Print engine/controller and printhead interface chip incorporating the engine/controller
First Claim
1. A print engine/controller to drive an ink drop print head comprising:
- an interface at which to receive compressed page data;
a contone image decoder to decode any compressed continuous tone image planes in the received compressed page data;
a bi-level decoder to decode any compressed bi-level image planes in the received compressed page data;
a half-toner/compositor to dither any continuous tone image planes and composite bi-level image plane data with any dithered image plane; and
a print head driver to output the composite to a print head, wherein the page data in the bi-level image plane is scaled in the halftoner/compositor.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A print engine/controller suited to use with a drop on demand print head. The print engine/controller works with compressed page data having both JPEG contone image layers and a bi-level image plane compressed using a Group 4 facsimile protocol. It receives compressed image plane'"'"'s and effects expansion and printing in a pipeline fashion. It consists of a high speed serial interface 27 (such as a standard IEEE 1394 interface), a standard JPEG decoder 28, a standard Group 4 Fax decoder, a halftoner/compositor unit 29, a tag encoder 30 by which to place infrared tags into a printed page, a line loader/formatter unit 31 feeding an interface 32 to the print head 33. The decoders 28,88 and encoder 30 are buffered to the halftoner/compositor 29.
30 Citations
13 Claims
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1. A print engine/controller to drive an ink drop print head comprising:
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an interface at which to receive compressed page data;
a contone image decoder to decode any compressed continuous tone image planes in the received compressed page data;
a bi-level decoder to decode any compressed bi-level image planes in the received compressed page data;
a half-toner/compositor to dither any continuous tone image planes and composite bi-level image plane data with any dithered image plane; and
a print head driver to output the composite to a print head, wherein the page data in the bi-level image plane is scaled in the halftoner/compositor. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A print engine/controller chip to interface with an ink drop print head comprising:
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an interface at which to receive compressed page data;
a contone image decoder to decode any continuous tone image planes in the received compressed page data;
a bi-level decoder to decode any bi-level image planes in the received compressed page data;
a half-toner/compositor to dither any continuous tone image planes and composite bi-level image plane data with any dithered image plane; and
a print head driver to output the composite to a print head, wherein the page data in the bi-level image plane is scaled in the halftoner/compositor.
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12. An ink drop printer driven by a print engine/controller comprising:
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an interface at which to receive compressed page data;
a contone image decoder to decode any continuous tone image planes in the received compressed page data;
a bi-level decoder to decode any bi-level image planes in the received compressed page data;
a half-toner/compositor to dither any continuous tone image planes and composite bi-level image plane data with any dithered image plane;
a print head driver to output the composite to a print head; and
a print head, wherein the page data in the bi-level image plane is scaled in the halftoner/compositor.
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13. A method of operating an ink drop printer comprising:
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receiving compressed page data;
decoding any continuous tone image planes in the received compressed page data to generate output planes;
decoding any bi-level image planes in the received compressed page data to generate an output plane;
dithering any continuous tone image planes;
compositing any bi-level image plane data with any output plane; and
forwarding composited data to a print head, wherein the page data in the bi-level image plane is scaled in a halftoner/compositor.
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Specification