JP2006239945A - Image printer, image printing method, and image printing program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image printer capable of surely printing a tracing pattern without reference to the quality of a coloring agent of a hard-to-visually-recognize color, an image printing method, and an image printing program. <P>SOLUTION: This color laser printer 10 makes a printer mechanism 31 automatically print the tracing pattern on a white background part (an area where an image is not formed) of paper P by using hard-to-visually-recognize yellow toner. Quality information (e. g. information on the use history of a toner cartridge 40Y) on the yellow toner stored in the toner cartridge 40Y is acquired from an IC memory 50Y, and it is determined whether the tracing pattern is printed by using the yellow toner or toner except the yellow toner, on the basis of the acquired information. For example, when there is the risk that the tracing pattern cannot be printed by using the yellow toner, in terms of the information on the use history, the tracing pattern is printed by using the toner except the yellow toner. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image printing apparatus, an image printing method, and a program therefor, and more specifically, image printing that automatically prints a tracking pattern using a colorant having a difficult-to-view color in a non-image forming area of a print medium by a printing mechanism. The present invention relates to an apparatus, an image printing method, and a program thereof.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there has been known an image printing apparatus that takes measures against counterfeiting such as banknotes and securities. As an image printing apparatus with such counterfeiting measures, it is known that data such as banknotes and securities is registered in advance and printing is forcibly stopped when the print data matches these data. However, because the number of data that can be registered is limited, sufficient effects may not be obtained. For example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-228688, an image printing apparatus having another countermeasure against forgery is automatically applied to a white background area (non-image forming area) in which an image is not originally formed on printing paper with yellow which is difficult to visually recognize. In some cases, a tracking pattern indicating a printing device manufacturing number or the like is printed. When banknotes or securities are automatically printed on paper by this image printing apparatus, it is possible to specify which apparatus has been printed by checking the trace pattern printed on the paper later.
JP 2000-253229 A

  By the way, as a colorant cartridge used in the image printing apparatus, in addition to a new one, a refill product in which the colorant is simply refilled after the colorant is exhausted, or a cartridge main body after the colorant is exhausted There are recycled products that have been disassembled and cleaned, replaced with parts as needed, and then refilled with colorants. Here, the quality of the colorant in the cartridge may differ depending on whether the colorant cartridge to be used is a new product, a refill product, or a recycled product. For this reason, depending on the quality, the trace pattern may be partially missing and printed or may not be printed clearly, and the original function of the trace pattern may not be exhibited.

  The present invention has been made to solve this problem, and provides an image printing apparatus, an image printing method, and a program therefor, which can reliably print a tracking pattern regardless of the quality of a colorant having a difficult-to-view color. The purpose is to do.

  The present invention adopts the following means in order to achieve the above-mentioned object.

That is, the image printing apparatus of the present invention is
An image printing apparatus that automatically prints a tracking pattern using a colorant of a difficult-to-view color that is difficult to visually recognize in a non-image forming area of a print medium by a printing mechanism,
A difficult-to-view color storage means for storing the colorant having a difficult-to-view color;
Visible good color storage means for storing a colorant of a good visible color that is easier to visually recognize than the difficult-to-view color,
Quality information acquisition means for acquiring quality information regarding the colorant of the difficult-to-view color stored in the difficult-to-view color storage means;
Print control means for printing the tracking pattern using any one of the color that is difficult to view and the color that is good to see based on the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition means;
It is equipped with.

  In this image printing apparatus, a tracking pattern is automatically printed on a non-image forming area of a printing medium by using a colorant having a difficult-to-view color by a printing mechanism. Further, the quality information on the colorant of the difficult-to-view color stored in the difficult-to-view color storage means is acquired, and the tracking pattern is obtained using either the difficult-to-view color or the good-viewing color based on the acquired quality information. To print. For example, when there is a possibility that a tracking pattern cannot be reliably printed with a colorant that is difficult to see in terms of quality information, the tracking pattern is printed using a colorant with a good visibility color. Therefore, the tracking pattern can be reliably printed regardless of the quality of the colorant.

  In the image printing apparatus of the present invention, when the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition unit indicates that the quality information is good, the print control unit prints the tracking pattern using the colorant having a difficult-to-view color. When the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition means indicates that there is a possibility that the quality is not good, the tracking pattern may be printed using the colorant having the good visual recognition color. In this way, when the quality of the colorant having a difficult-to-view color is good, the printed tracking pattern is inconspicuous so that the image quality is good, and when the quality of the colorant having a difficult-to-view color is likely to be poor, the printed tracking pattern Since the image quality is conspicuous, the tracking pattern can be surely printed although the image quality deteriorates. In addition, when printing a tracking pattern using a colorant having a good visibility color, when there are a plurality of colorants having a good visibility color, a tracking pattern using a colorant having a good visibility color among them is used. Is preferably printed.

