JPH0494946A - Recording method for image or the like - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make sizes of dots identical in recording before and after one-time stoppage of the recording operation on restarting of the recording operation by a method wherein recording energy to be applied on the restarting of the operation for the recording of a new line is made bigger than that applied for the recording operation continuously carried out from the preceding line to the new line. CONSTITUTION:When a command is given for recording of a new line on one- time stoppage of the recording operation after finishing of the recording for a preceding line, a signal is sent from a pulse control section 30 to a pulse generating circuit 28 so that recording energy which is bigger than that applied when the recording is made successively from the preceding line to the new lime can be applied. Then the recording operation starts with bigger energy through a thermal head 14 for the new line on thermosensitve paper. Therefore sizes of recording dots on the preceding line (Ln) and the sizes of the dots on the new line (Ln+1) become almost identical, and continuity of the dots in the recording before and after the one-time stoppage is secured smoothly, preventing discontinuity from occurring to recorded images or the like.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a method for recording characters, images, etc.

More specifically, when the recording operation is temporarily stopped after recording the previous line and the current line is recorded, a recording energy larger than that required when recording continuously from the previous line to the current line is used. By applying this voltage, smooth recorded images can be obtained before and after the recording operation is stopped.

[Prior Art] Among recording devices such as facsimile machines and printers, it is generally known to perform recording using a dot matrix method.

With this type of recording device, there are cases in which recording is performed continuously from the previous line to the current line, and there are cases in which the recording operation is temporarily stopped after the recording of the previous line is completed, and then the recording operation is performed on the current line. However, the recording energy applied to the current line is set to the same value.

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] However, once the recording operation is stopped after the recording of the current line is finished, when trying to start recording on the current line,
For example, the temperature of a thermal head used for thermosensitive recording is lower than when continuous recording is being performed. Therefore, if the same recording energy as when continuous recording is applied when recording on the current line is started, the dots immediately after recording starts will be smaller than the dots before stopping. Therefore, there is a problem that breaks occur in characters, images, etc. recorded before and after the recording operation is stopped, and continuous and highly accurate recording operations cannot be performed.

In addition, by counting the time from the start of recording (printing) on the previous line to the start of recording (printing) on the current line and controlling the application time of recording energy for the current line, density unevenness in the recorded image is reduced. A control circuit configured to do this has been proposed (see Japanese Patent Publication No. 1-13265).

However, in the above-mentioned conventional technology, even if the recording end time of the previous line is different, the time from the recording start time of the previous line to the recording start time of the current line may be the same.
This causes a problem in that the size of the dots on the current line immediately after the start of recording varies, and the recording connection between the previous line and the current line is not smooth.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and has the following features: - When restarting the recording operation after it has been stopped, the size of the dots before and after the stop can be made the same; It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for recording images, etc., which enables the recording before and after the stop to be performed smoothly and with high precision.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the method for recording images, etc. according to the present invention temporarily stops the recording operation after the recording of the previous line is completed, and then when recording the current line, At least the recording energy applied at the start of recording of the current line is
It is characterized in that the recording energy is greater than the recording energy when continuously recording from the previous line to the current line.

[Function] As described above, in the method for recording images, etc. according to the present invention, once the recording operation is stopped after the recording of the previous line is finished, the temperature of the recording head itself decreases. When recording, the recording energy applied at least at the start of recording of the current line is greater than the recording energy applied when recording continuously from the previous line to the current line. The dots are the same size as the previous line, and no breaks occur in the recorded image.

[Example] Hereinafter, an example of the method for recording images, etc. according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings in connection with an apparatus for implementing the method.

Fig. 1 is a perspective explanatory view of the main parts of a thermosensitive recording device for carrying out the method of recording images, etc., Fig. 2 is a block diagram of the recording pulse generation section, Fig. 3 is a flowchart, and Fig. 4 shows the method of the present invention. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing the size of dots compared to the conventional example, and is a flowchart for counting.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 10 indicates a thermal recording apparatus for carrying out the method of recording images and the like according to this embodiment. This thermal recording device IO includes platens 12 that can be freely pressed together.
The platen I2 is fixed to a platen shaft 16, and the platen shaft I6 is rotatably supported by frames 18a and 18b.

A drive pulley 20 is attached to one end of the platen shaft I6, and a belt 26 is passed between the drive pulley 20 and the rotating shaft 24 of the stepping motor 22.

As shown in FIG. 2, the thermal head 14 performs recording using pulses generated from a pulse generation circuit 28, and this pulse generation circuit 28 receives signals from a pulse control section 30 including a CPU (central processing unit). A predetermined pulse is generated to set the recording energy to be applied to the thermal head 14 based on the signal.

The operation of the thermal recording apparatus 10 configured as described above will be explained below based on the flowchart shown in FIG. 3 in relation to the method of recording images, etc. according to this embodiment.

First, after initialization is performed in step l, 1
When it is determined that recording for the line has been completed (step 2
), it is determined whether the current line is to be recorded continuously following the previous line (step 3).

