EP1382457A1 - Druckverfahren und Mehrfach-Durchlaufdruckgerät - Google Patents

Druckverfahren und Mehrfach-Durchlaufdruckgerät Download PDF

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Publication number
EP1382457A1
EP1382457A1 EP02102049A EP02102049A EP1382457A1 EP 1382457 A1 EP1382457 A1 EP 1382457A1 EP 02102049 A EP02102049 A EP 02102049A EP 02102049 A EP02102049 A EP 02102049A EP 1382457 A1 EP1382457 A1 EP 1382457A1
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
printing
image
sub
printed
sheet
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
EP02102049A
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English (en)
French (fr)
Inventor
Patrick Van Den Bergen
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Agfa NV
Original Assignee
Agfa Gevaert NV
Agfa Gevaert AG
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Agfa Gevaert NV, Agfa Gevaert AG filed Critical Agfa Gevaert NV
Priority to EP02102049A priority Critical patent/EP1382457A1/de
Priority to JP2003194337A priority patent/JP2004050834A/ja
Priority to US10/621,707 priority patent/US6938970B2/en
Publication of EP1382457A1 publication Critical patent/EP1382457A1/de
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
    • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
    • B41J2/00—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed
    • B41J2/485—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by the process of building-up characters or image elements applicable to two or more kinds of printing or marking processes
    • B41J2/505—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by the process of building-up characters or image elements applicable to two or more kinds of printing or marking processes from an assembly of identical printing elements
    • B41J2/5056—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by the process of building-up characters or image elements applicable to two or more kinds of printing or marking processes from an assembly of identical printing elements using dot arrays providing selective dot disposition modes, e.g. different dot densities for high speed and high-quality printing, array line selections for multi-pass printing, or dot shifts for character inclination
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
    • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
    • B41J2/00—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed
    • B41J2/485—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by the process of building-up characters or image elements applicable to two or more kinds of printing or marking processes
    • B41J2/505—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by the process of building-up characters or image elements applicable to two or more kinds of printing or marking processes from an assembly of identical printing elements
    • B41J2/515—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by the process of building-up characters or image elements applicable to two or more kinds of printing or marking processes from an assembly of identical printing elements line printer type

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for multi-pass printing, such as ink jet or thermal transfer printing, especially non-contact printing.
  • Printing is one of the most popular ways of conveying information to members of the general public.
  • Digital printing using dot matrix printers allows rapid printing of text and graphics stored on computing devices such as personal computers. These printing methods allow rapid conversion of ideas and concepts to printed product at an economic price without time consuming and specialised production of intermediate printing plates such as lithographic plates.
  • the development of digital printing methods has made printing an economic reality for the average person even in the home environment.
  • a printing head e.g. an ink jet printing head
  • marking elements e.g. ink jet nozzles.
  • the marking elements transfer a marking material, e.g. ink or resin, from the printing head to a printing medium, e.g. paper or plastic.
  • CMYK plus one or more additional spot or specialised colours To print a printing medium such as paper or plastic, the marking elements are used subjected to electric firing pulses and are "fired" in a specific order while the printing medium is moved relative to the printing head. Each time a marking element is fired, marking material, e.g. ink, is transferred to the printing medium by a method depending on the printing technology used.
  • marking material e.g. ink
  • the print head is held stationary and extends in a first direction across the complete width of the printing medium.
  • the printing medium is moved relative to the print head in a second direction perpendicular or substantially perpendicular to the first direction to produce a series of so-called raster lines which extend in the first direction.
  • a raster line comprises a series of dots delivered onto the printing medium by the marking elements of the printing head. It is preferred if the relative movement between the printing head and the printing medium is smooth and continuous but the printing medium may be moved intermittently in the second direction.
  • An encoder linked to the means for moving the printing medium may provide pulses which can be used to synchronise the print head operation with the movement of the printing medium. The above is often described as "page-wide" printing using a page-wide print head.
  • the distance between dots of the dot matrix is small, that is the printing has a high resolution.
