JPH05162368A - Thermal recording device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent hard use of only a specific heat generating resistor of a thermal head so as to improve the whole life thereof largely by setting optionally the position of the heat generating resistor of the thermal head for drawing outline by operating an input means. CONSTITUTION:At a release of drawing before a reference value P is changed, heat generating resistors P1 and P2 of a thermal head 9 are used continuously so as to draw a vertical line of an outline 31. When a left shift key 22 of an input device 11 is pressed once, both of the outline 31 and a diagram 32 deviate to the left by 1 pitch DELTAx of the heat generating resistors. At this time, the heat generating resistors of the head 9 for drawing the vertical line of the outline 31 are changed to P3 and P4. In the same manner, when a right shift key 23 is pressed once, the outline 31 and the diagram 32 deviate to the right by 1 pitch DELTAx of the heat generating resistors. Thus, the positions of the outline 31 and the diagram 32 can be decided to be at optional places in the arranging direction of the heat generating resistors of the head 9. Also, owing to periodic changes of the reference point, fixation of the heat generating resistors of the head 9 for drawing the vertical line of the outline 31 to a specific resistor can be prevented.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal recording apparatus such as a thermal plotter and a facsimile apparatus using a thermal head having a large number of heating resistors arranged in a line.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in the field of automatic drafting machines and the like, a thermal recording apparatus using a thermal head has been used along with a pen plotter because of its high speed of drawing, low noise and easy maintenance. As is well known, thermal heads
A large number of heating resistors are arranged in an array. Recently, large thermal plotters such as A0 and A1 sizes have been developed with the development of long heads and advances in assembly technology.

By the way, generally, in order to specify the drawing area in the drawing, a contour line is drawn on the peripheral portion by a thick solid line (0.5 mm or more). A title block is provided at the lower right of this outline. The contour line may be transmitted from the CAD system to the thermal recording device together with the graphic data, or may be set inside the thermal recording device according to the size of the recording paper.

[0004]

The contour line is the longest straight line in the drawing. In the thermal recording apparatus, when such a long straight line is drawn in the sheet conveying direction, it is necessary to continuously generate heat from a specific heating resistor of the thermal head. In particular, the recording position of such an outline is uniquely determined according to the paper size. Therefore, the heating resistor for drawing the contour line has a significantly longer heating time than other heating resistors, and the life of the entire head is also determined by the life of the heating resistor for drawing the contour line.

As described above, the thermal recording apparatus for outputting the drawing data has a peculiar circumstance in which a specific heating resistor is overused to draw the contour line. Despite the number of printed sheets, there is a problem in that the life of the entire thermal head is shortened due to the deterioration of a certain part of the heating resistors.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and it is possible to effectively prevent the life of the thermal head from being extremely shortened even when a drawing including a contour line is drawn. The first purpose is to provide A second object of the present invention is to provide a thermal recording device in which the left and right margins of the drawing can be arbitrarily set by a simple adjustment operation.

[0007]

A thermal recording apparatus according to the present invention analyzes a drawing data including a contour line that specifies a drawing area of a drawing and a figure drawn in the contour line, and develops a bitmap. Image processing means, frame storage means for storing the drawing data expanded into bitmap data by the image processing means, control means for sequentially reading out the drawing data stored in the frame storage means and controlling each part A sheet conveying unit that conveys the recording sheet under the control of the control unit, and a thermal head that outputs the contour line and the figure to the recording sheet based on the drawing data sequentially read from the frame storing unit. In the thermal recording apparatus provided, an input means for setting the reference point of the drawing data and a base set by the input means. Characterized in that a contour-shape position determining means for determining the position of the drawing data in the heat generating resistor arrangement direction of the thermal head in accordance with the point.

The contour line in the drawing data may be supplied from an external CAD system or the like together with the figure,
It may be set in accordance with the paper size inside the thermal recording device. Further, the contour / graphic position determining means may determine the storage position of the drawing data in the frame storing means at the time of, for example, developing a bitmap, or transfer from the frame storing means to the thermal head. The shift amount of the drawing data may be controlled at times.

[0009]

According to the present invention, the position of the drawing data in the heating resistor array direction of the thermal head can be arbitrarily set through the input means. Therefore, if the reference point of the drawing data is changed at an appropriate frequency by using the input means, it is possible to prevent the specific heating resistor of the thermal head from being overused, and to improve the life of the thermal head. be able to.

Further, according to the present invention, since the reference point of the drawing data can be arbitrarily set through the input means, when the binding margin is provided at the left end of the drawing, the input operation of the drawing data is performed. The desired binding margin can be set in the drawing by shifting to an arbitrary position by. In this case, since there is no need to adjust any other mechanical elements, there is an advantage that the binding margin setting operation is extremely easy.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing the configuration of a thermal plotter according to the first embodiment of the present invention.
Drawing data including contour lines and figures is, for example, ASCII
It is transmitted from a CAD system (not shown) in the form of CAD data (plotter command) composed of I code. This CAD data (plotter command) is input buffer 1
Stored in. The CAD data (plotter command) stored in the input buffer 1 is analyzed by the analysis unit 2 and converted into internal (intermediate) data composed of vector data.
The internal (intermediate) data obtained by the analysis unit 2 has the arrangement position determined by the contour / graphic data shift unit 3, and the bitmap expansion processing unit 4 performs DDA (Digital differential analyze).
r) Processed and expanded into bitmap data. The obtained bitmap data is stored in the frame buffer 5.

