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EP-4738092-A1 - INSPECTION SYSTEM CAPABLE OF QUICKLY PERFORMING INSPECTION OF PRINT PRODUCT

EP4738092A1EP 4738092 A1EP4738092 A1EP 4738092A1EP-4738092-A1

Abstract

An inspection system including a display unit and an interface configured to receive data including a plurality of pages. The data is sent from a computer in response to a single instruction for sending the data by a user of the computer. Based on the received data, reference data is generated, and a printing unit is caused to print the plurality of pages on separate sheets. Each of the printed plurality of pages is read to generate a read image of each page. The read image of each page is inspected based on the generated reference data. An inspection result indicating whether a read image of a page is defective is displayed on the display unit during the inspection of a read image of one of subsequent pages in the plurality of pages.

Inventors

  • TAKAO, YOSHIFUMI
  • YOKOTA, KAZUYUKI

Assignees

  • Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20251031

Claims (8)

  1. An inspection system comprising: a display unit; an interface configured to receive data including a plurality of pages, the data sent from a computer in response to a single instruction for sending the data by a user of the computer; and one or more controllers having one or more processors and one or more memories, the one or more controllers configured to: (a) generate reference data and (b) cause a printing unit to print the plurality of pages on separate sheets, based on the received data; read each of the printed plurality of pages to generate a read image of each page; inspect the read image of the each page based on the generated reference data; and display an inspection result indicating whether a read image of a page is defective, on the display unit during the inspection of a read image of one of subsequent pages in the plurality of pages.
  2. The inspection system according to claim 1, wherein the one or more controllers is/are configured to perform the inspection by comparing the generated reference data and the read image of each page.
  3. The inspection system according to claim 1, wherein the reference data is generated from the received data without printing based on the received data.
  4. The inspection system according to claim 1, wherein the reference data is generated from the received data without using the printing unit.
  5. The inspection system according to claim 1, wherein the one or more controllers is/are configured to, in response to receiving and based on the data, (a) generate reference data and (b) cause the printing unit to print the plurality of pages on the separate sheets.
  6. The inspection system according to claim 1, wherein the interface is configured to receive a single print job, and wherein the single print job comprises the data including the plurality of pages.
  7. The inspection system according to claim 6, further comprising a branching unit configured to branch the received data of the plurality of pages included in the single print job into the data for a plurality of pages corresponding to the generated reference data and data for a plurality of pages corresponding to created printed media.
  8. The inspection system according to claim 1, wherein the inspection result includes at least one of the number of pages which are defective in inspection result, out of the subsequent pages in the plurality of pages, a ratio of the number of the pages which are defective to the number of inspected pages, and types of defect of the pages which are defective.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure relates to an inspection system that is capable of quickly performing inspection of a print product. BACKGROUND An image forming apparatus generates a print product by printing an image on a sheet based on image data. Particularly, an image forming apparatus used for commercial printing sometimes prints a large number of copies or a large number of pages as print products. Further, there is a case where a print product is inspected with respect to its quality. In this case, in an inspection device, a read image obtained by reading a print product using e.g. a scanner and a reference image are compared, and the quality of the print product is inspected based on a result of the comparison. Further, the reference image is required to be registered in the inspection device for performing the quality inspection. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2023-80455 describes a device that generates a reference image registration job for registering a reference image. However, in a case where the device described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2023-80455 is used, not only generation of the reference image registration job, but also a job for forming an image to be inspected is additionally required. Since the two jobs are independently generated as described above, this causes a problem that the inspection time of a print product is prolonged by time required to generate these jobs. Particularly, in a case where a large number of copies or a large number of pages are printed as print products, the inspection time of the print products tends to be remarkably prolonged. SUMMARY The present disclosure is directed to providing an inspection system that is capable of quickly performing inspection of a print product. The present disclosure provides an inspection system as specified in claim 1. Optional features are specified in claim 2 to 8 According to the present disclosure, it is possible to quickly perform inspection of a print product. Features of the present disclosure will become apparent from the following description of embodiments with reference to the attached drawings. The following description of embodiments is described by way of example. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing an entire configuration of an inspection system according to a first embodiment.FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing hardware configurations of an image forming apparatus, an inspection unit, a large-capacity stacker, an inspection device, an information processing apparatus, and a reference image generation device, respectively.FIG. 3 is a schematic view showing internal configurations of the image forming apparatus, the inspection unit, and the large-capacity stacker.FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a screen displayed on the information processing apparatus.FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a screen displayed on the inspection device.FIG. 6-1 and FIG. 6-2 are sequence diagrams showing a process executed between the information processing apparatus, the reference image generation device, the image forming apparatus, and the inspection device.FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing hardware configurations of an image forming apparatus, an inspection unit, a large-capacity stacker, an inspection device, an information processing apparatus, and a reference image generation device, according to a second embodiment.FIG. 8-1 and FIG. 8-2 are sequence diagrams showing a process executed between the information processing apparatus, the reference image generation device, the image forming apparatus, and the inspection device.FIG. 9-1 and FIG. 9-2 are sequence diagrams showing a process executed between an information processing apparatus, a reference image generation device, and an image forming apparatus, according to a third embodiment. DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS First Embodiment The present disclosure will now be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings showing embodiments thereof. Configurations described in the following embodiments are given only by way of example, and are by no means intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure. For example, components of the configurations of the present disclosure can be replaced with desired components which can exhibit the same functions. Further, desired components can be added. Further, two or more desired components (features) of the embodiments can be combined. A first embodiment will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 6-2. FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing an entire configuration of an inspection system according to the first embodiment. The inspection system shown in FIG. 1, denoted by reference numeral 1000, is a system that performs inspection on a print product. The print product is not particularly limited, and can be a booklet having a plurality of pages, a one-sheet print product, or the like. The inspection system 1000 includes an image f