JPH08181849A - Thermal video color printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To print an outline picture. CONSTITUTION: When composition and the state of a picture are recognized, simplified printing is selected. In the simplified printing, an outline extraction arithmetic unit extracts the outline of a color picture 20. The obtained outline picture 21 is thermally recorded on monochromatic thermal recording paper. At the time of normal printing, the color picture is sequentially and thermally recorded on color thermal recording paper in three colors. Since monochromatic recording is executed at the time of simplified printing, recording time is shortened to 1/3 and a material cost is reduced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a color thermal video printer, and more particularly to a color thermal video printer having a contour image printing function.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Thermal video printers include a thermal recording system and a thermal transfer recording system. In the thermal recording method, an image is directly recorded by heating a thermal recording paper. The thermal transfer recording system includes a thermal melting type in which an ink film is heated and the melted or softened ink is transferred to a recording paper, and a sublimation type in which the amount of the ink transferred to the recording paper changes according to thermal energy.

For example, a thermal recording system is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
As described in JP-A-1-213169, a color thermosensitive recording paper in which a magenta thermosensitive coloring layer, a cyan thermosensitive coloring layer, and a yellow thermosensitive coloring layer are sequentially laminated on a support,
There is known a color thermal video printer capable of directly thermally recording a full-color image by using both thermal recording and optical fixing.

Most color thermal video printers do not have a monitor for confirming an image to be printed in order to reduce the size and cost.

[0005]

With a color thermal video printer without a monitor, it is not possible to confirm whether the captured image is a normal image suitable for printing. Therefore, when a disordered image is printed, it is wasteful. It will be a print. In addition, this wasteful printing is also time-consuming since it is printed in three-color plane sequence or three-color line sequence.

A color thermal video printer having a magnifying function of trimming and magnifying a part of a video image is also known. However, it is necessary to take full-color print over time to determine whether or not the composition of the magnified image is appropriate. I didn't know unless I went. Similarly, a color thermal video printer having a title compositing function has the same problem.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a color thermal video printer capable of inexpensive and simple printing in a short time.

[0008]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a contour extracting means for extracting a contour of a video image to create a contour image, and the contour extracting means. A recording means for thermally recording an image on a recording paper in a single color is provided. According to the second aspect of the invention, means for creating a magnified image by trimming a part of the video image is provided, and the contour image of the magnified image is recorded. When it is desired to confirm the composition of the print image or the enlarged image, the contour image is printed in a single color, so the printing time is ⅓ and the material cost is low.

[0009]

FIG. 2 shows a thermal recording type color thermal video printer embodying the present invention. Input terminal 1
Is connected to a video camera, and a video signal of an image reproduced by the video camera is input to the RGB demodulation circuit 2 via the input terminal 1. The RGB demodulation circuit 2 separates a red signal, a green signal, and a blue signal from the video signal. These color signals are sampled by the A / D converter 3 for each pixel and then digitally converted, and the red image data, green image data, and blue image data of each pixel obtained through the memory controller 5. It is sent to the frame memory 4.

The frame memory 4 is composed of an 8-bit frame memory 4a for red and a frame memory 4 for green.
b, a frame memory 4c for blue color.
The memory controller 5 is controlled by the CPU 6,
The image data of each frame memory 4a-4c is written and read. At the time of simple printing, the image data read by the memory controller 5 is converted into 1-bit contour data by the contour extraction calculator 7 described later, and is written in the contour memory 8. After that, the contour data is read from the contour memory 8 and sent to the memory controller 5 via the contour extraction calculator 7. The memory controller 5 sends this contour data to the gradation control circuit 9. Also,
At the time of normal printing, the memory controller 5 sends the image data read from each of the frame memories 4a to 4c in the frame sequential manner to the gradation control circuit 9.

