WO2017122067A1

WO2017122067A1 - Automatic method and system for cutting substrates having printed images

Info

Publication number: WO2017122067A1
Application number: PCT/IB2016/057878
Authority: WO
Inventors: Valter Maddalon
Original assignee: Fotoba International S.R.L.
Priority date: 2016-01-11
Filing date: 2016-12-21
Publication date: 2017-07-20
Also published as: ITUB20169898A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for the cutting of substrates with printed images, said method comprising reading of optical codes printed on a substrate by way of optical readers of an automatic cutting device and processing the acquired data so as to drive motors that allow to individually position single cutting units of the cutting device relative to edges of the substrate. The acquired data are processed by a remote control unit that, in addition to processing and providing positioning and driving instructions to the individual cutting units of the automatic cutting device, is also configured to control the status of a job and its execution time, to control the amount of material employed and, more generally, to control data relating to a specific job carried out by the cutting device. The invention also relates to an automatic cutting system comprising a remote control unit and a plurality of automatic cutting devices connected in parallel to the remote control unit through a network.

Description

AUTOMATIC METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CUTTING SUBSTRATES

HAVING PRINTED IMAGES

The present invention relates to a method and a system for the cutting of substrates on which a plurality of images are printed, such as in particular photographic paper, fabrics, PVC and the like in the form of sheets or wrapped in rolls.

It is known that the graphics and photographic technique, including digital rendering, is undergoing deep transformation and development by abandoning printing with traditional optical systems and being more and more oriented towards the ink- printing technology from digital files on sheets or rolls of substrates having a plurality of different features and sizes.

Individual images are obtained by cutting processes wherein sheets or rolls are fed to cutting devices comprising cutting units configured to carry out cuts in a longitudinal direction, parallel to the feeding direction, as well as in a transverse direction perpendicular to the feeding direction.

Known automatic cutting devices comprise one or more longitudinal cutting units suitable to allow cutting of a substrate along a feeding direction and at least one transverse cutting unit suitable to cut the substrate perpendicularly to the feeding direction. The transverse cutting unit is typically movable along a first transverse guide, while the longitudinal cutting units are typically restrained to a second transverse guide along which they are locked at predetermined positions corresponding to the longitudinal edges of the images printed on the substrate.

These cutting devices can be equipped with automatic correction means for the correction of alignment errors between the longitudinal and transverse cutting units and suitable reference marks printed along the longitudinal and transverse edges of the images to be cut. The correction means comprise optical units such as optical reflection cells and the reference marks are e.g. made up of one or more black bands parallel to the edges of the images. A cutting device of this type is described in the Italian patent 102005901315597 in the Applicant's name.

Also known are methods for the cutting of substrates having printed images whereby a substrate comprises printed images to be cut and also printed optical codes containing data relating to these images, such as, in particular, their number, size and position relative to the edges of the substrate. The optical codes may for example be barcodes.

Cutting devices configured to carry out such cutting methods correspondingly comprise one or more optical readers configured for the acquisition of the optical codes and a control unit configured to process the acquired data and to selectively control the transverse cutting units and the longitudinal cutting units based on such data.

The patents US 4506824 and US 4784318 describe automatic cutting devices wherein the longitudinal cutting units and the transverse cutting units are arranged according to fixed patterns, e.g. corresponding to standard sizes of paper sheets, and are selectively driven on the base of size and position information that can be obtained from codes printed on a substrate.

The patent EP 0947880 describes an automatic cutting device similar to the devices above, but wherein the longitudinal cutting units are individually motorized and may be positioned individually and independently of each other along the respective transverse guide. This configuration allows to adjust an automatic cutting device to a specific pattern of images printed on a substrate, i.e. to their specific size, number and arrangement relative to the edges of the substrate. The optical codes may be associated to individual images or to sets of images, and precede these images in the feeding direction so as to allow to arrange the cutting units before their passage. The optical codes may also be printed after single images or sets of images so as to allow to carry out corrections of the position of the transverse cuts that may be necessary to compensate for image position changes caused by thermal expansion of the substrate in the longitudinal direction during its processing.

This feature of the automatic cutting devices is very important, because in order to optimize the productivity of automatic printing devices it is more and more common to use substrates of large width, allowing printing of images having respective sizes different from one another. Hence, there is a need to arrange the cutting units more than once for each job and/or single roll, and thus a need to have means allowing to automatically position the cutting units.

Despite the availability of automatic methods and devices for the cutting of substrates having printed images, there is still the need to improve the level of automation and control of cutting process, which is an object of the present invention. Said object is achieved by a method for cutting substrates with printed images and by a corresponding system, whose main features are specified in claims 1 and 7, respectively, while other features are specified in the remaining claims.

