Title: Position-retaining method and system for a scanning system capable of copy and facsimile
Abstract: In a computer network consisting of at least one host computer and computer peripheral devices, such as scanners, fax machines, and printers, a user may use a hot key on the scanner to copy, scan, e-mail, and faxing etc. via the control of an application program. An auto-crop module implemented in the host computer can automatically crop the image of a scanned sheet. The cropped image is saved in the memory device. Before sending the cropped image to the computer peripheral devices, the computing module will compute the output format of the cropped image according to the resolution requirement and scaling factor of the associated computer peripheral device. The retained position will be also saved in the memory. In response to the user operation, the image of the scanned sheet with its retained position will be transmitted to the printer or facsimile machine via the control of the application program.
Patent Number: 6,930,799 Issued on 08/16/2005 to Hsu, et al.
| Inventors:
|
Hsu; Wei-Shu (Taipei, TW);
Chen; Hsiu-Hong (Hsin-Chu, TW)
|
| Assignee:
|
Mustek Systems Inc. (Hsin Chu, TW)
|
| Appl. No.:
|
725244 |
| Filed:
|
November 29, 2000 |
| Current U.S. Class: |
358/1.9; 358/406 |
| Intern'l Class: |
H04N 001/40 |
| Field of Search: |
358/12,19,112,118,406,453,449-451
|
References Cited [Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Primary Examiner: Lee; Thomas D.
Assistant Examiner: Brinich; Stephen
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Birch, Stewart, Kolasch & Birch, LLP
Claims
1. A position-retaining method for a scanning system capable of copy and facsimile,
comprising the steps of:
reading an image of a scanned sheet;
auto-cropping said image of said scanned sheet;
storing said auto-cropped image of said scanned sheet;
saving a retained position of said scanned sheet relative to a sheet table;
transmitting said auto-cropped image of said scanned sheet and said retained
position of said scanned sheet to a computer peripheral device, the computer peripheral
device comprises at least a printer; and
computing a new retained position of said scanned sheet relative to said sheet
table according to a resolution and a scaling factor of said printer.
2. The position-retaining method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said computer
peripheral device further comprises at least a facsimile machine.
3. The position-retaining method as claimed in claim 2, further comprising the
step of setting a fax number of a receiving site.
4. The position-retaining method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said step of
auto-cropping comprising the steps of:
conducting a binary search on said image of said scanned sheet; and
automatically cropping said scanned sheet by determining said retained position
of said scanned sheet.
5. A position-retaining system for a scanning system capable of copy and facsimile, comprising:
a buffer for storing an image of a scanned sheet;
an auto-crop module coupled to said buffer for cropping the image of said scanned
sheet and outputting said auto-cropped image;
a printer interface for interactively acquiring printer configurations in response
to a user request;
a computing module for computing the retained position of said auto-cropped image
relative to a sheet table according to said printer configurations;
memory means for storing said auto-cropped image and said retained position of
said scanned sheet relative to a sheet table; and
an output interface connected to said memory means for transmitting said auto-cropped
image and said retained position of said scanned sheet relative to said sheet table
to a computer peripheral device.
6. The position-retaining system as claimed in claim 5, wherein said computer
peripheral device comprises at least a printer.
7. The position-retaining system as claimed in claim 5, wherein said computer
peripheral device comprises at least a facsimile machine.
8. The position-retaining system as claimed in claim 5, further comprising a
fax interface for interactively acquiring settings for a facsimile machine.
9. The position-retaining system as claimed in claim 8, wherein said computing
module computes the retained position of said scanned sheet relative to said sheet
table according to aid facsimile machine configurations.
10. The position-retaining system as claimed in claim 5, wherein said buffer
stores said image of said scanned sheet as Bit Map Pixel format.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for a scanning system capable
of copy and facsimile, especially to a position-retaining method and system for
a scanning system in a computer network, thereby to scan multiple sheets at one time.
B. Description of the Related Art
For the concern of convenience, the flatbed scanners currently on the market
are provided with hot keys for scan, print, copy and e-mail. The hot keys are implemented
on the housing of the flatbed scanners. They can also be implemented as a floating
menu to be displayed on the screen of a controlling host computer. The operations
of the hot keys are controlled by the application program
11 of a host computer
10. The user only needs to press a hot key to perform an associated function
of scan, copy, e-mail, copy, or facsimile. Based on the control of the application
program
11, the image of the scanned sheet is processed by the host computer
10 and then sent to an associated computer peripheral device, such as the
printer
13, or the facsimile machine
14 in response to the request
of the user.
However, the output formats of a scanned sheet provided by the conventional
hot keys for copy and facsimile are based on a fixed orientation (
0,
0).
Take copy for an example. The user only needs to place a scanned sheet on a sheet
table of the flatbed scanner and then press the hot key to perform the copy procedure.
