Beam illumination system and method for producing printing plates
AssigneeEsko-Graphics Imaging GmbH
InventorWolfgang Sievers
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Images are transferred to printing plates by illuminating light-responsive materials with patterns corresponding to the images to be printed. The present invention provides for the transferring of an image by the combined flux from two or more beams of light. Particular embodiments ablate the mask printing plates for CTP systems by the combined illumination from a first, broad beam and a plurality of controllable, pulsed beams that co-illuminate the plate with the first beam. The resulting system and method is less expensive than the prior art and produces a printing plate more efficiently and with improved productivity than the prior art.
Claims23
An apparatus to expose a light-responsive material in response to imaging data, the apparatus comprising:
- one or more light sources configured to produce a set of light beams at a location on the light-responsive material, the light beams including at least one beam operative to provide an unmodulated background intensity to an area at the location, and a plurality of modulated non-overlapping beams each beam at a respective intensity modulated according to a respective portion of the imaging data and directed within the area,
- such that the light-responsive material at the area is exposed to a combined intensity of the background intensity combined with the respective modulated intensities of the plurality of modulated beams such that the combined intensity is controllable between a first combined intensity that is insufficient to properly expose the light-responsive material;
- and a second combined intensity sufficient to properly expose the light-responsive material.
A method of exposing a light-responsive material, the method comprising:
- receiving imaging data;
- and
- exposing a location on the light-responsive material by a combination of a set of light beams, the set of light beams including at least one beam operative to provide an unmodulated background intensity to an area at the location, and a plurality of non-overlapping modulated beams, each at a respective intensity modulated according to a respective portion of the imaging data and directed within the area.
- such that the light-responsive material at the area is exposed to a combined intensity of the combination of the background intensity combined with the respective modulated intensities of the plurality of modulated beams such that the combined intensity is controllable between a first combined intensity that is insufficient to properly expose the light-responsive material;
- and a second combined intensity sufficient to properly expose the light-responsive material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.