Abstract:
A method of billing for printing service costs is presented. The method entails examining the content of a page and applying a cost function to approximate the cost of printing the page. Examining the content of the page may include detecting at least one object in the page and determining an approximate area of coverage of the detected object within the at least one object in the page. The cost function can approximate the cost of printing the page using the detected object and the determined approximate area of coverage of the detected object.

Description:
BACKGROUND 
     1. Technical Field 
     The present disclosure relates to billing for printing costs, and, in particular, to a system and method for billing for printing service costs by examining the content of a page. 
     2. Description of Related Art 
     Modern color printing systems mark a substrate with patterns of lines or small dots of oval or round shape onto the printing substrate (e.g., such as paper). The color printing system can mark the printing substrate with multiple colors of ink or toner called colorants. Although most color printing systems have only four primary colors of toner (or ink), a much wider variety of colors are available for color perception because of physiological and psychophysical aspects of human color vision. 
     The colors of toner (or ink) chosen to create the wider variety of perceived colors is generally referred to as the color gamut. The most typically used color gamut is the “CMYK” color gamut. The “C” refers to Cyan toner, the “M” refers to “Magenta” toner, the “Y” refers to the “Yellow” toner, and the “K” refers to the “Black” toner. Although there are three types of color receptors in the human eye (and one additional type of receptor for night vision), four toner colors are generally used because black toners are generally cheaper, and it is more efficient to use a black toner than to combine the cyan, magenta, and yellow toners to make a black color, e.g., a black toner dries faster than when combing the three aforementioned toners to make a black marking on a substrate. The cost of the toner (or ink) should be taken into consideration when printing color and/or monochrome pages. 
     However, the cost of the toner is generally only about 20% to 30% of the total cost per printing substrate (e.g., a page can be printed on a substrate) that is incurred when using a printing system. One business model employed by manufacturers of printing systems is to lease (becoming the “lessor”) a printing system to the end user and charge a monthly “use” fee and a “service” fee. The “use” fee is generally fixed; however, the “service” fee includes estimated fixed and variable costs, and a profit margin. Some of the estimated costs that are included in the service fee are toner usage costs, technician costs, repair costs, IT infrastructure costs, field offices costs, managers&#39; and engineers&#39; salaries, parts costs, labor costs, and the like (generally the end user pays for the printing substrate, e.g., paper, however, some end users may contract otherwise). 
     If the agreed upon fee structure is not properly calculated, the actual costs may exceed expectations reducing the profit margin (possibly causing the lessor to incur a loss). Additionally, an improperly calculated service fee can cause a particular end user to pay more than their proportionate service usage. Thus, miscalculated service costs increase market inefficiencies into the printing system&#39;s market. To mitigate the risk of loss to a lessor and to provide the lessee (i.e., end user) with a proportionate service fee, the service cost generally includes a “per click” fee. This fee can facilitate efficient allocation of the resources of both parties. 
     This “per click” fee is an additional fee that is applied to each particular piece of printed page. The per click fee includes an estimated toner cost, a risk premium cost, and a profit margin. The risk premium cost is an estimated service cost that a particular piece of printing substrate will probabilistically cause the lessor to incur a service expense. Printing a color page has a higher probability of incurring additional service costs as compared to printing a monochrome page. 
     One approach is to charge a “per click” fee of a fixed amount when an end user prints a page that is purely monochrome, and to charge a different amount for the “per click” fee when printing a color page. This is referred to as the “one size fits all billing approach” and is simply billing one fee for printed monochrome pages and another fee for printed color pages, regardless of the content in the printed page. For example, the “per click” fee may be $0.01 (U.S) per monochrome printed page and $0.08 (U.S.) per color printed page. 
     The “one size fits all billing approach” does not generally take into account the objects that are in the page. For example, there are several types of monochrome and/or color objects that can be printed onto a substrate. Some of the types of objects that may be printed are: monochrome contone objects, color contone objects, monochrome text objects, color text objects, monochrome line art objects, color line art objects, monochrome graphic objects, color graphic objects, monochrome low frequency halftone objects, color low frequency halftone objects, monochrome high frequency halftone objects, color high frequency halftone objects, monochrome solid fill objects, and color solid fill objects. 
