JPH0376632B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] <Technical Field> The present invention records by ejecting color ink, for example, by ejecting ink particles of each primary color such as yellow, magenta, cyan, etc. and mixing them on a recording medium to produce a predetermined color. The present invention relates to a printer that performs color printing.

In particular, the present invention relates to a recording method for efficiently recording character information and background shadows in the color printer.

<Prior art> As disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 57-71690 by the same applicant, the above-mentioned color printer is provided with orifices corresponding to the three primary colors (yellow, magenta, and cyan), and jets of water are emitted from these orifices. There is an on-demand type inkjet printer that records a desired color by appropriately mixing ink droplets on a recording medium.

In such a color printer, for example,
As shown in the figure, character information (letter “A”), image information (cyan C and magenta M parts of L ₂₁ to L ₃₂ ), and character back shadows (L ₁₁ to L ₁₄ , L ₃₃ )
~Yellow Y part of _L34 ) may be combined and recorded. In FIG. 8, B stands for block, Y stands for yellow, C stands for cyan, and M stands for magenta. Images and shadows are recorded in other colors for the letter A in black.

When composing this character, image, and back shadow, the data processing device generally converts all of the composite data into image information in advance, and then transfers the image information to the printer for recording. It was hot. That is, the character data is converted into image data by a data processing device, the image data and background data are edited, and then transferred to the color printer.

However, this method places a large burden on the data processing device, and is therefore not a very preferable method.

<Purpose of the Invention> Therefore, in the present invention, it is possible to synthesize a character and an image without imposing a large burden on the data processing device. The background pattern is transferred from the side to the printer, and the back shadow pattern is created and synthesized on the printer side.

This background pattern is basically created by inverting the character pattern obtained from the character code information sent through a pattern generator.If there is image information along with the character code, The back shadow pattern is obtained by inverting a combination of a character pattern and an image pattern, and basically is created by inverting the character pattern as described above.

<Embodiment> Fig. 1 shows the appearance of a color printer (on-demand inkjet printer) according to the present invention, in which 1 is a platen, and in front of the platen 1 are slide shafts 2 and 3 parallel to each other. A carriage 4 is supported on the shafts 2 and 3 so as to be horizontally movable along the platen 1.

The carriage 4 is connected to a pulse motor (not shown) by a wire or the like, and the rotation of the pulse motor causes the carriage 4 to move, and this rightward movement is recorded. Further, the carriage 4 is equipped with an ink tank 5 that individually stores ink of four colors.

Four types of recording heads 6 are provided on the opposite surface of the ink tank 5 to the platen 1, and ink cartridges 7 to 10 are inserted into the ink tank 5.

That is, in the figure, 7 is a yellow ink cartridge, 8 is a magenta ink cartridge, and 9 is a cyan ink cartridge, and by mixing these primary color inks on the medium, recording pixels of a plurality of colors can be obtained. In addition, black ink is also provided, and numeral 10 is an ink cartridge.

A front view of the recording head 6 is shown in FIG.

Recording direction (front) From the left: 4 yellow orifice groups 6Y, 4 magenta orifice groups 6
M, four cyan orifice groups 6C, and four black orifice groups 6B. Equivalent to a dot. The horizontal spacing between each orifice corresponds to eight dots. Further, each of the four orifices 11 to 14 is arranged on the same axis as the orifice of each color in the horizontal direction.

Therefore, when recording with the recording head 6, 4
Each line is recorded, and there are 12 character patterns.
If the character pattern is composed of (vertical) x 8 (horizontal), the character pattern is divided into three and recorded.

Next, the printer circuit configuration shown in FIG. 3 will be explained.

21 is a central control unit (CPU) to which data lines (thick white lines), address lines, and control lines are connected, and controls reception and synthesis of data transmitted from the data processing device according to the control program in ROM 24. Perform processing.

22 is a printer control unit, and 23 is a color printer (on-demand type inkjet printer). This printer control section 22 controls each orifice of the recording head 6 shown in FIG. 2 for recording in synchronization with the scanning position of the head 6. In this case, the recording head 6 records four lines simultaneously.

25 is a character pattern generator (CG) composed of a ROM that converts the received character code into a corresponding character pattern.

Reference numeral 26 denotes an interface unit, which is connected to the data processing device through, for example, 8 data lines, and receives 8-bit parallel data from the data processing device.