  In the image printing apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, the print control unit prints the tracking pattern using the colorant having a difficult-to-view color when the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition unit indicates that the quality is good. When the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition means indicates that there is a possibility that the quality may not be good, at least one of the tracking patterns repeatedly printed within one page is used with the colorant having the good visibility You may print and the remainder may be printed using the coloring agent of the said difficult-to-view color. In this way, when the quality of the colorant having difficulty in visually recognizing is good, the printed tracking pattern is inconspicuous so that the image quality is good. Of these, the portion created with a good visibility color is conspicuous, but the portion created with a difficult-to-view color is inconspicuous, so the image quality does not deteriorate so much. Here, when the print control means indicates that the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition means may be inferior in quality, the plurality of tracking patterns are repeatedly printed using the colorant having a difficult-to-view color. After that, printing may be performed in a cycle in which one of the tracking patterns is printed using the colorant having good visibility. In this way, it is possible to reduce the frequency of the appearance of the tracking pattern printed with a good visual color.

  In the image printing apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, the print control unit prints the tracking pattern using the colorant having a difficult-to-view color when the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition unit indicates that the quality is good. When the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition means indicates that there is a possibility that the quality is not good, the tracking pattern in the vicinity of the image forming area of the print medium may be printed with the colorant having the good visual recognition color. . In this way, when the quality of the colorant that is difficult to see is good, the printed trace pattern is inconspicuous so that the image quality is good, and when the colorant that is difficult to see is not good, the color is printed with good visibility Since the traced pattern is in the vicinity of the image forming area, it is difficult to stand out and the image quality does not deteriorate so much. Here, the good visibility color for printing the tracking pattern may be the color having the largest area ratio among the colors other than the difficult-to-view color included in the image forming region in the vicinity of the tracking pattern. In this way, the tracking pattern printed in a color with good visibility becomes a color similar to that of a nearby image forming area, and thus becomes less conspicuous.

  In the image printing apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, the print control unit may print the tracking pattern in the same manner as when the quality information cannot be acquired by the quality information acquisition unit. Good. When quality information cannot be acquired, there is a possibility that the tracking pattern cannot be reliably printed with the difficult-to-view color, and therefore it is preferable to perform a process for reliably printing the tracking pattern.

  In the image printing apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, the difficult-to-view color may be yellow, and the good-visibility color may be at least one of cyan, magenta, and black, which has higher visibility than yellow. In this way, when the yellow colorant is of good quality, the tracking pattern is printed in yellow, so it is inconspicuous, and when the yellow colorant is likely to be of poor quality, the tracking pattern may not be printed reliably in yellow. Since the tracking pattern is printed with at least one of cyan, magenta and black, the tracking pattern is conspicuous but can be surely printed.

  In the image printing apparatus of the present invention, the tracking pattern may be a minute dot pattern. By so doing, it is possible to diversify the information obtained from the tracking pattern by determining in advance what the dots in which region of the dot pattern mean.

  The image printing apparatus of the present invention includes a quality information storage unit that is integrated with the difficult-to-view color storage unit and stores quality information about the colorant stored in the difficult-to-view color storage unit, and the quality information acquisition unit includes: The quality information may be read and acquired from the quality information storage means. In this way, since the quality information is read from the quality information storage means integrated with the difficult-to-view color storage means, the quality information of the colorant stored in the difficult-to-view color storage means after replacement is reliably acquired without mistaking it. be able to.

  In the image printing apparatus of the present invention, the quality information may include at least use history information of the difficult-to-view color storage means. Since the quality of the colorant is often determined depending on the usage history of the difficult-to-view color storage means (for example, the number of recycles and the number of refills), at least the usage history information of the difficult-to-view color storage means can be included in the quality information. preferable.

The image printing method of the present invention includes:
An image printing method by computer software that automatically prints a tracking pattern using a colorant of a difficult-to-view color that is difficult to visually recognize in a non-image forming area of a print medium by a printing mechanism,
(A) obtaining quality information relating to the colorant of the difficult-to-view color;
(B) printing the tracking pattern using a colorant of any of the difficult-to-view color and the good-visibility color that is easier to visually recognize than the difficult-to-view color based on the quality information acquired in step (a); ,
Is included.