  • high resolution always means good printing
  • a minimum resolution is necessary for high quality printing.
  • a small dot spacing in the slow scan direction means a small distance between marker elements on the head, whereas regularly spaced dots at a small distance in the fast scan direction places constraints on the quality of the drives used to move the printing head relative to the printing medium in the fast scan direction.
  • a drive mechanism for moving the printing medium relative to the print head is controlled by a microcontroller or microprocessor, a programmable digital device such as a PAL, a PLA, a FPGA or similar although the skilled person will appreciate that anything controlled by software can also be controlled by dedicated hardware and that software is only one implementation strategy.
  • One general problem of page wide printing is the formation of artefacts caused by the digital nature of the image representation and the use of equally spaced dots.
  • One source of artefacts can be errors in the placing of printed dots caused by a variety of manufacturing defects such as the location of the marker elements in the print head or systematic errors in the movement of the printing head relative to the printing medium.
  • the resulting printing will show a defect which can run throughout the printing.
  • a systematic error in the way the printing medium is moved relative to the printing medium may result in defects which may be visible. For example, slip between the drive for the printing medium and the printing medium itself will introduce errors.
  • an image to be printed is split up in a set of sub-images, each sub-image comprising printed parts and spaces, and wherein at least a part of the spaces in one printed sub-image form a location for the printed parts of another sub-image, and vice versa.
  • interlacing Another method of printing is known as "interlacing", e.g. as described in US 4,198,642.
  • the purpose of this type of printing is to increase the resolution of the printing device. That is, although the spacing between nozzles on the printing head along the slow scan direction is a certain distance X, the distance between printed dots in the slow scan direction is less than this distance.
  • the relative movement between the printing medium and the printing head is indexed by a distance given by the distance X divided by an integer.
  • the methods described above often include multi-pass printing. That is that the print head passes over the printing medium in several "passes" in order to print a complete part of the image. Each printing pass only provides the printing of an incomplete image which consists of printed portions and unprinted portions distributed over the printing medium. The multi-passes fill in the parts of the printed image which are missing.
  • the reason for the multi-passes can be that each colour separation of an image is printed in one pass, or that each individual monochromatic image which makes up a complete coloured image (e.g. three - CMY or four - CMYK) is printed by a series of passes.
  • Multi-pass printing is very common in ink jet printers using a scanning printhead for the fast scan movement and a paper advance for the slow scan movement.
  • Multi-pass printing can have a dual purpose:
  • the page wide printing head can move along its nozzle array direction.
  • it is proposed to accomplish shingling by having two arrays positioned in a certain way to print a first pass when text & line art and images (mixed mode) are to be printed. After this pass the first array is shifted over a half nozzle pitch to the previous position where the nozzles of array 2 were writing during the first pass. In the same way array 2 is positioned where array 1 was writing during the first pass.
  • the above system runs at the basic single pass printing speed. Because shingling requires multiple passes, the throughput of this system goes down in relation to the amount of shingling that is done.
  • a particular embodiment of this concept uses two 360 dpi arrays shifted over a half nozzle pitch to write 720 dpi.
  • a printing method for printing an image on a sheet printing medium using a page wide printing head and a transporting device which provides relative movement between the sheet printing media and a first print head, the method comprising, presenting a series of sheet printing media to the first print head for printing in sequence, printing with the first print head a first sub-image of at least one set of monochromatic mutually interstitially printed sub-images of a first image onto a first sheet of printing medium of the series in one pass, printing in succession a sub-image of an image on each remaining one of the series of sheet printing media followed by printing a further sub-image of the at least one set of monochromatic mutually interstitially printed sub-images of the first image onto the first sheet printing medium.
  • the number of sub-images and the sequence of printing of the sub-images may be independently settable.
  • the print head may be elongate having a longitudinal axis, and the print head may be moved along its longitudinal axis after a printing pass. There may be a plurality of print heads and different sub-images of an image are printed on different print heads. Alternatively, a different colour can be printed with each print head.