     In one exemplary prior art method, an approximation of the service cost associated with a particular printed page is made by applying a cost function that uses the aggregate toner area of coverage of the printed page, the printing medium substrate dimensions, and the finishing options applied. The aggregate toner area of coverage may be approximated by counting the aggregate number of color pixels (e.g., counting the number of the CMYK pixels within an object). 
     The prior art method does not take into account how the color pixels are distributed in a page (e.g., how the pixels are distributed and/or clustered), the kinds of objects in the page the pixels are used to form, and the pixel density. 
     SUMMARY 
     The present disclosure relates to billing for printing costs, and, in particular, to a system and method for billing for printing service costs by examining the content of a page. 
     In one aspect of the present disclosure, a method of billing for printing service costs is provided and includes the steps of: examining content of a page and applying a cost function to approximate a cost of printing the page. The step of examining the content of the page includes detecting at least one object in the page and determining an approximate area of coverage of the detected object (and/or detected objects) within at least one object in the page. The cost function approximates the cost of printing the page using the detected object and the determined approximate area of coverage of the detected object. The step of determining the approximate area of coverage of the detected object may include the step of: counting the number of pixels of the detected object. The objects that may be detectable by the method include: monochrome contone objects, color contone objects, monochrome text objects, color text objects, monochrome line art objects, color line art objects, monochrome graphic objects, color graphic objects, monochrome low frequency halftone objects, color low frequency halftone objects, monochrome high frequency halftone objects, color high frequency halftone objects, monochrome solid fill objects, and color solid fill objects. The method may be implemented by an operative set of processor executable instructions configured for execution by at least one processor. 
     In another aspect of the present disclosure, the step of detecting the at least one object in the page may include detecting at least one color object and detecting at least one monochrome object. The step of detecting at least one color object may include one or more of the steps of: detecting at least one color contone object, detecting at least one color text object, detecting at least one color line art object, detecting at least one color low frequency halftone object, detecting at least one color high frequency halftone object, and detecting at least one color solid fill object. 
     In another aspect of the present disclosure, the step of counting the number of pixels of the detected object occurs during ripping of the page and/or by implementing an auto-windowing technique on the page. The page may be a scanned page, an image of a page, a page description language page, a printed page, a copied page, a computer-memory based page, a hard-drive based page, a raster page, and a vector graphics page. 
     In another aspect of the present disclosure, the cost function can determine that the approximate cost of printing the page is one of a first cost, a second cost, a third cost, a fourth cost, and a fifth cost. The cost function determines that the approximate cost of printing the page is the first cost when the printed page is a purely monochrome page, and the determined area of coverage of the detected at least one object is less than a first predetermined threshold. The cost function determines that the approximate cost of printing the page is the second cost when: the printed page is a purely monochrome page and the determined area of coverage of the detected at least one object is greater than or equal to the first predetermined threshold. The cost function determines that the approximate cost of printing the page is the third cost when: the printed page is not a purely monochrome page, the determined area of coverage of the detected at least one color object is less than a second predetermined threshold, a color graphic object is not detected in the page, a color low frequency halftone object is not detected in the page, a color high frequency halftone object is not detected in the page, a color contone object is not detected in the page, a color solid fill object is not detected in the page, and a color contone object is not detected in the page. 
     The cost function determines that the approximate cost of printing the page is the fourth cost when the printed page is not a purely monochrome page, the determined area of coverage of the detected at least one color object is less than a third predetermined threshold, and a first weighted average is less than a fourth predetermined threshold. The weighted average is a summation of: the multiplication of the determined approximate area of coverage of a detected at least one color graphic object and a first weight, the multiplication of the determined approximate area of coverage of a detected at least one color low frequency halftone object and a second weight, the multiplication of the determined approximate area of coverage of a detected at least one color high frequency halftone object and a third weight, the multiplication of the determined approximate area of coverage of a detected at least one color solid fill object and a fourth weight, and the multiplication of the determined approximate area of coverage of a detected at least one color contone object and a fifth weight. 
