JP2007152787A - Ink-jet recording device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve such a problem that it is necessary to select the optimal number of printing passes in accordance with data in order to achieve a high-speed printing speed while suppressing cockling since the cockling is likely to occur depending on the data during double face printing. <P>SOLUTION: The optimal number of passes is selected corresponding to printing data during rear face printing in double face printing. For example, it is possible to achieve smooth drawing results by suppressing the cockling while increasing the number of passes when a total of drawing areas in the surface and rear face is larger than a fixed value. It is possible to achieve the high-speed printing speed by reducing the number of passes when the total of the drawing areas in the surface and rear face is smaller than the fixed value. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an ink jet recording apparatus and a printer driver that performs print control by discriminating data of the ink jet recording apparatus.

Conventionally, when performing double-sided printing in a printer capable of double-sided printing, measures have been taken to improve the printing quality during double-sided printing and that the paper quality differs between the front and back sides of the paper. For example, in an inkjet image recording apparatus capable of duplex printing, there is an apparatus that improves printing quality by changing the number of passes printed in the same area between single-sided printing and double-sided printing (Patent Document 1).
JP 2001-260485 A

  However, the above prior art has the following problems.

  Even if the number of passes for single-sided printing and double-sided printing is different, there may be no effect depending on the print data.

  In order to solve the above problems, in the present invention, an optimal number of passes is selected according to print data during back side printing in double sided printing. For example, if the total drawing area on the front and back surfaces is greater than a certain value, increase the number of passes and hold down the cockling to achieve a smooth drawing result, and if the total drawing area on the front and back surfaces is less than a certain value Realizes high printing speed by reducing the number of passes.

  As described above, according to the present invention, when the optimal number of printing passes according to the print data is selected when printing on the back side in duplex printing, the total drawing area on the front and back sides is greater than a certain value. Increases the number of printing passes to suppress cockling and achieve smooth printing results, and when the total drawing area on the front and back sides is smaller than a certain value, the number of passes is reduced to achieve high printing speed. To do.

  Next, details of the present invention will be described in accordance with the description of the embodiments.

(First embodiment)
FIG. 1 is a diagram in which the present invention is implemented.

  2, FIG. 3, FIG. 4, FIG. 5, FIG. 6, and FIG. 7 are flowcharts and schematic diagrams relating to processing on the printer driver processing side that best represents the features of the present invention.

After starting printing, it is determined whether the print job is single-sided printing or double-sided printing (S2-1). In the case of single-sided printing, a normal single-sided printing process is performed, and in the case of double-sided printing, it is determined whether the page to be printed is front side printing or back side printing (S2-2). The surface referred to here refers to a printing surface that is first printed by double-sided printing. In the case of surface printing, the drawing area of the surface printing data is totaled. (S2-3)
In the print data drawing area counting procedure, first, a coefficient table is set (S3-1). The coefficient table, for example, for characters is mainly black as the color, and the drawing area of each character is not so large, so there is no need to increase the print quality, so the coefficient is set to 0% and the image In the system data, the drawing area is expected to be large, and it is necessary to print as high quality as possible. Therefore, the coefficient is set to 100% or more. In FIG. 4, the coefficient for the rendering command 1 is K [1], the coefficient for the rendering command 2 is K [2], and the coefficient for the rendering command n is K [n] (hereinafter n corresponds to each rendering command). Set the numbers as 1, 2, 3,. Specifically, when the operating system is Windows (registered trademark) 2000, there is DrvTextOut as a text drawing command. Here, the coefficient is set to 0%, and one of the image drawing commands is DrvStretchBlt. Here, the coefficient is set for each drawing command, such as setting the coefficient to 150%.

  Next, a virtual reference area value is calculated. Here, the reference area ratio is set as P% and set to K [0] of the previous coefficient table. The printable range (0, 0)-(W, H) in FIG. 4 is acquired as the reference area, and the value obtained by multiplying the reference area ratio is assumed to be a virtual reference area value A = K [0] × (W × H). (S3-2).

  The operating system passes print data to the driver through a drawing command. The driver first calculates the drawing area of the data that has been delivered for each drawing command (S2-5). Here, the rectangular area of the drawing area is simply set as the drawing area. For example, as shown in FIG. 6, if data of a rectangular area of (Xs [1], Ys [1])-(Xe [1], Ye [1]) is passed to the rendering command 1, rendering The area is S [1] = (Xe [1] −Xs [1]) × (Ye [1] −Ys [1]), and for the rendering command 2, (Xs [1], Ys [1]) -If the data of the rectangular area of (Xe [1], Ye [1]) is passed, the drawing area is S [2] = (Xe [2] −Xs [2]) × (Ye [2] −Ys [2]), and if the data of the rectangular area of (Xs [n], Ys [n])-(Xe [n], Ye [n]) is passed to the drawing command n, the drawing area is S [n] = (Xe [n] −Xs [n]) × (Ye [n] −Ys [n]). Next, the virtual drawing area calculated by multiplying the drawing area calculated for each drawing command by the coefficient value of the corresponding drawing command from the coefficient table set before printing is added to the area table for each drawing command. (S3-3). As shown in FIG. 7, when the area table is T, S [1] × K [1] is added to the area table T [1] for the rendering command 1 and T [1] = T [1] + S [1 ] × K [1], and S [2] × K [2] is added to the area table T [2] for the rendering command 2 and T [2] = T [2] + S [2] × K [2 S [n] × K [n] is added to the area table T [n] for the drawing command n, and T [n] = T [n] + S [n] × K [n]. At the same time, a value obtained by summing all the virtual drawing areas is also held (S3-5). For example, assuming that T [0] of the area table T is the storage location of the total virtual drawing area, the processing is performed as T [0] = T [0] + S [n] × K [n].