Similarly to automatic cutting methods and devices known in the art, the invention is based on the detection of optical codes by way of optical readers and on the processing of the data so acquired for driving motors that allow individual positioning of the cutting units of an automatic cutting device relative to the edges of a substrate. Differently from the automatic cutting methods and devices known in the art, the acquired data are not processed by a local control unit of the automatic cutting device, but sent to a remote control unit that processes such data in order to provide positioning and driving instructions for the individual cutting units of the automatic cutting device. The remote control unit is also configured to monitor status and processing times, the amount of material used, i.e., more generally, to control the data of a specific job carried out by the cutting device.

This configuration makes it possible to manage a plurality of automatic cutting devices simultaneously and advantageously allows to completely control their production and related costs. It will therefore be appreciated that the invention not only consists in an automated method for cutting substrates having printed images, but also in an automatic cutting system comprising a plurality of automatic cutting devices.

An advantage provided by the invention is that the data acquired through the optical readers of the individual automatic cutting devices can be compared with corresponding data stored in a database of the remote control unit, thus allowing to implement a closed loop control of the acquired data and to correct any reading errors in real time, as well as to operate remotely on a specific automatic cutting device in case of positioning errors of its cutting units.

Another advantage offered by the invention is that the remote control of the jobs carried out by the individual cutting devices allows to handle in an extremely flexible manner exceptions and changes with respect to cut sets initially programmed, as well as to interrupt operation in order to add accessories. A further advantage offered by the invention is to allow to simplify the optical codes printed on the substrates from a graphic point of view. In fact it is sufficient that the printed codes allow to identify a specific job associated with an automatic cutting device of the system, being it possible to retrieve data relating to the settings of the cutting units for the specific job on such automatic cutting device from a database stored in the remote control unit. In other words, it is not necessary that the printed code, e.g. a barcode, comprises the whole information necessary to set up an automatic cutting device as it occurs in automatic cutting devices known in the art, because, thanks to the provision of remote control unit, such information may be stored in a separate database of the system. Consequently, the graphic structure of an optical code can be greatly simplified for the benefit of its ease of detection and reading.

This feature of the invention is particularly effective when the substrate on which the images are printed is made of a material such as fabric, which by its nature has a texture that may interfere with the graphic aspect of an optical code, e.g. ripples potentially interfering with the lines of a barcode.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the automatic cutting devices of the automatic system are devices configured for the automatic correction of errors such as those disclosed by the Italian patent 102005901315597 in the Applicant's name. Reading of optical codes containing identification data of a specific set of images printed on a substrate is carried out by optical readers associated to the readers used for the correction of errors, which allows to arrange in a single block all the optical readers installed in an automatic cutting device.

Further advantages and features of the method and the automatic system according to the present invention for the cutting of substrates having printed images will become clear to those skilled in the art from the following detailed and non-limiting description of embodiments thereof with reference to the attached drawings, wherein: figure 1 is a block diagram showing an automatic cutting system according to the invention;

figures 2 and 3 are a top plan view and a front view, respectively, of a cutting device of the cutting system of figure 1;

figures 4 and 5 are top plan views respectively showing portions of a substrate having printed images on which optical codes are present, the optical codes being used by the remote control unit of the system to set up the position of the cutting units of a cutting device.

Referring to the figures, an automatic system according to the invention for the cutting of substrates having printed images is generally indicated by reference number 100.

The system 100 includes a remote control unit 110 and a plurality of automatic cutting devices 120, three in the embodiment shown in the figures, that are connected in parallel to the remote control unit 110 through a wire or wireless network 130.

The remote control unit 110 is for example an electronic processor, and includes a database storing data relating to the cuts to be made in any specific job carried out by the automatic cutting devices 120, as well as a control program for managing their operation, as it will be described more in detail below.

Every one of the automatic cutting devices 120, which are identical to each other, comprises one or more longitudinal cutting units 121 suitable to allow cutting of a substrate S in a feeding direction F shown in the figures by an arrow, and at least one transverse cut unit 122 adapted to allow cutting of the substrate perpendicularly to the feeding direction F. The transverse cutting unit is movable along a first transverse guide (not shown) of each automatic cutting device 120, while the longitudinal cutting units 121 are restrained to a second transverse guide (not shown) along which they are arranged at positions corresponding to the longitudinal edges of images SI, S2, etc. printed on the substrate S.

The longitudinal cutting units 121 of each automatic cutting device 120 are individually motorized and may be positioned individually and independently of each other along their transverse guide. It is known that this configuration allows to set up an automatic cutting device according to a specific pattern of images printed on a substrate S, that is, to their specific size, number and location relative to the edges of the substrate S.