  In this image printing method, a tracking pattern is automatically printed by a printing mechanism on a non-image forming area of a printing medium using a colorant having a difficult-to-view color. In addition, quality information related to a colorant having a difficult-to-view color is acquired, and a tracking pattern is printed using one of the colorant having a difficult-to-view color and a color that has good visibility based on the acquired quality information. For example, when there is a possibility that a tracking pattern cannot be reliably printed with a colorant that is difficult to see in terms of quality information, the tracking pattern is printed using a colorant with a good visibility color. Therefore, the tracking pattern can be reliably printed regardless of the quality of the colorant. Note that a step of realizing the above-described function of the image printing apparatus may be added to the image printing method of the present invention.

  The image printing program of the present invention is a program for causing one or more computers to execute each step of the above-described image printing method. This program may be recorded on a computer-readable recording medium (for example, hard disk, ROM, FD, CD, DVD, etc.), or from a computer via a transmission medium (communication network such as the Internet or LAN). It may be distributed to another computer, or may be exchanged in any other form. If this program is executed by a single computer or each step is shared and executed by a plurality of computers, the same effect as the above-described image printing method can be obtained.

  1 is a block diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a color laser printer 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an external view of a toner cartridge 40, and FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a schematic configuration of a printer mechanism 31 of the color laser printer 10. FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the color laser printer 10 according to the present embodiment includes a controller 20 that controls the entire apparatus and computers 51 to 53 connected to a network (for example, a telecommunication network such as a local area network). A network board 27 that controls input / output of data, a printer unit 30 including an electrophotographic printer mechanism 31 and a printer ASIC 32 that controls the printer mechanism 31, an instruction input by the user, and display of various information An operation panel 44 to be performed, and an IC memory mounted on the toner cartridges 40C, 40M, 40Y, and 40K for each color of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) mounted on the developing device 61 50C, 50M, 50Y, and 50K and a detachable movable connecting portion 69 are provided. Note that “ASIC” is an abbreviation for Application Specific Integrated Circuit.

  In this embodiment, there are four types of toner cartridges 40C, 40M, 40Y, and 40K corresponding to the respective colors, and IC memories 50C, 50M, 50Y, and 50K are respectively attached. The IC memory 50 may be collectively called. As shown in FIG. 2, the toner cartridge 40 has an IC memory 50 attached to the inside of a storage portion 42 provided at the end thereof.

  The controller 20 is configured as a microprocessor centered on the CPU 21, and stores various processing programs, a ROM 22 that stores unique product information of the color laser printer 10, and temporarily stores data and data. A RAM 23 that stores data, a flash memory 24 that is electrically rewritable and retains data even when the power is turned off, a job memory 25 that stores a print job, and a timer 26 that measures time are provided. The controller 20 is electrically connected to the printer ASIC 32 and the operation panel 44 via the bus 29, outputs a print command signal to the printer ASIC 32 and a display command signal to the operation panel 44, and print operation signals from the printer ASIC 32. And various command signals from the operation panel 44 are received. Further, the controller 20 exchanges signals with a plurality of computers 51 to 53 connected to the network via the network board 27. That is, the controller 20 receives a print job from each of the computers 51 to 53 and outputs status information of the print job being processed to the computers 51 to 53 that are the transmission source of the print job. Further, the controller 20 connects the movable connecting portion 69 to the IC memory 50 of the toner cartridge 40 and exchanges data with the connected IC memory.

  The printer unit 30 includes a printer mechanism 31 and a printer ASIC 32. As shown in FIG. 3, the printer mechanism 31 is configured as a full-color electrophotographic printer mechanism that employs a single photoreceptor system and an intermediate transfer system, and has C, M, Y, K on the charged surface. The photosensitive member 63 in which an electrostatic latent image of each color image separated into four colors is formed by the exposure device 62 and the toner of each color supplied from the toner cartridges 40C, 40M, 40Y, and 40K for each color is exposed. A developing device 61 that develops a toner image by attaching it to an electrostatic latent image formed on the body 63, a transfer belt 64 as an intermediate transfer body that performs primary transfer so that the developed toner images of the respective colors overlap, and a paper cassette 65 A secondary transfer unit 67 for secondary transfer of the four color toner images formed on the transfer belt 64 to the paper P conveyed by the conveyance unit 66, and the four color toner transferred on the paper P. And a fixing unit 68 for melting the over image to the sheet P fixing. Among these, the developing device 61 is rotated so that the mounted toner cartridges 40C, 40M, 40Y, and 40K face the photoconductor 63, respectively. The exposure device 62 exposes the photoconductor 63 with a laser beam scanned by a polygon mirror that is rotationally driven by a motor to form an electrostatic latent image. As shown in FIG. 1, the printer mechanism 31 applies a developing bias power source 33 for applying a developing bias to the developing part of the developing device 61 and a primary transfer bias to a transferring part from the photoconductor 63 to the transfer belt 64. And a transfer bias power source 34 that applies a secondary transfer bias to a transfer portion from the transfer belt 64 to the paper P. The toner adhesion amount from the developing device 61 to the photosensitive member 63 can be adjusted by the voltage of the developing bias power supply 33, and the transfer efficiency from the photosensitive member 63 to the transfer belt 64 and the transfer efficiency from the transfer belt 64 to the paper P are adjusted. Can be adjusted by the voltage of the transfer bias power supply 34. On the other hand, the printer ASIC 32 is an IC chip having a function of controlling the printer mechanism 31, and development data obtained by developing a print job in the job memory 25 into a bitmap image for each page is printed on the paper P. The printer mechanism 31 is controlled.

