JP2006347064A - Page drawing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enhance the processing efficiency of the system for printing PDL for describing pages in combination of two or more objects. <P>SOLUTION: Even if re-using is clarified, when the cost required for drawing the object is too low, it is made to redraw each time without caching the result of drawing. Only when the accumulation is truly required, the object which has been drawn is made to be cached. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a page drawing apparatus such as a printing machine, a printer, and a display that generates display information from information to be printed and displayed and performs printing and display.

  With the advancement of electrophotographic technology, it is possible to print with image quality approaching that of conventional printing without the plate making required by conventional printing technologies such as offset printing. At the same time, applications and ideas that could not have been considered under conventional printing technology are born. A typical example is personalized direct mail (hereinafter referred to as PDM), which is tailored to each customer's preference information and finely controls the content, and personal information such as the customer's name is printed on the printed matter. It is. Fig. 1 shows an example of PDM.

  Figure 1 shows a travel agency PDM consisting of five parts. CUSTOMER is the customer name, COMPANY is the name of the travel agency, TITLE is the title of the DM, and TOUR1 and TOUR2 are the promotional parts of the tour.

  The travel agency decides a tour that suits each customer's preference, that is, a combination of tour promotions that are more likely to be applied using a customer database, etc., and prints a PDM that optimizes the tour combination for each customer I can do it.

  However, considering the process of printing PDM as shown in Fig. 1 using electrophotographic technology, it is not necessary to make a plate for each customer, but it is necessary to prepare print documents tailored for each customer for all customers. Yes, the cost of creating a document using a word processor or the like was still high.

  In other words, if there is an expression method that can easily express these combinations, the product information to be reused is shared, and from the printed document, it is described so that it can be placed on the paper by referring to it. Document creation work can be performed efficiently.

  Furthermore, in the case of PDM, a printed document is often expressed by a combination of an object that can be reused, such as product information, and an object that changes each time, such as a customer name. There was no specification method for storing and reusing information, and after all, the rendering engine repeated rendering of the same product information for each PDM of each customer.

  In other words, if you can specify to reuse the drawing result of an object such as product information that is used many times, when printing a PDM of a customer, the drawing engine draws only the customer-specific information for each customer, and otherwise Commodity information, etc. can be combined with already-drawn commodity information that has been stored to construct a PDM page, thereby reducing the processing required for the rendering engine.

  That is, in the PDM printing process of Fig. 1, COMPANY, TITLE, TOUR1, and TOUR2 are drawn and stored in advance, and the drawing is done by combining the CUSTOMER parts that are drawn for each customer to compose the PDM paper surface. Processing time can be reduced.

  One technology that satisfies the above requirements is PPML (Personalized Print Markup Language).

  PPML is a kind of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and is an open standard whose specifications are determined and published by an organization called PODi.

  PPML defines an area for placing objects on a page, and then draws objects given in Postscript (registered trademark, hereinafter abbreviated as PS), Portable Document Format (hereinafter PDF), JPEG, etc. Thus, it is very easy to describe an instruction to place the document at a predetermined position on the page.

  PS, PDF, and JPEG draw objects that are placed on the paper, while PPML controls the placement of the objects and finishes them into PDM. In other words, PSML, PDF, JPEG, and other objects are drawn by the drawing engine, and PPML controls the placement engine that places them on the paper.

  In PPML, a name is defined for a reusable object, and an object for which a name is defined has a specification that refers to the object by that name. This specification is introduced in order to prevent the drawing engine from redrawing the same object over and over again by drawing the object to be used in advance.

  FIG. 2 shows a PPML source for generating the PDM shown in FIG. Here, since this source code is for helping understanding of the explanation, an essential attribute is intentionally omitted. That is, note that the PPML specification is not completely satisfied.

  The PPML source code in Fig. 2 describes PDM for three customers.

  In FIG. 2, (1) defines an image to be arranged in the COMPANY portion in FIG. 1, and an object described in Postscript called company.ps is named COMPANY.

  In FIG. 2, (2) defines an image arranged in the TITLE part in FIG. 1, and an object described in Postscript called title.ps is named TITLE.

  (3) in FIG. 2 defines the objects arranged in TOUR1 and TOUR2 in FIG. 1, and names SOCCOR, BASEBALL, and RUGBY for soccer, baseball, and rugby, respectively.

  In FIG. 2, (4) actually constitutes a PDM for abc.

