JP2003231303A - Imaging apparatus and its method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enhance a plotting performance of an imaging apparatus. <P>SOLUTION: At a lower stage 6100, after fourth, first, second and third bands are rendered, the fifth band of one page is rendered at an illustrated rendering 6-1 at a timing of a renderer idle time in the case of an upper stage 6000. In this case, the rendering renders the band second from the band being shipped at present, and the whole of one page is completely rendered. Since the fourth band of the second page of a rendering 6-2 is a pre band, rendering is already carried out during the time. Rendering is carried out earlier in this manner, enabling earlier shipping by a time indicated by a code 6-3. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a method thereof, and more particularly, in a page printer, a band control system for printing image data of one page by dividing it into drawing data in several band units. The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, a method therefor, a recording medium, and a program for pre-rendering drawing data when necessary.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in an image forming apparatus such as a page printer, for example, A4-600 dpi (dot per in
When printing on ch) paper, at least 4 MB or more of memory for image data is required. However, instead of expanding and printing one page on the memory, the memory capacity of one page is divided into several segments, and two or more drawing band memories are configured on the memory. One band memory with the drawing data expanded is printed, and the renderer expands the drawing data to the other band memory in the meantime, and the band memory expansion and shipping (shippi) are alternately performed for each segment.
ng) to enable printing even if there is no memory of the above capacity.

Therefore, the page printer software creates an intermediate code called an object that can be read by hardware. The hardware analyzes the intermediate code and develops the drawing data on the band memory while performing shipping.

However, if the intermediate code cannot be fully developed even after the shipping for one band is completed, a phenomenon called overrun will occur. In order to prevent such a situation from occurring, the time to develop one band is predicted in advance, and if that time (predicted drawing time) exceeds the time to ship the band data, the drawing data is printed in advance before printing, which is pre-rendering. Are going to deploy.

[0005]

However, in the above-mentioned image forming apparatus, for example, after the shipping is started, the renderer has an idle time for the band in which the pre-rendering has already occurred. Also C
If a PU (central processing unit) also generates intermediate code, the ASIC (application
IO (Input) inside a specific integrated circuit
-Output) Hitting the register to activate it will also result in free time.

Therefore, the prior art has a problem to be solved in that the renderer and the CPU are not used efficiently and the drawing performance is not good.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object thereof is to provide an image forming apparatus and method having high drawing performance.

[0008]

In order to achieve such an object, the image forming apparatus of the present invention divides the captured image data into one or more drawing data of a predetermined size, and draws each of the divided drawing data. A first rendering means for sequentially performing hardware rendering on the data;
A rendering unit that sequentially performs printing on the drawing data that has been hardware-rendered by the rendering unit, and the first rendering unit is configured to perform the hardware during the shipping time of the printing unit. Wear rendering is not completed, the rendering data is determined in advance, hardware rendering is performed on the determined rendering data before printing is started, and each rendering other than the rendering data subjected to the pre-rendering is performed. The feature is that hardware rendering is sequentially performed on the data.

Here, the first rendering means is
If the captured image data has multiple pages,
After the hardware rendering of the image data corresponding to one page is completed, the hardware rendering or the pre-rendering is performed on the image data corresponding to the next page.

The image forming apparatus further comprises a second rendering means for performing software rendering on the drawing data, and the printing means includes the first rendering means.
The rendering data hardware-rendered by the rendering unit and the rendering data software-rendered by the second rendering unit can be combined and sequentially shipped for printing. The second rendering means calculates a drawing predicted time calculation value in hardware rendering of the drawing data by the first rendering means, and based on the calculated drawing predicted time calculation value, a drawing predicted time in software rendering. When a calculated value is calculated and it is determined that the drawing data is shipped by the printing unit after the calculated predicted drawing time calculated value has elapsed, software rendering is performed on the determined drawing data. Is characterized by.

In order to achieve the above object, the image forming method of the present invention divides the captured image data into one or more drawing data of a predetermined size by a renderer,
A first rendering step of sequentially performing hardware rendering on each of the divided drawing data;
A printing step of sequentially performing printing on the drawing data that has been hardware-rendered by the first rendering step by a printing means, wherein in the first rendering step, the printing step is performed by the printing step. The rendering data whose hardware rendering does not end within the shipping time is determined in advance, hardware rendering is performed on the determined rendering data before printing is started, and the rendering is performed. It is characterized in that the rendering data other than the data is sequentially subjected to hardware rendering.