  The operation panel 44 displays various input buttons 46 such as a numeric keypad and cursor keys capable of inputting an instruction from the user, characters and numbers associated with the key operation, and processing statuses in the controller 20 and the printer unit 30. And a liquid crystal screen 48.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the movable connecting portion 69 has IC memories 50C, 50M, 50Y, and 50K attached to the toner cartridges 40C, 40M, 40Y, and 40K attached to the developing unit 61 positioned on the lower right side in the drawing. At this time, it is installed at a position where it can be connected to the IC memory, and is electrically connected to the IC memory by extending, and separated from the IC memory by contracting. When the movable connection portion 69 is connected to the IC memory, the controller 20 can access the IC memory. In each IC memory 50C, 50M, 50Y, 50K, in addition to information indicating whether the toner cartridges 40C, 40M, 40Y, 40K are new, recycled or refilled as usage history information, the number of times of recycling is displayed for recycled products. Information about the replaced part, the number of refills when the product is refilled, and the time when toner runs out are stored. In this embodiment, the refill product refers to the cartridge body after the toner has run out, and the cartridge body is simply refilled with toner. The recycle product refers to the cartridge body after the toner has run out, disassembled and cleaned as necessary. This refers to toner that has been refilled after parts replacement. Note that the controller 20 calculates the remaining amount of each toner, and displays toner out information indicating which color of toner has run out on the liquid crystal screen 48 of the operation panel 44 when the remaining amount falls below a predetermined value. At the same time, the toner out time is written to the IC memory of the toner cartridge in which the toner has run out via the movable connecting portion 69.

  Next, functions of the color laser printer 10 according to the present embodiment configured as described above will be described. Here, a procedure for printing a color image on the paper P will be described first. When the CPU 21 of the controller 20 receives a print job from any of the computers 51 to 53 connected via the network, the print job is stored in the job memory 25 and a print command is output to the printer ASIC 32 of the printer unit 30. To do. When this print command is input, the printer ASIC 32 executes a print processing routine shown in FIG.

When this print processing routine is started, the printer ASIC 32 first develops one page of the print job in the job memory 25 into a bitmap image (step S100). Subsequently, one page of pattern data in which tracking patterns are periodically and repeatedly arranged is developed into a bitmap image (step S110). Here, the tracking pattern will be described. As shown in FIG. 5, the tracking pattern 70 is a dot pattern having three areas of 3 vertical dots × 8 horizontal dots in this embodiment, and the distance between the dots is 15 dots in terms of 600 dpi. In this tracking pattern 70, each area is composed of 24 dots, so that it is possible to display ²²⁴ information depending on the presence or absence of dots. Of the three areas, the first area 71 represents an apparatus manufacturing company code associated with the name of the company that manufactured the color laser printer 10, and the second area 72 corresponds to the model name of the color laser printer 10. The third area 73 represents an apparatus manufacturing number code associated with the manufacturing number (serial number) of the color laser printer 10. These codes are stored in advance as product information unique to the ROM 22. Now, after creating a bitmap image for one page of a print job and a bitmap image for one page of pattern data, the two bitmap images are superimposed to track overlapping with the bitmap image for one page of the print job. The pattern is deleted (step S120), and the color of each tracking pattern included in the image image is determined according to a tracking pattern creation method (described later in detail) determined based on the usage history information of the yellow toner cartridge 40Y. (Step S125). As a result, an image image in which tracking patterns are repeatedly arranged in a non-image forming area, that is, a white background area in the bitmap image for one page of the print job is completed. Note that the color of each tracking pattern is basically yellow, which is the least easily visible color among the four colors, but colors other than yellow may be used depending on the usage history information of the yellow toner cartridge 40Y.