  First, the page size is defined by the Dimension of the PAGE element. In the case of this example, the paper size is 792 points wide and 612 points long. The coordinates on the page are the reference point at the lower left, the unit is point, the horizontal direction is positive to the right, and the vertical direction is positive to the top.

  Next, the customer name CUSTOMER is placed on the page.

  Specifically, an object representing a customer name is specified using a MARK element so that the lower left is (50, 500).

  The object is specified by the OBJECT element. The object to be actually drawn is specified by the SOURCE element.

  The SOURCE element specifies the format of the data describing the object. In this example, it can be seen that the object is described in Postscript. Data itself described in Postscript is specified by an EXTERNAL_DATA element described later.

  The file abc.ps is specified as an actual object in Src of the EXTERNAL_DATA element.

  With the PPML element configuration as described above, abc.ps corresponding to CUSTOMER is processed by the Postscript Interpreter called from the PPML Interpreter, expanded into pixel information, and the position (50, 500) specified by the MARK element is located in the lower left. Are arranged as follows.

  In the next MARK element, the company name COMPANY is placed on the page. Specifically, the lower left portion of the COMPANY portion is arranged on the page (300, 500).

  Similarly, the DM title TITLE is placed on the page (50, 50) so that the lower left part is located, and two tours (SOCCOR and BASEBALL in this case) are (300, 275) (300 , 50).

  In the PPML source code of Fig. 2, the PDM for def-like and ghi-like is composed by following procedures very similar to PDM for abc-like.

  Note that the objects other than the customer name CUSTOMER use the COMPANY, TITLE, SOCCOR, BASEBALL, and RUGBY defined in Figs. 2 (1) to (3).

  In Fig. 2, PPML data for generating PDMs for three customers, abc, def, and ghi, is shown, but in actual PDM, PDMs for tens of thousands of customers are printed. Is normal.

  Therefore, for objects that are used by multiple customers, such as COMPANY, TITLE, SOCCOR, BASEBALL, and RUGBY, save the rendered results once and retain them without redrawing them when they are used again. It is desirable to have a so-called cache function, such as using the drawn result, and to hold the drawn result in a storage area for reuse.

  That is, the description method of the object as shown in FIGS. 2 (1) to (3) in the PPML source code is also a specification in consideration of caching the drawing result of the object.

As another conventional example, Patent Literature 1 and Patent Literature 2 can be cited.
JP 2002-307794 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-122531

  However, in order to realize the cache function as described above, at least a process of writing a drawn reuse object in a storage area and a process of reading a saved reuse object that has been drawn are essential.

  Due to recent technological advances, the CPU (Central Processing Unit) has evolved faster, but the speed of devices that make up storage areas such as hard disks has not improved. Therefore, when the drawn object is cached on the hard disk, the drawing process may be faster each time than when the drawn object is saved on the hard disk and read out.

  The present invention solves the above-described problem by performing caching only when rendering drawn data is more advantageous than repeating drawing without caching.

  That is, a page drawing apparatus that arranges a drawn object on a page, the first description means for describing the object to be drawn, and the first storage capable of storing the first description means Means for generating the object by drawing the first description means, and for generating the drawn object from the first description means by the first drawing means Measurement means for measuring the required amount of resources, second description means including a function indicating that the object drawn by the first description means is reused, and drawing by the first drawing means When drawing the second storage means capable of storing an object and the first description means, first the drawn object that is the drawing result of the first description means is stored in the second storage means. If it exists If there is no such object as a drawing result, the drawing management means for generating an object by drawing using the first drawing means is provided, and the drawing management means includes the first drawing The first description means is drawn by the means to generate an object, and the second description means is designated to be used again, and the result of the measurement means satisfies a predetermined condition Only in this case, the object is to provide a page drawing apparatus that stores the object in the second storage means.

  According to the above configuration, even if it is clear that it will be used again, if the cost to draw the object is too small, the drawing result will be redrawn every time without caching, Only can be configured to cache the drawn object.

  By configuring as above, even if it is clear that it will be used again, if the cost for drawing the object is too small, it will be redrawn every time without caching the drawing result, which is really necessary In such a case, the drawn object can be configured to be cached.

  Next, details of the present invention will be described in accordance with the description of the embodiments.

  Hereinafter, the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 3 shows a system configuration used in the description of this embodiment.

  The PC is a host machine that issues a print job described in PPML, which is the first description means in this embodiment, to the printer PRN described later. At least PPMLJ and PPMLJ that are PPML source codes to be printed are A storage area PCST for holding a plurality of drawing object sources SOBJ referred to is connected.