30 is a storage device (RAM), which will be described later.
It consists of buffers 1 to 39, a character pointer (CHPNT) 40, and an area 41 for other control flags and buffers.

To explain specifically about RAM30, 31 is the yellow print buffer (PBY).
32 is a magenta print buffer (PBM), 33 is a cyan print buffer (PBC), and 34 is a black print buffer (PBB). Image data transmitted from the data processing device is stored as is in each of these buffers according to the color code.

35 is character batshua (CHB),
Character codes transmitted from the data processing device are sequentially stored in a capacity corresponding to one line.

A character color buffer (CHCB) 36 sequentially stores color data for each character in the character buffer (CHB).

37 is a temporary CG buffer (TCGBF), which corresponds to the character code at the recording position.
Of the character patterns read out from the CG 25, the pattern for four lines at the position recorded by the head is temporarily stored. Therefore, it has a capacity of 4 lines x 8 (dots).

38 is a background buffer (BGCBF), which is a temporary buffer for determining the base pattern of the character pattern. Therefore, it has a capacity of 4 lines x 8 (dots). 8 mentioned above
The number of dots corresponds to the width of the character pattern in the column direction (horizontal direction).

39 is a buffer (CCFLG) that temporarily stores the color code transferred from the data processing device each time the character color changes, and is used when storing color data in the character color buffer (CHCB). Ru.

Reference numeral 40 denotes a character pointer (CHPNT), which is used when reading data from the character buffer (CHB), that is, acts as an address pointer.

Next, the sequence transmitted from the data processing device will be explained with reference to FIG.

Figure 4A shows image data, which consists of a 1-byte control command 50 followed by a color identification code (4 bits) 51 and a line number (Figure 8).
Ln ₁ to _{Ln 24} ) 52, and image data 53 that has the number of data bytes at the beginning, records as "1" and spaces as "0", and this image data 53 is transmitted one byte at a time sequentially. . For example, when all eight dots in the column direction are recorded as data, they are transmitted as F, F (1111, 1111).
When reproducing a color that is a mixture of two primary colors, the same data is transmitted as the image data of the two primary colors.

On the other hand, FIG. 4B shows character data, which is character color codes 56 and 59 that are transmitted every time the color data changes, following a control command 55 that means transmitting a character code.
Character codes 58 and 60 are transmitted after the color codes 56 and 59, respectively.

This character color code is expressed by 8 dots, as shown more specifically in Figure 4C, where bits 0 to 3 are the background color area, and bits 4 to 7 are the area for the character. It is a field of color.

On the base color side, bit “0” has the weight of black (B),
Bit “1” has the weight of cyan (C), bit “2” has the weight of magenta (M), and bit “3” has the weight of yellow (Y). Therefore, if there is data of “1” in bit “0”, , meaning the base color is black.

Similarly, the font color has the weight of bit "4" as black (B), bit "5" as cyan (C), bit "6" as magenta (M), and bit "7" as yellow (Y). .

The color data for the character, image, and background transmitted from the data processing device will be described later, but the color data of the character and image are processed in such a way that the colors do not change from the desired colors (to avoid overlapping recording of the color pigment of the character and the pigment of the image). Therefore, the coloring matter of the character pixel is given top priority (the priority is set high), followed by the image pixel, and then the background pixel. In this way, a character or image of the specified color can be obtained by combining both information.

Next, character and image compositing processing will be described based on the operational flows shown in FIGS. 5 to 7.

Γ When receiving image data (see Figure 5) If it is determined that the transmitted control command is image data, step 101 in Figure 5 is performed.
102 to 108 are executed.

In other words, this image data is as shown in Figure 4 A, so next the color identification code is entered in steps 102 to 106.
It is determined by Assuming that it is a yellow code, the code is determined in step 102 and transferred to the position of the yellow print buffer (PBY) 31 corresponding to the designated line number in step 103.

Thereafter, each color is transferred to the designated line of the corresponding print buffer (PBM, PBC, PBB) according to the color identification code and line number as described above.

Γ When receiving character data If it is determined that the transmitted control command is character data (steps in Figure 5)
120), steps 121 and subsequent steps are executed.

Since this character data is as shown in FIG.
to transfer this color code to buffer (CCFLG) 39.

Thereafter, when the character code is received, it is transferred to the corresponding position of the character buffer (CHB) 35 according to the character pointer (CHPNT) 40 and also transferred to the character color buffer (CHCCB) 3.
6, the color code of the buffer (CCFLG) 39 is also transferred according to the printer 40.

