JPH05261960A - Method and device for recording image and communication device with the same device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the generation of white stripes, etc., generated when recording time intervals are lengthened, and to improve the recording grade of an image by conducting electcity and performing recording to a recording head while being delayed from the start of the conveyance of a recording medium when time intervals indicating printing start reach a fixed time or more. CONSTITUTION:The temperature rise characteristics of the heating resistor of a thermal head 202 are improved so as not to delay printing timing to the trigger of a motor 21 for paper-feed in a first section, in which one block is printed. Consequently, when the first section, in which one block is printed, is printed, the deterioration of recording image quality by the lowering of the color-developing density of recording paper due to the over-drop of the temperature of the heating resistor is improved. When the time intervals of printing timing are lengthened in a facsimile device, a strobe signal continues to transmit over the thermal head 202 for a certain fixed time within the time intervals of printing timing after normal printing.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication device such as a facsimile device, an image recording device as an output terminal, and a recording method thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, a facsimile apparatus has a receiving buffer for temporarily storing a received image signal. For example, in ECM reception or the like, when the data amount of the received image signal stored in the reception buffer reaches a preset data amount (hereinafter, one block), 1
Image data corresponding to received image signals for blocks are collectively printed on recording paper. For this reason, since the print processing is stopped while the received image for one block is received,
During this time, the temperature of the heating resistor (thermal head) falls too much, and the temperature of the heating resistor does not reach the specified temperature at the start of the printing process of the block, so the recording density drops,
There has been a problem that a white streak appears in a recorded image.

[0003]

In order to improve this, in the printing time interval between blocks, a minute pulse is continuously applied to the heating resistor to the extent that the recording paper does not develop color. The temperature of the heating resistor was prevented from dropping too much. However, even with the method described above, it is not possible to completely prevent the temperature drop of the heating resistor temperature between the blocks, so that white streaks in the printed image have not been completely eliminated. Especially in halftone images, white streaks are very noticeable,
This has been a cause of deteriorating the image quality of the printed image.

The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional example, and when recording an image in a predetermined amount of image data unit, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of white streaks and the like that occur when a recording time interval is open, and An object of the present invention is to provide an image recording method and apparatus capable of improving recording quality, and a communication apparatus including the apparatus.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the image recording apparatus of the present invention has the following constitution. That is, an image recording apparatus that drives a recording head according to image data to record an image on a recording medium, and has a storage unit that stores input image data and an amount of the image data stored in the storage unit. When a predetermined amount is reached, a print start instructing means for instructing to start printing the image data, a transport means for transporting the recording medium in response to an instruction from the print start instructing means, and the print start instructing means When the time interval instructed by is equal to or more than a predetermined time, a recording unit that is sent from the start of conveyance by the conveying unit and energizes the recording head for recording, and a head data of the predetermined amount of image data is printed. Has a recording control unit that energizes the recording head to perform recording immediately after the conveyance by the conveyance unit is started.

In order to achieve the above object, the image recording method of the present invention comprises the following steps. That is, it is an image recording method for recording an image on a recording medium by driving a recording head according to image data, and when the amount of input image data reaches a predetermined amount, an instruction to start printing of the image data is given. When the time interval for instructing the start of printing reaches or exceeds a predetermined time, the step of sending the recording medium from the start of feeding and energizing the recording head for recording, and the beginning data of the predetermined amount of image data When printing, there is a step of energizing the recording head and recording immediately after the conveyance of the recording medium is started.

[0007]

In the above structure, when the amount of image data stored in the storage means for storing the input image data reaches a predetermined amount, printing of the image data is started and the recording medium is conveyed. When this time interval is equal to or greater than a predetermined time, the recording medium is fed from the start of conveyance, and the recording head is energized for recording, but when the top data of a predetermined amount of image data is printed, the conveyance of the recording medium is started. After that, the recording head is immediately energized to perform recording.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Before describing the embodiments of the present invention, the outline of the embodiments will be briefly described below.

The facsimile apparatus of the embodiment has a reception buffer for temporarily storing a reception image signal,
The reception image signal data amount stored in this reception buffer during reception or the like is set to a preset data amount (hereinafter,
1 block), the facsimile device collectively prints the received image data for one block. In the first part of printing one block, the print timing for the trigger of the paper feed motor is delayed. The temperature rise characteristics of the heat generating resistor of the thermal head are improved by eliminating the above. As a result, when printing the first portion of one block, the deterioration of the recording image quality due to the decrease in the coloring density of the recording paper due to the temperature of the heating resistor being too low is improved.

