Printing apparatus, printing apparatus control program, printing apparatus control method, printing data creating apparatus, printing data creating program and printing data creating method

• US 20060170937A1
• Filed: 02/02/2006
• Published: 08/03/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/03/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Original Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Inventors: Takahashi, Toru
• Granted Patent: US 7,710,608 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.800
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/2139 Compensation for malfunctioning nozzles creating dot place or dot size errors generating single droplets or particles on demand by pressure, e.g. electromechanical transducers B41J2/045
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/4015 of the reproducing head

Abstract

A printing apparatus for printing an image on a medium by a print head having a nozzle capable of creating dots includes: a module acquiring image data having an M-ary pixel data value (M≧3); a module creating N-ary image data (M>N≧2) from an M-ary pixel value (M≧3) expressed by each pixel data item; a module splitting the N-ary image data into a plurality of image data areas of a predetermined number of pixel data items; a module rearranging a position of a pixel corresponding to each pixel data item included in the image data areas in the N-ary image data at a predetermined position in each image data area; a module creating printing data defining dot forming information of each nozzle corresponding to the N-ary image data after rearrangement; and a module printing the image on the medium.

Claims

1. A printing apparatus which is capable of printing an image on a medium by a print head having a nozzle that is capable of creating dots on a printing medium, the printing apparatus comprising:

an image data acquiring module that acquires image data having an M-ary value of pixel data (M≧

3) configuring the image;

an N-ary image data creating module that creates N-ary image data (M>

N≧

2) from an M-ary pixel value (M≧

3) expressed by each item of pixel data in the image data;

an image data area splitting module that splits the N-ary image data into a plurality of image data areas configured of a predetermined number of items of pixel data;

a pixel rearranging module that rearranges a position of a pixel corresponding to each item of pixel data included in each of the image data areas in the N-ary image data at a predetermined position in each of the image data areas;

a printing data creating module that creates printing data which defines information about dot forming descriptions of each of the nozzles corresponding to the N-ary image data after the rearrangement; and

a printing module that prints the image on the medium by the print head based on the printing data.

2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a nozzle property information storing module that stores nozzle property information showing properties of each of the nozzles; and

a determining module that determines whether there is a nozzle that possibly causes degradation of printed image quality among nozzles for use in printing the image data based on the nozzle property information,

wherein the image data area splitting module performs the splitting process for all the N-ary image data when it is determined that there is the nozzle that possibly causes degradation by the determining module, and

the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process for each of the image data areas after splitting by the image data area splitting module.

3. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a nozzle property information storing module that stores nozzle property information showing properties of each of the nozzles; and

a determining module that determines whether there is a nozzle that possibly causes degradation of printed image quality among nozzles for use in printing the image data based on the nozzle property information,

wherein the image data area splitting module performs the splitting process for pixel data corresponding to a nozzle that possibly causes degradation and nozzles near the nozzle that possibly causes degradation in the N-ary image data when it is determined that there is the nozzle that possibly causes degradation by the determining module, and

the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process for each of the image data areas after splitting by the image data area splitting module.

4. The printing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the nozzle property information includes at least one of:

information about a position shift between an actual position of the dot formed by each of the nozzles on the medium and an ideal dot forming position of the dot formed by each of the nozzles, and

discharge deficiency information showing a presence of ink discharge deficiency in each of the nozzles.

5. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image data area splitting module performs the splitting process so that a shape of an image portion configured of the image data area and a number of items of pixel data are uniform.

6. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process so that a pixel of pixel data having a pixel value equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value is arranged at a center part of an image portion configured of the image data area.

7. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the arrangement process so that among pixel values equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value, a pixel of pixel data having a pixel value to be a concentration value equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold is arranged at a center part of an image portion configured of the image data area.

8. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process so that a pixel of pixel data having a pixel value equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value is arranged from a center part of an image portion configured of the image data area toward an outer rim part and rearranged in a decreasing order of concentration values.

9. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process so that in an image portion configured of the image data area, a pixel of a pixel value equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value is arranged in an oblique direction.

10. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process for each of the image data areas so that adjacent image data areas are each rearranged by a different rearrangement method.

11. The printing apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the rearrangement method includes a method of rearranging a defined position of each pixel in the image data area so that the image data area is rotated at a predetermined angle in a random direction.

12. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process so that a pixel of pixel data having a pixel value equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value is arranged at a center part of an image area configured of a plurality of the adjacent image data areas.

13. The printing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the pixel rearranging module sequentially arranges in an image portion configured of each area of a plurality of the adjacent image data areas a pixel of pixel data having a pixel value equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value from a corner of the image portion of each area.

14. The printing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the arrangement process so that among pixel values equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value, a pixel of pixel data having a pixel value to be a concentration value equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold is arranged at a center part of an image area configured of a plurality of the adjacent image data areas.