     The cost function determines that the approximate cost of printing the page is a fifth cost when the printed page is not a purely monochrome page, and one of the following: the determined area of coverage of the detected at least one color object is greater than or equal to the third predetermined threshold, or the first weighted average is greater than or equal to the fourth predetermined threshold. Additionally, the cost function can also determine that the approximate cost of printing the page is a fifth cost when the determined area of coverage of the detected at least one color object is greater than or equal to a second threshold and there are no detected color graphic objects, color low frequency halftone objects, color high frequency halftone objects, color solid fill objects, or color contone objects. 
     In another aspect of the present disclosure the cost function includes a weighted average function. The weighted average function may include a multiplication of a determined area of coverage of a detected object within the at least one object and a sixth weight. 
     In another aspect of the present disclosure, a billing system is provided and is implemented by an operative set of processor executable instructions configured for execution by at least one processor. The billing system includes an examination module and a cost calculation module each having an operative set of processor executable instructions configured for execution by the at least one processor. The examination module can examine the content of a page, and includes detection and coverage modules. The detection module can detect at least one object in the page and the coverage module determines an approximate area of coverage of the detected object within the at least one object in the page. The cost calculation module can apply a cost function to approximate the cost of printing the page using the detected object and the determined approximate area of coverage of the detected object. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       These and other advantages will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the various embodiments of the present disclosure with reference to the drawings wherein: 
         FIGS. 1A and 1B  are graphic representations of pages with objects in the pages in accordance with the present disclosure. 
         FIG. 2  is a flow chart diagram illustrating a method of billing for printing service costs in accordance with the present disclosure; 
         FIG. 3  is a chart depicting several approximated costs that can be used by the method of  FIG. 2  which account for the service cost of printing a page in accordance with the present disclosure; and 
         FIG. 4  is a block diagram illustration of a billing system that can bill for printing service costs. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       FIGS. 1A and 1B  show pages  101  and  102 , respectively. Page  100  includes color text object  104 , color solid fill object  106 , and color line art objects  108  and  110 . Page  102  includes color graphic object  112 , color low frequency halftone object  114 , and color high frequency halftone object  116 . The types of objects that may be included in a page are: monochrome contone objects, color contone objects, monochrome text objects, color text objects, monochrome line art objects, color line art objects, monochrome graphic objects, color graphic objects, monochrome low frequency halftone objects, color low frequency halftone objects, monochrome high frequency halftone objects, color high frequency halftone objects, monochrome solid fill objects, and/or color solid fill objects. 
     A page can take many forms, e.g., pages  100  and  102 . A page is simply what is to be marked onto the printing substrate. Two pages may be marked on both sides of the substrate to form a double-sided sheet (e.g., a sheet of paper). A page may be a scanned page, an image of a page, a page description language page, a printed page, a copied page, a computer-memory based page, a hard-drive based page, a raster page, a vector graphics page, or the like. Additionally or alternatively, pages  100  and  102  may be a representation of a page in printed form (e.g., printed pages) or in another form as mentioned supra. 
     Referring again to only  FIGS. 1A and 1B , note that the approximate area of coverage of the color objects in page  100  is about equal to the approximate area of coverage of the color objects in page  102 . The “area of coverage” of an object may be a relative or absolute measurement. Also, the “area of coverage” of an object may be the number of pixels of the object and/or the area of the object. Additionally or alternatively, to determine the approximate area of coverage of an object in pages  100  and  102 , the method may count the number of pixels of that object. Additionally, the pixels can be counted during ripping of the page and/or using an auto-windowing technique on the page. The auto-windowing technique is described in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,850,474 entitled, “Apparatus and method for segmenting and classifying image data” and U.S. Pat. No. 6,240,205 entitled, “Apparatus and method for segmenting and classifying image data”, both of which are assigned to the present assignee and are hereby incorporated by reference. 
     In one prior art method, pages  100  and  102  would be billed a “per click” fee that was based upon the determined approximate area of coverage of the color objects of pages  100  and  102 , respectively, resulting in the two pages being billed at about the same fee when printed, or at exactly the same fee. However, field data has indicated that there is a correlation of the service cost associated with a particular printed page to the page content (e.g., the objects in the page). 
