Laser marking using scalable fonts
AssigneeMarkem-Imaje Corporation
InventorsAndrew Yohn, Mark Rapposelli, Kevin Franklin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system directs a laser beam to mark a material with an alphanumeric code. Character and quality information corresponding to a mark to apply to the material with the laser beam can be received, a font definition that specifies character segments can be obtained, a set of multiple spaced locations can be generated from the character segments in accordance with the character and quality information, and the material can be marked with the laser beam by directing the laser beam to dwell at the locations and move between the locations without deactivating the laser beam.
Claims21
A method of marking on a material with a laser beam, the method comprising:
- receiving user-specified characters for a mark to be applied to the material with the laser beam;
- obtaining a quality setting;
- loading a pre-defined font definition from a machine-readable medium, wherein the pre-defined font definition specifies character segments for each of multiple character fonts, and the specified character segments comprise horizontal and vertical line segments, diagonal line segments, and curve segments;
- selecting a pixel grid from a group of available pixel grids of different grid sizes based on the quality setting;
- generating a set of multiple spaced locations in the selected pixel grid based on character segments of the pre-defined font definition that correspond to the user-specified characters;
- and
- marking the material with the laser beam by directing the laser beam to dwell at the locations and move between the locations without deactivating the laser beam.
A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing program instructions that when run by a computer cause the computer to perform operations comprising:
- receiving user-specified characters for a mark to be applied to a material with a laser beam;
- obtaining a quality setting;
- loading a pre-defined font definition, wherein the pre-defined font definition specifies character segments for each of multiple character fonts, and the specified character segments comprise horizontal and vertical line segments, diagonal line segments, and curve segments;
- selecting a pixel grid from a group of available pixel grids of different grid sizes based on the quality setting;
- generating a set of multiple spaced locations in the selected pixel grid based on character segments of the pre-defined font definition that correspond to the user-specified characters;
- and
- marking the material with the laser beam by directing the laser beam to dwell at the locations and move between the locations without deactivating the laser beam.
A system to mark on a material with a laser beam, the system comprising:
- a laser operable to produce the laser beam;
- an optics assembly operable to focus and direct the laser beam;
- and
- one or more machines coupled with the laser and the optics assembly and operable to (i) receive user-specified characters for a mark to be applied to the material with the laser beam, (ii) obtain a quality setting, (iii) load a pre-defined font definition, wherein the pre-defined font definition specifies character segments for each of multiple character fonts, and the specified character segments comprise horizontal and vertical line segments, diagonal line segments, and curve segments, (iv) select a pixel grid from a group of available pixel grids of different grid sizes based on the quality setting, (v) generate a set of multiple spaced locations in the selected pixel grid based on character segments of the pre-defined font definition that correspond to the user-specified characters, and (vi) mark the material with the laser beam by directing the laser beam to dwell at the locations and move between the locations without deactivating the laser beam.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.