The bit map data stored in the frame buffer 5 is sequentially read by the controller 6. The controller 6 uses the paper transport unit 7
Is controlled to control the conveyance of the recording paper, and the drawing data read from the frame buffer 5 is sequentially supplied to the shift register 8. The shift register 8 sends the supplied drawing data to the thermal head 9. The thermal head 9 performs necessary thermal recording or thermal transfer recording on a recording sheet (not shown) according to the drawing data.

On the other hand, in this thermal plotter, a storage unit 10 for storing a reference point for arranging drawing data, an input device 11 for setting the reference point by an input operation, and a setting operation of the input device 11 are performed. A reference point changing unit 12 that changes the reference point stored in the storage unit 10 is provided. For the storage unit 10, a non-volatile memory such as an EEPROM is used. The reference point changed by the reference point changing unit 12 is supplied to the contour / graphic data shift unit 3 as data for specifying the reference point when the bitmap is developed.

FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a specific example of the input device 11. That is, on the operation panel of the thermal plotter,
As the input device 11, a shift setting key 21, a left shift key 22, a right shift key 23, and a set key 24 are provided. The shift setting key 21 is a key that is set when starting the shift operation of the drawing data, and the left shift key 22 and the right shift key 23 are keys for shifting the drawing data to the left and the right in dot units, respectively. .. The set key 24 is a key for confirming the position of the drawing data after the position of the drawing data is moved by the shift operation.

Next, the operation of the thermal plotter according to this embodiment having the above structure will be described. Figure 3
8 is a flowchart of a drawing data reference point setting process in the plotter. Shift setting key 21 on the operation panel
When is turned on, the flow of FIG. 3 is activated. First, the reference point changing unit 12 reads the reference point P from the storage unit 10 (S1). Here, the left shift key 22 and the right shift key 2
3 and set key 24 input waiting (S2, S3
S4). When the left shift key 22 is pressed, the reference point P is counted down (S5). At this time, if the reference point P reaches the minimum value PL of the shiftable range (S
6) The reference point P is fixed to the minimum value PL (S7). When the right shift key 23 is pressed, the reference point P is counted up (S8). At this time, when the reference point P reaches the maximum value PH in the shiftable range (S9), the reference point P
Is fixed to the maximum value PH (S10). The minimum value PL and the maximum value PH are determined by the allowable width of the deviation of the contour line, the arrangement pitch of the heating resistors of the thermal head 9, the one-time shift pitch, and the like. When the set key 24 is pressed, the reference point P is stored in the storage unit 10 (S1).
1).

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the operation of the thermal plotter during printing. After the power is turned on, the reference point P is first read from the storage unit 10 (S21), and then the data input is awaited (S22). C in input buffer 1
When AD data (plotter command) is stored and analyzed by the analysis unit 2 and converted into internal (intermediate) data, the contour / figure data shift unit 3 positions the drawing data on the basis of the reference point P. Is determined. That is, the reference point P is added to the X (line direction) coordinate of each vector forming the drawing data (S23). Next, the process waits for a print command (S24), and when there is a print command, the printing process for one sheet (S25) is executed. The above processing is continued until printing is completed (S26).

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the present thermal plotter. In the drawing before changing the reference value P, as shown in FIG. 3A, the heating resistors P1 and P2 of the thermal head 9 are continuously used to draw a vertical line of the contour line 31. However, the left shift key 2 of the input device 11
When 2 is pressed once, as shown in FIG.
Also, the figure 32 is displaced leftward by one pitch Δx of the heating resistor. At this time, the heating resistor of the thermal head 9 that draws the vertical line of the contour line 31 is P
Changed to 3, P4. Similarly, press the right shift key 23
When pressed twice, the contour line 31 and the figure 32 are 1 of the heating resistor.
It is shifted to the right by the pitch Δx. In this way, the contour line 31 and the graphic 32 can be positioned at arbitrary positions in the arrangement direction of the heating resistors of the thermal head 9.
As a result, the left and right margins of the drawing can be arbitrarily set, and the heating resistor of the thermal head 9 that draws a vertical line of the contour line 31 is changed to a specific resistor by periodically changing the reference point P. Can be prevented from being fixed to.

