desired print result. I am getting .

By the way, by providing the above-mentioned page printer with a form overlay function, when printing data, it is possible to print the specified format at the same time as the data, without using a specific paper that has been printed in a specified format in advance, such as printer form paper. can do.

To realize this form overlay using software, the form data is developed on the page memory before the next data is developed, the previous data is erased, the new data is developed, and the data is printed out. On the other hand, in order to realize the above-mentioned form overlay using hardware, it is common to provide a page memory for forms in addition to a page memory for data, and develop a desired dot pattern on each page memory and overlap them.

However, since the former is a software-based process, it places a load on the host system and poses a problem in terms of processing speed. Furthermore, the degree of freedom is reduced in terms of form functions. On the other hand, the latter had the disadvantage of high hardware costs.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned drawbacks, and aims to keep hardware costs low, and
An object of the present invention is to provide an image data control device that has enhanced form functions without reducing processing speed by realizing overlay of form and data in hardware within the control device.

[Summary of the invention]

The present invention creates a data area table when expanding overlay data in a page memory in which form information data has been expanded in advance, reads based on the contents of this data area table when reading, and then clears the overlay data. This method is characterized by simultaneous parallel processing in which preparations are made for developing the next page data, and the data of the next page is expanded with a slightly shifted position (in block units).

This reduces hardware costs and enhances form functionality without slowing down processing speed.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below using the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 11 denotes a higher-level system interface control unit ICP that controls the interface with a higher-level system (not shown). The interface control unit 11 is a part that controls the transmission and reception of commands, data, and status exchanged with the host system. 12 is control memory CS
It is. The control memory 12 stores a control program executed by a main control processor MCP14, which will be described later. 13 is memory
MEM is used as a work memory necessary for executing a control program in the main control processor 14, or as a form information memory, various buffers, tables, or when data such as characters cannot be immediately expanded.
It functions as a data storage buffer for storing temporary data.

The main control processor MCP 14 receives commands/data from the higher-level system via the interface control unit 11, interprets and executes the commands while using the memory 13, and controls the return of status to the higher-level system. The main control processor 14 provides parameters such as character code, character size, and position on the page memory where characters are placed to an image development processor 15 (described later), and also instructs the image development processor 15 to develop the characters, etc. into an image pattern. The printer interface control unit 20, which will be described later, performs printing start operations, status reading, etc., and also controls the printer.

15 is an image development processor IWP. The image development processor 15 is a processor unit that performs high-speed image calculations by obtaining a pattern from the pattern generator 16 based on the parameters received from the main control processor 14 and developing it in the form of a head image on the page memory 19. . Furthermore, according to a command from the main control processor 14, if it is overlay data, a data area table 17 indicating the range in which the data (character data, graphic data, etc.) is developed on the page memory 19 is created.
Create or create data area table 1
7 also has the function of clearing the corresponding area on the page memory 19. 16 is a pattern generator PG that generates a character dot pattern according to the specified character code, and is used for mask ROM and external characters.
Including RAM.

A data area table DAT 17 indicates the position and range of overlay data developed on the page memory 19. Each entry in this table 17 is provided corresponding to each block in the page memory 19.

Reference numeral 18 denotes a control circuit PCC necessary for accessing the page memory 19. Access to the page memory 19 is from the image development processor 15 and from the printer interface control section 20, and racing processing for these is also performed here. 19 page memory PM
It is. The page memory 19 is a memory having a capacity equivalent to one page of printing paper for storing character patterns, graphic patterns, and image information in the form of dot patterns. 20 is a printer interface control unit PIC, which performs various printer interface controls such as printer startup control, print data transmission control, page memory readout control, print position synchronization control, and mechanical status readout control.

FIG. 2 is an operational conceptual diagram showing the operational relationship between the data area table DAT and the page memory PM.

FIG. 3 is an operational conceptual diagram showing data flow and correspondence between memories.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the present invention.

Hereinafter, the operation of the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4.

First, form information data is sent from the host system via the host system interface control section 11 and stored in the form information memory 13. The main control processor 14 converts this form information data into parameters (“character mark code”, “character size”, “character rotation”, “character development mode…LOAD, OR, XOR, AND”, “character 1 for the image development processor 15 in the format of ``start position'', ``area occupied by characters'', ``pixel data'', etc.)
It sends it character by character and commands it to be expanded based on its parameters. The image development processor 15 develops (writes) a one-character dot pattern onto the page memory 19 in accordance with the parameters received from the main control processor 14. Perform this expansion for all form information data,
The form is generated on the page memory 19 in the form of a dot pattern.

