Print engine/controller with color mask

A print engine/controller to drive an ink drop print head comprising:

• a contone image decoder to decode any compressed continuous tone image planes in the received compressed page data;
• a high resolution image decoder to decode any compressed high resolution image plane;
• and
• a halftoner/compositor including a dot merger unit controlled by a color mask register to map image planes into channels corresponding to inks supplied in the print head interfaced by the print engine/controller.

A print engine/controller chip to interface with an ink drop print head comprising:

• 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 high resolution image decoder to decode any high resolution image plane in the received compressed page data;
• a half-toner/compositor to dither any continuous tone image planes and composite any high resolution image plane data with any output plane including:
• a dot merger unit controlled by a color mask register to map image planes into channels corresponding to inks supplied in the print head that is interfaced by the print engine/controller;
• and
• a print head driver to output the composite to a print head.

An ink drop printer driven by a print engine/controller comprising:

• 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 high resolution image decoder to decode any high resolution image planes in the received compressed page data;
• a half-toner/compositor to dither any continuous tone image planes and composite high resolution image plane data with any output plane including:
• a dot merger unit controlled by a color mask register to map image planes into channels corresponding to inks supplied in the print head that is interfaced by the print engine/controller;
• and
• a print head driver to output the composite to a print head;
• and
• a print head.

A method of operating an ink drop printer comprising:

• receiving compressed page data;
• decoding any continuous tone image planes in the received compressed page data to generate output planes;
• decoding any high resolution image plane in the received compressed page data to generate an output plane;
• dithering any continuous tone image planes;
• compositing any high resolution image plane data with any output plane;
• and
• mapping, under control of a color mask register, said image planes into channels corresponding to inks supplied in a print head, respective input bits being ANDed with respective color mask register bits and resultant bits being ORed together to form an output bit in a channel for which there is an ink at the print head.