Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Patent
1996-03-08
1999-05-04
Hong, Stephen S.
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
707522, G06F 312
Patent
active
059000031
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to printing processes, and additionally to information representation techniques for a page to be printed.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Information to be printed by a printer is arranged and collected by various software programs, and stored in the memory of a data-processing system for printing. There are basically two kinds of information to be printed, graphical images and textual information, both of which are normally represented in a digitized form.
Text is usually represented in a digitized coded form such as ASCII, while graphical images are usually represented in terms of pixel elements. A pixel, as well known in the art, may be represented by data bits which define the attributes of a screen pixel element. Pixel attributes may define pixel color and shade. An image usually consists of a group of pixels organized to form a pattern coherent to the human eye.
Pages to be printed may contain a combination of both images and text. A page may consist of one or more images and/or one or more textual "blocks" positioned in various locations on the page.
Existing printing techniques normally include three major stages.
In a first stage, namely a composition stage, information corresponding to a printed page is composed by an operator through various software programs which subsequently prepare a digitized form of the information to be printed. This digitized form, as described above for text and graphical images, is usually referred to in the art as a continuous-tone image. For each page, a continuous-tone image of the full page to be printed is prepared and stored in the memory of a data processing system for later conditioning prior to printing.
A second stage of the printing process, namely a half-toning stage, uses the continuous toned image as its input data, and produces information required to drive print heads, as the continuous tone image is not in a form readily usable by printers, as explained below.
Usually, each continuous-tone pixel can represent one of possibly thousands of colors and shades. However, most printers are limited to printing the colors of ink used. To print different colors, various techniques are used.
Colors are usually represented by "shades" of gray. Producing shades of a color, or "toning" as the process is often referred to in the art, is accomplished by printing a lower density of ink of the particular color. For example, in certain printers the color black may be produced by generating 360.times.360 dots per square inch, thereby covering the entire surface with black ink. However a lighter tone such as a given shade of gray is produced by generating 180.times.180 dots per square inch, whereby less than the entire surface is covered. Similarly, for other colors.
Most color printers only use 3 or 4 colors, namely cyan, magneta, yellow and perhaps black (hereinafter "process colors"), that "blend" together to produce a desired color. The process of color printing is complicated because generally shades of a process color are required to be combined to produce a desired color. So, toning is accomplished by printing a lower density of dots of each of the process colors. Thus, it is necessary that "bit-maps" be produced for each process color to inform the printing mechanism exactly how to print the process colors.
The mapping function is normally accomplished by a screen convertor apparatus that implements the half-toning process. Both hardware and software screen convertors are known.
Consequently, the output of the half-toning stage consists of a bit-mapped array representation of the page to be printed. The bit-mapped array functions as a control code array for print-heads. Normally, each bit commands a print head (there may be more than one) to either produce an toned dot (by thermal, ink jet, laser, impact or other means) or not.
In a third stage of the printing process, namely the physical printing of a page, actual printing occurs based on the bit-mapped array data. Usually, the bitmaps produced in the half-toning stage
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Hong Stephen S.
Indigo N.V.
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