  • the series of sheet printing media are stored on the transporting device during the printing process. Typically, the transporting device stores S + 1 sheets of printing media where S is the number of sub-images to be printed to complete printing of the first image.
  • the printing steps may be non-contact printing steps such as ink jet printing steps.
  • the present invention also provides an apparatus for images onto sheet printing media, comprising: a page-wide printing head; a transporting device which provides relative movement between the sheet printing media and the printing head, the transporting device also being for temporarily storing and presenting a series of sheet printing media to the printing head for printing in sequence; a print controller for controlling the printing of a first sub-image of at least one set of monochromatic mutually interstitially printed sub-images of a first image in one printing pass of a first sheet of printing medium of the series and for controlling in succession the printing of a sub-image of an image on each remaining one of the series of sheet printing media followed by printing a further sub-image of the at least one set of monochromatic mutually interstitially printed sub-images of the first image onto the first sheet printing medium.
  • the printer controller may also have means for setting independently the number of sub-images and the sequence of printing of the sub-images.
  • the print head may be elongate having a longitudinal axis, and further comprise means for moving the print head along its longitudinal axis after a printing pass.
  • There may be a plurality of print heads and different sub-images of an image may be printed on different print heads. However, there are generally more passes of printing to complete an image on one sheet than there are printing heads.
  • the plurality of print heads may print different colours.
  • the transporting device is preferably adapted to store the series of sheet printing media. Generally, the transporting device stores S + 1 sheets of printing media where S is the number of sub-images to be printed to complete printing of the first image.
  • the printing apparatus may be included in an ink jet printer.
  • the present invention also includes a computer program product for executing any of the methods according to the invention when executed on a computing device associated with a printing head.
  • a machine readable data storage device may be provided storing the computer program product.
  • the computer program product may be transmitted over a local or wide area telecommunications network.
  • the present invention may also provide a control unit for a printer for printing images on printing media, the printer comprising a page-wide print head and a transport device for storing and transporting sheet printing media relative to the print head for printing, the control unit comprising, means for controlling the printing of a first sub-image of at least one set of monochromatic mutually interstitially printed sub-images of a first image in one pass of a first sheet printing medium of the series and for controlling in succession the printing of a sub-image of an image on each remaining one of the series of sheet printing media followed by printing a further sub-image of the at least one set of monochromatic mutually interstitially printed sub-images of the first image onto the first sheet printing medium.
  • Interlacing can also be done with only one array (thus lowering the cost) but at a throughput that is I times lower ("I" being the amount of interlacing).
  • the methods and devices of the present invention are also applicable to bring a form of mixed mode printing described in European patent applications EP 00 204699 and EP 01 000701 back to single pass printing speed v.
  • This form of printing may be described as a mixed resolution text and line art method of printing in which the text is printed at one resolution and graphics are printed at another, usually lower resolution. If the number of mutual interstitial printing passes is indicated by S, the conveyor means that transports the printing medium in front of the print head is moving at a speed that is S times higher than the original single pass printing speed v without mutual interstitial printing. With this type of printing all the marking elements are potentially used for printing each raster line (whether they do print depends on the image to be printed).
  • the conveying means preferably has a path long enough to hold S + 1 printing media or n(S + 1) media with n being an integer which is 1 or greater.
  • the conveying means can comprise a conveyor or any other suitable carrier e.g. a drum.
  • thermal transfer printing thermal dye transfer printing, deflected ink jet printing, ion projection printing, field control printing, impulse ink jet printing, drop-on-demand ink jet printing, continuous ink jet printing.
  • Non-contact printing methods are particularly preferred.
  • the present invention is not limited thereto. Any form of printing including dots or droplets on a substrate is included within the scope of the present invention, e.g. piezoelectric printing heads may be used to print polymer materials as used and described by Plastic Logic ( http://www.plasticlogic.com/ ) for the printing of thin film transistors.
