Photocopying – Projection printing and copying cameras – Identifying – composing – or selecting
Utility Patent
1998-12-08
2001-01-02
Mathews, Alan A. (Department: 2851)
Photocopying
Projection printing and copying cameras
Identifying, composing, or selecting
C355S027000, C355S041000, C355S075000, C396S567000, C396S570000, C396S647000
Utility Patent
active
06169597
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF APPLICATION
This invention concerns a container to manage and process photographic material and the relative automated system of management and processing.
The invention is used in the automated management of the collection and processing of photographic material, generally speaking in the form of rolls containing the film to be developed.
The invention is used both for the automatic collection of rolls of film from the clients by means of an automatic collecting device, and also for the processing steps in the various processing stations and the movement of the photographic material from one processing station to another.
To be more exact, with this invention it is possible to use the same container for the automatic collection of the photographic material from the clients and also for the processing of the photographic material, at least in the first of the processing stations, advantageously in a plurality thereof; this accelerates and rationalises all the operations and makes the management and movement of the photographic material extremely practical and simple.
STATE OF THE ART
The state of the art covers those commercial enterprises which collect photographic material and wherein the photographic material handed in by the clients, such as for example rolls of photographic film, is placed in the appropriate envelopes on which the identification data of the client, and that of the process to which the photographic material contained therein is to be subjected, is written manually.
In photographic laboratories and in integrated machines designed to carry out the relative processing, the material contained in the envelopes, for example rolls of film, is selected by the worker according to pre-established criteria such as the print format, the type of process, the order etc., and placed in the appropriate containers, in order to obtain a batch of material which can be moved in a homogeneous manner between the various work stations, thus increasing the productivity of the processing machines and/or managing the final product in the appropriate manner.
In the case of a photographic laboratory with multiple stations, each processing machine, whether it be a splicer, a developer, a printer etc., generally requires its own containers to be used. These are structured and shaped to be adapted to the particular machine and to carry out automatic or manual operations of loading/unloading the photographic material to be processed.
In systems to manage and move photographic material such as are known to the state of the art, after the photographic material has been sub-divided and sorted according to the type of client, the format or the process, it is removed from the envelopes or the other containers used by the clients to hand in the material, and it is then sent to a first machine, or splicer to make up homogeneous reels.
The photographic material being processed at the various stations is followed in parallel by the appropriate, previously compiled work card, or other kind of paper record, on which there is the data required to identify the specific material and to programme the various processing machines correctly.
The envelope used substantially follows all the processing steps right until the last packaging station, where it is re-used to contain the photographic product which is delivered back to the client.
The photographic material leaving each individual processing machine is either transferred directly, or placed by the worker manually or automatically by the machine itself, in a container structured to contain the product leaving the machine, whether it be paper, film or otherwise, and/or to adapt itself to the structure of the following processing machine to which it is destined.
The preliminary sorting of the material, the subsequent removal of the rolls from the envelopes or containers, the feeding of the splicer and the parallel journey of the envelopes with the identification data for the final packaging of the finished material require a high number of manual operations and a great deal of care and therefore are easily subject to errors.
In order to reduce the probability of errors, the more advanced photographic laboratories use identification means which can be read automatically, for example a bar code, which are marked simultaneously on the envelope, the photographic material to be processed, for example the exposed films or photographic prints, and on the processed photographic material.
The identification means make it possible to automatically transfer the identification data of the photographic material being processed from the splicer to the other processing machines as far as the packaging machine, by means of an external data processing unit.
The identification means also make it possible, when processing is complete, to check that the envelope, the film and the prints all correctly correspond, possibly by automatically reading the identification means.
However this solution only partly reduces the number of manual operations required, and the probability remains of errors in the packaging step of the processed photographic material.
To be more exact, this solution still requires a high number of manual operations such as: the application by the worker in the commercial outlet dealing with the collection of the rolls, of the identification data of the client and the type of processing and the format, the preliminary sorting of the envelopes containing the photographic material according to the type of processing, the transfer of the material from the envelopes to the splicer, the setting of the processing machines and the transfer of the data from one machine to another, the final packaging of the processed material back into its original envelope, the transfer of the envelopes from the intake to the outlet of the processing steps.
Moreover, there is also the problem that it is necessary to use specific collection containers for each type of processing machine, and sometimes for machines of the same type but made by different producers.
Some solutions in the state of the art have proposed using containers with coded locations, used during the collection step in automatic devices.
For example, EP-A-234.833 describes a device to collect and distribute photographic material where, in the collection section, there are circular, rotating containers connected to an insertion slot by means of a slide.
The containers are associated with a data processing and memorization unit consisting of a floppy disk outside the containers.
The containers however are not structured for the automatic extraction of the rolls contained therein, nor to be applied directly on processing machines with the simultaneous transfer of the identification data of the photographic material from the container to the processing machine.
Furthermore, the memorization means are outside the container and must be collected and transported therewith.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,227,823 and DE-A-195 02 826 disclose methods to process photographic material where the data and information about the processing to be carried out on the film are memorized on the roll itself and read during the unrolling of the film from the roll.
EP-A-645.675 and EP-A-576.399 disclose methods to control and manage the processing steps in a processing laboratory for photographic material.
No state of the art document teaches to use containers which can be associated with an automated collection device, where the containers define a plurality of coded locations each of which can be associated with a roll or other support for photographic material to be processed; where the containers are associated with memorization means included on the container itself, and where the containers can be used directly on the processing machines by means of an interface between the memorization means on the container and reader and data processing means on the processing machines.
The present applicant has designed, tested and embodied this invention to overcome the shortcomings of the state of the art and to achieve further advantages.
DISCL
Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus LLP
Mathews Alan A.
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