Incremental printing of symbolic information – Thermal marking apparatus or processes
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-09
2001-04-24
Le, N. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Thermal marking apparatus or processes
Reexamination Certificate
active
06222568
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an image forming method, and in particular, to a method to form an image from an ink ribbon through thermal transfer.
Since images obtained through photographing by a digital camera can easily be processed on a personal computer, for example, it has become popular that a composite photograph, obtained by a user through addition of arbitrary characters or symbols, is outputted by an ink jet printer or a thermal transfer printer.
On the other hand, high quality images are formed by conventional silver halide photography, and they are used together with digital prints accordingly. Further, there has been developed a technology to form a digital image on a silver halide photograph.
Incidentally, as a prior art to compound characters with images on a silver halide photograph, there is known a technology, for example, wherein images from a negative film and characters are compounded by using a transmission-type original prepared by a computerized photo-typesetting machine. In this technology, however, it is not possible to form characters in a metallic color. If it was possible to form characters by the use of a metallic color on a silver halide photograph, beautiful hybrid images would be obtained from quality images and characters.
To meet this demand, there has been developed a technology to add characters to a silver halide photograph through melt thermal transfer from an ink ribbon (TOKKAIHEI No. 9-292686). This technology makes it possible, for example, to add arbitrary comments in a metallic color, to a silver halide photograph on which an image of a subject is formed.
However, there is a problem which is peculiar to the occasion of forming metallic color images in the technology. For example, when an image is smaller than the width of the ink ribbon, an evaporation layer on the ink ribbon corresponding to that image can be transferred collectively onto a silver halide photograph through melt thermal transfer, which makes it possible to form a flat image that is beautiful like the surface of a polished metal.
On the other hand, when an image is larger than the width of the ink ribbon, an evaporation layer on the ink ribbon corresponding to that image can not be transferred collectively onto a silver halide photograph through melt thermal transfer, which makes it necessary to split the image to be smaller than the ink ribbon width to transfer the image. However, when splicing the split images, there is caused a small step on the spliced portion. This step is as small as about 1 &mgr;m and is hardly sensed when touched, but it is seen as a clear line when the metallic color image is reflected. The line formed on the metallic color image which looks like the surface of the polished metal may deteriorates quality of the image.
On the contrary, when the width of the ink ribbon is made to be larger than the size of the photograph, it seems to be possible to transfer an image to be transferred totally and collectively, and thereby to eliminate the spliced portion on the image. However, an image requiring a total ink ribbon hardly exists, and most images are considered to require only a part of the ink ribbon, which makes ink ribbons to be wasted exceedingly to increase cost of an image. When the width of the ink ribbon is made to be large, on the other hand, there is caused the problem that the thermal head needs to be greater, and the size and cost of a printer are also increased. In addition, there sometimes is an occasion where an ink ribbon needs to be used sparingly.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the above-mentioned problems generated from the prior art, an object of the invention is to provide an image forming method and a printer which are capable of forming quality characters on an image forming medium, such as photographic paper, at a relatively low cost.
The image forming apparatus and method of the invention attaining the object stated above is represented by: An image forming apparatus, including: a head, having plural heating elements arranged in line, for forming an image on an image forming medium by transmitting ink, which an ink ribbon has to the image forming medium; a scanner for moving the heating element in relation to the image forming medium; an input system for inputting image data wherein the image data includes data corresponding to an image; a searcher for searching split lines of the image, according to the image data, so that a space between an edge portion of the image and a discontinued image portion on the image or between a discontinued image portion and its adjoining discontinued image portion is not more than a width of the ink ribbon; and a controller for controlling the head and the scanner so that a portion of the image in the space, between an edge portion of the image and a discontinued image portion on the image or between a discontinued image portion and its adjoining discontinued image portion, is formed by one scanning path of the head.
The above objective is also achieved by: An image forming apparatus, including: a head, having plural heating elements arranged in line, for forming an image on an image forming medium by transmitting ink, which an ink ribbon has, to the image forming medium; a scanner for moving the head in relation to the image forming medium; an input system for inputting image data wherein the image data includes data corresponding to an image; a splitter for splitting the image into partial images each of which has a horizontal length shorter than a width of the ink ribbon when a horizontal length of the image is longer than the width of the ink ribbon; a controller for controlling the head and the scanner so that each of the partial images is formed with one scanning path of the head; and a moving mechanism for moving the image forming medium in a horizontal direction, in relation to the ink ribbon and the head, for a distance corresponding a horizontal length of each of the partial images.
The above objective is also achieved by: An image forming method, including the steps of: obtaining split lines of the image, according to image data, so that a space between an edge portion of the image and a discontinued image portion on the image or between a discontinued image portion and its adjoining discontinued image portion is not more than a width of the ink ribbon; and forming a portion of the image in the space, between an edge portion of the image and a discontinued image portion on the image or between a discontinued image portion and its adjoining discontinued image portion, by transmitting ink, which an ink ribbon has, to the image forming medium with one scanning path of plural heating elements.
The above objective is also achieved by: An image forming method to transfer an image onto an image forming medium by splitting the image and at least partially melting or softening an ink ribbon, having an evaporated layer, with scanning of a heating element formed in line, including the steps of: splitting the image in a lateral direction into a length, which is not more than a width of the ink ribbon, when a length of the image in the lateral direction is longer than the width of the ribbon so that split images are obtained; forming one of the split images at a time with scanning the heating element in the longitudinal direction of the image; moving the heating element in a reverse direction of a normal scanning direction for an amount of the scanning in the forming step of one of the split images; and shifting the image forming medium for a length corresponding to one of the split images in relation to the heating element and the ink ribbon.
The following are also the preferable embodiments to achieve the above objective.
(1) An image forming method to transfer an image onto an image forming medium by splitting the image and at least partially melting or softening an ink ribbon, having an evaporated layer, with scanning of a head having plural heating elements arranged in line, including the steps of: searching split lines with which a distance between
Goto Eiji
Mano Shigeru
Feggins K.
Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner L.L.P.
Konica Corporation
Le N.
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