Image plotting data obtaining method and apparatus, and image plotting method and apparatus

An image plotting data obtaining apparatus for obtaining image plotting data used when plotting an image on a substrate by moving an image plot point forming area, which forms an image plot point based on the image plotting data, relative to the substrate and sequentially forming the image plot points on the substrate according to the movement, the apparatus comprising:

• a hypothetical image plot point data trajectory information obtaining unit for associating information of a plurality of predetermined hypothetical image plotting trajectories of the image plot point forming area on the substrate, the trajectories having different start point positions from each other in the direction orthogonal to the relative moving direction, with original image data representing the image, and obtaining information of a plurality of hypothetical image plot point data trajectories in the original image data, each corresponding to each of the plurality of hypothetical image plotting trajectories;
• a hypothetical image plotting data obtaining unit for obtaining hypothetical image plotting data, each corresponding to each of the hypothetical image plot point data trajectories, from the original image data based on the information of plurality of hypothetical image plot point data trajectories obtained by the hypothetical image plot point data trajectory information obtaining unit;
• a hypothetical image plotting data storage unit for storing, in advance, the plurality of hypothetical image plotting data obtained by the hypothetical image plotting data obtaining unit;
• a correspondence relationship setting unit in which the correspondence relationship between the hypothetical image plot point data trajectories and the hypothetical image plotting data is set in advance;
• an image plotting trajectory information obtaining unit for obtaining information of image plotting trajectory of the image plot point forming area on the substrate when the image is plotted;
• an image plot point data trajectory information obtaining unit for associating the image plotting trajectory obtained by the image plotting trajectory information obtaining unit with the original image data, and obtaining information of image plot point data trajectory of the image plot point forming area in the original image data corresponding to the image plotting trajectory;
• a hypothetical image plot point data trajectory selection unit for selecting a plurality of hypothetical image plot point data trajectories corresponding to the image plot point data trajectory obtained by the image plot point data trajectory information obtaining unit from the plurality of hypothetical image plot point data trajectories obtained by the hypothetical image plot point data trajectory information obtaining unit, and obtaining information indicating the area corresponding to the image plot point data trajectory in each hypothetical image plot point data trajectory indicated by the selected hypothetical image plot point data trajectories;
• and
• an image plotting data obtaining unit for identifying hypothetical image plotting data corresponding to the plurality of hypothetical image plotting data trajectories selected by the hypothetical image plot point data trajectory selection unit from the plurality of hypothetical image plotting data stored in advance based on the correspondence relationship, obtaining partial hypothetical image plotting data from each of the identified hypothetical image plotting data based on the information indicating the area corresponding to the image plot point data trajectory, and obtaining image plotting data corresponding to the image plot point data trajectory based on each of the obtained partial hypothetical image plotting data.