  • the term "printing" in accordance with the present invention not only includes marking with conventional staining inks but also the formation of printed structures or areas of different characteristics on a substrate.
  • printing medium or “printing substrate” should also be given a wide meaning including not only paper, transparent sheets, textiles but also flat plates or curved plates which may be included in or be part of a printing press.
  • the printing may be carried out at room temperature or at elevated temperature, e.g. to print a hot-melt adhesive the printing head may be heated above the melting temperature.
  • the term "ink” should also be interpreted broadly including not only conventional inks but also solid materials such as polymers which may be printed in solution or by lowering their viscosity at high temperatures as well as materials which provide some characteristic to a printed substrate such as information defined by a structure on the surface of the printing substrate, water repellance, or binding molecules such as DNA which are spotted onto microarrays.
  • solvents both water and organic solvents may be used.
  • Inks as used with the present invention may include a variety of additives such as ant-oxidants, pigments and cross-linking agents.
  • a printing head may be a page-wide ink jet printing head 10 as shown in Fig. 1, for example as part of a printing machine 60.
  • there are two rows 26, 27 per colour whereby the second row is offset along the longitudinal direction of the head by a half a nozzle pitch compared with the first row.
  • Fig. 1B there are four rows 26, 27, 28, 29 per colour whereby the rows 26 and 28 are not offset with respect to each other and the rows 27 and 29 are each offset by a half of the nozzle pitch with respect to rows 26 and 28, respectively, in the direction parallel to the longitudinal axis 50 of the head 10.
  • the printing head 10 of Fig. 1A or B extends across the width of a printing medium 37. Relative motion is provided between the printing medium 37 and the printing head 10 in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal axis 50 of the printing head 10.
  • a page wide printing head 10 as shown in Fig. 1A or 1B is as follows.
  • head 10 remains sensibly stationary for one pass of the printing medium relative to the printhead.
  • relative movement between the head 10 and the printing medium 37 in the direction parallel to the longitudinal axis 50 of the printing head 10 may be provided between passes so that the dots printed at a certain dot position in the raster lines are printed by different marking elements of the head 10.
  • the change of marking elements between passes can be carried out by firing different rows 26, 27, 28, 29 of marking elements 21 rather than by movement of the head 10.
  • the printing head 10 is made at least as wide as the print medium (as shown in Fig. 1A).
  • the head can be made indexible in the cross-printing medium direction, that is parallel to the longitudinal axis 50 of the head 10.
  • the index distance may be chosen as one or more nozzle pitches plus one pixel pitch (for instance, the pixel pitch can be chosen as half of a nozzle pitch).
  • the head 10 may be wider than the printing medium thus providing a number of extra nozzles which go beyond the width of the printing medium. Thus, even if the head is moved in its longitudinal direction, enough marking elements cover the page width.
  • each raster line in each raster line only 50% of the pixel positions in one image, e.g. monochromatic image, are printed in one pass of the printing medium through the printing machine 1. In subsequent printing passes of the printing medium through the printing machine 1 at least some of the missing pixel positions in each raster line are printed. If 50% of the complete image has been printed in the first pass then the printing can be completed in a second pass. More than two passes can be used. Methods of printing and apparatus therefor in which the same nozzle prints a line of dots down the printing medium as well as methods in which different nozzles printing the same pixel positions in a raster line between passes are included within the scope of the present invention.
  • FIG. 2 shows a schematic representation of an embodiment of a printing medium delivery mechanism which improves the efficiency of multi-pass printing with page-wide printing heads.
  • a printing medium conveyor means 20 is provided for receiving virgin printing media at location 12, for inputting printing media for printing by the print head 10 at position 14, for printing media at position 16 and for discharging completely printed media at position 18.
  • the printing device also comprises the page wide printing head 10, an input means 2 for providing the virgin printing media, and an output means 4 for removing the printed media from the conveying means 20.
  • the printing media will generally be in sheet-form, i.e. discrete pieces of flat material, e.g. pages of paper or plastic.