Here, in the first rendering step, when there are a plurality of pages of the captured image data, it corresponds to the next page after the hardware rendering of the image data corresponding to one page ends. The image data is characterized by performing hardware rendering or the pre-rendering.

Further, the image forming method further includes a second rendering step in which the CPU performs software rendering on the drawing data, and in the printing step, hardware rendering is performed by the first rendering step. It is possible to combine and sequentially print the drawn drawing data and the drawn data that has been software-rendered in the second rendering step. In the second rendering step, A drawing predicted time calculation value in hardware rendering of the drawing data by the rendering step 1 is calculated, and a drawing predicted time calculation value in software rendering is calculated based on the calculated drawing predicted time calculation value,
When it is determined that the drawing data is shipped by the printing step after the calculated predicted drawing time calculation value has elapsed, software rendering is performed on the determined drawing data.

In order to achieve the above object, the computer-readable recording medium of the present invention stores a program for causing an image forming apparatus to execute each step of the image forming method described in any one of the above. Is characterized by.

In order to achieve the above object, the program of the present invention is characterized by causing an image forming apparatus to execute each step of the image forming method described in any one of the above.

With the above configuration of the present invention, when the renderer or the CPU has a vacant time, the drawing data which takes a long time to draw according to the drawing prediction is pre-rendered by hardware, and the drawing data which is considerably ahead of the drawing data being shipped The rendering data is continuously rendered, and the data that does not take much time is rendered by software rendering.

[0017]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. In each drawing, the same reference numerals are given to parts having the same function.

First, the structure of a laser beam printer (LBP) suitable for this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a laser beam printer according to this embodiment.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1500 in the drawing is LBP.
It is the main body and stores and stores print information (character codes, etc.), form information, macro commands, etc. supplied from an externally connected host computer.
A corresponding character pattern, form pattern, or the like is created in accordance with the information, and an image is formed on a recording medium such as recording paper.

The operation panel 1501 is provided with switches for operation and an LED (light emitting diode) display. The printer control unit 1000 is an LBP
The control of the entire main body 1500 and the character information and the like supplied from the host computer are analyzed. The printer control unit 1000 mainly converts character information into a video signal of a corresponding character pattern and outputs it to the laser driver 1502.

The laser driver 1502 is a circuit for driving the semiconductor laser 1503, and switches on / off the laser light 1504 emitted from the semiconductor laser 1503 in accordance with the input video signal.

The laser beam 1504 is a rotating polygon mirror 1505.
Then, the electrostatic drum 1506 is swung in the left-right direction to perform scanning exposure on the electrostatic drum 1506. As a result, an electrostatic latent image having a character pattern is formed on the electrostatic drum 1506. The latent image is developed by the developing unit 1507 arranged around the electrostatic drum 1506 and then transferred to the recording paper.

A cut sheet is used as the recording sheet, and the cut sheet recording sheet is stored in a sheet cassette 1508 mounted on the LBP 1500 and taken into the apparatus by a sheet feeding roller 1509, a conveying roller 1510 and a conveying roller 1511. , To the electrostatic drum 1506. Further, the LBP main body 1500 is provided with at least one or more card slots (not shown) so that an optional font card and a control card (emulation card) having a different language system can be connected in addition to the built-in font.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the control configuration of the laser beam printer shown in FIG. 1, and is described with respect to a general LBP controller.

In FIG. 2, the interface 1700 inputs a recording signal. In the figure, reference numeral 1701 is MPU, R
The OM 1702 stores a control program executed by the MPU 1701 and host print information. DRAM 1703
Stores various data (the above-mentioned recording signals, recording data supplied to the head, etc.). Gate array 1704
Controls the supply of output data to the recording head 1708, and the interface 1700, MPU 1701, D
It also controls the transfer of data between the RAMs 1703.

A carrier motor 1710 conveys the recording head 1708, a conveyance motor 1709 conveys recording paper, and a head driver 1705 conveys the recording head 1708.
To drive. The motor driver 1706 is the transport motor 17
The motor driver 1707 drives the carrier motor 1710.

In the laser beam printer thus constructed, when input information is input from the host computer through the interface 1700, the input information is converted between the gate array 1704 and the MPU 1701 into output information for printing. To be done. Then, the motor drivers 1706 and 1707 are driven, and the recording head is driven according to the output information sent to the head driver 1705 to execute printing.

The MPU 1701 is an interface 1
Communication processing with the host computer is possible via 700, and the host computer can be notified of memory information and resource data regarding the DRAM 1703 and host print information in the ROM 1702.