     For example, a 1×1 inch object when printed on a page may have higher service cost if the object were a color high frequency halftone object as compared to a color low frequency halftone object or a color line art object. The reasons for the additional service costs may be partially due to that the smaller halftone cluster dots make slight color separation misregistrations more objectionable to the human eye as compared to larger halftone cluster dots. 
     Referring to the drawings,  FIG. 2  is a flow chart diagram illustrating a method  200  of billing that accounts for printing service costs. Page  202  is shown and includes monochrome contone object  204 , monochrome text object  206 , monochrome line art object  208 , monochrome graphic object  210 , monochrome low frequency halftone object  212 , monochrome high frequency (abbreviated as “freq.”) halftone object  214 , monochrome solid fill object  216 , color contone object  218 , color text object  220 , color line art object  222 , color graphic object  224 , color low freq. halftone object  226 , color high freq. halftone object  228 , and color solid fill object  230 . Also, page  202  is representative of any page (e.g., pages  100  and  102  of  FIGS. 1A and 1B ) and is used only to illustrate some of the variety of objects that can be detected and used by method  200 ; however, method  200  may use a page that includes any combinations of objects or no objects. 
     Step  232  can examine content of page  202  and includes steps  234  and  236 . Step  234  can detect at least one object in page  202  while step  236  can determine the approximate area of coverage of the detected object. The at least one object in the page that is referred to in step  234  may include one or more objects. 
     Step  234  includes steps  238  and  240 ; step  238  can detect at least one monochrome object in page  202  (e.g., one of objects  204  through  216 ) and step  240  can detect at least color object in the page (e.g., one of objects  218  through  230 ). Step  240  can include additional steps (not depicted) such as steps that can detect at least one color contone object, detect at least one color text object, detect at least one color line art object, detect at least one color graphic object, detect at least one color low frequency halftone object, detect at least one color high frequency halftone object, and/or detect at least one color solid fill object. 
     Method  200  can use one or more of the detected objects of step  234 , e.g., step  236  can determine the approximate area of coverage of the detected object (and/or objects) of step  234 . A way method  200  can determine the approximate area of coverage of the detected object (e.g., one of objects  204  through  230 ) is during step  242  which is to count the number of pixels of the detected object. As mentioned above, step  242  may be implemented during ripping  244  and/or during auto-windowing  246 . 
     After an object is detected (e.g., objects  204  through  230 ) and the approximate area of coverage of the detected object is determined; step  248  can apply a cost function to approximate the cost of printing the page using the detected object (e.g., of step  234 ). 
     Note that method  200  may be implemented by using software executable instructions. Specifically, method  200  may be implemented using processing module  250  that includes processor  252  and memory  254 . Memory  254  includes instruction  256 , data  258 , stack  260 , and heap  262 . Although processing module  250  is shown using “von Newman architecture”, method  200  may also be implemented using a processor in the Harvard architecture (not depicted). 
     The cost function referred to within step  248  may be the one as depicted in  FIG. 3 . Referring now to  FIG. 3 , chart  300  depicts several costs that can be used by method  200  of  FIG. 2  to approximate the service cost of printing a page. Chart  300  illustrates five determined service costs in column  302  that includes costs C 1 , C 2 , C 3 , C 4 , and C 5 . Cost C 1 , C 2 , C 3 , C 4 , and C 5  may include the service cost, may be the service cost, may include other costs, may be used to calculate a fee and/or otherwise can be a cost that accounts (either exactly, approximately or by estimation) for the service cost of printing a page. 
     Cost C 1  can be used to account for the page service cost when the page is a purely monochrome page and the total area of coverage of the monochrome objects is less than threshold T 1 . The monochrome objects can be detected during step  238  of  FIG. 2 . However, cost C 2  is used to account for the service cost when the page is a purely monochrome page and the total area of coverage of the monochrome objects is greater than or equal to threshold T 1 . 
