Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Controller
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-14
2001-02-20
Yockey, David F. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Controller
C347S042000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06189991
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to providing ink jet printing apparatus capable of compensating receiver skew and adjusting printing resolution.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In recent years, great advancement has been realized in ink jet printing technologies. These printing techniques have the advantages of easy image manipulation, compatibility with digital image files, and potential faster turn-around time. When configured properly, ink jet printers can deliver images with qualities close to that of the traditional photographs. For digital photo printing in a minilab, printing productivity is crucial because a large number of photo images often need to be printed in a short period of time in a minilab. To use ink jet printers in such applications, it is desirable to have to a wide ink jet print head that can print a large number of image pixels on a receiver in one printing pass. The print head is preferably page-wide so that a photo image can be printed in a single pass.
Borderless print is a very desirable feature to photographic viewers. Borderless print refers to photographic images that are printed from edge to edge on a receiver. To provide borderless print by an ink jet printer, it is critical for the array of ink nozzles in the print head to be perfectly aligned with the edge of the ink receivers. Any skew in the receiver relative to the print head will result in oblique image borders at the edges of the receiver. The image defects thus produced include unprinted wedge margins and over printing out side of the receiver.
Another requirement in photo minilab is the capability of printing photographs at both different resolutions. This capability is needed because photographs are often viewed at different viewing distances. High image quality needs to be perceived for all applications. For example, a wallet-size (2″ by 3″) photograph needs to be printed at a higher resolution than that of an enlarged page-size (8″ by 10″) photograph because a wallet-size photograph is normally viewed at a closer distance than a page-size photograph.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of this invention is to provide photo-quality ink images on receivers.
Another object of this invention is to provide an ink jet printing apparatus capable of compensating for receiver skew.
A further object of this invention is to provide an ink jet printing apparatus capable of adjusting the printing resolution of the ink jet print bar according to the requirement of the ink image to be printed.
These objects are achieved by ink jet printing apparatus for forming an ink image on a receiver in response to a digital image, comprising:
a) at least one moveable ink jet print bar which is adapted to deliver ink to the receiver at an image transfer position to print at least a portion of a line at a time across the width of the receiver;
b) means for moving the receiver along a path past the ink jet print bar at the image transfer position;
c) detector means disposed adjacent to the path for detecting receiver skew relative to the ink jet print bar and producing a signal representative of the receiver skew;
d) alignment means coupled to the print bar and responsive to the signal for adjusting the position of the print bar to compensate for receiver skew; and
e) control means responsive to the digital image after the ink jet print bar has been positioned for actuating the ink jet print bar to form an ink image on the receiver.
ADVANTAGES
An advantage of this invention is that image borders can be printed parallel to the receiver edges even when the receiver is skewed to the ink jet print bars. Specifically, borderless ink images can be achieved on the receiver in the presence of receiver skew.
Another advantage of this invention is that the printing resolution of the ink jet print bar can be varied so that the ink images can meet the needs of different applications.
A feature of this invention is that a movable ink jet print bar is adapted to deliver ink to the receiver at an image transfer position to print cross the width of the receiver.
Another feature of this invention is that a movable ink jet print bar is pivotally mounted at least one pivot position and the ink jet print bar can be rotated about the pivot position to compensate for receiver skew or to vary image resolution.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4569584 (1986-02-01), St. John et al.
patent: 4739415 (1988-04-01), Toyono et al.
patent: 5229791 (1993-07-01), Kuboki
patent: 5598196 (1997-01-01), Braun
patent: 5815173 (1998-09-01), Silverbrook
patent: 0 031 421 A2 (1981-07-01), None
patent: 771 657 A2 (1996-10-01), None
Wen Xin
Wirth Henry G.
Eastman Kodak Company
Owens Raymond L.
Yockey David F.
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