  Subsequently, this image is color-separated into four colors of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black (step S130). Then, after charging the surface of the photoconductor 63, an electrostatic latent image is formed on the surface of the photoconductor 63 by the exposure device 62 based on the yellow image of the color-separated image, and the toner cartridge 40Y The supplied yellow toner is attached to the electrostatic latent image on the photoconductor 63 to form a toner image, and the developed yellow toner image is primarily transferred to the transfer belt 64 (step S140). Note that the development conditions (development bias, etc.) and transfer conditions (transfer bias, etc.) of each color are preset and stored in the flash memory 24, so that they are read out and used as appropriate. Thereafter, the developing device 61 is sequentially rotated, and charging, exposure, development, and primary transfer are similarly performed for magenta, cyan, and black (steps S150 to S170). When step S170 is completed, a four-color toner image is formed on the transfer belt 64 by sequentially superimposing the toner images of the respective colors. Subsequently, the four color toner images on the transfer belt 64 are secondarily transferred to the paper P while the paper P is conveyed from the paper cassette 65 to the conveyance unit 66, and the four color toner images secondarily transferred onto the paper P are transferred. Is melted and fixed by the fixing unit 68 (step S180). As a result, the data for one page of the print job is printed on the paper P, and the tracking pattern 70 is printed on the white area. Therefore, by enlarging the tracking pattern 70 of the paper P with a magnifying glass or the like later and checking the presence or absence of dots in the first area 71, the device manufacturer code can be specified, and the presence or absence of dots in the second area 72 is checked. Thus, the device model code can be specified, and the device manufacturing number code can be specified by examining the presence or absence of dots in the third region 73.

  After printing for one page in this way, it is determined whether or not there are pages to be printed (step S190). If there are pages to be printed, the processes in and after step S100 are repeated again to print. When there are no remaining pages, this print processing routine is terminated.

  Next, a tracking pattern creation method setting routine executed by the CPU 21 of the controller 20 will be described based on the flowchart of FIG. This routine is executed when the yellow toner cartridge 40Y for printing the tracking pattern 70 is replaced in the color laser printer 10 of the present embodiment. When this routine is started, the CPU 21 of the controller 20 expands the movable connection portion 69 when the IC memory 50Y attached to the yellow toner cartridge 40Y is in a position where it can be connected to the movable connection portion 69. 50Y is electrically connected (step S210), and usage history information, which is a kind of quality information, is read from the IC memory 50Y via the movable connection unit 69 (step S220), and a tracking pattern corresponding to the read usage history information is created. The method is derived from the tracking pattern creation method setting table stored in advance in the ROM 22 (step S230).

  Table 1 is a tracking pattern creation method setting table. In this table, the correspondence between the usage history information of the yellow toner cartridge 40Y and the tracking pattern creation method is determined in advance. That is, when the toner cartridge 40Y is new or when the quality of the yellow toner is good as in the first to Nth recycling, even if all the tracking patterns 70 included in the image image are created with the yellow toner, dot missing, etc. This method of creation is associated with this problem. As a result, the trace pattern 70 after printing is not noticeable. Therefore, the image quality of the printed material is hardly deteriorated by the tracking pattern 70. Here, for the numerical value N for the Nth recycling, the upper limit number of times that the print quality is judged to be not significantly different from that of a new product was obtained by experiment or the like, and this number was used. On the other hand, after the (N + 1) th recycling, the quality of yellow toner may not be as good as when it is new or when it is recycled 1st to Nth. The tracking pattern 70 is likely to be incomplete. For this reason, the tracking pattern in the vicinity of the image forming area formed based on the print job is created with non-yellow toner, and the remaining tracking pattern is created with yellow toner. Specifically, the dot in the image forming area indicates which color area ratio is the largest among C, M, and K in the image forming area in the vicinity of the tracking pattern created with non-yellow toner. And a tracking pattern in the vicinity of the image forming area is created with the toner (C, M, or K) having the largest area ratio. In this way, the tracking pattern created with the non-yellow toner is printed in the vicinity of the image forming area and has a similar color to the image forming area, so it is not so noticeable, and the image quality does not deteriorate so much. In the case of refilling, it is considered that the quality of the yellow toner is inferior even if the number of times is the same because the toner cartridge main body is not disassembled and cleaned compared to recycling. That is, the quality of the yellow toner is good when the refill is 1st to Mth (M <N), and the quality of the yellow toner is better after the refill (M + 1) th than when it is new or when it is recycled 1st to Nth. It may not be. Here, for the numerical value M for the refill Mth time, the upper limit number of times when it is determined that the print quality is not much different from that of a new product was obtained by experiment or the like, and was used as the number. For this reason, in the first to Mth refills, all tracking patterns are created with yellow toner, and in the first and subsequent refills (M + 1) th, the tracking patterns in the vicinity of the image forming area formed based on the print job are non-yellow. The remaining tracking pattern was created with yellow toner. Since specific examples after the M-th refill are the same as those after the N-th recycle described above, description thereof is omitted here.