The contour extraction calculator 7 obtains, for each pixel, an average value of image data of three colors, compares this average value with the average value of surrounding pixels, and when the difference is a certain value or more, the contour extraction operator 7 Then, "1" is given to the pixel. The contour memory 8 stores the contour image data in which 1 bit is assigned to one pixel for one frame. The contour image is printed for composition confirmation, etc., because if a halftone image is heat-sensitively recorded on an inexpensive monochrome thermal paper that cannot express halftone, most of the monochrome thermal paper becomes black and the image cannot be confirmed. is there. Of course, the contour image itself is also a valuable print, so a print for this purpose may be performed.

The gradation control circuit 9 is arranged so that, during normal printing,
Masking processing is performed using the input three-color image data, and complementary color conversion is performed on the yellow, magenta, and cyan image data in consideration of the color development characteristics of the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a. Of the converted three-color image data, only the color to be printed, for example, a yellow image is taken out and sent to the thermal head driver 10. Also,
At the time of simple printing, the gradation control circuit 9 converts the contour data “1” into, for example, image data showing a predetermined gradation level that is the highest recording density, and the contour data “0” is the lowest floor that does not undergo thermal recording. It is sent to the thermal head driver 10 after being converted into image data showing a tonal level.

The thermal head 11 is formed by arranging a large number of heating elements in a line in the main scanning direction. The thermal head 11 is a thermal head driver 10
The heating elements generate heat energy according to the image data. As a result, the color thermosensitive recording paper 12
a, or the monochrome thermal recording paper 12b is thermally recorded line by line.

At the time of normal printing, the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a is used as the thermosensitive recording paper. Color thermal recording paper 12
In a, a cyan thermosensitive coloring layer, a magenta thermosensitive coloring layer, a yellow thermosensitive coloring layer, and a protective layer are sequentially formed on the support, and each of these thermosensitive coloring layers has a higher coloring heat energy at a deeper layer. . Therefore, during normal printing, the heating element of the thermal head 11 is applied with a predetermined bias according to each thermosensitive coloring layer to be recorded, so that the thermosensitive coloring layers of three colors can be selectively recorded. Further, each heat-sensitive color-developing layer changes the color-developing density by applying heat energy according to the image data to thermally record the halftone. This color thermosensitive recording paper 12a is provided with an ultraviolet lamp 13 for yellow.
And the optical fixing by the magenta ultraviolet lamp 14 are used together to record a color image in a three-color frame sequential manner.

At the time of simple printing, the monochrome thermal recording paper 12 which cannot express halftone as the thermal recording paper 12
Using b, a black and white binary image is recorded. The color thermal paper 12a and the monochrome thermal recording paper 12b are set in a paper feeding cassette (not shown) so that they are conveyed to the position of the thermal head 11 during recording, and the sub-scanning mechanism 15 performs sub-scanning. .

The CPU 6 centrally controls each unit. An operating unit 16 is connected to the CPU 6, and by operating the operating unit 16, it is possible to give instructions for normal printing and simple printing.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described.
A video camera is connected to the input terminal 1, and a video signal of a reproduced image is input to the input terminal 1. The video signal input to the input terminal 1 is converted into 8-bit red image data, green image data, and blue image data through the RGB demodulation circuit 2 and the A / D converter 3, and these image data are framed. It is written in each of the memories 4a to 4c.

For example, when a simple print is made as a test print for composition confirmation, etc., the monochrome thermosensitive recording paper 1 is used.
2b is set in the paper feed cassette, and then the operation unit 16 is operated to give an instruction for simple printing. When this simple printing is instructed, the monochrome thermal recording paper 12b is conveyed from the paper feed cassette, and the sub-scanning mechanism 15 sets the recording start position of the monochrome thermal paper 12b to the position of the thermal head 11.

The memory controller 5 reads out the image data of each color from the frame memories 4a to 4c for each pixel and sends it to the contour extraction calculator 7. This contour extraction calculator 7
Extracts the contour of the image from the three-color image data of each pixel, and the contour data “1” is extracted for the pixel determined to be the contour.
For a pixel that is not a contour, contour data “0” is written in the contour memory 8.