In order to allow automatic positioning and driving of the longitudinal cutting units 121 of each automatic cutting device unit 120, as well as driving of the transverse cutting unit 122, optical codes OC that can be associated with single images SI, S2, etc., or to sets or groups of them are printed on or otherwise associated with the substrate S. Each automatic cutting device 120 comprises one or more optical readers 123 configured to read these optical codes and to transmit data to a local control unit 124 of the automatic cutting device 120. The optical codes OC contain data concerning size and number of the images SI, S2, etc., and their arrangement with respect to the edges of the substrate S, according to which the positions of the longitudinal cutting units 121 can be determined and the longitudinal cutting units 121 and the transverse cutting unit 122 can be driven.

The optical codes may for example be barcodes or equivalent.

According to the invention, the data acquired by the optical readers 123 and received from the local control 124 of each automatic cutting device 120 are not processed directly by the local control unit 124, but sent through the communication network 130 to the remote control unit 110 of the automatic cutting system 100 and processed by such remote control unit so as to provide driving instructions to the cutting units of the automatic cutting device 120.

More particularly, the remote control unit 110 is configured to receive through the network 130 the data acquired by the optical readers 123 of each automatic cutting device 120, to check the correspondence between these data and job data stored in its database for each specific automatic cutting device 120 and to provide corresponding positioning and driving instructions to the cutting units 121, 122 to the control unit 124 of each specific automatic cutting device 120, still through the network 130, so that the cutting units 121, 122 can cut the substrate S along the edges of the images SI, S2, etc. that are printed on it.

The provision of a remote control unit 110 also allows to implement further controls in order to monitor the production of all automatic cutting devices 120 connected thereto through the network 130. Such controls include, for example, monitoring the status of jobs that are carried out by the individual automatic cutting devices 120, as well as the cutting times and the number of cuts actually performed by each automatic cutting device 120. To this aim, the optical codes OC printed on or otherwise associated with the substrate S may contain further data such as for example a job code and a customer number, the number of rolls of the job and the number of copies of the job.

Alternatively, the optical codes OC may contain only a job number, which results in a remarkable graphic simplification, on the basis of which the remote control unit 110 can retrieve from its database the information necessary for positioning and driving the longitudinal cutting units 121 and the transverse cutting unit 122.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, each automatic cutting device 120 of the cutting system 100 comprises automatic means for the correction of alignment errors between the longitudinal and transverse cutting units and suitable reference marks RM printed on the substrate S along the longitudinal and transverse edges of the images SI, S2, etc. to be cut. The correction means may for example comprise reflection optical cells 125 configured to detect reference marks RM configured as one or more parallel black bands arranged at the edges of the images SI, S2, etc.. The optical cells 125 may advantageously be associated to the optical readers 123, thus allowing to simplify the structure of the individual automatic cutting devices 120. These automatic means for the correction of alignment errors are for example described in the Italian patent 102,005,901,315,597 in the Applicant's name.

According to the invention, monitoring of the reference marks RM may also be performed by the remote control unit 110 through the network 130, which allows to implement additional controls, such as in particular checking the status of each job, the actual cutting time and the number of cuts, as well as detecting images that are only partially printed, which are characterized by interrupted RM reference marks, as well as detecting non-printed areas on the basis of which the waste of material may be calculated.

According to a further aspect of the invention, each automatic cutting device 120 may advantageously comprise a printer (not shown), for example an ink-jet printer, arranged under the respective cutting plane and connected to the database of the remote unit control unit 110 through the network 130. The printer allows to mark the non- printed face of each image to be cut by the cutting device 120 with a specific customer identification code and job code. This allows to match every single image to its specific job and facilitates winding or grouping procedures that follow the cutting operation, particularly when images belonging to a same job have different sizes. Advantageously, the optical codes OC associated with the substrate S and/or the database of the remote control unit 110 may also contain data relating to the winding of the images SI, S2, etc., to be cut from the substrate S, for the purpose of driving any winding devices (not shown) respectively associated with the individual automatic cutting devices 120, the winding devices being part of the automatic cutting system 100 according to the invention and being arranged downstream of the respective automatic cutting devices relative to the feeding direction F. The winding devices may be for example of the type described in the Italian patent application 102014902249162 in the Applicant's name.

The invention has hereto been disclosed with reference to preferred embodiments thereof. It will be appreciated that there may be further embodiments based on the same inventive idea, as defined by the scope of protection of the claims set out below.