A circuit for smoothing processing and a memory for image storage may be built in the gate array 1704, or a gate array (memory built-in) dedicated to smoothing processing may be used. The memory may be external.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram for explaining the arrangement of the printer control system of this embodiment. Here, FIG.
The laser beam printer shown in 1 will be described as an example. If the functions of the embodiments of the present invention are executed,
It goes without saying that it may be a single device, a system composed of a plurality of devices, or a system in which processing is performed via a network such as a LAN.

In FIG. 3, the host computer 300
0 is a figure, an image, a character, based on the document processing program stored in the program ROM of the ROM 3
A CPU 1 that executes document processing in which tables (including spreadsheets and the like) are mixed is provided, and the CPU 1 generally controls each device connected to the system bus 4.

The program ROM of this ROM 3
The ROM 3 stores a control program of the CPU 1 and the like.
The font ROM stores the font data used in the above document processing. The RAM 2 functions as a main memory, a work area, etc. of the CPU 1.

The keyboard controller (KBC) 5 is
Key input from the keyboard 9 or a pointing device (not shown) is controlled. CRT controller (CRTC)
Reference numeral 6 controls the display of a CRT display (CRT) 10. The disk controller (DKC) 7 includes a boot program, various applications, font data,
Hard disk (HD), floppy (registered trademark) disk (F) that stores user files, edit files, etc.
Control access to the external memory 11 such as D). The printer controller (PRTC) 8 is connected to the printer 1500 via a predetermined bidirectional interface (interface 21) and executes communication control processing with the printer 1500.

The CPU 1 executes the rasterizing process of the outline font in the display information RAM set in the RAM 2, and the W on the CRT 10 is executed.
It enables YSIWYG. Further, the CPU 1 is C
Various registered windows are opened and various data processes are executed based on commands designated by a mouse cursor (not shown) on the RT 10.

On the other hand, in the printer 1500, the printer CPU 12 controls the system bus 15 based on the control program stored in the program ROM of the ROM 13 or the control program stored in the external memory 14.
Access to various devices connected to the printer is comprehensively controlled, and an image signal as output information is output to the printing unit (printer engine) 17 connected via the printing unit interface 16.

In the program ROM of the ROM 13, the CPU 12 as shown in the flowchart of FIG.
The control program and the like are stored. The font ROM of the ROM 13 stores font data and the like used when generating the above output information, and the data ROM of the ROM 13 is used on a host computer in the case of a printer having no external memory 14 such as a hard disk. It stores the information to be displayed.

The CPU 12 is capable of performing communication processing with the host computer 3000 via the input unit 18.
The host computer 3000 can be notified of information in the printer and the like. Reference numeral 19 in the drawing denotes a RAM that functions as a main memory, a work area, etc. of the CPU 12, and is configured so that the memory capacity can be expanded by an optional RAM connected to an expansion port (not shown). The RAM 19 is used as an output information expansion area, environment data storage area, NVRAM, and the like.

The external memory 14 such as the above-mentioned hard disk (HD) or IC card is a disk controller (D
KC) 20 controls access. External memory 1
4 is connected as an option and stores font data, emulation program, form data and the like. Further, the input unit 18 is provided with a switch for operation and an LED display on the operation panel 1501 described above.

The above-mentioned external memory 14 is not limited to one, but at least one external memory is provided, and in addition to a built-in font, an optional font card and a plurality of external memories storing programs for interpreting printer control languages of different languages are provided. It may be configured to be connectable. Further, it may have an NVRAM (not shown) to store printer mode setting information from the operation panel 1501.

Next, the band control method by the LBP controller will be described with reference to FIG. For example, in the case of A4 size 600 dpi, when expanding one page as it is, the memory capacity needs to be at least 4 MB, and since work memory is further required, 4 + αMB is required. However, printing 4MB with A4 size 600dpi
In the case of realizing with less memory, the image data of one page is divided into n segments as shown in FIG. 4, and the segment is called a band memory, which has the same memory capacity as one divided segment. It is necessary to expand each object data in the memory, perform shipping processing from the band memory, and print.

In the figure, reference numeral 4-1 is an image of one A4 page. Reference numerals 4-2 and 4-3 are band memories 1 and 2, respectively, and reference numeral 4-4 is a gate array for drawing image bitmap data in the band memories. Reference numeral 4-5 is a work memory.

