Electrostatographic apparatus comprising automatic document type determination means
AssigneeRicoh Company, Ltd.
InventorsSusumu Tatsumi, Masumi Ikesue, Masao Hosaka, Nobuo Kasahara
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image of an original document (16) is sensed to determine if the document (16) is a printed document (the image consists of characters and symbols) or a photographic document. The exposure illumination intensity, developing bias voltage and/or other variable operating parameters are controlled in accordance with the determination.
Claims19
An electrostatographic apparatus including a photoconductive member, imaging means for focussing a light image of an original document onto the photoconductive member to form an electrostatic image and developing means for developing the electrostatic image to form a toner image, characterized by comprising:
- sensor means for sensing an optical density of the document;
- computing means for receiving an output of the sensor means and determining whether the document is a printed document or a photographic document in accordance with a predetermined criteria;
- and
- control means for controlling a variable operating parameter of the apparatus in accordance with a first predetermined function of sensed optical density when the computing means determines that the document is a printed document or a second predetermined function of sensed optical density when the computing means determines that the document is a photographic document.
An electrostatographic apparatus including a photoconductive member, imaging means for focussing a light image of an original document onto the photoconductive member to form an electrostatic image and developing means for developing the electrostatic image to form a toner image, characterized by comprising:
- sensor means for sensing an optical density of the document;
- computing means for receiving an output of the sensor means and determining whether the document is a printed document or a photographic document in accordance with a predetermined criteria;
- and
- control means for controlling a variable operating paramenter of the apparatus in accordance with a first predetermined function of sensed optical density when the computing means determines that the document is a printed document or a second predetermined function of sensed optical density when the computing means determines that the document is a phtographic document;
- the developing means comprising toner applicator means for applying toner to the photoconductive member, the variable operating parameter comprising a spacing between the applicator means and the photoconductive member.
An electrostatographic apparatus including a photoconductive member, imaging means for focussing a light image of an original document onto the photoconductive member to form an electrostatic image and developing means for developing the electrostatic image to form a toner image, characterized by comprising:
- sensor means for sensing an optical density of the document;
- computing means for receiving an output of the sensor means and determining whether the document is a printed document or a photographic document in accordance with a predetermined criteria;
- and
- control means for controlling a variable operating parameter of the apparatus in accordance with a first predetermined function of sensed optical density when the computing means determines that the document is a printed document or a second predetermined function of sensed optical density when the computing means determines that the document is a photographic document;
- the developing means comprising applicator means for applying toner to the photoconductive member, the applicator means having an electrically insulative portion and an electrically conductive portion, the variable operating parameter comprising moving the applicator means so that the insulative portion is operatively adjacent to the photoconductive member for a printed document or the conductive portion is operatively adjacent to the photoconductive member for a photographic document.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.