  Returning to FIG. 6, after the tracking pattern creation method corresponding to the current usage history information is derived from the tracking pattern creation method setting table in step S230, the derived tracking pattern creation method is flashed as a future tracking pattern creation method. The memory 24 is set (step S240), and then the movable connecting portion 69 is contracted and separated from the IC memory 50Y (step S250), and this routine is finished.

  As a result, when the printer ASIC 32 determines the color of each tracking pattern included in the image image in step S125 of the above-described print processing routine, the usage history information of the yellow toner cartridge 40Y mounted this time is new, recycled 1 At the time of the Nth time or the first to Mth refills, the tracking pattern creation method stored in the flash memory 24 is “create all tracking patterns in yellow”. For example, as shown in FIG. In this case, the color of all tracking patterns 70 in the frame portion that is a non-image forming area is determined to be yellow. As a result, the tracking pattern 70 of yellow toner that is difficult to visually recognize is printed periodically and repeatedly on the frame portion of the printed matter after the end of the print processing routine. Since the tracking pattern 70 is inconspicuous because it is difficult to visually recognize, the image quality does not deteriorate. However, by examining the tracking pattern 70 later, it is possible to specify which device has been printed. Note that the letter “Y” in the square representing the tracking pattern 70 in FIG. 7 indicates that the tracking pattern 70 is printed in yellow.

  On the other hand, when the use history information of the yellow toner cartridge 40Y mounted this time is after the recycle (N + 1) th time or after the refill (M + 1) th time, the tracking pattern creation method stored in the flash memory 24 is “near the image forming area”. Since the tracking pattern is created in non-yellow and the remaining tracking patterns are created in yellow ”, when the bill design is printed, the tracking pattern 70a in the vicinity of the image forming area of the white background frame that is the non-image forming area is displayed. The color is determined to be non-yellow with good visibility, and the color of the remaining tracking pattern 70b is determined to be yellow toner with difficulty in visual recognition. As a result, for the printed matter after the end of the printing process routine, the yellow tracking pattern 70b may have a dot defect due to the deterioration of the toner quality, and it may be difficult to accurately know the presence or absence of the dot later. Since the non-yellow tracking pattern 70a is conspicuous because of good visibility, it is surely printed. Therefore, by checking the tracking pattern 70a later, it is possible to identify which device has been printed. The letters “Y” and “C” in the squares representing the tracking patterns 70a and 70b in FIG. 8 indicate that the tracking patterns 70a and 70b are printed in cyan and yellow, respectively. In FIG. 8, the tracking pattern 70a in the vicinity of the image print area is printed in cyan because C, that is, the area ratio of cyan is the largest among the data relating to C, M, and K of the dots in the image print area. is there.

  Here, the correspondence between the components of the present embodiment and the components of the present invention will be clarified. In this embodiment, yellow corresponds to a difficult-to-view color of the present invention, toner cartridge 40Y corresponds to a difficult-to-view color storage unit, cyan, magenta, and black correspond to good-viewing colors, and non-yellow toner cartridges 40c and 40M. , 40K corresponds to a good visual color storage unit, the IC memory 50Y corresponds to a quality information storage unit, the CPU 21 of the controller 20 corresponds to a quality information acquisition unit, and the CPU 21 of the controller 20 and the printer ASIC 32 correspond to a print control unit. To do. In this embodiment, an example of the image printing method of the present invention is also clarified by describing the operation of the color laser printer 10.

  According to the color laser printer 10 of the present embodiment described in detail above, the tracking pattern 70 is reliably printed with yellow toner in view of the usage history information of the yellow toner cartridge 40Y (which can be regarded as yellow toner quality information). If there is a possibility that the tracking pattern 70 cannot be printed, the tracking pattern 70 is printed using any one of cyan, magenta, and black toners other than yellow, so that the tracking pattern 70 is surely printed regardless of the quality of the yellow toner. Can do. Further, since the correspondence table of Table 1 is used, the tracking pattern creation method can be immediately derived from the usage history information of the yellow toner cartridge 40Y.