The hot key enables the copy routine of the host computer to directly copy the
image of the scanned sheet without the interactive operations of the user. However,
the printout of the scanned sheet always has its top left corner aligned to the
position of (
0,
0) of the output paper. It does not print the scanned
sheet according to its original position when placed on the sheet table.
The major problem of this output format is that it cannot scan multiple sheets
at one time. To be able to scan multiple sheets, the output format of the scanned
image must be able to retain the original relative position of the scanned sheet
relative to the sheet table. However, if the user wants to retain the relative
position of the scanned sheet relative to the sheet table, he has to pre-scan the
sheet together with the entire background image of the sheet table. And then, he
must crop the entire scan range of the sheet table to retain the relative position
of the scanned sheet relative to the sheet table. This will inevitably increase
the time for scanning because it has to process many redundant background image data.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a position-retaining
method and system for a scanning system capable of copy and facsimile, thereby
to scan multiple sheets at one time.
It is another object of the invention to provide a position-retaining method
and
system for a scanning system which can print or fax the auto-cropped image without
the pre-scan procedure, thereby to improve the scan efficiency.
Accordingly, the method of the invention includes the following steps:
first, read the image data of the scanned sheet. Then, perform the auto-crop procedure
to automatically crop the image of the scanned sheet in real time to differentiate
the foreground image data from the background image data. The cropped image data
is saved as a default data format, such as BMP. After that, compute the relative
position of the scanned sheet relative to the sheet table. And then, save the relative
position of the scanned sheet. Finally, print or fax the image of the scanned sheet
according to its relative position and the resolution of the output device.
In a computer network consisting of at least one host computer and several computer
peripheral devices, such as scanners, fax machines, and printers, a user can press
a hot key for the scanner to copy, scan, fax, and e-mail, etc. via the control
of an application program. An auto-crop module implemented in the host computer
can automatically crop the image of a scanned sheet. The cropped image is saved
in the memory device. The system also includes a memory device for saving the cropped
image data. Then, the application program will initiate an associated printer or
facsimile machine interface for configuring a printer or a facsimile machine according
to a user's request. The computing module computes the relative positions of the
scanned sheet according to the resolution of the output device and a scaling factor
as requested by the user. And then, the application program sends the image data
of the scanned sheet, its retained position, and resolution to the printer or facsimile
machine via the control of the application program.
Further scope of the applicability of the present invention will become apparent
from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood
that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred
embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various
changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become
apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become
apparent when considered in view of the following description and accompanying
drawings which are given by way of illustration only, and thus are not limitative
of the present invention, and wherein:
FIG. 1 is a system diagram showing the communication of the host computer and
computer peripheral devices via the control of the application program.
FIG. 2 is a flow diagram showing the method of retaining relative position of
a scanned sheet relative to a frame position of the sheet table according to the
preferred embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 3 is a flow diagram showing the method of copying the image of a scanned
sheet while retaining its position relative to a frame position of the sheet table
according to the preferred embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 4 is a flow diagram showing the method of faxing the image of a scanned
sheet while retaining its position relative to a frame position of the sheet table
according to the preferred embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram showing the system of the invention.
FIG. 6 is a flow diagram showing the binary searching method for finding the
position of a scanned sheet.
DETAIL DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention integrates the auto-crop technology with the one-touch
operation for scan, facsimile, and print. To be able to scan multiple sheets at
one time, the relative position of the scanned sheet relative to the sheet table
must be retained. The method of the invention is shown in FIG.
2.
When the user places a sheet on the sheet table and presses the hot key for
copy or facsimile, the application program of the host computer will control the
scanner to perform image scanning, step
21. The length and width of the
scanned image can be determined at the time of scanning using the auto-crop technology,
step
22. Since the position of the scanned sheet is determined with reference
to the sheet table, so the position of the scanned sheet is computed relative to
the sheet table. Then, the application program stores the auto-cropped image of
the scanned sheet, step
23. And then, the application program stores the
width and length information of the scanned sheet, and its retained position, step
24. Finally, the application program sends the auto-cropped image of the
scanned sheet and its retained position and size to a peripheral device, such as
a printer, or a fax machine, step
25. With the retained position, the peripheral
device will be able to print or fax the scanned image with its retained position
relative to the sheet table. Accordingly, the invention can print or fax the scanned
sheet with its retained position without having to perform the pre-scan procedure.
According to the spirit of the invention, the detailed steps of the printing
procedure are illustrated in FIG.
3. After finishing the step of auto-cropping,
the application program initiates a printer interface step
31. The printer
interface shows interactive configuration dialogs for acquiring printing information,
such as, the number of copies to print, paper orientation, printer name, and scaling
factor, etc. After obtaining the information, the application program configures
the default printer according to user request, step
32.
Then, compute the new size of the scanned image according to the resolution
of the printer, step
33. After that, the auto-cropped image of the scanned
sheet is scaled up/down according to its retained position, the requested scaling
factor, and the printer resolution, step
34.
