Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Yoshinori Hayashi

Minoru Tomiyori

Yoshinori Shiraishi

Naoyuki Kamei

Yasushi Matsutomo

Hidetoshi Kaneko

Kiwamu Morita

Kimiko Watanabe

Takeshi Yamaguchi

Fumikazu Nagano

Mikiya Okada

Masakazu Suzuki

Kenichi Ueda

Yoshikazu Kondoh

Michiaki Nishimura

Sohichi Yoshimura

Motohiro Hayashi

Kouichi Eto

Kazunori Miyamoto

Yoshinori Nakahira

Hiroki Etoh

It is an object of the invention to allow effective use of a memory provided for each function in a complex image processing apparatus including a facsimile apparatus, to increase the reception capacity of a memory reception function when the apparatus works as a facsimile apparatus and to enable sorting of received facsimile data. In the complex image processing apparatus, facsimile data received via a modem section is accumulated in a memory for facsimile. Under predetermined conditions, the facsimile data in the memory for facsimile are grouped, rearranged and transferred to a memory for copier and a memory for printer. Conditions for causing data rearrangement and transfer may be set such that they occur when a predetermined time passes after the beginning of the operation of the memory reception function or such that they occur when the remaining capacity of the memory for facsimile comes to a predetermined capacity. Grouping can be carried out based on the telephone numbers of senders and the like during rearrangement of facsimile data.

Complex image processing apparatus

An immediate printing type image forming apparatus is provided of which the warm-up time is sufficiently shortened without causing any trouble to occur in the execution of image reading processing and/or image forming processing. The image forming apparatus is configured to determine a time required to raise the current temperature of the surface of a heating roller in a fixing unit to a predetermined temperature and increase the duty ratio of a power waveform to be fed to each of a copy lamp and a motor driving a polygon mirror when the time required thus determined is shorter than each of a time required to increase the current light quantity of the copy lamp to a predetermined light quantity and a time required to raise the current rotational speed of the motor to a predetermined speed, thereby turning each of the copy lamp and the motor into respective predetermined condition before the elapse of the determined time required.

Image forming apparatus and initialization control method therefor

Front and side surfaces of an image forming device are provided with a front cover and a side cover, respectively, which cover an image forming section, and which can opened and closed. A supporting hinge of the side cover is provided along a lateral edge thereof toward the rear of the main body of the device, and the side cover opens to widely expose a lower portion of the image forming section. Further, by means of an obstructing body provided integrally with the front cover, the and side covers are given an order of opening and closing.

Image forming device having front and side covers

A printing apparatus includes a print head section having a nozzle for discharging ink; a paper feed section for feeding paper in a paper feed direction; a movement section for reciprocally moving the print head along a track formed in a direction perpendicular to the paper feed direction; a maintenance section for performing a maintenance operation on the nozzle; a case for accommodating the above-mentioned sections; a cover attached to the case in an openable and closable manner; a detection section for detecting open and closed states of the cover and outputting detection signals representative of the open and closed states of the cover; and a control section for controlling drive of the movement section and the maintenance section according to the detection signals output by the detection section. The maintenance section includes two maintenance stations mounted on both ends of the track, and the control section gives an instruction such that the print head moving to one of the maintenance stations is stopped at a stop position established on the track, in response to the detection signal representative of the open state of the cover.

Printing apparatus

A serial recording apparatus in accordance with the present invention appropriately selects ink nozzles of an ink head and prints on a sheet so that the amount of printing is substantially equal to an ordinary amount, when an inadequate amount of sheet feed occurs, and then, selects the ink nozzles of the ink head in accordance with how the inadequate amount of sheet feed is so as to carry out the next printing. This avoids that the inadequate sheet feedings are accumulated in the succeeding printings. Accordingly, even when a plurality of inadequate sheet feedings occur during the printings with respect to a single sheet, the inadequate sheet feedings are not accumulated, thereby avoiding that the quality of the printing deteriorates. Thus, it is possible to provide a serial recording apparatus which can resolve the inadequate printing by detecting the amount of sheet feed for each feeding, determining the print area in accordance with each amount of sheet feed, and carrying out the printing.

Serial recording apparatus

An object of the present invention is to avoid such a problem that white dropouts and the Moire phenomenon occur in a filter-processed image. A filter unit employed in an image processing apparatus provided within a copying machine first selects as a pixel of interest any one of a plurality of reversed density pixels which constitute an image to be processed. Next, the filter unit uses density of this interest pixel before being corrected, density of pixels located at peripheral portions of this interest pixel, and a predetermined filter coefficient so as to calculate a weighted average value for each of the density. Finally, the filter unit compares the density of this interest pixel before being corrected with the weighted average values to output as a corrected density of this interest pixel, such a value approximated to a density equivalent to a black level. Furthermore, the filter unit compares the density of the interest pixel before being corrected with the predetermined reference density and, only when the density before being corrected is less than the reference density, it outputs the above-described weighted average value as the corrected density of this interest pixel irrespect to such a large/small relationship between the density before being corrected and the weighted average value.

Image processing apparatus

The object of the invention is to identify accurately which of the plurality of image types each pixel in a document image is included by a small circuit structure. When spacial filtering process is performed to the image signals of a photograph region and a letter region shown by use of a filter with a filter coefficient having a sum of &minus;1 as shown, the image signals shown will be intensified, and by binary coding the same with a threshold &ldquo;0&rdquo;, an edge detection result could be gained, with no edge portion detected in the photograph region. Therefore, in the identification circuit of the image processing device, the identification on whether or not the observation pixel is included in the photograph region could be easily and accurately be performed based on whether or not the edge portion exists in the local block.

Image processing device

Front and side surfaces of an image forming device are provided with a front cover and a side cover, respectively, which cover an image forming section, and which can be opened and closed. A supporting hinge of the side cover is provided along a lateral edge thereof toward the rear of the main body of the device, and the side cover opens to widely expose a lower portion of the image forming section. Further, by means of an obstructing body provided integrally with the front cover, the front and side covers are given an order of opening and closing.

Image forming device having internal access capability

A document scanning unit is disposed so that a scanning direction of a document on a table glass by a lamp unit is equal to a longitudinal direction of a photoreceptor drum provided in a mechanism unit. A face-down tray is mounted above the document scanning unit, and a face-up tray is positioned on a side of the apparatus opposite to the face-down tray with respect to the mechanism unit. The discharge-opening switching section switches the discharge openings so that a recording sheet is discharged to the face-down tray in a printer mode, or to the face-up tray in a copy mode. This structure enables a reduction in the size of an image forming apparatus by decreasing the width of the apparatus without increasing the height thereof. Moreover, with this structure, it is possible to perform the discharge of sheets according to operation modes, namely the printer mode and the copy mode.

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Yoshinori Hayashi