When the writing of the contour data for one frame is completed, the contour extraction calculator 7 reads out the contour data for one line from the contour memory 8 for each pixel, and the gradation control circuit 9 is read through the memory controller 5. Send to. The gradation control circuit 9 converts a pixel whose contour data is "1" into image data which shows a predetermined gradation level, and the contour data is "0".
The pixels are converted into image data of the lowest gradation level, and the image data for one line is sent to the thermal head driver 10.

Based on this image data, the thermal head driver 10 drives the thermal head 11 to thermally record one line on the monochrome thermal recording paper 12b. By the thermal recording, in the pixel having the contour, the heating element of the thermal head 12 corresponding to the pixel generates a predetermined amount of heat, and the monochrome thermal paper 12b is heated to color black.

A sub-scanning mechanism 1 is used to scan the monochrome thermosensitive recording paper 12b.
In step 5, the second and subsequent lines are similarly thermally recorded while moving line by line in the sub-scanning direction. When recording is completed for all lines, the monochrome thermal paper 12b is ejected. In this simple print, the monochrome thermal recording paper 12b
Since the thermal recording on 1 is completed by the sub-scanning for one surface, the hard copy is completed in about 1/3 of the time compared with the case where the recording is sequentially performed for three colors.

As shown in FIG. 1, when the color image 20 is loaded into a thermosensitive color thermal video printer and simple printing is performed as described above, the color image 20 is printed on the discharged monochrome thermosensitive recording paper 12b. The contour image 21 is recorded. In the contour image 21, only the contour is recorded in black, which is sufficient for determining whether the image has no composition or disorder.

The hard copy made by the simple print is observed to confirm whether it is suitable for printing.
If it is suitable for printing, the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a is set in the paper feeding cassette, and then the operation unit 16 is operated to instruct normal printing.

When normal printing is instructed, the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a is conveyed from the paper feeding cassette, and the recording start position of the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a is at the thermal head 11.
Is set to the position. The image data of each color is read line by line from the frame memories 4a to 4c by the memory controller 5 for each pixel and sent to the gradation control circuit 9.
The gradation control circuit 9 loads the image data of each color for one line into a buffer, and then uses the image data of each color for one line to perform masking processing and complementary color conversion into yellow, magenta, and cyan. . Only the yellow image data is extracted from the converted image data of each color and sent to the thermal head driver 10.

Based on this yellow image data, the thermal head driver 10 drives the thermal head 11 to thermally record one line of the yellow image on the yellow thermosensitive coloring layer of the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a. Similarly, the second and subsequent lines of the yellow image are thermally recorded while moving the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a line by line in the sub-scanning direction. After thermal recording of the yellow image, the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a is irradiated with ultraviolet rays of 420 nm from the yellow ultraviolet lamp 13 to optically fix the yellow thermosensitive coloring layer.

After the thermal recording of the yellow image, the recording start position of the color thermal recording paper 12a is set again to the position of the thermal head 11, and the magenta image is thermally recorded line by line. After the thermal recording of the magenta image, the magenta ultraviolet lamp 14 irradiates ultraviolet rays of 365 nm to optically fix the magenta thermosensitive coloring layer.

Finally, the cyan image is a color thermal recording paper 1
Thermal recording is performed line by line on the cyan thermosensitive coloring layer 2a.
No optical fixing is performed on the cyan thermosensitive coloring layer. After thermal recording of the cyan image, the color thermal recording paper 12a is ejected. On the discharged color thermosensitive recording paper 12a,
The color image 20 shown in FIG. 1 is recorded in full color.