In the above-mentioned facsimile machine,
When the time interval of print timing becomes long, after normal printing, within the time interval of print timing, the strobe signal is continuously sent to the thermal head for a certain period.
By performing so-called multi-scan (hereinafter, referred to as sub-scan), deterioration of image quality is improved.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall construction of the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 indicates a document to be transmitted,
A document reading unit that outputs image data. A recording unit 2 records a received image received by facsimile through a line, image data read by the document reading unit 1, and a report of a communication result. The document reading unit 1 and the recording unit 2 are controlled by the sub CPU 201 shown in FIG. . A network control unit (NCU) 3 executes a communication procedure with a telephone line to transmit and receive a facsimile image. Reference numeral 4 is a modulation / demodulation device (modem) for performing communication, and 5 is a modem control unit for controlling the modem 4. An operation panel 6 includes a display 7 for displaying the state of the facsimile apparatus to the user and operation keys 8 operated by the user to instruct the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment to perform various operations. There is.

Reference numeral 9 denotes a sensor, which detects various states of the facsimile apparatus and outputs the detection signal to the central control unit 20. Reference numeral 10 denotes a memory, which stores received image data, document read image data, etc., and also functions as a buffer for temporarily storing the received image data at the time of ECM reception or the like, and is backed up by a battery or the like. A system RAM (or system memory) storing various data in a non-volatile manner, a control program of the central control unit 20, a table 13a storing the number of multi-scans according to a recording paper size described later, and the like are stored. It has a ROM 13 and the like. A central control unit 20 includes a main CPU and controls each of the above-mentioned units.

In the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment, received image data is temporarily stored in the receive buffer during ECM reception and the like, and when the received image data reaches the set data amount (1 block), the received image data is collectively collected. Although it has a printing mode, this reception buffer is included in the image memory 11.

FIG. 2 is a sub CPU for controlling the document reading section 1 and the recording section 2 of the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment, and others.
3 is a block diagram showing a configuration around 201. FIG.

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 11 denotes a read motor which belongs to the document reading section 1 and moves the transmission document to a position where the CCD reads it. A current driver 12 supplies a current required to drive the read motor 11 to rotate. 21 is a paper feed motor for conveying the recording paper,
The positional relationship between the recording paper for recording an image and the heating resistor of the thermal head 202, which belongs to the recording unit 2, is relatively moved. Reference numeral 22 is a current driver that supplies a current necessary for rotationally driving the paper feed motor 21. A cutter driving motor 23 drives the cutter to cut the roll-shaped recording paper according to the length of the recorded image. Two
Reference numeral 4 denotes a current driver that supplies a current necessary for rotationally driving the cutter driving motor 23.

Reference numeral 201 designates a sub CPU, which operates the thermal head 20 in accordance with a control program stored in the ROM 210.
2 controls the energization of the heating resistor 2 and the various motors described above. The ROM 210 also stores a table 211 that stores the pulse width of the strobe signal applied to the thermal head 202 according to the temperature of the thermal head 202 and the size of the recording paper. A smoothing IC 203 improves the image quality of a recorded image by interpolating between lines of image data to be recorded. Reference numeral 204 denotes an encoder / decoder, which decodes the encoded data (facsimile signal) sent from the facsimile transmitter on the other side to create original image data, and is read and output by the document reading unit 1. It is an encoder / decoder (CODEC) that encodes image data. 205 is the main CP of the central control unit 20 described above.
U, an address decoder which is a peripheral circuit thereof, and other circuit configurations are shown.

FIG. 3 is a timing chart showing the output timing of various signals in the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment.

The PRDY signal is used by the encoder / decoder 204.
Is output from the sub CPU 201 to the sub CPU 201, and indicates that the encoder / decoder 204 prepares data to be printed. The XPOE signal is a response signal output from the sub CPU 201 in response to the PRDY signal,
As a result, the encoder / decoder 204 transfers the decoded image data to the smoothing IC 203. When the encoder / decoder 204 finishes transferring the image data to the smoothing IC 203, the PRDY signal becomes low level, but the encoder / decoder 2 confirms that the PRDY signal is low level.
It also has the function of transmitting to 04. The motor trigger signal is included in the control signal sent from the sub CPU 201 to the current driver 22, and the paper feed motor 21 changes its excitation state by this motor trigger signal. As a result, the paper feed motor 21 performs a stepping operation to convey the recording paper by a predetermined amount.