  When the quality of the yellow toner is good, the printed trace pattern 70 is not conspicuous, and the image quality is good. On the other hand, when there is a possibility that the quality of the yellow toner is not good, the tracking pattern 70 is printed with toner other than yellow, and the tracking pattern 70 is conspicuous. I can. However, as shown in FIG. 8, since the tracking pattern 70a in the vicinity of the image forming area is printed in the same color as the color having the highest area ratio (excluding yellow) in the image forming area, it is not noticeable and the image quality is not so much. It does not decline.

  It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and it goes without saying that the present invention can be implemented in various modes as long as it belongs to the technical scope of the present invention.

  For example, in the above-described embodiment, when the usage history information cannot be acquired from the IC memory 50Y attached to the yellow toner cartridge 40Y, the tracking pattern creation method associated with the usage history information at the maximum number of refills is used. Accordingly, the tracking pattern 70 may be printed. Alternatively, the time when the toner has run out is stored in the information acquired from the IC memory 50Y attached to the yellow toner cartridge 40Y, and from that time, it is continuously considered over a long period of time that would not normally be considered. Even when it is used, the tracking pattern 70 may be printed by the tracking pattern creation method associated with the use history information when the refill is the maximum number of times. In these cases, since there is a possibility that the tracking pattern 70 cannot be reliably printed with the yellow toner, it is preferable to perform a process for reliably printing the tracking pattern 70. In these cases, the use history information of the IC memory 50Y may be automatically rewritten, for example, to the maximum number of refills.

  In the above-described embodiment, as a tracking pattern creation method when the quality of the yellow toner is not good, a method of creating the tracking pattern 70a in the vicinity of the image forming area in non-yellow and the remaining tracking pattern 70b in yellow is adopted. However, a method of creating all the tracking patterns 70 in non-yellow may be adopted. For non-yellow, a toner having the best quality (new or close to new) may be selected from toners with good visibility other than yellow.

  Further, in the above-described embodiment, as shown in FIG. 8, all the trace patterns 70a in the vicinity of the image forming area are created in non-yellow (in this case, cyan). However, as shown in FIG. A part of the tracking pattern 70a may be created in non-yellow. For example, the tracking pattern 70a created in yellow is repeatedly arranged and printed in a cycle in which the tracking pattern 70a created in non-yellow appears. Also good. In this way, the frequency with which the tracking pattern 70a created in non-yellow appears can be reduced, and deterioration in image quality can be further suppressed.

  Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, the ratio of the tracking pattern printed with non-yellow toner out of all the tracking patterns is the same for the recycle (N + 1) th time and thereafter, but the quality of the yellow toner is good. The ratio may be changed depending on the degree of fear of not being. For example, as shown in FIG. 8, the recycle (N + 1) time prints a line of tracking patterns 70a in the vicinity of the image forming area with non-yellow toner (C), and the recycle (N + 2) time is quality compared to the recycle (N + 1) time. Therefore, the two trace patterns in the vicinity of the image forming area may be printed with non-yellow toner.

  In the above-described embodiment, the usage history information of the yellow toner cartridge 40Y is acquired from the IC memory 50Y integrated with the toner cartridge 40Y. For example, the usage history information of the replaced toner cartridge 40Y is stored in the network. It may be input from any of the connected computers 51 to 53 or may be input from the operation panel 44 operated by the operator. However, it is preferable to acquire the usage history information from the IC memory 50Y integrated with the toner cartridge 40Y because the usage history information of the replaced toner cartridge 40Y is not mistaken for the usage history information of another toner cartridge.

  Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, the usage history information of the yellow toner cartridge 40Y is used as the quality information of the yellow toner. However, the quality grade of the yellow toner stored in the yellow toner cartridge 40Y (for example, normal toner or high toner) Grade toner, etc.) is stored in the IC memory 50Y, the quality grade may be adopted.

  In the above-described embodiment, the electrophotographic system is adopted as the printer mechanism 31. However, the present invention is not particularly limited to this. For example, an inkjet system or a thermal transfer system may be employed. May be.

1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of a color laser printer 10. FIG. 2 is an external view of the toner cartridge 40. FIG. FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a schematic configuration of a printer mechanism 31 of the color laser printer 10. 6 is a flowchart of a print processing routine. Explanatory drawing of a tracking pattern. 7 is a flowchart of a tracking pattern creation method setting routine. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a tracking pattern when the quality of yellow toner is good. Explanatory drawing which shows the tracking pattern when there exists a possibility that the quality of yellow toner may not be favorable. Explanatory drawing which shows the tracking pattern when there exists a possibility that the quality of yellow toner may not be favorable.

