Patent ID: 8570353

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a laser unit that has a function to emit a laser light to heat a thermal rewritable recording medium to write drawings on to the thermal rewritable recording medium and to erase drawings written on the thermal rewritable recording medium by heating the thermal rewritable recording medium; an erasing data generating unit that generates erasing data indicative of a position of an erasing area corresponding to a part of the thermal rewritable recording medium; a barcode reader; and a written data receiving unit, wherein the laser unit erases a drawing written on the erasing area of the thermal rewritable recording medium based on the erasing data generated by the erasing data generating unit, wherein the erasing data generating unit identifies the position of the erasing area based on written data corresponding to a drawing currently written on the thermal rewritable recording medium and drawing data to be written on the thermal rewritable recording medium and generates the erasing data based on the erasing area and the position identified, wherein the drawing currently written on the thermal rewritable recording medium includes a barcode indicating an ID data for specifying the written data, and wherein the barcode reader reads the barcode to obtain the ID data and the written data receiving unit receives the written data based on the ID data.