Print masks for inkjet printers

Details Print masks for inkjet printers Print masks for inkjet printers

1994-12-22

1999-11-30

Le, N.

Incremental printing of symbolic information

Ink jet

Controller

347 12, 347 37, 347 41, B41J 201, B41J 2145

Patent

active

059929626

ABSTRACT:
Various patterns, such as those derived from halftoning techniques, are applied to the design of print masks for inkjet printers to improve print quality. Print masks are used to control the firing sequence of the nozzles in a print head in multiple pass printing mode and thereby determine the nozzles that are to print in each particular media location. Such techniques as halftoning techniques have been used to print gray scale images with bi-level printing to produce bi-level patterns that can be perceived as gray density by human eyes from a viewing distance. State-of-the-art print masks typically provide checkerboard patterns that are not sufficient to handle severe print artifacts. A novel triangular clustering print mask that may be derived from halftoning techniques is applied to produce an imperceptible printed pattern that covers up the banding artifacts caused by defective print head nozzles. An alternative print mask that may be derived from a super smooth dithering matrix eliminates unpleasant artifacts caused by ink migration. Advanced halftoning techniques are applied to guide the ink migration in an imperceptible, super smooth dithering pattern. These print masking techniques have been demonstrated to be very effective in print quality improvement.

REFERENCES:
patent: 4748453 (1988-05-01), Lin et al.
patent: 4963882 (1990-10-01), Hickman
patent: 4965593 (1990-10-01), Hickman
patent: 4967203 (1990-10-01), Doan et al.
Lin, "Halftone image quality analysis based on a human vision model", IS&T/SPIE Int.Symp. on Electronic Imaging: Science & Technology, San Jose, CA, Feb. 1993.
Lin, "Improving Halftone Uniformity and Tonal Response", IS&T's Tenth International Congress on Advances in Non-Impact Printing Technologies (1994), pp. 377-380.
Ulichney, "The void-and-cluster method for dither array generation", Digital Equipment Corporation 1993.
Bayer, "An Optimum Method for Two-Level Rendition of Continuous-Tone Pictures", Eastman Kodak Company, Research Laboratories. 1973.

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