And character pointer (CHPNT) 40
is increased by +1 in preparation for the next reception (steps 122 to 124).

Thereafter, the above operation is repeated for each reception.

The above is the operation when receiving image data and character data. Now, the flowchart of FIG. 5 will be explained for a moment.

In receiving the above image data, when one line of image data of 4 lines (vertical 4 dots) is transmitted, the CPU 21 issues a print command (step
126) is generated, and when image data for four lines and one line is received following one line of character data, a print command is generated from the CPU 21 after this transmission.

Based on this print command, the image and character are combined in step 127, and then the print process is executed in step 128 (specifically, the flowcharts in FIGS. 6 and 7 are executed). Then, in step 129, print buffer (PBY3
1, PBM32, PBC33, PBB34) are initialized.

What to keep in mind here is that the character pattern is 8 x 12 and receives one line of character code, whereas the image only receives one line of 4 lines (4 vertical dots). Therefore, it is necessary to receive the image pattern three times for one character row.

Therefore, the equivalent of the character pattern (8×12
After the image has been recorded for one line (1 line), the character code for the next line will be transmitted.

Γ Printing of characters and images (6th
(See figure) Now, as an example, a case will be described in which a color pattern shown in FIG. 8 is recorded.

In this example, character pattern pixel "A" is designated as black (B), and magenta (M) and cyan (C) images are superimposed on this, and the base color is designated as yellow (Y). It is.

In this case, each print buffer PBY31,
Four lines of image data are stored in the PBM 32, PBC 33, and PBB 34, and the character buffer (CHB) 35 and character color buffer (CHCB) 36 have colors corresponding to each character in the character buffer. Specified data is stored.

For this composition, execute the print processing flow shown in Figure 6, first reset the character pointer (CHPNT) 40 (step 151),
Next, a character code is read from the character buffer (CHB) 35 based on the data indicated by the pointer 40 (step 152).

This read character code is supplied to a character pattern generator (CG) 25, which reads out the corresponding character pattern, and divides the 4 lines, that is, the 8×12 pattern corresponding to the recording head to be recorded into three, into three. The pattern of 8 dots x 4 lines is transferred to the temporary CG buffer (TCGBF) 37 and the background buffer (BGCBF) 38 (step 153). As will be explained later, this
The pattern transferred to the BGCBF 38 is used to create a base pattern.

Next, the color data corresponding to the character code at the position indicated by the character pointer (CHPBT) 40 is transferred to the character color buffer (CHCB) 36.
The print buffer PBY31 is then read out (step 154), combined with the image data (specifically, executing the flow shown in FIG. 7), and then transferred to the print buffer PBY31.
The combined pattern is stored in the PBM 32, PBC 33, and PBB 34 (step 155). Further, the character pointer (CHPNT) 40 is incremented by 1, and the above operation is repeated until the character pointer 40 reaches the n value (line length position). After this, follow the steps in Figure 5.
The recording operation is performed after 128.

Γ Character and Image Synthesis Process (See FIG. 7) The specific operation of the synthesis process executed at step 155 in FIG. 6 is shown in FIG.

Now, an example will be shown in which a character and an image are synthesized at the position of character "A" (this position is designated as m) on four lines _L21 to _L24 in FIG. 8.

As mentioned above, in step 153 of FIG.
As shown in FIG. 9, the back ground buffer (BGCBF) 38 stores the pattern "A", and the print buffer PBY31,
PBM32, PBC33, PBB34 have Figure 9,
Image patterns are stored as shown in , , . In FIG. 9, black circles indicate data "1" and white circles indicate data "0".

Then, in step 154 of FIG. 6, the color data corresponding to the character code is read out from the buffer (CHCB) 36, and in step 170 of FIG.
Move on to the subsequent compositing process.

First, in step 170, it is determined whether the color data from the buffer (CHCB) 36 is yellow. In this example, character "A" is black, so the process moves to step 173.

Here is Bakku Grand Bathua (BGCBF)
38 data and yellow print buffer
The logical OR with PBY31 is taken and the result is re-distributed.
Transfer to BGCBF38. In this example, the PBY3
Since no image data is stored in BGCBF 38 (see FIG. 9), the contents of BGCBF 38 do not change.