15. The printing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process so that a pixel of pixel data having a pixel value equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value is arranged from a center part of an image area configured of a plurality of the adjacent image data areas toward an outer rim part and rearranged in a decreasing order of concentration values.

16. The printing apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process so that a pixel of pixel data having a pixel value equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value is arranged from a corner toward a center part of an image portion configured of each area of a plurality of the adjacent image data areas and rearranged in a decreasing order of concentration values.

17. The printing apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the pixel rearranging module performs the rearrangement process so that a pixel of a pixel value equal to or greater than a predetermined concentration value is arranged in an oblique direction at a center part of an image area configured of a plurality of the adjacent image data areas.

18. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the nozzles of the print head are continuously arranged across an area equal to or wider than a mounting area of the medium.

19. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the print head is adapted to move in a direction orthogonal to a feed direction of the medium.

20. A printing apparatus control program used to control a printing apparatus which is capable of printing an image on a medium by a print head having a nozzle that is capable of creating dots on a printing medium, the printing apparatus control program including a program used to allow a computer to implement a process comprising:

acquiring image data having an M-ary value of pixel data (M≧

3) configuring the image;

creating N-ary image data (M>

N≧

2) from an M-ary pixel value (M≧

3) expressed by each item of pixel data in the image data;

splitting the N-ary image data into a plurality of the image data areas configured of a predetermined number of items of pixel data;

rearranging a position of a pixel corresponding to each item of pixel data included in each of the image data areas in the N-ary image data at a predetermined position in each of the image data areas;

creating printing data which defines information about dot forming descriptions of each of the nozzles corresponding to the N-ary image data after the rearrangement; and

printing the image on the medium by the print head based on the printing data.

21. A printing apparatus control method used to control a printing apparatus which is capable of printing an image on a medium by a print head having a nozzle that is capable of creating dots on a printing medium, the printing apparatus control method comprising:

acquiring image data having an M-ary value of pixel data (M≧

3) configuring the image;

creating N-ary image data (M>

N≧

2) from an M-ary pixel value (M≧

3) expressed by each item of pixel data in the image data;

splitting the N-ary image data into a plurality of the image data areas configured of a predetermined number of items of pixel data;

rearranging a position of a pixel corresponding to each item of pixel data included in each of the image data areas in the N-ary image data at a predetermined position in each of the image data areas;

creating printing data which defines information about dot forming descriptions of each of the nozzles corresponding to the N-ary image data after the rearrangement; and

printing the image on the medium by the print head based on the printing data.

22. A printing data creating apparatus which creates printing data used in a printing apparatus which is capable of printing an image on a medium by a print head having a nozzle that is capable of creating dots on a printing medium, the printing data creating apparatus comprising:

an image data acquiring module that acquires image data having an M-ary value of pixel data (M≧

3) configuring the image;

an N-ary image data creating module that creates N-ary image data (M>

N≧

2) from an M-ary pixel value (M≧

3) expressed by each item of pixel data in the image data;

an image data area splitting module that splits the N-ary image data into a plurality of image data areas configured of a predetermined number of items of pixel data;

a pixel rearranging module that rearranges a position of a pixel corresponding to each item of pixel data included in each of the image data areas in the N-ary image data at a predetermined position in each of the image data areas; and

a printing data creating module that creates printing data which defines information about dot forming descriptions of each of the nozzles corresponding to the N-ary image data after the rearrangement.

23. A printing data creating program which creates printing data used in a printing apparatus which is capable of printing an image on a medium by a print head having a nozzle that is capable of creating dots on a printing medium, the printing data creating program including a program used to allow a computer to implement a process comprising:

acquiring image data having an M-ary value of pixel data (M≧

3) configuring the image;

creating N-ary image data (M>

N≧

2) from an M-ary pixel value (M≧

3) expressed by each item of pixel data in the image data;

splitting the N-ary image data into a plurality of the image data areas configured of a predetermined number of items of pixel data;

rearranging a position of a pixel corresponding to each item of pixel data included in each of the image data areas in the N-ary image data at a predetermined position in each of the image data areas; and

creating printing data which defines information about dot forming descriptions of each of the nozzles corresponding to the N-ary image data after the rearrangement.

24. A printing data creating method which creates printing data used in a printing apparatus which is capable of printing an image on a medium by a print head having a nozzle that is capable of creating dots on a printing medium, the printing data creating method comprising:

acquiring image data having an M-ary value of pixel data (M≧

3) configuring the image;

creating N-ary image data (M>

N≧

2) from an M-ary pixel value (M≧

3) expressed by each item of pixel data in the image data;

splitting the N-ary image data into a plurality of the image data areas configured of a predetermined number of items of pixel data;

rearranging a position of a pixel corresponding to each item of pixel data included in each of the image data areas in the N-ary image data at a predetermined position in each of the image data areas; and

creating printing data which defines information about dot forming descriptions of each of the nozzles corresponding to the N-ary image data after the rearrangement.