  • the conveyor means 20 conveys or transports the printing media between the positions 12, 14, 16, 18.
  • the conveyor means 20 may be provided by any suitable means for transporting the relevant printing medium.
  • a drum or conveyor can be used.
  • the conveyor means 20 has means for securing the printing media in repeatable and accurate positions on the conveyor means 20 so that the printing media always enter a printing process under the printing head 10 in exact registration.
  • the conveyor means 20 may have a means for orienting the printing medium just before the beginning of printing using the printing head so that registration is maintained between printing passes.
  • Means for maintaining registration between printing passes even with very large size printing media, e.g. A0, are known to the skilled person. Examples are:
  • the printing device may rely on the printing medium being in a sufficiently accurate position thank to the way that each sheet of printing medium is loaded onto and held by the drum or conveyor. Then it is only necessary to provide an accurate relationship between the movement of the drum or conveyor and the firing pulses for the printhead.
  • Such a relationship can be provided with any form of suitable encoder associated with the drum or conveyor and which provides signals, e.g. pulses, dependent upon movement of the drum or conveyor.
  • the conveying means provides suitable support to store the multiple sheets of printing medium which form the set of sheets which are travelling through the printing machine at any time.
  • one image is printed on one side of the sheet media.
  • sub-images of one image all printed on the same side of the sheet media.
  • the present invention also includes duplex printing within its scope. However, then two images are printed - one on each side.
  • Sheet input or output means 2, 4 may be any suitable device, e.g. a sheet feeding and aligning apparatus as described in US 4,380,331 or similar.
  • each sheet of printing medium may be delivered to and held on the conveying means by a device for clamping sheet-shaped recording material such as is described in US 4,380,331 or similar.
  • the present invention it is possible to introduce mutual interstitial printing without loss (or with little loss) of throughput speed and at lower cost while still being able to use only one array of printing markers in the print head. Interlacing can also be done with only one array (thus lowering the cost) but at a throughput that is I times lower ("I" being the amount of interlacing).
  • the present invention also includes the use of more than one printhead, in fact the number of printheads and the space on the conveying means 20 may be optimised with respect to throughput and device cost (caused by more printheads).
  • the methods and devices of the present invention are also applicable to bring mixed (line art and text) mode printing described in European patent applications EP 00 204699 and EP 01 000701 back to single pass printing speed v.
  • a printing method in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention allows the print head to print a reduced number of raster lines in one pass. It does this by skipping intermediate raster lines, e.g. it prints every second, third, fourth raster line, etc.
  • the intermediate raster lines are then printed in subsequent print passes.
  • certain raster lines are printed over the printing medium, e.g. paper or plastic film, which do not complete the image. Instead they leave regular gaps or interstitial spaces in the printing. These gaps are filled in subsequent passes.
  • Each subsequent printing pass creates a part of the printed image which is interleaved with previous parts - hence this form of printing is called mutually interstitial printing.
  • Marker elements such as nozzles of an ink jet print head can print at a certain firing frequency.
  • t f there is a minimum time between subsequent firings of one marking element. If gaps are left in the printing then the print head must travel faster to reach the more distant printing position in the same minimum time t f .
  • each printing pass prints 1/S of the image - this means the distance between raster lines in one printed pass are S times further apart than the spacing of lines in the final printed image.
  • the conveyor means that transports the printing medium in front of the print head moves at a speed that is S times higher than the original single pass printing speed v without mutual interstitial printing.
  • the conveying means preferably has a conveying path long enough to hold S + 1 printing media or n(S + 1) media with n being an integer which is 1 or greater.
  • the conveying means can comprise a conveyor or any other suitable carrier e.g. a drum.
  • n papers labelled as paper 1 - n Paper 1 in its first pass will be described as 1 1 and so on up to 1 S .
  • the sequence is as follows and is shown in Fig. 5 schematically for S is 4. In Fig. 5 the sequence starts at the top of the left hand column and goes down this column and restarts at the top of the next column. In Fig. 5 the conveyor is shown as a pentagonal cylinder but this is merely schematic in order to improve the clarity of the representation.