Next, in step 174, the contents of the PBY 31 and the temporary CG buffer (TCGBF) 37 are
The data is logically ANDed with the inverted data,
This result is stored in PBY31 again. In this case, since no image data is stored in PBY 31, it does not change.

However, in this step, as will become clear later, the overlapping portion between the image data and the character pattern is extracted from the image data.

Next, in step 178, the buffer (CHCB)
It is then determined whether the color data from No. 36 is magenta. In this case as well, since the character is black, the process moves to step 181.

In this step 181, the data of the background buffer (BGCBF) 38 and the magenta print buffer (PBM) 32 are transferred as in step 173 above.
The logical OR is taken, and the result is again applied to BGCBF3.
Transfer to 8. In this case, since the PBM32 has a pattern as shown in Figure 9, the BGCBF3
The contents of 8 change as shown in FIG.

In the following step 182, similarly to step 174, the pattern of the PBM 32 and the inverted data of the temporary CG buffer (TCGBF) 37 are ANDed, and this result is stored in the print buffer (PBM) 32 again.

This results in a state in which overlapping pixels of the character pattern are extracted from the image data of the print buffer PBM 32 as shown in FIGS.

Next, in step 183, the buffer (CHCB)
It is now determined whether the color data from No. 36 is cyan. In this case as well, since the character is black, the process moves to step 186.

In this step 186, the above steps 173,
The same processing as 181 is performed, and the background buffer (BGCBF) 38 changes from FIG. 9 as shown in FIG.

In the following step 187, the above steps 174 and 187 are also performed.
Processing similar to step 182 is performed, the print buffer (PBC) 33 changes from FIG. 9 as shown in FIG. 9, and pixels overlapping with the character pattern are extracted.

Next, in step 188, the buffer (CHCB)
It is then determined whether the color data from 36 is black. In this case, since the character is black, the process advances to step 189.

In step 189, the black print buffer (PBB) 34 and the temporary CG buffer (TCGBF) 37 are logically summed, and the result is stored in the PBB 34.

In this case, as shown in Fig. 9, since no image data is stored in the PBB 34, the character pattern remains unchanged as shown in Fig. 9.
Stored in PBB34.

In the following step 190, the data of the back ground buffer (BGCBF) 38 and the PBB 34 are
and the image data of
Store it in BGCBF38.

In this case, PBB34 contains the data shown in Figure 9, and data No. 9 of BGCBF38 at this time is stored.
The BGCBF 38 remains as shown in FIG. 9 even if it is logically summed with the figure.

To summarize the above operation, the BGCBF 38 includes steps 172, 173, 180, 181, 185, 186,
The character pattern and the image pattern in the recording pixels (8×4) are synthesized and stored by 190 and 191, and by inverting this synthesized pattern later, background data can be obtained.

Further, the character pattern is stored as it is in the print buffer of the character pattern color specified in steps 171, 179, 184, and 189.
In the above example, the character pattern is stored in the PBB 34.

This gives priority to the character pattern over other patterns, ie, image data and background data. This is because, on the contrary, in steps 174, 182, and 187, image data pixels that overlap with the character pattern are extracted, giving priority to the character pattern.

Furthermore, the background pattern described above is created by inverting a composite of the character pattern and the image pattern, and this is because the image pattern is given priority over the background (base color).

Returning again to FIG. 7, the operations after step 190 will be explained.

The process advances from step 190 to step 200, and from this step onward, background processing is performed.

In this example, the background color is yellow, and that data is read out from the character color buffer (CHCB) 36 and sent to step 200.
It is determined whether the color specification is yellow.

Now, yellow is specified, so step
201, the data of the yellow print buffer (PBY) 31 and the data obtained by inverting the data of the back ground buffer (BGCBF) 38 are ORed, and the result is stored in the print buffer (PBY) 31 again. let

In this case, PBY31 is in the state shown in Figure 9,
When the inverted data shown in FIG. 9 is logically summed, the state shown in FIG. 9 is obtained.

Thereafter, the process proceeds through steps 202 to 207, and these steps perform the same processing as described above in accordance with the designation of the background color.

In this way, a series of synthesis processing operations are executed,
Thereafter, the process proceeds to steps 156 and 157 in FIG. As a result, the composite processing is performed sequentially for each width of the character pattern size of 8 bits x 4 lines, and a pattern for one line is created in each print buffer.

After this, printing processing is performed, and the composite pattern shown in FIG. 8 is recorded.