The gate array 4-4 makes a print request to the LBP engine after expanding the drawing data in the band memory 1 designated by the reference numeral 4-2, and the LBP engine starts to start and then the band memory 1 designated by the reference numeral 4-2. While the drawing data is being shipped to the segment 1, the gate array 4-4 develops the drawing data in the band memory 2 designated by the reference numeral 4-3. Similarly, the gate array 4-4 develops the drawing data in the band memory 1 of the reference numeral 4-2 while the drawing data is shipped from the band memory 2 of the reference numeral 4-3 to the segment 2.

While the drawing data is alternately shipped from the band memory as described above, the drawing data is expanded in the other band memory and executed up to the segment n.

Next, the outline of the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. The letters ABCDE are written on A4 paper, and the five letters AQYPZ are written on the next page. The fourth band of the first page and the fourth band of the second page are bands that generate pre-bands (bands that generate pre-rendering). Also, the 7th band on page 1 and 2
The second band of the page is relatively light data, and the data can be rendered at a time when software can perform one band shipping.

Conventionally, the fourth band of the first page is first pre-rendered before the printing is started, and after that, rendering and shipping are repeated alternately. When the first page is finished, the fourth band of the second page is pre-rendered again, printing is started after the pre-rendering is finished, and the rendering and shipping are repeated alternately as in the first page. It was

This will be described with reference to the time schedule shown in FIG. The upper stage 6000 is a conventional time schedule, and the lower stage 6100 is a time schedule when the pre-rendering process is performed only by the hardware of this embodiment. First, the CPU 12 generates the intermediate code for the first page. In the upper row 6000, 1 in FIG.
Since the fourth band of the page is a band in which a pre-band occurs, the data of this band is first rendered, and then the first band is rendered.

When the rendering of the first band is completed, the first band is shipped, and the band immediately ahead of the currently shipping band is rendered. However, since rendering of the fourth band has already been performed at the time of shipping of the third band, idle time occurs in the renderer in that section. Further, after the shipping of the last band is completed, the pre-rendering of the fourth band in which the pre-band of the next page occurs and the rendering of the first band are completed and then the printing is started.

On the other hand, in the lower stage 6100 of FIG.
After rendering the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd bands, the upper 6
In the case of 000, the rendering of the fifth band of one page is performed at the rendering 6-1 shown at the timing when the renderer has idle time. In this case, the rendering will render the plus second band of the band currently being shipped, rendering the entire one page, and the fourth band of the second page of rendering 6-2 is the pre-band. Render on time. By thus performing the rendering earlier, the shipping is performed earlier by the time indicated by the reference numeral 6-3.

Further, FIG. 7 is used here to show the case where rendering is performed by both the hardware renderer and the software renderer. Here, the upper row is the upper row 6 in FIG.
It is the same as 000 and will not be explained again. In the lower stage 7100 of FIG. 7, the CPU 12 first creates the intermediate code of the first page. When the CPU 12 finishes generating the intermediate code of the fourth band, the hardware renderer starts the pre-rendering of the fourth band because the fourth band is the pre-band generation band. And the above 1
When the generation of the intermediate code of the page is completed, the CPU 1
2 starts generating the intermediate code 7-1 for the second page.

When the hardware band renderer completes the pre-rendering for the fourth band and the pre-rendering for the first band, it sets the nPRNT signal (not shown) to true and makes a print request to the printer engine. When the vertical synchronization signal nTOP is output from the printer engine, the hardware renderer and the sipper start the alternate rendering and shipping of the two bands.

When the generation of the intermediate code for the second page is completed, the CPU 12 starts the software rendering 7-2 for the seventh band of the first page. Naturally, software rendering performed by the CPU 12 takes longer than hardware rendering. In this figure, for the sake of easy description, it is illustrated that the time required for hardware rendering is 3 to 5 times.

When the generation of the intermediate code 7-1 for the second page is completed, the CPU 12 starts the software rendering 7-2 for the seventh band. In addition, the hardware renderer performs rendering 7-3 for the 5th band when the hardware rendering for the 4th band is not performed, and starts pre-rendering 7-4 for the 2nd page and the 4th band when the rendering for the 6th band is completed. To do.

Before the 7th band is shipped, the software rendering 7-2 for the 7th band is completed.
Software rendering of the second band of the page 7-
Start 5. Also, the hardware renderer will have idle time during the 7th band shipping, so
The pre-rendering 7-6 of the first band on the second page is started. Then, when the shipping of the seventh band is completed, the shipping of the second page can be started with almost no free time.

