Patent ID: 8891098

Claim:
A conversion time prediction apparatus for predicting a conversion processing time required for a conversion processor provided in an image forming apparatus to convert plane group data indicating a large number of image planes into drawing data for forming images, the apparatus comprising: a target data analysis part for analyzing target data to acquire a degree of reuse of a plane component in said target data as an analysis result, said target data being said plane group data or a set of plane data pieces constituting part of said plane group data, and said plane component being included in said plane group data and reusable in a plane data piece indicating each image plane; a data block acquisition part for acquiring a set of plane data pieces in said target data as a data block, the number of said set of plane data pieces corresponding to a unit plane number that is the number of planes equal to or close to the number of planes to be processed collectively as a single task when a conversion processor provided in an image forming apparatus actually converts said plane group data into drawing data for forming images; a conversion processing control part for causing a predetermined conversion processor to convert said data block into drawing data for forming images to acquire a conversion processing time; a conversion time calculation part for obtaining a predicted value of a conversion processing time required for the conversion processor provided in said image forming apparatus to actually convert said plane group data into drawing data for forming images, on the basis of the conversion processing time of said data block acquired by said predetermined conversion processor; and a notification part for notifying an operator of said analysis result and said predicted value.