JPH08267392A - Cutting plotter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To reduce the snaking of cut locus at the starting point of a line segment as much as possible by determining the cutting order of continuous part using the nearest line segment in the direction of the directly before line segment as a starting line section by inspecting the direction of each line segment in a continuous line segment that forms an outline of a character or the like. CONSTITUTION: The cutting direction of a cutter blade is set in the -X direction by initial direction setting operation. Where the character A is positioned at a head position, the initial direction is regarded as a straight line segment direction, and using a line segment in the direction equal to the initial direction -X out of the line segments which form an outline of the character A, for example, the line segment 1 of the top side of the character A as a head line segment, the continuation and cutting order of line segments 1 to 8 are decided. That is, the difference in direction between the line segment 8 and a line segment directly before the line section 8 is investigated to find the line segment 9 that is in the same direction as that of the line segment 8. Then, using the line segment 9 as a head line segment, cutting order is decided as 9-11. When the outline cutting of the character A is finished, the cutting direction of the cutter blade is decided as X direction.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a cutting plotter for cutting out characters and figures from paper, vinyl sheet and the like, and more particularly to a cutter tool in which the tip of the cutter blade is offset with respect to the center of rotation of the cutter blade. It relates to the cutting plotter used.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There is known a cutting plotter in which a cutter tool in which a cutter blade is attached to a cutter holder so as to be rotatable in XY directions is attached to a cutter head for use. In this type of cutter tool, the tip of the cutter blade is offset with respect to the center of rotation of the cutter blade, the cutter blade rotates as the cutting plotter moves in the XY direction, and the direction of the cutter blade changes. A material such as a vinyl sheet is cut along the traveling direction of the head.

Then, when a certain line segment is cut and the cutter head moves up and moves to the starting point of the next line segment, the direction of the cutter blade faces the direction of the line segment immediately before, and the line segment immediately before it. It is necessary to correct the direction of the cutter blade from the direction of to the next line segment. Therefore, after landing the cutter blade, the cutter head is rotated with a radius of rotation equal to the offset amount of the tip of the cutter blade to orient the cutter blade in the direction of the next line segment.

[0004]

Conventionally, a cutting plotter using a freely rotatable cutting tool has a structure in which a cutter head is lowered to land on a starting point of a line segment.
A direction correction operation is performed in which the cutter head is turned with a radius of gyration equal to the offset amount of the tip of the cutter blade to orient the cutter blade in the direction of the line segment. If the difference is close to 180 degrees, the cutter blade stuck in the cutting material may be subject to rotational resistance, the direction of the cutter blade may not exactly coincide with the direction of the line segment, and the cutting locus may meander to deteriorate the image quality. .

Therefore, there is a technical problem to be solved in order to eliminate the discrepancy between the direction of the cutter blade and the line segment as much as possible to prevent the meandering of the cutting locus and improve the image quality. The invention aims to solve the above problems.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is provided to achieve the above object, in which a cutter blade is rotatably mounted on a cutter holder, and the cutter blade is attached to the center of rotation of the cutter blade. In a cutting plotter in which a cutter tool with a sharpened tip is attached to a cutter head for use, a means for inspecting the direction of each unit line segment in a continuous line segment that constitutes an outline of character data, and the continuous line Means for selecting the unit line segment in the direction closest to the direction of the line segment immediately before the minute from the continuous line segments, and means for arranging the processing order using the selected line segment as the continuous cutting process start line segment of the outline The present invention proposes a cutting plotter characterized by having a data sorting function based on.

[0007]

The cutting plotter of the present invention inspects the vector direction of each unit line segment that constitutes the continuous line segment of the outline data of the input character or graphic, and determines the most in the direction of the line segment immediately before this continuous line segment. The line segment processing order of the outline data is sorted using the unit line segment that is close as the cutting start line segment.

At the time of cutting, the cutting control device outputs the vector data in the sort order, and the cutting process is performed in a state where the difference between the direction of the line segment and the direction of the cutter blade at the start point of each continuous line segment is the smallest.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to FIGS. For convenience of description, technical matters that are conventionally known will be described at the same time. FIG. 1 shows a circuit block of a cutting plotter, in which cutting data is input from a keyboard attachment 1 through an interface 2 and an output control device 3 to a cutting control device 4. The cutting control device 4 includes a buffer memory, CPU, ROM, RA
It is composed of M and other peripheral processing devices, and develops input character and graphic data into vector data and outputs it to the cutting device 5 through the input / output control device 3.
The input data processing unit 6 of the cutting control device 4 is provided with a data sorting function 7 for determining a cutting start line segment of outlines of characters and figures.

