Image processing system
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsTOSHIYUKI KITAMURA, MITSURU KURITA
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Abstract
A system is constructed by connecting a plurality of digital copying machines (stations) having a common structure, and a master station 1001 and slave stations 1002 to 1004 are defined in accordance with their addresses. The master station 1001 issues a status request command to the slave stations at a predetermined time interval in order to gather information on the status of each slave station. The status which can be used in the system are recognized, depending upon the information, and a user selects the station or stations to be used. One of the station is made to read an original image, and the image is printed by the selected station or stations. The above constructed image processing system results in good expandability.
Claims14
An image processing apparatus comprising:
- reading means for optically reading an original image;
- converting means for converting the image read by said reading means into a digital image signal;
- storage means for storing the digital image signal;
- input/output means for outputting the digital image stored in said storage means to a first external apparatus, and for inputting a digital image signal generated by a second external apparatus;
- change-over means for changing input and output of said input/output means;
- relay means for relaying the digital image signal generated by the second external apparatus to the first external apparatus;
- communication means for communicating with the first and/or second external apparatus in order to control the input and output of the digital image signal by said input/output means and/or to control the relay of the digital image signals by said relaying means;
- image forming means for forming an image on the basis of the digital image signal stored in said storage means or of the digital image signal which is generated or relayed by the second external apparatus and which is inputted by said input/output means;
- output means for outputting the image formed by said image forming means onto recording medium;
- and
- control means for at least controlling the input and output of the digital image signal by said input/output means, the change-over between input and output by said change-over means, communication with the first and/or second external apparatus by said communication means, and the image forming by said image forming means.
An image processing system comprising a plurality of image forming apparatus, each apparatus comprising:
- first and second interface means for inputting/outputting an image signal to/from the other image forming apparatus;
- image forming means for forming an image;
- and
- control means for controlling the input/output of the image signal in said first and second interface means, and controlling a supply of an image signal to said image forming means,
- wherein said control means has a mode for concurrently supplying input image signal from one of said first and second interface means, to said image forming means and the rest of said first and second interface means so that the same image can be formed in more than one image forming apparatuses.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.