When the heating resistors are arranged at a pitch of 16 dots / mm, and the outline is 0.5 mm, the outline is 8
It is drawn by the heating resistors for the dots. If the shift operation is carried out dot by dot, and if the allowable width is set to 2 mm, the process goes round once for 32 shift operations. In this case, if the operation for changing the reference point P is performed frequently, even the resistor that generates heat for the longest time can be shortened to 1/4 the energization time of the conventional one.

FIG. 6 is a functional block diagram showing the structure of a thermal plotter according to the second embodiment of the present invention. In addition,
6, the same parts as those in FIG. 1 are designated by the same reference numerals, and the description of the overlapping parts will be omitted. In the first embodiment, the shift processing is performed on the internal (intermediate) data immediately before the bitmap expansion, but in the second embodiment, the data shift processing is performed after the bitmap expansion. ..

That is, in general, this type of thermal plotter does not use the entire printable range of the thermal head, but the thermal head has a margin of several dots at both ends. Therefore, in this example,
The reference point P supplied from the reference point changing unit 12 to the controller 41 is set by the input device 11. The controller 41 is
The amount of drawing data sent to the shift register 8 is changed according to the reference point P. As a result, the position of the drawing data with respect to the thermal head 9 can be changed based on the reference point P set by the input device 11, so that the same effect as in the above embodiment can be obtained. According to this embodiment, since it is not necessary to perform the coordinate changing process of each vector data, there is an advantage that the processing time associated with the coordinate conversion can be shortened and the process up to the bitmap expansion can be made common. .

FIG. 7 is a functional block diagram showing the structure of a thermal plotter according to the third embodiment of the present invention. In addition,
7, the same parts as those in FIG. 1 are designated by the same reference numerals, and the description of the overlapping parts will be omitted. In this embodiment, the present invention is applied to a case where contour data is not transferred as CAD data (plotter command) from a CAD system.

That is, the thermal plotter is provided with a paper size input device 51, and this paper size input device 5 is provided.
A contour line is generated by the contour data setting unit 52 according to the input situation of 1, and the contour line is supplied to the contour / graphic data shift unit 3. The processing after the shift of the contour / graphic data supplied to the contour / graphic data shift unit 3 is the same as in the first embodiment.

In the above embodiments, the thermal plotter is taken as an example, but it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to other thermal recording devices such as a facsimile machine.

[0024]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to arbitrarily set the position of the heating resistor of the thermal head which draws the contour line by operating the input means. Therefore, by operating the input means at an appropriate interval to shift the drawing data, it is possible to shorten the usage time of the heating resistor for drawing the contour line to a fraction of one to several tenths of the conventional one. it can. As a result, it is possible to prevent only a specific heating resistor of the thermal head from being overused, and it is possible to significantly improve the life of the entire thermal head. Also, since the position of the contour line can be set arbitrarily,
It is possible to set a margin portion such as a binding margin of the drawings arbitrarily.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration of a thermal plotter according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a specific example of an input device in the plotter.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a drawing data reference point setting process in the plotter.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation of the plotter during printing.

FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining a drawing form by the plotter.

FIG. 6 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration of a thermal plotter according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a functional block diagram showing a configuration of a thermal plotter according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of Codes] 1 ... Input buffer, 2 ... Analysis unit, 3 ... Contour / graphic data shift unit, 4 ... Bitmap development processing unit, 5 ... Frame buffer, 6,41 ... Controller, 7 ... Paper transport unit,
8 ... Shift register, 9 ... Thermal head, 10 ... Storage unit, 11 ... Input device, 12 ... Reference point changing unit, 21 ... Shift setting key, 22 ... Right shift key, 23 ... Left shift key,
24 ... Set key, 31 ... Outline, 32 ... Graphic, 51 ...
Paper size input device, 52 ... Contour data setting unit.

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An image processing unit for analyzing a drawing data including a contour line for specifying a drawing area of a drawing and a figure drawn in the contour line and developing a bitmap, and bitmap data by the image processing unit. A frame storage means for storing the drawing data developed in the above, a control means for sequentially reading out the drawing data stored in the frame storage means and controlling each part, and a recording sheet conveyed under the control of the control means. A thermal recording apparatus comprising: a sheet conveying unit; and a thermal head that outputs the contour line and a figure to the recording sheet based on the drawing data sequentially read from the frame storage unit, wherein a reference point of the drawing data Input means for setting
A thermal recording apparatus comprising: a contour / figure position determining means for determining a position of the drawing data in a heating resistor array direction of the thermal head according to a reference point set by the input means. 2. The thermal recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the contour line in the drawing data is supplied from the outside together with the graphic. 3. A paper size input means for inputting the size of the recording paper, and a contour setting means for setting a contour line in the drawing data based on the size of the recording paper input by the paper size input means. The thermal recording apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: 4. The thermal recording according to claim 1, wherein the contour / graphic position determining unit determines a storage position of the drawing data in the frame storage unit. apparatus. 5. The contour / graphic position determining means is provided inside the control means, and controls the shift amount of the drawing data transferred from the frame storage means to the thermal head. The thermal recording device according to claim 1, wherein