KR20000021605A - Device and method for according colors of ink jet printer by ink output sequence controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A control device of a color ink jet printer and a method thereof are provided to print images of the same colors as original colors by controlling the output sequence of ink. CONSTITUTION: A control device of a color ink jet printer is composed of a printer driver(11) able to convert the color values of input red, green and blue to cyan(C), magenta(M), yellow(Y) and black(K) having certain color values and to half torn to converted color values, a controller(13), a printer(14) for printing images, and the unit for generating output sequence of ink for control messages including output sequence data according to the arranged sequence predetermined by being input with the converted color values. The controller controls the printer by using the message for controlling the output sequence of ink and the unit for generating output sequence of the ink.

Description

Color matching device of inkjet printer by ink output sequence controller and method thereof

The present invention relates to a control device and a method for color matching of an inkjet printer, and more particularly to an inkjet printer capable of obtaining an image output that almost matches the original color by allowing ink to be output in a desired output order. It relates to a control device and a method of the.

In general, a printing system generally includes a printer driver, a printer controller, and a printer mechanism. The image printing process of the conventional color inkjet printer is as follows.

First, the printer driver receives an image consisting of red (R), green (G), and blue (B), and has cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black values ranging from 0 to 100. Convert to a value of (K). The printer driver converts Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black values having a value between 0 and 100 to a value of 0 or 1 using a half-toning method. Here, the reason for converting the values of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) into halftones is as follows.

The image before going to the printer has several levels of information. In practice, however, the printer must express information whether or not to take cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) inks. Therefore, it is necessary to link several levels of information to two levels of information, which is a half-toning technique.

After half-toning, the zero or one value of cyan, magenta, yellow and black is stored in the memory of the printer controller. In practice, printing is controlled by determining whether Cyan (C), Magenta (M), Yellow (Y), or Black (K) ink is taken. At this time, the processor in the printer controller controls to be output in a fixed order of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

As described above, in the conventional inkjet printer, the order of ink is fixed, and the last ink for every pixel is always fixed. For this reason, a phenomenon in which one pixel does not properly display the inherent color to be generated is caused. For example, some pixels should be expressed in yellow. If black is taken next to yellow, the last black ink taken at the overlapping portion is present so that the original color does not appear well. This problem is more pronounced with fewer dots per inch (dpi).

Accordingly, the present invention is to solve the problems of the prior art as described above, the present invention is to control the output order of the ink, the control device and method for a color inkjet printer capable of outputting the same image as the original color The purpose is to provide.

In addition, another object of the present invention is to provide a control device and method for a color inkjet printer capable of variously processing the color of the desired portion of the image to be output by varying the output order of the ink through a program. To provide.

1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a control device according to the present invention,

2 is a detailed configuration diagram of a printer control unit according to the present invention.

♠ Explanation of symbols on the main parts of the drawings.

11: printer driver 12: ink output sequence generator

13 printer control unit 14 printer mechanism

21: memory 22: processor

23: counter 24: temporary buffer

25: logic circuit

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention converts the input color values of red, green, and blue into cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) having a predetermined value. A printer driver halftoning the converted cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) values, a controller that performs control according to the control signal of the printer driver, and control of the controller A printing system having a printer mechanism for receiving an image and outputting an image, the output order information being input according to a preset sort order by receiving Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black values. And an ink output sequence generating means for generating a control message including a control message, wherein the controller controls the printer mechanism by using an ink output sequence control message of the ink output sequence generation means and an ink output control message. It is done.

In addition, the method of the present invention for achieving the above object, in the printing control method applied to a printing system having a printer driver, a printer controller, and a printer mechanism, any input red, green, blue color value A first step of converting each of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) having a value of? Generating a control signal indicating whether ink is output by half-toning the cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) values; Generating a control signal including output order information according to a preset sort order of the cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) values; And a fourth step of controlling the printer mechanism by the ink output control signal and the output order control signal.

The most significant feature of the present invention is the means for generating information for controlling the output order of ink by receiving a signal from a printer driver in a conventional printing system and the output order control information of the ink as well as a signal for outputting half-toned ink. Accordingly added means for controlling printing.

Hereinafter, an embodiment according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a block diagram of an inkjet printer control apparatus according to the present invention, in which 11 is a printer driver, 12 is an ink output sequence generator, 13 is a printer controller, and 14 is a printer mechanism.