Claims

1. A method for the cutting of substrates with printed images, said method comprising the steps of:

i) Providing one or more automatic cutting devices (120) each comprising one or more longitudinal cutting units (121) configured to cut a substrate (S) along a feeding direction (F) and at least one transverse cutting unit (122) configured to cut said substrate (S) perpendicularly to said feeding direction (F), wherein said longitudinal cutting units (121) are individually motorized and may be positioned along a transverse guide thereof individually and independently of each other, each automatic cutting device (120) further comprising optical readers (123) configured to read optical codes (OC) and a local control unit (124) operatively connected to said optical readers (123);

ii) Connecting said automatic cutting devices (120) in parallel to a remote control unit (110);

iii) Producing a substrate (S) with printed images, wherein said substrate (S) is also provided with an optical code (OC) for each image or set of images (SI, S2), said optical code (OC) containing data about the size and number of said images (SI, S2), as well as about their arrangement with respect to the edges of the substrate (S);

iv) Feeding a substrate (S) produced according to step iii) to every one of said automatic cutting devices (120);

v) Reading the optical codes (OC) of each substrate (S) by way of the optical readers (123) of the automatic cutting device (120) to which the substrate is fed; vi) Transmitting the data contained in the optical codes (OC) to the local control unit (124) of the automatic cutting device (120);

vii) Transmitting the data contained in the optical codes (OC) from the local control unit (124) of every one of the automatic cutting devices (120) to the remote control unit (110) through a communication network (130);

viii) Processing the data and providing to the local control unit (124) of each automatic cutting device (120), through said communication network (130), corresponding instructions for positioning and driving its cutting units (121, 122).

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the optical code (OC) printed or otherwise provided on the substrate (S) also contains further data related to a job order code and a client's code, a number of reels of said order, as well as to a number of copies of the order, and wherein the remote control unit (110) checks the correspondence between the transmitted data and order data contained in its database and subsequently carries out step viii) of providing to the local control unit (124) of each automatic cutting device (120), through the communication network (130), corresponding instructions for positioning and driving its cutting units (121, 122).

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the optical code (OC) printed or otherwise provided on the substrate (S) contains data related to a job order number, and wherein the remote control unit (110) retrieves from its database the information necessary for positioning and driving the longitudinal and transverse cutting units (121, 122) of the automatic cutting devices (120) and subsequently carries out step viii) of providing to the local control unit (124) of each automatic cutting device (120), through the communication network (130), corresponding instructions for positioning and driving its cutting units (121, 122).

4. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, further comprising a step of printing an identification code on a non-printed face of each image intended to be cut by each automatic cutting device (120).

5. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the optical code (OC) provided on the substrate (S) and/or the database of the remote control unit (110) also contain data relating to winding of the images (SI, S2) to be cut from the substrate (S), and wherein the method comprises a step of driving winding devices associated with each automatic cutting device (120) based on said image winding data.

6. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the substrate (S) is also provided with reference marks (RM) printed along the longitudinal and transverse edges of the images (SI, S2) to be cut and wherein said step v) of reading the optical codes (OC) further comprises detecting said reference marks (RM) and said steps vi) and vii) of transmitting the data contained in the optical codes (OC) include transmitting data relating to the reference marks (RM), the method also comprising one or more steps of correcting the positioning and driving instructions of the cutting units (121, 122) based on the data derived from the reference marks (RM).

7. An automatic system (100) for cutting substrates with printed images, said system (100) comprising a remote control unit (110) and a plurality of automatic cutting devices (120) connected in parallel to said remote control unit (110) through a communication network (130), wherein every one of said automatic cutting devices (120) comprises one or more longitudinal cutting units (121) configured to cut a substrate (S) along a feeding direction (F) and at least one transverse cutting unit (122) configured to cut said substrate (S) perpendicularly to said feeding direction (F), and wherein said longitudinal cutting units (121) are individually motorized and may be positioned along a transverse guide thereof individually and independently of each other, and wherein each automatic cutting device (120) comprises optical readers (123) configured to read optical codes (OC) printed or otherwise provided on said substrate (S) and to transmit the data to a local control unit (124) of the automatic cutting device (120), characterized in that said remote control unit (110) is configured so as to receive through said communication network (130) data of the optical codes (OC) acquired by the optical readers (123) of each automatic cutting device (120), to check the correspondence between these data and job order data contained in a database of the remote control unit (110), as well as to provide to the local control unit (124) of the automatic cutting device (120), through the communication network (130), corresponding instructions for positioning and driving its cutting units (121, 122).

8. An automatic system (100) according to claim 7, wherein each automatic cutting device (120) further comprises a printer arranged under a respective cutting plane, said printer being connected to the database of the remote control unit (110) through the communication network (130), the remote control unit (110) being configured so as to drive said printer in order to print an identification code on a non- printed face of each image of the substrate (S) to be cut by the automatic cutting device (120).

9. An automatic system (100) according to claim 7 or 8, further comprising winding devices respectively associated with the individual automatic cutting devices

10. An automatic system (100) according to any one of claims 7 to 9, wherein each automatic cutting device (120) further comprises automatic means for the correction of alignment errors of the cutting units (121, 122), said correction means comprising optical reflection cells (125) configured to detect reference marks (RM) in the form of printed strips parallel to the edges of the images (SI, S2) of a substrate (S), and wherein said optical cells (125) are preferably associated optical readers (123).