  In the case of the PPML source code shown in FIG. 2, PPMLJ corresponds to the source code itself of FIG. 2, and SOBJ is company.ps, title.ps, soccor.ps, baseball.os, rugby.ps.

  PRN is a printing device that receives PPMLJ and SOBJ from the PC and performs actual printing. The receiving procedure and network protocol are not described in detail in this embodiment.

  At least a storage area PRNST, which will be described later, and a clock CLOCK that can be read by the PRN are connected to the PRN.

  PRNST is a storage area that stores various information necessary for printing the print job PPMLJ sent from the PC. At least the INST that stores the interpretation result of the PPMLJ sent from the PC and the management of reusable objects From the database DB to be executed, SOBJ and the object ROBJ on which SOBJ has been drawn, the limit value LIM described later, the page area PAGE that holds the pixel data of the page to be printed, and the buffer areas WORK and CLOCK for expanding the parts constituting the PAGE An area START for storing the read time is included. INST and DB will be described later.

  FIG. 4 is a configuration example of INST existing on the above-described PRNST, and can manage at least three attribute values of OP, NAME, and FILE.

  OP indicates the content of processing. In this embodiment, at least “DEF” indicating the definition of the reuse object and “REF” indicating the reference of the reuse object can be stored as OP.

  NAME is the name of the reuse object specified by the Label attribute of the OCCURRENCE element when defining a reuse object that is an object that can be reused many times in PPML.

  FILE stores the file name of the original data of the reuse object specified by NAME only when OP is DEF.

  FIG. 5 is a configuration example of the database DB existing on the above-described PRNST.

  In the present embodiment, the DB is a database that can be managed by combining at least four pieces of information of NAME, SRC, PROCESSED, and FLAG.

  NAME is the name of the reuse object and stores the value of NAME described in INST.

  SRC is a drawing object source corresponding to NAME, and stores information for identifying the SOBJ specified by FILE in INST. Depending on the location of SOBJ on PRNST, file information different from FILE in INST may be stored, but this is not described in detail here.

  PROCESSED is information indicating ROBJ or SOBJ, and information indicating ROBJ or information indicating SOBJ is determined by the value of FLAG.

  FLAG takes one of the values DONE or YET. In the case of DONE, the data pointed to by PROCESSED is ROBJ, and in the case of YET, it indicates that it is SOBJ. In other words, a FLAG value of DONE for a reusable object indicates that drawing processing is not necessary to place it on the PAGE, and that it can be placed directly, while YET means that the reusable object is This means that drawing processing is performed every time it is placed on a page.

  FIG. 6 is a processing flow for explaining the present embodiment in the system configurations of FIGS.

  S-1 in FIG. 6 is an initialization step of the first description means processing device. In this step, input / output and the like are initialized. Detailed explanation is omitted.

  In S-2, the PRN interprets the PPMLJ sent from the PC, extracts the processing classification and information necessary for the processing, and stores them in the INST. At the same time, the necessary SOBJ is received from the PC.

  In S-3, it is checked whether an unprocessed processing unit remains on INST. If the processing unit remains in INST, the process ends in S-4. If not, the process ends.

  In S-4, the processing units interpreted in S-2 are sequentially extracted.

  In S-5, it is checked whether the OP included in the processing unit extracted in S-3 is DEF. If DEF, branch to S-12, otherwise branch to S-6.

  In S-6, it is checked whether the processing unit OP fetched in S-3 is REF. If REF, branch to S-8; otherwise, branch to S-7.

  In S-7, if the processing unit OP fetched in S-3 is neither DEF nor REF, the “other” processing is performed.

  Other processing includes variable data drawing / placement processing that changes each time, such as the second to fourth lines in (4) in Fig. 2, and the pages stored in PAGE In the present embodiment, it will not be described in detail.

  In S-8 to S-11, processing is performed when the processing unit OP extracted in S-3 is REF.

  In S-8, whether or not the reusable object to be referenced has been drawn is checked by searching the DB with the NAME included in the processing target processing item retrieved from the INST in S-4 and checking the FLAG. If FLAG is DONE, it is drawn and cached in the storage area, so the process proceeds to S-9. If FLAG is YET, it is not drawn, and the process proceeds to S-10.

  In S-9, the cached ROBJ is taken out to WORK, and the process proceeds to S-11.

  In S-10, since the cached object is SOBJ, after interpreting SOBJ and performing drawing processing on WORK, the process proceeds to S-11.

  In S-11, after placing the object stored in WORK on PAGE, the process returns to S-3.

