Raster output interface for a printbar
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorsAnthony E. Audi, Frederick A. Donahue
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A full width array raster imaging interface for an ink jet printer. The raster imaging interface transforms raster information for printing by a thermal ink jet full width array printbar. The transformation includes dividing scan lines of the raster information into segments corresponding to the number of die in a printbar and to delay the printing of each subsequent segment by one scan line. The transformation is necessary since the printbar prints a single line of pixels in a burst of several banks or segments having a plurality of nozzles. The banks of nozzles are fired sequentially and the nozzles within a bank are fired simultaneously.
Claims24
A printer for printing a raster image organized into a plurality of scan lines on a recording medium moving in a process direction, comprising:
- a printbar, including a plurality of nozzles, angled with respect to the process direction, printing portions of N of the plurality of scan lines substantially simultaneously;
- a memory circuit organized into N rows of addressable memory locations and a plurality of columns the number thereof being equal to the plurality of nozzles;
- and
- a raster interface circuit, coupled to said memory circuit, writing portions of one of the scan lines to N rows of said plurality of rows of addressable memory locations in a first order, reading the contents of said N rows of said plurality of rows of addressable memory locations in a second order different from the first order, and transmitting the contents of said N rows of said plurality of rows of addressable memory locations read from said memory circuit in the second order to said printbar.
A method for printing on a recording medium moving in a process direction a raster image, having a plurality of scan lines generated by an output device, with a printbar, angled with respect to the process direction, printing portions of N of the scan lines substantially simultaneously, and having a plurality of printhead dies, each die including a plurality of nozzles, comprising:
- organizing a memory space into a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns, the plurality of rows being equal to N and the plurality of columns being equal to the plurality of nozzles of the printbar;
- dividing each of the plurality of scan lines into a plurality of portions;
- writing each portion of one of the plurality of divided scan lines to a different one of the plurality rows of the memory space;
- reading the written portions from a single one of the plurality of rows of the memory space;
- and
- transmitting the read portions to the printbar.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.