FIG. 2 is a detailed configuration diagram of the printer control unit 13 of FIG. 1 according to the present invention, in which 21 is a memory, 22 is a processor, 23 is a counter, 24 is a temporary buffer, and 25 is a logic circuit.

As shown in FIG. 1, the ink output sequence generating unit 12 is illustrated as being inherent in the printer driver 11, which may be separately installed on the printer control unit 13. However, the present invention will be described as being inherent in the printer driver 11 as the most preferred embodiment in terms of ease of implementation.

As described above, the printer driver 11 uses the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow colors of the red (R), green (G), and blue (B) color values input from 0 to 100 as described above. Y) and a function of converting to black (K) and half-toning the converted cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K).

In this configuration, the present invention receives the cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) values into the printer driver 11, sorts them according to a preset sort order, and outputs the output order information. An ink output sequence generation function 12 for generating a control message is included.

The operation of the printer driver according to this is as follows.

When an image having color values of red, green, and blue is input, the printer driver 11 converts Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Y, and Black, which have a value between 0 and 100, to a value of 0 to 100. The half toning function unit and the ink output sequence generation unit 12 are simultaneously transmitted. The half-toning function unit performs half-toning as described above, and stores the result in a memory (21 in FIG. 2) in the printer control unit to be described later, and the ink output sequence generation unit 12 arranges the arrangement order preset by the user. Based on this, cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) having a value between 0 and 100 are aligned. The print order of the ink is programmed to be variously set by the user, and the ink can be arranged in the order of size unless the user specifically designates it. The sort order information is generated as an output order control message having a size of 1 byte per pixel and stored in a temporary memory. Here, the output order control message having a size of 1 byte is divided into 4 cells having the order of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black by 2 bits. Up to 11 output sequence information is included. For example, when information of pixels having Cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) values of 80, 100, 30, and 10, respectively, is input to the ink output sequence generator 12, These values are sorted in order of magnitude, and output order control messages with bit values of 10, 11, 01, and 00 in the order of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K), respectively. Create it and store it in temporary memory. That is, if the sorting method is set in the order of the smallest values, since the value of black is the smallest as 10, the value of 00 indicating the fastest output order is recorded in the output order control message, and the following is yellow, cyan, In magenta order, the values 01, 10, 11 are recorded in each cell. As described above, the output order control message is divided into four cells arranged in the order of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K), and information indicating the output order is recorded in each cell. The ink output sequence control message generated in this way is stored in a memory (21 in FIG. 2) in the printer control unit to be described later.

Next, the printer control unit 13 will be described with reference to FIG. 2.

The printer control unit 13 mainly includes a control message indicating whether the cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) inks are output, and the cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y). And a memory 21 for storing a control message indicating the output order of the black (K) ink, and controlling the operation of the printer mechanism in accordance with the output status control message stored in the memory 21, and synchronizing each circuit element. The processor 22 and the buffer 24 to receive and temporarily store the output order control message for each pixel from the memory 21 under the control of the processor 22, and to the buffer 24 Decoding means (23, 25) for decoding the stored output sequence control message to control the operation of the printer mechanism.

Here, the decoding means includes a binary counter 23 for counting under the control of the processor 22, a logic circuit for logically operating the output of the binary counter 23 and the output of the buffer 24 to control the printer mechanism. It consists of 25.

In addition, the logic circuit 25 exclusively combines the output of the binary counter 23 and the output of each bit of the 8-bit buffer 24 and then inverts each of the 12 elements. Is done.

The operation of the printer control unit 13 configured as described above will be described.

The memory 21 of the printer control unit 13 has 0 for determining whether ink of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black is delivered from the printer driver 11. And a control message consisting of and 1, and a control message indicating the output order of the cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) inks delivered from the ink output sequence generator. In the present invention, the size of the temporary buffer 24 is 1 byte for processing one pixel, and the counter 23 is configured as a binary counter counting from 00 to 11. In addition, the logic circuit 25 includes eight non-exclusive logic elements for inverting and inverting each bit output of the binary counter 23 and each bit output of the temporary buffer 24, and the eight A total of 12, including four logical AND elements for logically computing the results of the non-OR logic elements for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. Consists of elements.