  On the other hand, if the processing unit fetched in S-3 is DEF in S-5, the process proceeds to S-12.

  In S-12, read the value of CLOCK and store it in START.

  In S-13, the SOBJ specified by SRC is drawn on WORK. Details of the drawing process are omitted here.

  In S-14, when the time spent in S-13 is calculated from the CLOCK value and the time information stored in START, and the time spent in S-13 is equal to or exceeds the time stored in LIM Goes to S-15, otherwise goes to S-16.

  If time is spent on processing for more than LIM time in S-13, the drawing image stored in WORK is written out as ROBJ in S-15, and then an entry is created in DB in S-16. At this time, information indicating the ROBJ is stored in PROCESSED, “DONE” is stored in FLAG, and the process returns to S-3.

  On the other hand, if the LIM time is not used for processing in S-13, the drawing image stored in WORK in S-17 is discarded, information indicating SOBJ is stored in PROCESSED, and "YET" is stored in FLAG. Is stored, and the process returns to S-3.

  Hereinafter, this will be described in detail with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 7 is a PPMLJ used to describe this embodiment in detail. In this PPMLJ, an image based on two Postscript files is defined as a reuse object and then placed on a page. Note that PPMLJ in FIG. 7 does not strictly follow the PPML specification, as in FIG.

  FIG. 8 is a configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK for explaining the present embodiment in detail.

  For INST and DB, only attributes necessary for the description of this embodiment are shown. OBJs is an area where SOBJ and ROBJ are placed. Assume that CLOCK represents the time elapsed since PRN activation.

  The PRNST may be a semiconductor memory such as a RAM or an external storage device such as an HDD. Further, for example, a hybrid configuration in which only OBJs are HDD and others are RAM may be adopted.

  When the initialization of S-1 is completed, the state shown in FIG. 9 is obtained. Since CLOCK indicates 100 when initialization is completed, it can be seen that 100 hours have passed since startup.

  INST, DB, START, WORK, PAGE, OBJs are all initialized as empty. The LIM is initialized to a time limit of 50000 hours. In the present embodiment, the method for determining the LIM value is not particularly specified.

  In S-2 after S-1, the PPML source code shown in FIG. 7 is interpreted, and the interpretation result is stored in INST. At the same time, the two PS files referred to by the PPML source code are read into OBJs, resulting in the state shown in FIG. The triangle placed on the right side of INST indicates the processing unit to be extracted next in S-4.

  From the state of FIG. 10, the processing unit OP indicated by the triangle is checked in S-4, and since it is DEF, the process proceeds to S-12.

  In S-12, the value of CLOCK is read into START and the state shown in FIG. 11 is obtained.

  From the state of FIG. 11, “difficult_to_rip.ps” pointed to by the processing unit FILE pointed to by the triangle in S-13 is rendered on WORK and becomes the state of FIG.

  In FIG. 12, since the value of CLOCK is 100,000, CLOCK-START = 69000> 50000 = LIM in S-14, and the process proceeds to S-15.

  In S-15, the contents of WORK are stored in OBJs as ROBJ. In this embodiment, the ROBJ file name is “difficult_to_rip.bmp”.

  After ROBJ is created in OBJs in S-15, an entry is created in DB in S-16. In this case, because the NAME of the processing unit indicated by the triangle on INST is DIFFICULT_TO_RIP, the NAME of the entry created in the DB is “DIFFICULT_TO_RIP”, SRC is SOBJ “difficult_to_rip.ps”, and PROCESSED is ROBJ It becomes “difficult_to_rip.bmp”, and since the drawing result in S-13 is held, FLAG becomes “DONE”, and the state shown in FIG. 13 is obtained.

  From the state of FIG. 13, the process returns to S-3, the next processing unit is taken out in S-4, and the process proceeds to S-5. In S-5, OP is checked. Since this time is also DEF, the process proceeds to S-12, and the value of CLOCK is stored in START, as shown in FIG.

  Drawing processing is performed on WORK in step S-13 from the state shown in FIG. As is clear from FIG. 14, easy_to_rip.ps is drawn this time. FIG. 15 shows the state after the drawing process is completed. The contents of WORK are replaced with new drawing results.

  In FIG. 15, since CLOCK-START = 8000 <50000 = LIM, the process branches to S-17 this time in S-14.

  In S-17, SOBJ easy_to_rip.ps is saved in OBJs, and at the same time, an entry of EASY_TO_RIP is created in the DB. Since the drawing result to WORK in S-14 is discarded this time, the NAME of the entry created in the DB is `` EASY_TO_RIP '', SRC is `` easy_to_rip.ps '', PROCESSED is `` easy_to_rip.ps '' like SRC , FLAG becomes "YET" and returns to S-3.