Next, data for one page to be printed on the form is sent from the host system. Hereinafter, this data will be referred to as overlay data in the sense that it can be overlaid on the form. The main control processor 14 outputs overlay data 1
Character by character, the image development processor 15 adds a flag indicating overlay data to the above parameters.
and issue a deployment command. However, at this time, the main control processor 14 checks whether the dot pattern of the data at this time can be immediately developed on the page memory 19. That is, while the data of the previous page is being read (=printing), it is necessary to check whether or not the dot pattern is developed in the area where the reading has been completed. The page memory 19 is divided into n blocks, and while the i-th block is being read, the first
The data included in the ~(i-1)th block can be sent as is to the image expansion processor 15 and expanded to the page memory 19, but the data included in the i-th to nth blocks cannot be expanded to the page memory 19. Therefore, it is saved in the data storage buffer 13 in a parameter format to be sent to the image expansion processor 15. (Save for later expansion) These are read on the page memory 19, and each time the reading is completed in block units, expansion is performed on the corresponding block on the page memory 19.

The image development processor 15 accesses the pattern generator 16 for each character of the overlay data sent from the main control processor 14, extracts the character dot pattern, executes the calculation specified by the parameters, and outputs the data via the control circuit 18. is written to the page memory 19. At the same time, a character data area is registered in the data area table 17 (data area entry in block units) corresponding to the corresponding block in the page memory 19. This pattern is shown in Figure 2.

If data straddles blocks, a data area table 17 of the corresponding area is created for both blocks.

Now, when the reading of the i-th block is completed, the overlay data area in the i-th block is cleared based on the data area entry i (DAEi) of the data area table 17 of the i-th block created at the time of expansion writing. This command is issued by the main control processor 14 to the image development processor 15. After this, the image development processor 15 also initializes DAEi. When this is completed, it becomes possible to develop the next page of overlay data in the i-th block, and the image development processor 15 creates a data area table 17 (in the DAE) every time data is sent from the main control processor 14 and a development command is issued. The dot pattern is developed and written onto the page memory 19 while the dot pattern is being registered.

The progress of the read block is determined by main control processor 14 checking the page memory addresses produced by printer interface control 20.

When the reading of the last block is completed, the data area of the last block is cleared, and if it is the last page, the operation ends here. When the next page is available, all data is extracted from the data storage buffer 13, expanded to the corresponding area of the page memory 19, and after detecting the full HULL or end of the overlay data of the next page, the printing of the next page is started. .

By controlling in this way, overlay data can be expanded at high speed.

Now, when the dot pattern of the form data and the dot pattern of the overlay data physically overlap, if the overlay data is cleared in the data area table 17, part of the form will also disappear. In such a case, the process is carried out by specifying (software specification) in the form repair information item in the form information to repair the form before starting printing the next page.

Note that form information conceptually consists of two types: form data information and form control information, and form data information is controlled by form control information. Further, the form information includes basic form information, overlay data control information, sheet form modification information for each copy, form repair information, and form restoration information. Since the development of these form information is not directly related to the gist of the present invention, the explanation here will be omitted.

In the embodiment of the present invention, only a printer is shown, but the same method can be applied to a display device.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, overlay of form data and print data can be realized within the control device, thereby reducing the load on the host system.
Furthermore, the portion that has been read out on the page memory is immediately erased block by block, and the data of the next page is sequentially written, so that the processing speed does not decrease.

Furthermore, since the above-mentioned erased portion is only the data portion based on the data area table created at the time of data expansion, the erasing time is short, and the form data remains as is, allowing the overlay of data on the next page to be quickly realized. . Then, when the write data cannot be expanded to the page memory immediately,
Since it has a data storage buffer so that the data expansion can be postponed to a later stage, continuous processing is possible even when data such as figures are mixed, and speed reduction is prevented.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 2 and 3 are operational conceptual diagrams conceptually showing the operation of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the present invention. 11... Upper system interface control unit (ICP), 12... Control memory (CS), 13... Memory (MEM), 14... Main control processor (MCP), 15... Image development processor (IWP) , 16... pattern generator (PG), 17...
...Data area table (DAT), 18...Control circuit (PCC), 19...Page memory (PM), 20...Printer interface control unit (PIC).

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. In an image data control device that develops form data and overlay data on a page memory and prints or displays the data in a predetermined format, the data area corresponding to the page memory is divided into blocks. a table memory for storing a table; a data buffer means for temporarily storing the form data transferred from the outside; and a page memory for storing the form data stored in the data buffer means and the overlay data transferred from the outside. The data area table is expanded into a data area table indicating the expansion range of the overlay data and stored in the table memory, and each time the data in units of blocks is read from the page memory, the read data of the block is used as the data area table. An image data control device comprising: a processor unit that clears data based on an area table and develops data of the next page in the cleared block of the page memory.