The processor 22 directly reads the printer mechanism 14 by reading a control message from the memory 21 as to whether to print cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), or black (K) ink. To control. The processor 22 also performs the function of synchronizing the printer mechanism 14, the memory 21, the temporary buffer 24 of 1 byte size, and the binary counter 23.

Under the control of the processor 22, the temporary buffer 24 receives an ink output order control message of 1 byte per pixel from the memory 21 and is temporarily buffered.

The ink output sequence control message stored in the temporary buffer 24 is used to control the printer mechanism by being non-exclusive and ANDed in bit units with the 2-bit counter value generated by the binary counter 23.

That is, the b0 value of the binary counter 23 and the values of c0, m0, y0, k0 of the temporary buffer 24 are logically operated by the respective non-exclusive logic elements, and the b1 value of the binary counter 23 and the temporary buffer are performed. After the values of c1, m1, y1, and k1 of (24) are logically operated by each of the non-exclusive logical OR elements, the logical operation results of c1c0, m1m0, y1y0, and k1k0 are obtained through the four AND products. Control of the drive of the printer mechanism 14.

The printer mechanism 14 outputs the corresponding pixel according to each ink value and output order value. The printer mechanism 14 may output two methods by an ink output order signal, one of which is a method of outputting pixel by pixel, and the other of which is a method of outputting line by line.

First, referring to a method of outputting pixel by pixel, the ink nozzles move from left to right to take C, M, Y, and K in sequence for each pixel. When the output for one pixel is finished, move to the right and repeat the operation.

Looking at the following line-by-line printing method, it is suitable for printers in which nozzles are moved by C, M, Y, and K. In order for the printer to print in the order in which the nozzles are moved in order to match the ink output order information, each output must be performed for C, M, Y, and K, so the output for one line may be completed four times. In other words, each time C, M, Y, and K move one by one, each pixel does not take C, M, Y, and K, but only the ink in order. When moving for the first time, only the first aligned ink is output for each pixel. Therefore, only one ink of the corresponding order is imprinted on each pixel of one line, and when C, M, Y, and K move second, only the second aligned ink is output for each pixel. When C, M, Y, and K move four times from left to right, they finish one line output.

According to the present invention made as described above, the inkjet printer is controlled according to the output order message of the ink as well as whether the ink is outputted, so that an output having the same color quality as the original image can be obtained. By controlling variously by the user, various color effects such as emphasizing a desired part of the image with color can be generated.

Claims (6)

The color values of red, green, and blue inputted are converted into cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) having predetermined values, and the converted cyan (C) and magenta ( A printer driver halftoning the values of M), yellow (Y) and black (K), A controller which performs control according to the control signal of the printer driver, and A printing system having a printer mechanism for outputting an image under the control of the controller, And an ink output sequence generating means for receiving the cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) values and generating a control message including the output sequence information according to a preset sorting order. And the controller controls the printer mechanism using an ink output sequence control message of the ink output sequence generation means and an ink output control message. The method of claim 1, And the ink output sequence control message includes two bits of information in the order of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K). The method according to claim 1 or 2, The controller, Storage means for storing an ink output control message and an ink output sequence control message, respectively; Control means for controlling the printer mechanism using the ink output control message stored in the storage means, and controlling the operation of each element; Buffering means for temporarily buffering an ink output sequence control message output from the storage means under the control of the control means; And And decoding means for controlling the operation of the printer mechanism by decoding the control message buffered in the buffering means under the control of the control means. The method of claim 3, wherein The decoding means, Counting means for counting under the control of the control means; And And logical operation means for performing a bit logic operation on the counting value of the counting means and the control message buffered in the buffering means. The method of claim 4, wherein The logic operation means may include a plurality of non-exclusive logical OR elements for exclusively inverting the count value of the counting means and the control message of the buffering means and then inverting the calculation result of the non-exclusive logical OR element. And a plurality of logical AND elements that perform logical operations on each of magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K). In a printing control method applied to a printing system having a printer driver, a printer controller, and a printer mechanism, A first step of converting the input red, green, and blue color values into cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) each having an arbitrary value; Generating a control signal indicating whether ink is output by half-toning the cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) values; Generating a control signal including output order information according to a preset sort order of the cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) values; And And a fourth step of controlling the printer mechanism by the ink output control signal and the output order control signal.