The hardware renderer is already developed by software rendering for the second page and second band, and the hardware renderer is already developed for the second page and fourth band, 1
The hardware rendering 7-7 of the third band of the second page and the fifth, sixth, and seventh bands of the second page other than the band of the second band are sequentially hardware-rendered.

By performing the rendering earlier in this way, shipping is performed earlier by the time shown by reference numeral 7-8. The time indicated by reference numeral 7-8 is longer than the time indicated by reference numeral 6-3, and the processing efficiency is further improved in the lower stage 7100 of FIG. 7 as compared with the case of the lower stage 6100 of FIG.

Next, the process of extracting software renderable bands will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, the CPU 12 generates an intermediate code (step S800). Next, the drawing predicted time in hardware rendering of each band is calculated from the intermediate code (step S810). Next, in step S820, the drawing predicted time calculation value for each band is multiplied by the software rendering coefficient to calculate the drawing predicted time calculation value for software rendering. Here, it is calculated how much software rendering takes in each band.

Then, it is determined whether or not the software rendering is possible (step S830). Then step S840
In, the number n of the band currently being processed (n is a natural number)
Discriminates some, and if there is a band to be processed (n is not the last value), n is incremented (+1) (step S850), and for the next band, the above step S820 is further performed. Process from.

Here, in step S820, when calculating the drawing prediction time calculation value of software rendering, tS (drawing prediction time calculation value in software rendering), tH (drawing prediction time calculation value in hardware rendering), α (Software rendering coefficient,
1 or more), the calculation formula is tS = tH × α.

Further, in step S830, it is judged whether or not the software rendering will be in time. The number of bands to be actually rendered, bR, the number of bands currently being shipped, bS, and the time tS required for shipping one band, tS.
If P, then (tR-bS-2) * tSP-tS> 0, and software is used to perform rendering from the currently shipping band to determine whether or not it is in time.

As a result, when the CPU 12 finishes the generation of the intermediate code and the CPU 12 has a vacant time, it becomes possible to cause the CPU 12 to perform the software rendering, and perform the hardware rendering and the software rendering. It is possible to improve performance.

(Other Embodiments) In addition to the embodiments described above, the following modes can be implemented. 1) The calculation for determining the propriety of software rendering is not limited to the calculation formula of the above-described embodiment,
Various suitable calculation methods may be applied. 2) Even if the present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.) as described above, an apparatus including one device (for example, a copying machine or a facsimile machine) May be applied to. 3) Further, in order to operate various devices so as to realize the functions of the above-described embodiments, software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments is provided to a computer in an apparatus or system connected to the various devices. The program code of (1) is supplied, and the computer (CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus is operated by operating the above-mentioned various devices according to the stored program, which is also included in the scope of the present invention. 4) Also, in this case, the program code of the software itself realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments, and the program code itself and means for supplying the program code to the computer, for example, the program code is stored. The storage medium described above constitutes the present invention. 5) As a storage medium for storing the program code, for example, a floppy (registered trademark) disk, a hard disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, a CD-ROM,
A magnetic tape, a non-volatile memory card, a ROM or the like can be used. 6) Moreover, not only the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by executing the supplied program code by the computer, but also the OS (operating system) or other application in which the program code is operating in the computer. Needless to say, the program code is included in the embodiments of the present invention even when the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized in cooperation with software or the like. 7) The supplied program code is stored in the memory provided in the function expansion board of the computer or the function expansion unit connected to the computer, and then stored in the function expansion board or function storage unit based on the instructions of the program code. It goes without saying that the present invention also includes a case where the provided CPU or the like performs a part or all of the actual processing and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments. 8) The above embodiment has been described for the purpose of exemplifying the present invention, but modifications other than the above embodiment are possible. As long as the modification is based on the technical idea of the present invention described in claims, the modification is within the technical scope of the present invention.

[0062]

As described above, according to the present invention, the image forming apparatus divides the captured image data into one or more drawing data of a predetermined size by the renderer, and draws each drawing data. , When hardware rendering is sequentially performed and the rendering data that has been hardware rendered is sequentially printed and printed, in rendering, the rendering does not end within the time of shipping during printing. Data is pre-determined, pre-rendering is performed on the determined drawing data before hardware printing, and hardware rendering is sequentially performed on each drawing data other than the pre-rendered drawing data. Since it is done, from the drawing data during shipping considering the idle time of the renderer To render the drawing data of the previous La.

Therefore, there is an effect that the renderer is efficiently used and the performance is improved.

