Patent Application
20070030523
The present invention relates generally to document printing and scanning systems and, more particularly, to a system and a method for automatically identifying a submitter of a printed document, but forgotten by the submitter.
In the highly computerized business environment, electronic information is transmitted to devices such as printers using a network available from a user's computer. The printer, for example, may be located adjacent to the user's desk, several offices away, on a different floor, or even in a different office building. During the day, a user may submit numerous documents to the same or different printers. Because users may be busy and the printer may be inconveniently located for the user, a delay may result before a printed document is retrieved from the printer by the user. Additionally, the user may forget to pick up a printed document. As a result, the user fails to incorporate the information into the user's work product or prints the electronic information again wasting paper, user time, and computer/network resources. Thus, it would be useful to have a system and a method that automatically identifies a submitter of a printed document after the document is printed to avoid the wastefulness of re-printing the document, or possibly more importantly, to ensure that information is retained by the submitter.
An exemplary embodiment of the invention relates to a method and an apparatus for identifying a submitter of a printed document to a hardcopy device. The method includes, but is not limited to, receiving an identification image of a printed document, wherein the identification image corresponds to at least a portion of the printed document; comparing the identification image to each of a plurality of electronic images, each electronic image corresponding to a respective document printed by the hardcopy device and associated with a submitter identifier; selecting an electronic image from the plurality of electronic images based on the comparison; and identifying a submitter of the printed document from the submitter identifier associated with the selected electronic image.
Other principal features and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon review of the following drawings, the detailed description, and the appended claims.
A variety of communication media and communication protocols may be implemented to connect the devices of system 10 as known to those skilled in the art. For example, the communication media may include, but is not limited to, a long range wireless connection, a short range wireless connection, and various wired connections including, but not limited to, telephone lines, cable lines, power lines, etc.
The printer 14 prints the electronic information received from the submitter (step 22). The submitter ID and an electronic image of the electronic information is stored in memory (step 24). Additional information, including a print time, may also be stored in memory. The electronic image may be stored in a variety of formats as known to those skilled in the art. The stored electronic image may correspond to all of the electronic information printed by the printer 14 or some portion of the electronic information, such as the first page. The electronic image and submitter ID may be stored in a memory of the printer 14 or in a device in communication with the printer 14 that is hosting the submitter identifier application 16. Thus, in an exemplary embodiment, the submitter identifier application 16 hosted in a separate device receives the electronic image and the submitter ID from the printer 14.
If the submitter of the printed document has forgotten to retrieve the printed document from the printer 14, a user may login to the device hosting the submitter identifier application 16, which may be the printer 14 or another device coupled to the network 18. The submitter identifier application 16 receives the login data from the user (step 26). After logging in, the user can submit a request for an identification of a submitter through an interface at the device hosting the submitter identifier application 16. The interface can be, for example, a keyboard or a touch pad. The submitter identifier application 16 receives the request to identify a submitter of the printed document from the logged in user (step 28). To make the identification, the user submits the printed document to the submitter identifier application 16, and the submitter identifier application 16 receives an identification image of the printed document (step 30). The identification image may be created, for example, by scanning one or more pages of the printed document. In an alternative embodiment, the user is not required to login to the submitter identifier application 16 or to request a submitter identification. Rather, any user may be allowed to request a submitter identification by submitting the printed document for identification such as through a scanner integrated with the device hosting the submitter identifier application 16 or in communication with the device hosting the submitter identifier application 16.
The submitter identifier application 16 compares the identification image to stored electronic images of electronic information submitted for printing (step 32). The submitter identifier application 16 calculates a matching value for each stored electronic image based on the comparison between the identification image and each stored electronic image (step 34). The submitter identifier application 16 can use the hash 104 as part of the comparison and matching value calculation to narrow the image matching process. In addition, a plurality of images formed from a plurality of pages of the printed document may be used to improve the expected matching success of the stored electronic images with the identification image. Additionally, a number of pages of the printed document may be used as a filter to reduce the size of the set of possible stored electronic images that may match the identification image. Various algorithms for comparing images may be utilized as known to those skilled in the art. For example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2002-007413, U.S. published patent Application No. 20040199531, U.S. published patent Application No. 20030231806, and U.S. published patent Application No. 20020009231 describe image retrieval systems and methods. The paper “Fast Multiresolution Image Querying” by C. E. Jacobs, et al. describes the use of a Haar wavelet decomposition of the identification image and the stored electronic images to match the images using a content-based query. The paper “Feature Integration, Multi-image Queries and Relevance Feedback in Image Retrieval” by Q. Iqbal et al. describes the image retrieval system CIRES. It should be understood that any algorithm or process capable of comparing the similarity of two images can be used for the comparison between the identification image and each stored electronic image.
In an exemplary embodiment, histogram color matching analysis may be used to provide a comparison. To make the determination, the histogram color matching analysis generates histograms and determines the color format, possibly at a specified number of locations within the images, based on the generated histograms. More specifically, the submitter identifier application 16 may save each pixel of the identification image using a certain number of bits indicating the color to be displayed for each pixel. The histograms indicate the color density of the document through evaluation of the color of each pixel on each page. For example, a document may be have text in black and white, but include color figures. The identification image histograms are compared to corresponding histograms of the stored electronic images.
