Image forming apparatus including a plurality of printing heads having different image densities
AssigneeMinolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorHirokatsu Shimada
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A head unit is disposed in proximity to a platen roller around which printing paper is wound and to be movable in parallel with the axis of the platen roller. The head unit is provided with a high density head having 24 heating elements of a predetermined area and a low density head having 12 heating elements of an area four times that of the high density head. Binary image data is separated into high density head data and low density head data by a data separating circuit. The high density head forms first partial image of high resolution based on the high density head data and the low density head forms second partial image with reduced recording defects at a high speed based on the low density head data both on the printing paper.
Claims11
An image recording apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium based on image data, comprising:
- a plurality of recording means for recording said image in different pixel densities,
- separating means for separating said image data according to respective pixel densities of said plurality of recording means, and
- controlling means for controlling said plurality of recording means based on said image data separated by said separating means.
An image recording apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium based on image data, comprising:
- first recording means for recording a partial image on said recording medium in a first pixel density,
- second recording means for recording another partial image on said recording medium in a second pixel density lower than said first pixel density,
- separating means for separating said image data into first image data for said first recording means and second image data for said second recording means, and
- controlling means for controlling said first recording means based on said first image data and said second recording means based on said second image data.
An image recording apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium based on image data including a plurality of binary data, comprising:
- first recording means for recording a first portion of said image on said recording medium in a first pixel density,
- second recording means for recording another portion of said image on said recording medium in a second pixel density lower than said first pixel density,
- determining means for determining whether a plurality of binary data adjacent to each other all are "1" in said image data, and
- controlling means for controlling said first and second recording means such that said another portion of said image is recorded by said second recording means when said determining means determines that all of the binary data are "1" and otherwise said first portion is recorded by said first recording means.
An image recording apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium based on image data, comprising:
- a platen roller for feeding said recording medium,
- first recording means for recording a first portion of said image on said recording medium in a first pixel density,
- second recording means provided downstream of said first recording means along a shifting direction of said platen roller for recording another portion of said image on said recording medium on said platen roller in a second pixel density different form said first pixel density,
- separating means for separating said image data into first image data to be used by said first recording means and second image data to be used by said second recording means, and
- controlling means for controlling said first recording means based on said first image data and said second recording means based on said second image data to form said image including the first image portion recorded by said first recording means and the another image portion recorded by said second recording means.
A method of forming an image comprising the steps of:
- dividing the image into a region having a low pixel density and a region having a high pixel density based on image data,
- forming a part of said image for said low pixel density region by using a printing head for printing in low pixel density, and
- forming a remainder of said image for said high pixel density region by using a printing head for printing image in high density.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.