  • the printing head is represented by a line at the 10 o'clock position.
  • the feed-out position is the position immediately after the print position and the feed-in the position immediately after this position.
  • the present invention includes alternative arrangements which achieve the same effect.
  • the sequence is, then:
  • the feed-in conveyor moves at a speed v, and the print conveyor takes over the papers with a speed v.
  • the paper is transported at a speed S . v but with still the same amount of paper throughput as in the single pass system. Therefore, on the feed-in conveyor the papers can be separated S - 1 paper distances from each other.
  • the need for such a long conveyor can be avoided by varying the distance between the sheets.
  • Fig. 3 is a highly schematic general perspective view of a further inkjet printer 60 which an embodiment of the present invention.
  • the printer 60 includes a base 31 and a page wide print head 10 that has a plurality of nozzles or similar marking elements.
  • the print head 10 may also include one or more ink cartridges or any suitable ink supply system.
  • a sheet of paper 37 or similar printing medium is fed over a support 38 by a conveyor mechanism (not shown).
  • the conveyor mechanism conveys a sheet of paper or other printing medium 37 along a translatory path 34 to bring the sheet of printing medium 37 to the printhead 10 again in the same orientation.
  • There is sufficient space and support along the path 34 to convey more than one sheet of printing medium at any time. That is, in general, there are several sheets of printing medium 37 traversing the path 34 at any time.
  • Fig. 4 is a block diagram of the electronic control system of a printer 60, which is one example of a control system for use with a print head 10 in accordance with the present invention.
  • the printer 60 includes a buffer memory 46 for receiving a print file in the form of signals from a host computer 90, an image buffer 42 for storing printing data, and a printer controller 70 that controls the overall operation of the printer 60.
  • a feed driver 62 for a paper feed drive motor 64 for driving the conveying mechanism of the paper
  • a paper infeed driver 68 for controlling a paper infeed device for introducing paper to the process flow
  • a paper removal driver 66 for controlling a paper removal device from removing paper from the process flow
  • a head driver 44 for the print head 10.
  • Host computer 90 may be any suitable programmable computing device such as personal computer with a Pentium IV microprocessor supplied by Intel Corp. USA, for instance, with memory and a graphical interface such as Windows 2000 as supplied by Microsoft Corp. USA.
  • the printer controller 70 may include a computing device, e.g. microprocessor, for instance it may be a microcontroller.
  • it may include a programmable printer controller, for instance a programmable digital logic element such as a Programmable Array Logic (PAL), a Programmable Logic Array, a Programmable Gate Array, especially a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).
  • PAL Programmable Array Logic
  • FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array
  • the user of printer 60 can optionally set values into the data store 80 so as to modify the operation of the printer head 10.
  • the user can for instance set values into the data store 80 by means of a menu console 48 on the printer 60.
  • these parameters may be set into the data store 80 from host computer 90, e.g. by manual entry via a keyboard.
  • a printer driver (not shown) of the host computer 90 determines the various parameters that define the printing operations and transfers these to the printer controller 70 for writing into the data store 80.
  • the printer controller 70 controls the operation of printer head 10 in accordance with settable parameters stored in data store 80.
  • the printer controller 70 reads the required information contained in the printing data stored in the buffer memory 46 and sends control signals to the drivers 44 and 62, 66, 68.
  • controller 70 is adapted for a dot matrix printer for printing an image on a printing medium, the control unit comprising, software or hardware means for controlling printing of the image as at least one set of monochromatic mutually interstitially printed sub-images, and software or hardware means for setting at least one of the number of sub-images and a sequence in which the printing of the sub-images is carried out, e.g. the sequences of printing passes to complete the printing of the image. At each pass a sub-image of the total image is printed.
  • the controller may be used for independently setting the number of sub-images (i.e. passes) and the sequence of printing of the sub-images as well as to control the paper feed drive and he input and output devices for printing media.