The matching value calculated based on the comparison of the identification image with each stored electronic image is a metric that quantitatively evaluates the similarity of the images. The calculated matching value may be compared with a comparison threshold to determine if the images are sufficiently similar to include in a match list (step 36). The comparison may be based on exceeding and/or being equal to the comparison threshold. Alternatively, the comparison may be based on being below and/or being equal to the comparison threshold. If the matching value satisfies the comparison threshold test of step 36, the submitter ID and the stored electronic image are added to a match list (step 38). If another stored electronic image is to be compared, processing continues at step 32 (step 40). After all of the stored electronic images have been compared to the identification image, processing continues at step 42.
After comparing the stored electronic images to the identification image, the stored electronic images added to the match list are ranked based on the corresponding matching value (step 42). A certain number or all of the stored electronic images of the ranked match list may be displayed to the user with the submitter ID of the stored electronic image. The user may select the matching electronic image from the displayed images, or the submitter identifier application 16 may select the matching electronic image from the ranked match list automatically (step 44). The submitter is identified from the submitter ID of the selected electronic image (step 46). The identified submitter is notified of the availability of the printed document (step 48). The notification may be, for example, a message sent to the submitter using a messaging system such as an e-mail system, an instant messaging system, a short messaging system, a multimedia messaging system, and/or a voicemail messaging system. A forgotten printout counter of the identified submitter is incremented to maintain statistics of how often a submitter fails to retrieve printed documents (step 50). Alternatively, the time and date of the last forgotten printout may be maintained or both a counter and time/date of the last forgotten printout may be maintained.
As known to those skilled in the art, the operations of
Use of the forgotten printout counter allows control of printed documents by submitters that repeatedly forget to retrieve printed documents as shown with reference to
The output interface 72 provides an interface to a media for presenting information to a user of the device 70. The output interface may be to a printer, to a display, etc. The device 70 may include one or more output interfaces 72. For example, the output interface 72 to a display is configured to send the electronic images and other information determined by the submitter identifier application 16 for presentation to the user. The display may include a touch screen that allows the user to select the matching electronic image.
The input interface 74 provides an interface for receiving information from the user for entry into the device 70. The input interface 74 may use various input technologies including, but not limited to, a keyboard, a pen and touch screen, a mouse, a track ball, a touch screen, a keypad, one or more buttons, etc. to allow the user to enter information into the device 70 or to make selections. The input interface 74 may provide both an input and an output interface. For example, the touch screen both allows user input and presents output to the user. Additionally, the input interface 74 allows the user to input the printed document, for example, for scanning. The device 70 may include one or more input interfaces 74.
The communication interface 76 provides an interface for receiving and transmitting information communicated across a communication medium, such as a network. For example, the communication interface 76 can be configured to allow the device 70 to receive the electronic images from the printer 14, receive the identification image from a scanner in communication with the device 70, receive the electronic information from the submitter, and/or send messages to the identified submitter of the printed document. Communications between the device 70 and the network may be through one or more of the following connection methods, without limitation: an infrared communication link, a wireless communication link, a cellular network link, a serial port, a parallel port, etc. One or more of these connection methods can be used to transfer content to and from the device 70. The device 70 may communicate using various transmission technologies including, but not limited to, the transmission control protocol/Internet protocol, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, infrared data association, radio frequency identification, etc. The device 70 may communicate using various media including, but not limited to, radio, infrared, laser, optical, universal serial bus, Ethernet, IEEE 1394, etc. The network includes, but is not limited to, a local area network, a wide area network, a wireless network, a Bluetooth personal area network, and the Internet.
The memory 78 may store an operating system of the device 70, the submitter identifier application 16, the stored electronic images and submitter IDs, the held images, and/or other applications to enable the processor to reach the information quickly. As known to those skilled in the art, various types of storage, such as a hard disk drive, a non-volatile memory, such as a Read Only Memory (ROM) or non-volatile Random Access Memory (NVRAM), and/or a volatile memory, such as RAM can hold the submitter identifier application 16 and the stored electronic images and submitter IDs in addition to programming and instructions that control the operation of the printer 14 if the submitter identifier application 16 is integrated with the printer 14. The device 70 may have one or more memories 78 using various memory technologies including, but not limited to, RAM, ROM, flash memory, disk drives, etc.
The processor 80 executes instructions that cause the device 70 to perform various functions. The instructions may be written using one or more programming language, scripting language, assembly language, etc. Additionally, the instructions may be carried out by a special purpose computer, logic circuits, or hardware circuits. Thus, the processor 80 may be implemented in hardware, firmware, software, or any combination thereof. The term “execution” is the process of running an application or the carrying out of the operation called for by an instruction. The processor 80 executes an instruction, meaning that it performs the operations called for by that instruction. The processor 80 executes the instructions embodied in the submitter identifier application 16 in accordance with
The submitter identifier application 16 can be implemented as an organized set of instructions that, when executed, cause the device 70 to perform the operations described with reference to
The foregoing description of exemplary embodiments of the invention have been presented for purposes of illustration and of description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed, and modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of the invention. The exemplary operations, for example, may be performed in a different order. The embodiments (which can be practiced separately or in combination) were chosen and described in order to explain the principles of the invention and as practical applications of the invention to enable one skilled in the art to utilize the invention in various embodiments and with various modifications as suited to the particular use contemplated. It is intended that the scope of the invention be defined by the claims appended hereto and their equivalents.