Finally, rasterization processing of drawing data is performed (S3-6), and these processing are repeated until a page drawing end command is received. (S3-7)
After drawing area totalization, drawing area data is stored, and (S2-4) is stored as drawing area data of print data (S2-5). Next, it is determined whether the total drawing area data is larger than the threshold value (S2-6). The threshold value here uses the virtual reference area value calculated in S3-2.

  If the drawing area data on the surface is larger than the virtual reference area value, a print command for printing with two print passes is output to the printer (S2-8). On the other hand, if the drawing area data is smaller than the virtual reference area value, the print quality is set to low quality and the number of print passes is 1 pass because the page is desired to be printed faster than the high quality print. And a print command for printing at high speed is output (S2-7).

  On the other hand, if the page to be printed in S2-2 is the back side, the drawing area of the print data on the back side is totaled (S2-9). Since the method for calculating the drawing area is the same as that for the surface, the description is omitted. Next, the total drawing area value of the surface stored at the time of surface printing is acquired (S2-10). Then, it is determined whether the sum of the drawing area total value on the front surface and the drawing area total value on the back surface exceeds the threshold value (S2-11). Here, the threshold value is obtained by multiplying the virtual reference area acquired in the process of obtaining the drawing area by a certain value defined for each paper type. As a result of comparing the total drawing area total with the threshold value, if the total drawing area is large, the actual print area on the page, including the front surface, is likely to cause cockling, so the print quality is set to high quality. Then, a print command for printing with two print passes is output to the printer (S2-8). On the other hand, if the threshold is larger than the total drawing area, the actual print area on the page, including the front surface, is small, and it seems that the print quality will not deteriorate even if it is printed at high speed, so the print quality is set to low quality. Then, a print command for printing at a high speed by setting the number of print passes to 1 is output (S2-7). Then, after printing one page, it is determined whether the current page is the last page of the print job (S2-12). If there is a page that has not been printed yet, the same process is repeated. Ends the process.

  By performing such processing, the optimum number of print passes according to the print data is selected during double-sided printing without the user's awareness, thereby achieving both high-quality print quality and high-speed printing. Can be used.

Block diagram of a system implementing the present invention Flow chart of the first embodiment Flow chart of the first embodiment Schematic diagram of coefficient table of embodiment 1 of the present invention Data schematic diagram of Example 1 of the present invention Data schematic diagram of Example 1 of the present invention Schematic diagram of area table according to the first embodiment of the present invention

Explanation of symbols

C1 Host computer that runs the printer driver
C2 printer driver
C3 Storage device for storing print data
C4 Interface with external devices
C5 printer
C6 Interface with external devices
C7 Receive buffer for receiving data
Control unit that controls the C8 printer
C9 Printer engine that actually prints

Claims (5)

  An inkjet recording apparatus capable of duplex printing, comprising: a drawing area acquisition unit for print data; a drawing area determination unit; and a switching unit for the number of passes of backside printing during duplex printing.   2. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print data drawing area acquisition means includes a means for calculating a drawing area for each drawing command for each page, a means for assigning a coefficient for each drawing command, and the drawing area. Means for calculating a virtual drawing area multiplied by the coefficient, means for adding the virtual drawing area, a total of virtual drawing areas for all drawing commands added for one page, and a preset reference area ratio And an imaginary reference area obtained by multiplying the reference area by the reference area, and a printing method corresponding to the comparison result is determined for each page.   2. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination of the drawing area determination means includes a virtual drawing area obtained by adding up the drawing areas of the front surface and the back surface, and a virtual reference drawing area obtained by multiplying a printed paper size by a certain value. An ink jet recording apparatus characterized in that the determination is based on a result of comparing the two.   4. The inkjet recording apparatus according to claim 3, wherein if the virtual drawing area is larger as a result of the comparison between the virtual drawing area and the virtual reference drawing area, the number of backside printing passes during duplex printing is increased. An ink jet recording apparatus.   4. The inkjet recording apparatus according to claim 3, wherein if the virtual drawing area is smaller as a result of the comparison between the virtual drawing area and the virtual reference drawing area, the number of passes of backside printing during duplex printing is reduced. An ink jet recording apparatus.

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