JPH09300712A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer capable of performing the correct printing corresponding to a taken-in image by taking in a printed image to analyze the same even if halfway printing is executed and enabling an operator to certainly realize desired printing. SOLUTION: A printing main body 110 is swept on paper 114 to apply printing to the paper 114 at an arbitrary position by an ink jet head 124. At this time, when there is an already printed image on the paper 114, an imaging head 130 reads the image and the read image is analyzed by an image analyzing circuit 132 and the correct printing image corresponding to this image is determined and the ink jet head 124 accurately prints the determined image.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing device capable of printing on an arbitrary position on a print medium by manually or automatically sweeping on the print medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, the following techniques have been used as a printing apparatus in which a printing apparatus main body does not have a paper conveying means and an operator manually determines a printing position and prints on a printing medium. Was there.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a print data input portion of the printer, and FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a print portion of the printer. The operator operates the hiragana key 102 and the conversion key 104 provided on the front surface of the print data input unit 100.
Similarly, the text to be printed was input while confirming it on the liquid crystal display device 106 provided on the front surface of the print data input device 100. The input text is converted into print image data by a CPU (not shown) provided inside and transmitted to a head controller 112 provided in the printer main body 110. The head controller 11
2 stores the image data in the storage circuit 113 arranged inside.

Next, the operator presses the print surface of the printer, that is, the lower surface in the figure, against the paper 114 and sweeps it in the direction of the arrow in FIG. Then, the right roller 120 and the left roller 122
Rotates. In the middle of the rollers 120 and 122, there is supported an inkjet head 124, which is composed of a plurality of jet nozzles, which are printing elements, arranged in a line in a direction orthogonal to the sweeping operation direction. Is controlled by the head controller 112, ink is ejected from the inkjet head 124 according to the image data stored in the storage circuit 113, and the print image data is printed on the paper 114.

[0005]

However, according to the conventional printer as described above, the operator has to sweep the printer once in one direction to complete the printing. However, even if it is desired to print parallel to the ruled line, etc., if the sweep direction is not completely parallel to the ruled line, there is a problem that the operator cannot obtain the desired quality of printing.

Therefore, in order to deal with this problem, for example, a printing apparatus has been proposed which detects ruled lines and prints them in parallel with them. However, even in such a printing device, when the print head is completely displaced from the desired printing position, it is no longer possible to deal with it, and some characters are cut off. There was a point.

Further, when it is desired to print a character larger than the width of the print head from the beginning, such printing cannot be dealt with, and there is a problem that the user has to give up from the beginning.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and even if printing is performed halfway, the printed image is captured and analyzed, so that it can be processed according to the captured image. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing device that enables accurate printing and surely realizes printing desired by an operator.

[0009]

In order to achieve this object, a printer according to claim 1 of the present invention comprises a printing means for printing an image such as characters and figures, and the printing means is provided. For those configured to print at an arbitrary position on the print medium by sweeping manually or automatically on the print medium, in particular, the print medium is printed on the print medium. An image capturing means for reading the captured image,
Image analysis means for analyzing an image read by the image pickup means and determining an image to be printed at a print position.

According to this printing apparatus, it is possible to print at an arbitrary position on the print medium by manually or automatically sweeping the print means on the print medium. Then, at this time, if there is an image already printed by the printing means on the printing medium, the imaging means reads the image. Then, the read image is analyzed by the image analyzing means, and a correct print image according to the image is determined. Based on this, the printing means correctly prints the determined image.

In the printing apparatus according to the second aspect, the image pickup means is composed of a CCD image pickup element.
Therefore, the image pickup means can capture precise image data by the CCD image pickup element, and as a result,
The determined image can be printed more accurately by the printing device.

According to the printing device of the third aspect,
The image pickup means is configured to be able to read an image of a portion in the vicinity of a position intersecting the sweep direction with respect to a position where the printing means prints. Therefore, not only the already printed image but also the ruled lines around the image can be read, the image analysis can be more surely performed by the image analysis means, and the determined image can be accurately displayed by the printing device. Can be printed on.

Further, according to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the image pickup means is configured to be able to read an image of a portion in the vicinity of the front side in the sweep direction with respect to the position where the printing means prints. ing. Therefore, of the images that the operator has already printed and would like to continue printing in the future,
In particular, the image of the portion that will be printed immediately after this can be captured as data, and the second and third sweep operations can be performed more naturally.