Here, when continuous recording is performed, a command is given to record the current line using normal recording energy,
A signal is sent from the pulse control section 30 to the pulse generation circuit 28. Then, the pulse generating circuit 28 performs recording using normal recording energy (by generating pulses, the thermal head 14 continuously records the current line on the thermal paper 32 shown in FIG. 1 from the previous line). At this time, the platen shaft 16 is rotationally driven via the rotating shaft 24, the belt 26, and the drive pulley 20 under the driving action of the stepping motor 22, and the platen 12 fixed to the platen shaft 16 is rotated in the direction of the arrow. The thermal paper 32 is conveyed in a direction intersecting the thermal head 14.

If further recording is to be performed on the thermal paper 32 after the current line of recording is completed, the process returns to step 3 and it is determined whether or not continuous recording is to be performed.

In this step 3, if you want to temporarily stop the recording operation after finishing recording the previous line, proceed to step 6, and if there is an instruction to record the current line here, continue recording from the previous line to the current line. A signal is sent from the pulse control section 30 to the pulse generation circuit 28 so as to apply a recording energy larger than the recording energy (the normal energy in step 4) when performing the step. As a result, the current line of recording work using the large recording energy is started on the thermal paper 32 via the thermal head 14.

In this case, in this embodiment, when starting the recording of the current line after stopping the recording operation, at least the recording energy applied at the start of recording of the current line is continuously applied from the previous line to the current line. It is set larger than the recording energy when recording. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 4a, the size of the recorded dots on the previous line Ln and the size of the dots on the current line Ln+1 are almost the same,
The dots connect smoothly before and after stopping, and it is possible to prevent cuts and the like from occurring in recorded images. That is, Figure 4 shows the dot size when the recording energy applied to the current line after recording starts is the same as the recording energy when recording is performed continuously, and the recording work Since the thermal head 14 itself is cooled due to the stoppage of the recording, the size of the dot immediately after the start of recording is considerably smaller than the size of the dot immediately before the stoppage of recording, resulting in cuts and the like in the recorded image.

Therefore, according to this embodiment, even if the recording operation is temporarily stopped after the recording of the previous line is finished and the thermal head 14 is cooled down, the recording operation can be suitably started on the current line, and the recording operation can be performed smoothly and with high precision. The effect is that it becomes possible to obtain recorded images and the like.

Next, a second embodiment of the method for recording images, etc. according to the present invention will be described below based on the flowchart shown in FIG.

This second embodiment is characterized in that the time from the end of recording of the previous line to the start of recording of the current line is counted, and the recording energy is increased or decreased in accordance with this counted time, When recording is performed continuously from the previous line to the current line, as in the flowchart shown in Figure 4,
Steps 1a to 6a are performed sequentially.

Then, when it is determined that the recording work should be stopped after the recording of the previous line is completed, time counting is started (step 7a).
), when there is an instruction to start recording the current line (step 8a), counting is stopped (step 9).
a). Therefore, since the recording energy is selected based on this counting time, even if the thermal head 14 is cooled for the counting time, there will be no change in the size of the dots before and after stopping.

Furthermore, in the third embodiment of the method for recording images and the like according to the present invention, the step of measuring the temperature of the thermal head 14 itself is carried out for each line or for each member.

A pre-classified energy table is selected from the temperature detected by this temperature measurement, and the recording energy in step 7 in FIG. 3 or the recording energy in step loa in FIG. 5 is determined. This particularly has the effect of preventing fluctuations in recording density caused by changes in the temperature of the thermal head 14 as much as possible.

[Effects of the Invention] As described in detail above, according to the method for recording images, etc. according to the present invention, even when recording of the current line is started after the recording operation is temporarily stopped, the recording of images from the previous line is continuously performed. As in the case of recording on the current line, it is possible to prevent the dot size from changing. As a result, it is possible to obtain highly accurate and smooth recorded images without causing breaks in the recorded images before and after stopping.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective explanatory view of the main parts of a thermal recording apparatus for carrying out the method of recording images, etc. according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a recording pulse generating section of the thermal recording apparatus, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a flowchart of the recording method. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the dot sizes of the method of the present invention and the conventional method. FIG. 5 is a flowchart of counting time. 0... Thermal recording device 2... Platen 4... Thermal head 6... Platen shaft 2... Stepping motor 8... Pulse generation circuit 0... Pulse control section 2... Thermal paper Patent applicant Brother Industries, Ltd. Agent Patent attorney Ko Tateno Figure 1 (a) (b) Ward

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) Once the previous line has finished recording, stop the recording work,
Furthermore, when recording the current line, the recording energy applied at least at the start of recording of the current line is higher than the recording energy when recording continuously from the previous line to the current line. How to record images, etc. (2) In the recording method according to claim 1, the time from the end of recording of the previous line to the start of recording of the current line is counted, and the recording energy is increased or decreased in accordance with the counted time. etc. recording method. (3) A dot recording method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the recording energy applied corresponding to the current line is increased or decreased depending on a temperature change of the recording head.