The A-phase and B-phase are used for the paper feed motor 21.
Shows the currents flowing in the A-phase and the B-phase, respectively, when rotationally driven by 1-2 phase excitation. The preheat command is a command included in the control signal output from the main CPU 205 to the sub CPU 201.
When the line to be printed next by 205 is the first line of the block, the line is sent to the sub CPU 201. This is shown at timing T1 in FIG. 3, which causes the sub CPU 201 to start prescan.
The strobe signal is a pulse signal output from the sub CPU 201 to the thermal print head (TPH) 202. The strobe signal causes the thermal head 202 to generate heat, and an image is printed on a recording paper such as a thermal paper in contact with the thermal head 202. be able to. Further, by supplying the strobe signal to the thermal head 202, the temperature of the thermal print head 202 can be kept constant. The intermittent flag is the RAM 21 of the sub CPU 201.
The flag provided in No. 2 is set to ON when the image data from the encoder / decoder 204 for the sub CPU 201 is not continuous.

The smoothing IC 203 creates interpolation data between the image data sent from the encoder / decoder 204 and transfers it to the thermal head 202, and the thermal head 202 prints it. Although such an operation is possible, in this description, for simplification of the description, the timing is shown without performing such interpolation processing.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the processing of the sub CPU 201 of the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment. The control program for executing this processing is stored in the ROM 212.

This processing is started by a recording start instruction from the main CPU 205, and first, in step S1, the RAM 2
The preheat flag 12 is cleared, and a motor trigger signal is output to the paper feed motor 21 in step S2 to start the conveyance of the recording paper. Next, in step S3, the RAM 21
It is checked whether the intermittent flag of No. 2 is on, and if it is on (when the image data from the encoder / decoder 204 is not continuous), the process proceeds to step S4 and the thermal head 20
Wait without subscanning to 2. This scan weight corresponds to the delay portion of the strobe signal indicated by 300 and 301 in FIG. 3, and corresponds to the delay process until the main scan is started with respect to the motor trigger signal. Then, in step S5, the intermittent flag is turned off.

Next, in step S6, smoothing I
A main scan for outputting a strobe signal to print the image data sent from the C203 to the thermal head 202 is performed. When image recording for one line is performed in this way, the process proceeds to step S7 to check whether there is print data for the next line, and if there is print data, the process proceeds to step S8.
Print the next line.

On the other hand, when the print data of the next line is not prepared in step S7, the process proceeds to step S9 and the RAM
The intermittent flag of 212 is turned on, and a sub-scan (also called multi-scan) is performed in step S10.
As a result, when the image data is not continuously sent to the thermal head 202, that is, when the time interval of the image data transfer is vacant, the image data is sent only within a certain time which is an extra time. Strobe signals for printing are continuously output to the thermal head 202.
By doing so, it is possible to increase the image print density.

Next, in step S11, it is checked whether or not there is print data for the next line, that is, whether or not the PRDY signal is input. If the PRDY signal is at high level, that is, there is print data, then the process proceeds to step S8. Then, the process proceeds to the printing process of the line, but when there is no print data, the process proceeds to step S12, and it is determined whether the preheat command from the main CPU 205 is received. This preheat command temporarily stores the received image data in the buffer during ECM reception, etc., and when the stored data reaches the set data amount (1 block), prints one block in the batch printing mode. Is completed and the next encoded image data is accumulated in the buffer, the main CPU 205 sends a preheat command to the sub C
It is sent to the PU 201.

Upon receiving this preheat command, the sub CPU 201 proceeds to step S13 to turn off the intermittent flag, and turns on the preheat flag at step S14. In this way, the process proceeds to step S15, and it is checked whether or not the sub-scan is completed. When the sub-scan is completed, the process proceeds to step S16 to see whether or not the preheat flag is turned on. If this preheat flag is on, the process proceeds to step S16, and in order to keep the temperature of the heating resistor constant,
The operation of continuously sending minute pulses to the heating resistor of the thermal head 202 is started (prescan 30 in FIG. 3).
2). The temperature at which the heating resistor is maintained by this prescan is sufficiently lower than the temperature of the heating resistor during actual printing.

Further, in the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment,
The intermittent flag shown in FIG. 3 delays the start timing of the main scan with respect to the motor trigger, as indicated by 300 and 301. That is, the paper feed motor 21 operates intermittently when the trigger interval is open, and continuously from the time when the motor excitation signal by the motor trigger signal changes until the paper feed motor 21 actually starts rotating. It is delayed in time as compared with the case of receiving the motor trigger signal.

After that, when the PRDY signal is next sent from the encoder / decoder 204, the process proceeds from step S11 to step S8. As a result, the paper feed motor 2
Even when 1 is performing the intermittent operation, the above-described motor delay (scan weight) operation is not performed, and the main scan is started at substantially the same timing as the output timing of the motor trigger signal (timing T2 in FIG. 3). As a result, the thermal head 2 at the head line of the block
The effect of preventing the temperature drop of the heating resistor of No. 02 and improving the recording image quality is provided.