     Costs C 3 , C 4 , and C 5  apply to pages with color objects. Costs C 3  is used to account for service costs when there are color objects in the page (although the page may contain significant amounts of monochrome objects), the total area of the color objects is less than threshold T 2 , and the page does not include any color graphic objects, color low frequency halftone objects, color high frequency halftone objects, color solid fill objects, or color contone objects. 
     Cost C 4  is determined to be the account for the service cost of printing page  202  (see  FIG. 2 ) when the total area of coverage of the color objects is less than threshold T 3  and a weighted average is less than threshold T 4 . Specifically, refer to column  310  and row  318  of chart  300  for the formula: G*w 1 +LFHT*w 2 +HFHT*w 3 +SF*w 4 +CON*w 5 &lt;threshold T 4 . The formula of column  310  and row  318  expresses that cost C 4  is determined when a weighted average is less than threshold T 4 , the weighted average being a summation of: (1) the total area of coverage of the color graphic objects multiplied by a first weight, (2) the total area of coverage of the low frequency halftone objects multiplied by a second weight, (3) the total area of coverage of the high frequency halftone objects multiplied by a third weight, (4) the total area of coverage of the solid fill objects multiplied by a fourth weight, and (5) the total area of coverage of the contone objects multiplied by a fifth weight. 
     Cost C 5  is determined to include the estimated service cost of printing a color page when that particular page has objects that place the page outside the requirements to use costs of C 3  and/or C 4  (note that costs C 1  and C 2  are associated with approximated costs of purely monochrome pages). 
     Referring to row  320 , cost C 5  is used for accounting for the service cost of a page when the page does not include any color graphic objects, low frequency halftone objects, high frequency halftone object, solid fill objects, or color contone objects, but the total area of coverage of the color objects is greater than or equal to threshold T 2 . Another situation in which cost C 5  is used when printing the color page is shown in row  322  and is used when the page includes one or more of: a color graphic object, a color low frequency halftone object, a color high frequency halftone object, a color slid fill object, and a color contone object; and, additionally for the cost C 5  to be used (regarding row  322 ), the page must have one of: (1) the total area of coverage of the color objects is greater than or equal to threshold T 3  and/or (2) G*w 1 +LFHT*w 2 +HFHT*w 3 +SF*w 4 +CON*w 5  is greater than or equal to threshold T 4 . Row  322  is to account for the pages that are out of bounds of the additional requirements (column  310  row  318 ) of cost C 4 , but satisfy the requirements for cost C 4  determination otherwise. 
     However, referring again to  FIG. 2 , method  200  may use another cost function in step  248 , in another embodiment, that uses a weighted average of the various areas of coverage of any detected objects within a page (e.g., page  202 ). Additionally, in yet another embodiment, a non-linear cost function may determine costs by using one or more of the detected objects found within the page. 
     Referring to  FIG. 4 , a billing system  400  is shown and may be implemented by instructions  256  configured for execution by processor  252 . Additionally or alternatively, billing system  400  and its various modules can include hardware, software, software in execution, firmware, and/or some combination thereof. 
     Examination module  402  and cost calculation module  404  are included in system  400 . Page  202  is the representative page that billing system  400  can use to determine the service cost associated with the page. Examination module  402  includes detection module  406  and coverage module  408 . 
     Examination module  402  can examine the content of page  202 . The examination may be accomplished using detection module  406  that can detect one or more objects in page  202 . Coverage module  408  can determine the approximate area of coverage of a detected object detected by detection module  406 . Coverage module  408  can count the number of pixels of the detected object during (1) ripping and/or (2) using the auto-windowing technique mentioned supra. Examination module  402  can operatively communicate with cost calculation module  404 . Cost calculation module  404  can use the cost function discussed regarding  FIG. 3  to approximate a cost of printing page  202  using objects  204  through  230  (or otherwise objects detected within another page not depicted). Additionally or alternatively, cost calculation module  404  can use any cost function discussed herein. 
     It will be appreciated that variations of the above-disclosed and other features and functions, or alternatives thereof, may be desirably combined into many other different systems or applications. Also that various presently unforeseen or unanticipated alternatives, modifications, variations or improvements therein may be subsequently made by those skilled in the art which are also intended to be encompassed by the following claims.