Although FIG. 8 shows an example of recording using a single color (primary color), the same method is used when a plurality of primary colors are mixed.

<Other Embodiments> In the above embodiments, since the recording head 6 has a four-line configuration, each print buffer is provided for four lines, and image data is transmitted every four lines.

However, the recording head 6 is not limited to the above-mentioned four lines, and the nozzles of the recording head 6 can be provided for the character pattern size. In this case, a print buffer is provided according to the head, and the image data is also arranged accordingly. All you have to do is transmit it.

In addition, the color code shown in Figure 4C is such that the data processing device determines the mixed color and transmits the corresponding code, but the data processing device only transmits the color instruction data and the printer The colors to be mixed may be allocated on the side from the color data, that is, developed as shown in FIG. 4C. In other words, when the printer side receives a red color instruction from the processing device side, the bits of magenta M and yellow Y shown in Fig. 4C are
It is possible to set the bit of ``1'' to ``1''.

<Effects of the Invention> The present invention includes a head having recording elements for a plurality of primary colors, records those colors on a recording medium,
In addition, in a color recording device that records a desired color by suitably mixing these colors on a recording medium, there is provided a print buffer that accommodates color-specific print patterns corresponding to each of the primary colors, and a carrier that receives character code information. a pattern generator for converting the character code information into a character pattern; a first holding means for temporarily holding color specification data of the character pattern; color)
a second holding means for temporarily holding the designation data of the character code information received in the character buffer, the character code information received in the character buffer is transmitted through a pattern generator to the color designation data held by the first storage means; The pattern is introduced into a print buffer, and the character pattern is inverted to form a background pattern of the character, and the background pattern is transferred to the corresponding print buffer based on the color designation data held by the second holding means. The data processing apparatus is characterized in that the pattern information of the print buffer is recorded by the recording head to record a series of characters and their back shadows, and the characters sent from the data processing device are The back shadow pattern of the character is created on the printer side based on the code information, the character pattern and the back shadow pattern are combined and stored in the print buffer, so there is no need to place a large burden on the data processing device. This allows for efficient processing at the side, and enables easy recording of the character and back shadow pattern through simple control.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the appearance of a color printer according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a front view of the recording head, and FIG.
Figure 4 is a block diagram showing the control circuit configuration of a color printer according to the present invention, Figure 4 is a diagram showing the transmission sequence of image data and character data, and Figure 5 is a diagram showing the transmission sequence of image data and character data.
Figure 6 is a flowchart showing the basic operation of the printer, Figure 6 is a flowchart showing the specific operation of print processing, Figure 7 is a flowchart showing the specific operation of compositing processing, and Figure 8 is a color print example. The figure shown in FIG. 9 is a diagram showing the storage state of each buffer during the compositing process. 1... Platen, 4... Carriage, 5... Ink tank, 6... Recording head, 21... CPU,
22...Printer control unit, 23...Color printer, 24...ROM, 25...Character pattern generator, 26...Interface unit, 30...
...Storage device (RAM), 31-34...Print buffer, 35...Character buffer, 36...
...character color buffer, 37...temporary CG buffer, 38...background buffer, 39...buffer for storing color code,
40...Character pointer.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A head having a plurality of primary color recording elements,
A color recording device that records these colors on a recording medium, and also mixes the colors appropriately on the recording medium to record a desired color, and a print bag that accommodates color-specific print patterns corresponding to each of the primary colors. a character buffer for receiving character code information; a pattern generator for converting the character code information into a pattern; and a first holding means for temporarily holding color specification data of the character pattern. a second holding means for temporarily holding color designation data for a background color (ground color) of the character pattern;
pattern processing means for introducing the character pattern into the corresponding print buffer based on the color specification data held by the holding means; and a pattern processing means for inverting the character pattern introduced into the print buffer to create a background pattern of the character. background pattern processing means for forming a background pattern and introducing the background pattern into the corresponding print buffer based on color specification data held by the second holding means; and each print buffer introduced into the print buffer. A recording device for a color printer, comprising: print control means for recording pattern information by the recording head to record a character and its background in series. 2. The pattern processing means includes storage means for synthesizing input image information together with character information and storing the composite pattern, and the background pattern processing means stores the composite pattern stored in the storage means. 2. A recording device for a color printer according to claim 1, wherein the inverted pattern is introduced into a print buffer designated by a color as a background pattern.