[0014]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION An embodiment of the printing apparatus of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a main portion of a printing portion of a printing apparatus 1 of this embodiment, and FIG. 2 is an enlarged configuration diagram of a main portion of an image pickup portion. It should be noted that the same names and reference numerals as those of the conventional portion are cited for the portions common to the conventional technique, and the description thereof will be omitted.

The printer body 110 includes an ink jet head 124 and a right roller 1 which constitute the printing means of the present invention.
20, a left roller 122, a head controller 112 and the like are provided. In addition, on the outer surface of the printing apparatus main body 110, the same Hiragana key, conversion key, and
A liquid crystal display unit and the like (none of which are shown) are provided.

The right side of the ink jet head 124,
That is, the imaging head 130 is supported on the front side of the printing apparatus main body 110 in the sweep direction so as to face the paper 114.
The image pickup head 130 is connected to the head controller 112 via an image analysis circuit 132. As shown in FIG. 2, inside the imaging head 130, an LED (light emitting diode) 134 that obliquely irradiates the surface of the paper 114, and an LED 1 that is reflected by the surface of the paper 114.
A Selfoc lens 136 that receives the reflected light of 34,
A CCD image pickup device 138 that receives reflected light that has passed through the SELFOC lens 136 is arranged. The LED 134 and the CCD image pickup device 138 are connected to the image analysis circuit 132, respectively.

When it is necessary to read the image on the paper 114, the LED 134 is based on the command of the image analysis circuit 132, and in addition to the image, the vicinity of the image, that is, the vicinity of the direction crossing the sweep direction. The ruled line of the part and the part of the inkjet head 124 on the front side in the sweep direction are illuminated. In addition, the SELFOC lens 136
Collects the reflected light that is reflected within the range where the LED 134 irradiates the surface of the paper 114 and collects the reflected light.
Image on top. In the case of the present embodiment, the image obtained in this manner includes not only the image but also ruled lines and the like in the vicinity of the image. Then, the CCD image pickup device 138 converts the image formed on the paper surface by the SELFOC lens 136 into an electric signal, and the image analysis circuit 1
To 32.

The image analysis circuit 132 has a storage circuit 140 therein, and LE is used at a timing as necessary.
The light emission command is output to D134, and the image information converted into the electric signal input from the CCD image pickup device 138 is analyzed,
The image data stored in the storage circuit 113 in the head controller 112 is converted into print image data according to the image information input from the CCD image pickup device 138 and stored in the storage circuit 140, and this is stored in the inkjet head 124.
Output to That is, in the present embodiment, the LED 134, the SELFOC lens 136, and the CCD image pickup device 138 constituting the image pickup head 130 constitute the image pickup means of the present invention, and the image analysis circuit 132 constitutes the image analysis means of the present invention. .

Next, the printing operation by the printing apparatus 1 of the present embodiment configured as described above will be described.

The operator presses the printing surface of the printing apparatus 1, that is, the lower surface of the printing apparatus main body 110 against the paper 114 and sweeps it in the direction of the arrow in FIG. Right roller 120 and left roller 1
22 rotates, and the inkjet head 124 and the imaging head 130, which are supported in the middle of the rollers 120 and 122, scan the paper 114. Imaging head 130
The LED 134 therein is turned on at the same time when the left and right rollers 120 and 122 start rotating, and the emitted light illuminates an image on the paper 114 near the area where the inkjet head 124 is about to print, and is reflected by the paper 114. The light is emitted from the CCD image sensor 1 by the SELFOC lens 136.
Imaged on 38. The image analysis circuit 132 analyzes the image data captured by the CCD image sensor 138 and converted into an electric signal, and confirms the presence or absence of a ruled line or a printed image already recorded. If the presence of a ruled line is recognized there, the image data to be printed stored in the storage circuit 113 is determined according to the position of the detected ruled line information so that the print image is formed parallel to the ruled line. Convert and convert memory circuit 14
0 is stored.

In accordance with the sweeping operation of the operator, the memory circuit 14
The inkjet head 124 forms an image on the paper 114 in accordance with the image data stored in 0. what if,
When the operator initially puts the printing apparatus main body 110 on the paper 114 and already has an inclination with respect to the ruled lines, the image data stored in the storage circuit 140 is converted by attempting to record characters in parallel with the ruled lines. Since it is the image data of the generated character string, the image data has a part of the character missing from the middle as shown in FIG. At this time, for the time being, the operator sweeps the printer main body 110 so as to form a character string that is partially missing.