  • the controller is also adapted to control the operation of the printing head 10 so that each mutually interstitial printing step and/or each interlacing step is a pass of the printing head 10.
  • the printing head has an array of marker elements under the control of the controller.
  • the printing data is broken down into the individual colour components to obtain image data in the form of a bit map for each colour component which is stored in the receive buffer memory 46.
  • the sub-images are derived from this bit map, in particular each sub-image will start at a certain offset within the bit map.
  • the head driver 44 reads out the colour component image data from the image buffer memory 42 in accordance with a specified sequence of printing the sub-images and uses the data to drive the array(s) of nozzles on the print head 10 to mutually interstitially print the sub-images on different passes.
  • the data which is stored in data store 80 may comprise:
  • the present invention includes the storing of alternative representations of this data which however amount to the same technique of printing.
  • a) to c) there can be a default value which is assumed to apply if the user does not enter any values.
  • at least one of the parameters a) to c) is settable by the user.
  • the sequence of offsets and therefore the sequence of dealing with the sub-images
  • the user may freely set the number of sub-images to be printed by selecting one or more of the number of passes and the percentage redundancy.
  • the user may select the complexity of the printing process which has an effect on the quality of print (e.g. lack of banding effects, masking defective nozzles) as well as the time to print (number of passes before the printing is complete).
  • printer controller 70 sets the parameters for printing, e.g. at least one of items a) to c) above, e.g. in accordance with an optimised algorithm.
  • the controller 70 may be programmable, e.g. it may include a microprocessor or an FPGA.
  • a printer in accordance with the present invention may be programmed to provide different levels of printing complexity.
  • the basic model of the printer may provide selection of at least one of the number and sequence of printing of the sub-images.
  • An upgrade in the form of a program to download into the microprocessor or FPGA of the controller 70 may provide additional selection functionality, e.g.
  • the present invention includes a computer program product which provides the functionality of any of the methods according to the present invention when executed on a computing device.
  • the present invention includes a data carrier such as a CD-ROM or a diskette which stores the computer product in a machine readable form and which executes at least one of the methods of the invention when executed on a computing device.
  • a data carrier such as a CD-ROM or a diskette which stores the computer product in a machine readable form and which executes at least one of the methods of the invention when executed on a computing device.
  • a data carrier such as a CD-ROM or a diskette which stores the computer product in a machine readable form and which executes at least one of the methods of the invention when executed on a computing device.
  • a data carrier such as a CD-ROM or a diskette which stores the computer product in a machine readable form and which executes at least one of the methods of the invention when executed on a computing device.
  • Such software is often offered on the Internet or a company Intr
  • the data store 80 may comprise any suitable device for storing digital data as known to the skilled person, e.g. a register or set of registers, a memory device such as RAM, EPROM or solid state memory.
  • the parameters for determining the combined mutual interstitial and interlaced printing are stored in data store 80.
  • the preparation for the printing file to carry out the above mentioned printed embodiments may be prepared by the host computer 90 and the printer 60 simply prints in accordance with this file as a slave device of the host computer 90.
  • the present invention includes that the printing schemes of the present invention are implemented in software on a host computer and printed on a printer which carries out the instructions from the host computer without amendment.
  • the present invention includes a computer program product which provides the functionality of any of the methods according to the present invention when executed on a computing device which is associated with a printing head, that is the printing head and the programmable computing device may be included with the printer or the programmable device may be a computer or computer system, e.g. a Local Area Network connected to a printer.
  • the printer may be a network printer.
  • the present invention includes a data carrier such as a CD-ROM or a diskette which stores the computer product in a machine readable form and which can execute at least one of the methods of the invention when the program stored on the data carrier is executed on a computing device.
  • the computing device may include a personal computer or a work station.
  • the present invention includes transmitting the printing computer product according to the present invention over a local or wide area network.
  • a printing device in accordance with the present invention may have more than one printing head and the heads may be controlled by the printer controller to carry out methods according to the present invention.
  • a further print head 10' may be provided at a different location.
