Patent ID: 8693040
Filing Date: 2014-04-08
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. An image processing system comprising: an image forming apparatus being configured to output a target image; and a plurality of image processing servers being connected to the image forming apparatus via a network and configured to perform one of sequential image processing operations on the target image outputted from the image forming apparatus, wherein there are a plurality of the plurality of image processing servers, being configured to cooperatively and orderly perform the sequential image processing operations on the target image outputted from the image forming apparatus, the image processing server comprising: a test image transmitter which transmits a test image to all the image processing servers in charge of a former image processing operation; an image processor which performs a current image processing operation on a test image; a test results obtainer which obtains the results of the former image processing operation performed on the test image, from all those in charge of the former image processing operation; a judgment portion which judges whether or not the results of the former image processing operation are equal to or higher than a standard value; a server selector which selects a most preferred server among the image processing servers only having returned the results which are judged as being equal to or higher than the standard value; and a notice transmitter which transmits a notice of the most preferred server selected by the server selector, to all those in charge of a next image processing operation or the image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus comprising: a test image storage which stores a test image; a test image transmitter which transmits the test image stored on the test image storage, to all the image processing servers in charge of a final image processing operation; a test results obtainer which obtains the results of the final image processing operation performed on the test image, from all those in charge of the final image processing operation; a judgment portion which judges whether or not the results of the final image processing operation are equal to or higher than a standard value; and a server selector which selects a most preferred server among the image processing servers only having returned the results of the final image processing operation which are equal to or higher than the standard value.