After the completion of the first printing operation, the operator places the printing apparatus 1 at the position where the characters which are partially missing at the time of the first sweep are formed, and as shown in FIG. 3 (b). ,
This time, the printing apparatus main body 11 is used to print the missing portion.
Sweep 0. Similar to the first sweep, the LED 134 in the image pickup head 130 causes the left and right rollers 120, 122 to move.
Is turned on at the same time it starts rotating, and its emitted light is the paper 11
4, the image near the area to be printed by the inkjet head 124 is illuminated, and the reflected light reflected by the paper 114 is imaged on the CCD image sensor 138 by the SELFOC lens 136. Then, the image analysis circuit 13
In No. 2, the image data captured by the CCD image sensor 138 and converted into an electric signal is analyzed, and a part of the missing character string printed the first time is confirmed.

Next, the image analysis circuit 132 reads out the original image stored in the storage circuit 113 in the head controller 112, compares it with the image data of the character string read by the CCD image pickup device 138, and finds the insufficient portion. It is certified, and only the image data of this lacking part is inkjet head 12
The image data for printing is converted in accordance with the position of No. 4 and stored in the storage circuit 140 in the image analysis circuit 132. The inkjet head 124 forms a character string in accordance with the image data for printing stored in the storage circuit 140 in the image analysis circuit 132 as the left and right rollers rotate. As a result, a character string parallel to the ruled line can be accurately formed according to the image data.

In this embodiment, the case of forming a character string parallel to a ruled line has been described.
A desired image can be similarly formed in the case of forming a character string having a size larger than the nozzle array width of the inkjet head 124, or in the case of forming a figure, a graph, or the like.

[0026]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the printing apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention, particularly, the image pickup means for taking in the image on the print medium to be printed and the picked-up image Since the means for analyzing the image captured, and the image analysis means for determining the image to be printed at the printing position, even if the complete image could not be formed by one sweep, the second time, Furthermore, by the third sweep, a predetermined image can be accurately formed in a form that complements the first print image, and the printing desired by the operator can be realized.

Further, according to the printing device of the second aspect, since the image pickup means is constituted by using the CCD image pickup element, the image pickup means takes in precise image data by the CCD image pickup element. And as a result,
The determined image can be printed more accurately by the printing device.

According to the printing device of the third aspect,
Since the image pickup means is configured to be able to read an image in the vicinity of the position intersecting the sweep direction with respect to the position to be printed by the printing means, not only the image already printed but also the image It is possible to read even the ruled lines around the area, the image analysis means can more reliably analyze the image, and the determined image can be accurately printed by the printing device.

Further, according to the printing device of the fourth aspect, the image pickup means is constructed so as to be able to read an image in the vicinity of the front side in the sweep direction with respect to the position where the printing means is going to print. Therefore, it is possible to capture the image of the part that the operator has already printed and wants to print continuously in the future, especially the part that will be printed soon, as data, and more naturally, the second time, A third sweep operation can be performed. Then, more precise image data can be taken in and a more accurate composite image can be formed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a main part of a printing portion of a printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of a main part of an image pickup portion of the printing apparatus.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating an example of image printing.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing an input portion of a conventional printing device.

FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram of a main part of a printing portion of a conventional printing device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Printing Device 110 Printing Device Main Body 114 Paper 124 Inkjet Head 130 Imaging Head 132 Image Analysis Circuit 134 LED 136 Selfoc Lens 138 CCD Imaging Device 140 Storage Circuit

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A printing means for printing an image such as a character or a graphic, and the printing means is manually or automatically swept on the printing medium to print at an arbitrary position on the printing medium. In the printing apparatus configured to perform, in the printing apparatus main body, an image capturing unit that reads an image printed on the print medium, and an image that is read by the image capturing unit is analyzed, and an image to be printed at a print position is displayed. A printing apparatus comprising: an image analysis unit for determining. 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image pickup unit is configured by using a CCD image pickup device. 3. The image pickup means is configured to be able to read an image of a portion in the vicinity of a position intersecting the sweep direction with respect to a position where the printing means is going to print. The printer according to 1 or 2. 4. The image pickup means is configured so as to be able to read an image of a portion in the vicinity of the front side in the sweep direction with respect to the position where the printing means prints. The printing device according to any one of 1.