The cutting device 5 includes drive circuits 8, 9 and 10 in three directions of XYZ and an X-axis drive motor 11 and Y.
It has an axis drive motor 12 and a Z axis drive electromagnetic actuator 13 and drives the cutter head in the Y and Z directions while feeding the cutting material in the X direction for cutting.
As described above, the cutter head is equipped with the cutter tool in which the cutter blade is rotatable about the Z axis as the rotation center and the tip of the cutter blade is offset from the rotation center.

At the start of cutting, the cutter control device 4 controls the cutter tool to be landed on one corner of the drawing plate or the platen roller, and the initial direction setting operation directs the tip of the cutter blade in the X direction as a reference direction. , The cutting direction is set to the −X direction.

Next, the data sorting function 7 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 2 and the explanatory diagram of FIG. First, when character or graphic data is input, the input data processing unit 6 of the cutting control device 4 is activated (step 10
1) The data is read and expanded into vector data of a designated size (step 102).

Then, the vector direction of each line segment forming the continuous line segment of the outline data is inspected, and the unit line segment closest to the vector direction of the line segment immediately before this continuous line segment is selected (step 103).

Next, the line segment processing order of the outline data is sorted using the selected line segment as the cutting start line segment (step 104), and the cutting control device 4
(Step 105).

Then, the process returns from step 106 to step 102 until the processing of all the input data is completed, and the series of cutting data development and sorting processing is performed and the processing is completed (step 107).

For example, as shown in FIG. 3A, the cutting direction of the cutter blade is set to the -X direction by the initial direction setting operation, and the letter A shown in FIG. 3B is the leading character. Then, the initial direction is regarded as the immediately preceding line segment direction, and the line segment forming the outline of the character A in the direction equal to the initial direction −X, for example, the line segment 1 on the top side of the character A A continuous cutting order of 1 to 8 is determined as a line segment. Then, the continuous line segment of the inner cutout portion is inspected for the direction difference from the immediately preceding line segment 8 and the line segment 9 in the same direction as the immediately previous line segment 8 is set as the leading line segment, and the cutting order is 9 to 11. ,
When the outline cutting process of the letter A is completed, the cutting direction of the cutter blade is the X direction.

Then, the line segment closest to the direction X of the immediately preceding line segment in the outline of the next character is obtained, and FIG.
As shown in FIG. 7, if the next character is Y, for example, the bottom line segment 12 becomes the start line segment in the outline of the character Y, and the continuous cutting order of 12 to 20 is determined.

At the time of executing the cutting, the vector data is output from the cutting control device 4 to the cutting device 5 in the sort order, and the cutting process is performed in a state in which the difference between the direction of the line segment at the start point of each continuous line segment and the direction of the cutter blade is the smallest. And the meandering of the cutting trajectory at the starting point of the continuous line segment is reduced as much as possible.

The present invention should not be limited to the above-mentioned embodiment, but various modifications can be made within the technical scope of the present invention, and the present invention does not extend to those modifications. Of course.

[0020]

As described in detail in the above one embodiment, the present invention inspects the direction of each line segment in a continuous line segment forming an outline such as a character in a cutting plotter using a rotatable cutting tool. Since the line segment closest to the direction of the immediately preceding line segment is used as the start line segment to determine the cutting order of the continuous line segments, the direction of the cutter blade and the direction of the start line segment of each continuous line segment are The cutting process is rationally performed in a state where the direction difference is the smallest without being displaced by nearly 180 degrees. Therefore, the meandering of the cutting locus at the starting point of the line segment can be reduced as much as possible, which can contribute to the improvement of the image quality of the cutting plotter.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a cutting plotter showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a continuous line segment data sort process of the cutting plotter shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a continuous line segment data sorting process shown in FIG. 2, in which (a) shows an initial direction of a cutter blade,
(B) and (c) represent character characters to be cut, respectively.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 keyboard mounting 2 interface 3 input / output control device 4 cutting control device 5 cutting device 6 input data processing unit 7 data sorting function

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A cutting plotter in which a cutter blade is rotatably mounted on a cutter holder, and a cutter tool in which a tip of the cutter blade is offset with respect to a rotation center of the cutter blade is mounted on a cutter head for use. A means for inspecting the direction of each unit line segment in the continuous line segment forming the outline of the character data, and the unit line segment in the direction closest to the direction of the line segment immediately before the continuous line segment is the continuous line segment. A cutting plotter provided with a data sorting function by means for selecting from among them and means for arranging the processing order with the selected line segment as the continuous cutting process start line segment of the outline.