Explanation of symbols

  10 color laser printer, 20 controller, 21 CPU, 22 ROM, 23 RAM, 24 flash memory, 25 job memory, 26 timer, 27 network board, 29 bus, 30 printer unit, 31 printer mechanism, 32 printer ASIC, 33 development bias Power supply, 34 transfer bias power supply, 40C, 40M, 40Y, 40K toner cartridge, 42 storage section, 44 operation panel, 46 input button, 48 liquid crystal screen, 50C, 50M, 50Y, 50K IC memory, 51, 52, 53 computer, 61 Developing device, 62 Exposure device, 63 Photoconductor, 64 Transfer belt, 65 Paper cassette, 66 Conveyance unit, 67 Secondary transfer unit, 68 Fixing unit, 69 Movable connection, 70, 70a, 70b Tracking pattern, 71 1st area | region, 72 2nd area | region, 73 3rd area | region.

Claims (14)

An image printing apparatus that automatically prints a tracking pattern using a colorant of a difficult-to-view color that is difficult to visually recognize in a non-image forming area of a print medium by a printing mechanism,
A difficult-to-view color storage means for storing the colorant having a difficult-to-view color;
Visible good color storage means for storing a colorant of a good visible color that is easier to visually recognize than the difficult-to-view color,
Quality information acquisition means for acquiring quality information regarding the colorant of the difficult-to-view color stored in the difficult-to-view color storage means;
Print control means for printing the tracking pattern using any one of the color that is difficult to view and the color that is good to see based on the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition means;
An image printing apparatus comprising: When the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition unit indicates that the quality is good, the print control unit prints the tracking pattern using the colorant having a difficult-to-view color, and is acquired by the quality information acquisition unit. Printing the tracking pattern using the colorant having a good visibility when the quality information indicates that the quality information may not be good.
The image printing apparatus according to claim 1. When the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition unit indicates that the quality is good, the print control unit prints the tracking pattern using the colorant having a difficult-to-view color, and is acquired by the quality information acquisition unit. When the quality information indicates that there is a possibility that the quality is not good, at least one of the tracking patterns that are repeatedly printed within one page is printed using the colorant having the good visibility color, and the rest is the difficult-to-view color Printing with colorants of
The image printing apparatus according to claim 1. When the print control means indicates that the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition means may not be of good quality, the print control means repeatedly prints a plurality of the tracking patterns using the colorant having a difficult-to-view color. Printing in a cycle in which one of the tracking patterns is printed using a colorant having good visibility.
The image printing apparatus according to claim 3. When the quality information acquired by the quality information acquisition unit indicates that the quality is good, the print control unit prints the tracking pattern using the colorant having a difficult-to-view color, and is acquired by the quality information acquisition unit. Printing the tracking pattern in the vicinity of the image forming area of the print medium with the colorant of good visibility when the quality information indicates that the quality may not be good,
The image printing apparatus according to claim 1. The visual good color that prints the tracking pattern is a color that has the maximum area ratio among colors other than the difficult-to-see color included in the image forming region in the vicinity of the tracking pattern.
The image printing apparatus according to claim 5. The print control unit prints the tracking pattern in the same manner as when indicating that there is a possibility that the quality may not be good when the quality information acquisition unit cannot acquire the quality information.
The image printing apparatus according to claim 1. The difficult-to-view color is yellow, and the good-viewing color is at least one of cyan, magenta, and black.
The image printing apparatus according to claim 1. The tracking pattern is a minute dot pattern.
The image printing apparatus according to claim 1. Quality information storage means that stores quality information relating to the colorant that is integrated with the difficult-to-view color storage means and is stored in the difficult-to-view color storage means;
With
The quality information acquisition means reads and acquires the quality information from the quality information storage means;
The image printing apparatus according to claim 1. The quality information includes at least usage history information of the difficult-to-view color storage means.
The image printing apparatus according to claim 1. The usage history information is the number of recycles or the number of refills.
The image printing apparatus according to claim 11. An image printing method by computer software that automatically prints a tracking pattern using a colorant of a difficult-to-view color that is difficult to visually recognize in a non-image forming area of a print medium by a printing mechanism,
(A) obtaining quality information relating to the colorant of the difficult-to-view color;
(B) printing the tracking pattern using a colorant of any of the difficult-to-view color and the good-visibility color that is easier to visually recognize than the difficult-to-view color based on the quality information acquired in step (a); ,
An image printing method including:   An image printing program for causing one or more computers to execute each step of the image printing method according to claim 13.

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