  • the second print head 10' may print onto a first sheet a second sub-image of the image to be printed.
  • print head 10 could print the odd passes and print head 10' the even passes.
  • there will be more passes than print heads so that each print head must print multiple different sub-images of a single image to be printed on one sheet of printing medium.
  • the number of print heads able to print a printing pass i.e. to print one sub-image of a monochromatic image on one side of the sheet, and the size of the conveyor may be optimised.
  • multiple print heads may also be provided to print multiple colours.

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Quality & Reliability (AREA)
  • Ink Jet (AREA)
  • Dot-Matrix Printers And Others (AREA)
EP02102049A 2002-07-19 2002-07-19 Druckverfahren und Mehrfach-Durchlaufdruckgerät Withdrawn EP1382457A1 (de)

Priority Applications (3)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
EP02102049A EP1382457A1 (de) 2002-07-19 2002-07-19 Druckverfahren und Mehrfach-Durchlaufdruckgerät
JP2003194337A JP2004050834A (ja) 2002-07-19 2003-07-09 多数パスプリンテイング用プリンテイング方法と装置
US10/621,707 US6938970B2 (en) 2002-07-19 2003-07-17 Printing methods and apparatus for multi-pass printing

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
EP02102049A EP1382457A1 (de) 2002-07-19 2002-07-19 Druckverfahren und Mehrfach-Durchlaufdruckgerät

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EP1382457A1 true EP1382457A1 (de) 2004-01-21

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EP (1) EP1382457A1 (de)
JP (1) JP2004050834A (de)

Cited By (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US6938970B2 (en) 2002-07-19 2005-09-06 Agfa Gevaert Printing methods and apparatus for multi-pass printing
GB2448695A (en) * 2007-04-23 2008-10-29 Inca Digital Printers Ltd Large-scale inkjet printer
US7513589B2 (en) 2007-01-31 2009-04-07 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Multipass printing
EP3109049A1 (de) * 2015-06-25 2016-12-28 Riso Kagaku Corporation Drucksystem

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Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
JPS62215431A (ja) * 1986-03-14 1987-09-22 Sharp Corp 中間トレイを有する複写機
EP0644142A1 (de) * 1992-06-03 1995-03-22 Kabushiki Kaisha Ace Denken Speichervorrichtung für papierblätter

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Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
JPS62215431A (ja) * 1986-03-14 1987-09-22 Sharp Corp 中間トレイを有する複写機
EP0644142A1 (de) * 1992-06-03 1995-03-22 Kabushiki Kaisha Ace Denken Speichervorrichtung für papierblätter

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Title
DOUGLAS G L: "MULTI-PASS PRINTING WITH AUTOMATIC PAPER FEEDING", IBM TECHNICAL DISCLOSURE BULLETIN, IBM CORP. NEW YORK, US, vol. 27, no. 7A, 1 December 1984 (1984-12-01), pages 3909 - 3910, XP000715271, ISSN: 0018-8689 *
PATENT ABSTRACTS OF JAPAN vol. 012, no. 073 (M - 674) 8 March 1988 (1988-03-08) *

Cited By (7)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US6938970B2 (en) 2002-07-19 2005-09-06 Agfa Gevaert Printing methods and apparatus for multi-pass printing
US7513589B2 (en) 2007-01-31 2009-04-07 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Multipass printing
GB2448695A (en) * 2007-04-23 2008-10-29 Inca Digital Printers Ltd Large-scale inkjet printer
GB2448695B (en) * 2007-04-23 2012-07-11 Inca Digital Printers Ltd Large-scale inkjet printer
US9193183B2 (en) 2007-04-23 2015-11-24 Inca Digital Printers Limited Large-scale inkjet printer
EP3109049A1 (de) * 2015-06-25 2016-12-28 Riso Kagaku Corporation Drucksystem
US9779333B2 (en) 2015-06-25 2017-10-03 Riso Kagaku Corporation Printing system with multiple printers

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