5 and 6 are flow charts showing the processing of the main CPU and the processing of the sub CPU 201 in the facsimile apparatus of another embodiment.

In FIG. 5, in step S21, the main C
If the PU 205 determines that the ECM is received, step S2
Proceeding to step 3, a flag is set in order not to force scan weight. Then, in step S24, this flag information is transmitted to the sub CPU 201.

As a result, in the flowchart shown in FIG. 6, when the sub CPU 201 inputs flag information indicating that scan wait is not performed in step S31, step S33 is executed.
Proceed to step 2, and disable the scan weight so that the scan weight function is disabled.

With this structure, the same effect as that of the above-described embodiment can be obtained with a simple structure.

Although the facsimile apparatus having the ECM receiving function has been described in the present embodiment, the present invention is not limited to this, and has a buffer capable of accumulating image data, and the accumulated image data is collected. An image output device for printing is performed by printing an image by driving a heating resistor such as a thermal print head to generate heat, and can be applied to the device. By performing such processing, a remarkable effect can be obtained especially for a halftone image.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. It goes without saying that the present invention can also be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program for implementing the present invention to a system or an apparatus.

As described above, the present embodiment has the following effects.

There is a buffer for temporarily storing the received image signal, and the received image signal data amount stored in this buffer is a preset data amount (hereinafter, one block).
In the facsimile apparatus that collectively prints the received image for one block of data when the time reaches, the printing timing for the trigger of the paper feed motor is delayed and one block In the first part of printing, by not delaying the printing timing, the temperature rising characteristic of the heating resistor of the recording head is improved, and the density of the coloring of the recording paper in the printing in the first part of one block is reduced. Improved the deterioration of image quality.

When the time interval of the print timing is open in the facsimile apparatus, a strobe signal is sent to the thermal head for a certain period of time within the time interval of the print timing in order to keep the temperature of the recording head constant after normal printing. By continuing to do so, it is possible to improve the deterioration of the image quality by not delaying the print timing.

[0040]

As described above, according to the present invention, when an image is recorded in a predetermined amount of image data unit, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of white streaks and the like which occur when the recording time interval is open, and to record the image. It has the effect of improving the quality.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a sub CPU and its peripherals of the facsimile apparatus of this embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a timing chart showing the output timing of various signals in the facsimile apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an operation of the sub CPU according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the main CPU of the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an operation by a sub CPU according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Document Reading Section 2 Recording Section 6 Operation Panel 11 Image Memory 13, 210 ROM 13a, 211 Table 20 Central Control Section 21 Paper Feed Motor 201 Sub CPU 202 Thermal Head 203 Smoothing IC 204 Encoder / Decoder 205 Main CPU and Address decoder, etc. 210 ROM

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An image recording apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium by driving a recording head according to image data, comprising: storage means for storing input image data; and image data stored in the storage means. When a predetermined amount is reached, a print start instructing means for instructing the start of printing of the image data, a conveying means for conveying the recording medium in response to an instruction from the print start instructing means, and the printing When the time interval instructed by the start instructing means is equal to or longer than a predetermined time, the recording means for feeding the recording head to record by energizing the recording head by the conveyance start by the conveying means, and the head data of the predetermined amount of image data When printing,
An image recording apparatus comprising: a recording control unit that immediately energizes the recording head to perform recording after the conveyance by the conveying unit is started. 2. An image recording method for recording an image on a recording medium by driving a recording head according to image data, wherein when the amount of input image data reaches a predetermined amount, printing of the image data is started. The step of instructing, and when the time interval for instructing the start of printing reaches or exceeds a predetermined time, the step of feeding from the start of conveyance of the recording medium to energize the recording head for recording, and the predetermined amount of image data When printing the first data,
Immediately after the conveyance of the recording medium is started, the recording head is energized to perform recording, and the image recording method. 3. A communication device for receiving an image signal and driving a recording head in accordance with image data corresponding to the image signal to record an image on a recording medium, the storage device storing the received image signal. A print start instruction means for instructing a print start of the image data when the amount of image data stored in the storage means reaches a predetermined amount, and the recording in response to an instruction from the print start instruction means. Transporting means for transporting the medium, and recording means for recording when the time interval instructed by the print start instructing means reaches or exceeds a predetermined time, the transport is started by the transporting start by the transporting means, and the recording head is energized for recording. When printing the top data of the predetermined amount of image data,
A recording control unit that immediately energizes the recording head to perform recording after the conveyance by the conveyance unit is started, and a communication device.