And then, compute the retained position of the scanned sheet in printer resolution,
step
35. Finally, the printer can print the scanned sheet with the retained
position by receiving parameters of retained position, new image width and height,
original image width and height and the image of the scanned sheet, step
36.
If the invention is applied to a facsimile machine, the steps for facsimile procedure
are illustrated in FIG.
4. After the step of auto-cropping, the application
initiates a fax interface for facsimile transmission. The fax interface shows interactive
configuration dialogs for acquiring fax information, such as: sender and receiver
information, and their facsimile machine numbers etc. The application program obtains
the default facsimile machine information, and sets the facsimile number as requested
by the user, step
41.
When the fax procedure begins, the application program obtains the communication
protocol of the MODEM, such as G
3/G
4 protocol, step
42. Then,
obtain the length and width of the image of the scanned sheet according to the
resolution of the MODEM, step
43. Since the MODEM and the scanner have different
resolutions, so the image of the scanned sheet has to be further scaled up/down,
step
44.
Then, the application program obtains the retained position of the scanned
image according to the resolution of the MODEM, step
45. After that, send
the auto-cropped image of the scanned sheet to the MODEM, including the parameters
of the new image width and height, original image width and height, and the image
of the scanned sheet, step
46.
The system of the invention is illustrated in FIG.
5. In a computer network
formed by a host computer
60 and peripheral devices, such as a scanner
51,
printer
58, and facsimile machine
59, the host computer
60
has a buffer
52 for temporality storing image data from the scanner
51.
The buffer
52 usually saves the scanned image as a default format, such
as a BMP. The auto-cropping module
53 reads the image data in the buffer
52 to auto-crop the image of the scanned sheet from the background image
and then save the auto-cropped image data in the memory device
57. After
that, application program of the host computer
60 initiates a printer Interface
54 or a Fax Interface
55 to obtain the requests of the user, such
as scaling factors, resolution, and the fax machine number of the receiver, etc.
The computing module
56 computes the new retained position of the scanned
sheet, its resolution after scaling up/down in response to the user request. The
computation results will be saved in the memory device
57. Then, the output
interface
50 will send the auto-cropped image data and its retained position
from the memory device
57 to the printer
58 or fax machine
59.
To improve the efficiency of auto-cropping when determining the scope of the
scanned
sheet, the present invention applies binary search to quickly determine the position
of the scanned sheet with reference to the sheet table. Take scanning a single
sheet for an example. The binary search is always starts search from half way of
the search region to quickly differentiate the foreground from the background.
Assume the scanned sheet is placed properly on the sheet without skew or oblique
so that the print result will be the best. Assume also that the image of the scanned
sheet is saved as a Bit Map Pixel (BMP) format. The present invention applies binary
search to quickly determine the length and width of the scanned sheet while performing
auto-cropping. The binary search starts from setting the length and width of the
sheet table as the search range. Then, the search begins from half of the length
or half of the width. If the image of the scanned sheet is not found, the search
range is minimized to half of the previous search range. Repeat the search procedure
until the scanned image is found.
The application of binary search in the present invention is illustrated in FIG.
6. Since the information of the sheet table has already been saved in the
buffer as a BMP format, so read the entire image from the buffer. And then, take
the length of the BMP format as the search range, step
61. Find the mid-point
of the length of the BMP, step
62. Then, determine if pixel at the mid-point
belongs a foreground image by its gray level, step
63. If not, the search
range of the length is minimized to half of its previous search range and repeat
binary search again. Simultaneously conduct the same search on the other half of
the length, step
62. Repeat the same search procedure from top to bottom
by performing steps
62 and
63 until a bottom line of the scanned
sheet has been found, step
64.
Then, after finding the bottom line, the bottom line of the search range is
updated to the newly defined position of the bottom line and then save the position
of the bottom line. Then, set the length of the BMP format as the search range
again, step
61. Conduct the binary search on the search range again to find
the top line of the scanned sheet, step
62. Repeat steps
62 and
63
until the top line of the scanned sheet is found. After the top line is found,
save the positions of the top line and the bottom line, step
64.
Then, the search range is set to the BMP width and the length is set to the
positions of the bottom line and the top line just found. Conduct the binary search
again to find the left side and right side of the scanned sheet. After they are
found, record their positions. Thus, the relative position of the four sides of
the scanned sheet can be efficiently determined.
To sum up, the present invention can efficiently determine the retained position
of the scanned sheet so that the auto-crop technology can be easily integrated
with the hot key operation to print/fax a scanned sheet with retained position
relative to the sheet table. As a result, the invention allows users to put multiple
sheets on the sheet table and scan them at one time.
It should be understood that various alternatives to the structures described
herein may be employed in practicing the present invention. It is intended that
the following claims define the invention and that the structure within the scope
of these claims and their equivalents be covered thereby.
*