Further, according to the present invention, the image forming apparatus further has a function of performing software rendering on the drawing data by the CPU, and at the time of printing, the hardware-rendered drawing data and the software. It is possible to print the rendering data together with the rendered rendering data one by one, and at the time of software rendering, calculate the rendering predicted time calculation value for the hardware rendering of the rendering data, and use the software rendering based on it. If the drawing data is determined to be shipped after the calculated drawing prediction time calculation value has elapsed, the software rendering is performed on the determined drawing data. , Software render considering free time of CPU Further, by using the grayed,
Further, the drawing data in the future is rendered.

Therefore, the CPU is effectively used and the performance is improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a laser beam printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a control configuration of the laser beam printer according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printer control system according to the embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a band control system according to the embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of one-page printing according to the embodiment of this invention.

FIG. 6 is a timing chart of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a timing chart of the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a software renderable band extraction process according to the embodiment of this invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1000 printer control unit 1500 LBP body 1501 Operation panel 1502 laser driver 1503 Semiconductor laser 1504 laser light 1505 rotating polygon mirror 1506 electrostatic drum 1507 Development unit 1508 paper cassette 1509 paper feed roller 1510 Conveyor roller 1511 Conveyor roller 2000 Main body of host computer 3000 host computer

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A first rendering unit that divides the captured image data into one or more drawing data of a predetermined size, and sequentially performs hardware rendering on each of the divided drawing data, and the first rendering unit. A rendering unit that sequentially performs printing on the drawing data that has been hardware-rendered by the rendering unit, and the first rendering unit is configured to perform the hardware during the shipping time of the printing unit. Wear rendering is not completed, the rendering data is determined in advance, hardware rendering is performed on the determined rendering data before printing is started, and each rendering other than the rendering data subjected to the pre-rendering is performed. Characterized by sequentially performing hardware rendering on data Image forming apparatus. 2. The first rendering means, when the captured image data has a plurality of pages, after the hardware rendering of the image data corresponding to one page is completed, the image corresponding to the next page is generated. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the hardware rendering or the pre-rendering is performed on the data. 3. A second rendering unit that performs software rendering on the rendering data, the printing unit including the rendering data that has been hardware-rendered by the first rendering unit,
The drawing data subjected to the software rendering by the second rendering unit can be combined and sequentially printed, and the second rendering unit can perform the drawing by the first rendering unit. Calculate the predicted drawing time calculation value in hardware rendering of data, calculate the predicted drawing time calculation value in software rendering based on the calculated predicted drawing time calculation value, and calculate the calculated predicted drawing time time value The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when the drawing data is determined to be shipped by the printing unit after a lapse of time, software rendering is performed on the determined drawing data. 4. A first rendering step of dividing the captured image data into rendering data of one or more predetermined sizes by a renderer, and sequentially performing hardware rendering on each of the divided rendering data. A printing step of sequentially performing printing on the drawing data, which has been subjected to the hardware rendering by the first rendering step, by a printing means, wherein the printing step is performed in the first rendering step. Predetermining the drawing data that hardware rendering does not end within the shipping time,
Pre-rendering is performed to perform hardware rendering on the determined drawing data before printing, and hardware rendering is sequentially performed on each of the drawing data other than the drawing data on which the pre-rendering is performed. A characteristic image forming method. 5. The image corresponding to the next page after the hardware rendering of the image data corresponding to one page is completed when the captured image data has a plurality of pages in the first rendering step. The image forming method according to claim 4, wherein hardware rendering or the pre-rendering is performed on the data. 6. The rendering data further comprising a second rendering step of performing software rendering on the rendering data by the CPU, and the rendering data subjected to the hardware rendering by the first rendering step in the printing step. It is possible to combine the drawing data that has been software-rendered by the second rendering step, and sequentially perform shipping and printing. In the second rendering step, the first rendering step is performed. Calculate the predicted drawing time calculation value in hardware rendering of the drawing data, calculate the predicted drawing time calculation value in software rendering based on the calculated predicted drawing time calculation value, and calculate the calculated predicted drawing time time value in the software rendering. After time has passed If the drawing data is determined to be shipping by the printing step, the image forming method according to claim 4 or 5, characterized in that the software rendered to the judgment by the drawing data. 7. A computer-readable recording medium in which a program for causing an image forming apparatus to execute each step of the image forming method according to claim 4 is recorded. 8. A program for causing an image forming apparatus to execute each step of the image forming method according to claim 4.