  In S-3, it is checked whether a processing unit remains in INST. Since it still remains, a new processing unit is extracted in S-4, and the state shown in FIG. 16 is obtained.

  From the state of FIG. 16, the case is divided into OP in S-5. Since it is not DEF this time, it changes to S-6.

  In S-6, the case is further divided by OP. Since it is REF this time, it transits to S-8 and transits to FIG.

  The DB is checked in S-8, but the DB entry whose NAME is DIFFICULT_TO_RIP is the entry indicated by the triangle on the side of DB in Fig. 17 and its FLAG is "DONE", so it transitions to S-9 To do.

  In S-9, the contents of “difficult_to_rip.bmp” indicated by DB.PROCESSED in WORK are read and the state shown in FIG. 18 is obtained.

  Transition from FIG. 18 to S-11, the contents of difficult_to_rip.bmp stored in WORK are arranged in PAGE, and the state shown in FIG. 19 is obtained.

  Returning to S-3 from FIG. 19, branching to S-4 because the last processing unit remains on INST, branching to S-6 because OP is not DEF, and OP is REF. Branches to 8 and becomes the state of FIG. Since DB.FLAG corresponding to the value “EASY_TO_RIP” of INST.NAME is “YET”, the process branches to S-10.

  In S-10, the file “easy_to_rip.ps” pointed to by DB.PROCESSED is drawn in the buffer WORK as shown in FIG.

  When the state transitions from the state of FIG. 21 to S-11, the drawing result corresponding to EASY_TO_RIP is arranged on the PAGE, and then returning to S-3, it becomes FIG.

  Since there is no processing unit to be processed in INST, the processing ends.

  Although the limit value LIM is a constant in the first embodiment, the cost (time) required for reading and writing a cached drawn object clearly depends on the file size of the drawn object.

  On the other hand, since the file size of the drawn object is considered to depend on the image size (number of pixels in the vertical and horizontal directions) of the drawn object, the LIM value is set to the pixel size of the drawn object ( It may be changed depending on the total number of pixels.

  In this case, the number of pixels may be counted in the process of drawing SOBJ on WORK in S-13 in FIG. 6, and the LIM may be modified to be updated before using the LIM for comparison in S-14.

  By modifying the configuration as described above, the LIM value can be easily linked to the size (total number of pixels) of the drawn object.

PDM example PPML source for generating the PDM shown in Figure 1 System configuration used in the description of the first embodiment An example of INST existing on PRNST Configuration example of database DB existing on PRNST Processing flow for explaining the present embodiment in the system configuration of FIGS. PPMLJ used to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail Configuration example of PRNST and CLOCK to explain Example 1 in detail

Claims (3)

A page drawing device for placing drawn objects on a page,
A first description means for describing an object to be drawn;
First storage means capable of storing the first description means;
First drawing means for generating the object by drawing the first description means;
Second storage means capable of storing the object drawn by the first drawing means;
Measuring means for measuring a resource amount necessary for generating the drawn object from the first description means by the first drawing means;
When drawing the first description means, first, if a drawn object that is the drawing result of the first description means exists in the second storage means, the object is used as the drawing result. On the other hand, if it does not exist, it comprises a drawing management means for generating an object by drawing using the first drawing means,
When the drawing management means draws the first description means by the first drawing means to generate an object, the drawing management means stores the second storage means only when the result of the measurement means satisfies a predetermined condition. A page drawing apparatus for storing the object. A page drawing device for placing drawn objects on a page,
A first description means for describing an object to be drawn;
First storage means capable of storing the first description means;
First drawing means for generating the object by drawing the first description means;
Measuring means for measuring a resource amount necessary for generating the drawn object from the first description means by the first drawing means;
Second description means including a function indicating that the object drawn by the first description means is used again;
Second storage means capable of storing the object drawn by the first drawing means;
When drawing the first description means, first, if a drawn object that is the drawing result of the first description means exists in the second storage means, the object is used as the drawing result. On the other hand, if it does not exist, it has a drawing management means for generating an object by drawing using the first drawing means,
The drawing management means generates the object by drawing the first description means by the first drawing means, and is designated to be used again by the second description means, and A page drawing apparatus, wherein the object is stored in the second storage unit only when the result of the measurement unit satisfies a predetermined condition.   The page drawing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined condition varies according to a size of the drawn object.

Images