FIG. 3 shows a thermal recording type color thermal video printer capable of enlarging a part of an image. The same components as those in the embodiment of FIG. 2 are designated by the same reference numerals. The CPU 6 sends the enlargement range of the image designated by the operation unit 16 to the memory controller 5, and sends the enlargement ratio obtained from the enlargement range to the interpolation processing circuit 22. The memory controller 5 sequentially reads the image data of the pixels corresponding to the enlargement range pixel by pixel and sends it to the interpolation processing circuit 22. The interpolation processing circuit 22 performs an interpolation process on the image data input from the memory controller 5 based on the enlargement ratio input from the CPU 6 to generate image data for one frame. The interpolation processing circuit 22 sends the interpolated image data to the contour extraction calculator 7 at the time of simple printing, and the gradation control circuit 9 sends the interpolated image data at the time of normal printing.
Send to Note that when the enlargement ratio is 1 (when not enlarged), the interpolation process is not performed.

The contour extraction calculator 7 extracts a contour from the image data input from the interpolation processing circuit 22 and writes the binarized contour data in the contour memory 8. After writing the contour data for one frame, the contour data is read from the contour memory 8 and sent to the gradation control circuit 9 via the interpolation processing circuit 22. At this time, the interpolation processing circuit 22 sends the contour data from the contour extraction calculator 7 to the gradation control circuit 9 as it is.

In this thermal recording type color thermal video printer, after capturing a color image in the frame memories 4a to 4c, the operating unit 16 is operated to specify which range of the captured image is enlarged by, for example, coordinates. If a simple print instruction is given to confirm the composition, the monochrome thermosensitive recording paper 12b is set at the print position. The memory controller 5 reads the image data of each color of the pixels included in the specified range from the frame memories 4a to 4c and sends the image data to the interpolation processing circuit 22. This interpolation processing circuit 22
Interpolate to generate image data for one frame,
This is sent to the contour extraction calculator 7.

The contour image extracted by the contour extraction calculator 7 is written in the contour memory 8. After the writing of the contour data for one frame, the contour data is sequentially read line by line from the contour memory 8 and sent to the gradation control circuit 9 through the interpolation processing circuit 22. In the same manner as the above embodiment, the monochrome thermal recording paper is printed. A contour image is thermally recorded on 12b.

FIG. 4A shows an enlarged color image 24 obtained by enlarging a part of the color image 20 (see FIG. 1). An enlarged contour image 25 shown in FIG. 4B is obtained from this enlarged color image. By observing the enlarged contour image 25, it is possible to easily know whether or not the composition is appropriate.

When it is confirmed that the desired expansion range has been specified, the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a is set in the paper feeding cassette, and then the operation section 16 is operated to specify normal printing. As a result, the image data of the pixels within the enlarged range read out from the frame memories 4a to 4c is interpolated by the interpolation processing circuit 22, and then sent to the gradation control circuit 9 to be printed on the color thermosensitive recording paper 12a. The enlarged color image 24 is thermally recorded in the color plane sequence.

Although the embodiment described above is a color thermal recording system, the present invention can be applied to a thermal transfer recording system using an ink ribbon. In this thermal transfer recording method, simple printing is performed using a black ink ribbon. Even in this case, the recording time can be shortened and an inexpensive ink ribbon can be used as compared with the case of recording a full-color image.

In the above embodiment, the contour image is heat-recorded in black, but any color other than black may be used. In the above embodiment, the line printer is described, but a serial printer may be used.

[0037]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, since the image contour is extracted and the contour image is heat-recorded on the recording paper in monochrome, it is easy to confirm the image and composition. Printing can be performed in a short time and at low cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing an original image and its contour image.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a thermal recording type color thermal video printer embodying the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a thermal recording type color thermal video printer having a trimming print function.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an enlarged image and its contour image.

[Explanation of symbols]

 4 frame memory 5 memory controller 7 contour extraction calculator 8 contour memory 10 thermal head 12a color thermal recording paper 12b monochrome thermal recording paper 22 interpolation processing circuit

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Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A color thermal video printer comprising: a contour extracting means for extracting a contour of a video image to create a contour image; and a recording means for thermally recording the contour image on a recording paper in a single color. . 2. A color thermal video printer according to claim 1, further comprising means for trimming a part of the video image to create an enlarged image, and recording a contour image of the enlarged image.