CN110877487A - Image forming apparatus, image forming method, information processing apparatus, and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides an image forming apparatus, an image forming method, an information processing apparatus, and a storage medium capable of setting at least one of a placement direction and an initial position of the image forming apparatus on a printing medium. The image forming apparatus of the present invention is characterized by including an image forming unit (24) that forms an image on a medium (12), and a scan information acquiring unit (64) that acquires the image forming unit related to the image to be formed. scan information of the scan; a position information acquisition section (34) that acquires position information of the image forming section, and a control section (62) that controls the image forming section based on the scan information and the position information image forming action.

Description

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, information processing apparatus, and storage medium

technical field

The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an image forming method, an information processing apparatus, and a storage medium.

Background technique

When a user carries a smartphone or a notebook computer and uses it at a destination, there may be cases where he wants to use a printer to print a document or the like. In addition, there is also a need to print various information on objects that are difficult to install in general printers.

In response to such a demand, a droplet discharge device (hereinafter, referred to as HHP: Handheld Printer) that is miniaturized by removing a paper conveying system from a printing device is known (for example, refer to Patent Document 1). Patent Document 1 discloses an HHP that, when a user scans (moves) a paper surface such as a notebook while holding the HHP, detects its own positional information on the paper surface, and ejects ejection for use according to the positional information. The ink that forms the image.

However, the conventional HHP has a problem in that the orientation or initial position of the HHP on the printing medium cannot be set. A supplementary explanation is that the HHP receives the image from the image outputter and starts printing from the initial position determined by the user. In general, the user places the HHP on the print medium with the nozzles aligned in the longitudinal direction, and scans from left to right as viewed by the user (hereinafter, this scanning direction is simply referred to as horizontal scanning). ). This is because, in the case of an image including characters, it is often written horizontally, or it is easy for a user to scan it. On the other hand, in the past, even if the printing is started by horizontal scanning, the user can perform vertical scanning by simply rotating the HHP by 90 degrees to change the direction. However, when the rotation angle becomes larger, errors are easily included in the position information of the HHP, which leads to a decrease in image quality or a problem that it is difficult for the user to scan.

In the case of horizontal scanning, the upper left corner of the image is the initial position of the HHP. However, depending on how the user holds the HHP or the state of the printing medium, the initial position that is easy to scan may be other than the upper left corner. However, in the past, it has not been considered that the user selects the initial position of the HHP.

[Patent Document 1] (Japan) Japanese Patent Publication No. 2010-522650

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of the above-mentioned problems, the present invention has an object to provide an image forming apparatus capable of setting at least one of the placement direction of the image forming apparatus on the printing medium and the initial position.

In view of the above-mentioned problems, the technical solution of the present invention provides an image forming apparatus characterized by comprising: an image forming unit that forms an image on a medium; and a scan information acquiring unit that acquires the image relative to the image to be formed scan information of the scan of the forming unit; a position information acquiring unit that acquires the position information of the image forming unit, and a control unit that controls the image forming operation of the image forming unit based on the scan information and the position information .

The present invention provides an image forming apparatus capable of setting at least one of a placement direction and an initial position of the image forming apparatus on a printing medium.

Description of drawings

FIGS. 1( a ) to 1 ( c ) are explanatory diagrams showing an example of the orientation and initial position of the HHP placed on the printing medium.

FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing an example of image formation of HHP.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a hardware configuration diagram of the HHP.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the configuration of the control unit.

Figure 5 shows an example of the hardware structure of the image outputter.

FIG. 6 is a functional block diagram showing the functions of the image outputter and the control unit in a block-like manner.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an example of nozzle positions and the like in the IJ recording head.

FIGS. 8( a ) and 8 ( b ) are illustrations of the HHP coordinate system and the calculation method of the position information.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the relationship between the target ejection position and the position information of the nozzles.

FIGS. 10( a ) and 10 ( b ) are illustrative examples of the initial position of the conventional HHP.

Figures 11(a)-11(d) are illustrations of the orientation of the HHP placed in the print medium.

FIGS. 12( a ) to 12 ( d ) are diagrams showing an example of the scanning direction setting screen displayed on the image output device.

FIG. 13 shows an explanatory diagram of the initial position that is easy for the user to use and the initial setting of the HHP placed on the print medium.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing an example of a horizontal scan vertical scan setting screen displayed on the image output device.

FIG. 15 is an example of a flowchart showing the procedure of displaying the scanning direction setting screen by the image outputter.

Figure 16 shows a transition diagram of the system state of the HHP.

FIG. 17 shows an example of coordinate transformation when the initial position is in the upper left corner and the orientation of the printing medium is D3.

FIG. 18 is an explanatory diagram illustrating coordinate transformation when the initial position is at the upper left corner and the orientation of the print medium is D4.

FIG. 19 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the coordinate transformation when the initial position is at the upper left corner and the orientation of the set in the printing medium is D2.

FIGS. 20( a ) and 20 ( b ) are illustrations of coordinate conversion when the initial position is in the upper right corner and the orientation of the set on the printing medium is D1 .

Figures 21(a) to 21(d) are illustrations showing the effect of printing on a notebook-like printing medium.

Figures 22(a)-22(c) show an illustration of the effect of starting printing from an arbitrary position in the image.

FIGS. 23( a ) and 23 ( b ) are illustrations for explaining the scanning direction setting screen and coordinate conversion for the user to set an arbitrary position of the image in the initial position.

Figure 24 shows an illustration of the single path mode.

Figure 25 shows an illustration of the multipath mode.

FIG. 26 is a diagram showing an example of a scanning direction setting screen displayed on the image output device.

FIGS. 27( a ) to 27 ( c ) are explanatory diagrams of scanning examples of characters converted to vertical writing.

Figures 28(a)-28(c) are illustrations of one orientation in which the HHP is placed on the print medium in the single-pass mode.

FIG. 29 shows an example of a flowchart of the processing performed by the image outputter when scanning vertically in the single-path mode.

FIG. 30 is an example of a flowchart for explaining the operation procedure of the image outputter and the HHP.

FIG. 31 is an example of a flowchart illustrating the processing performed by the HHP based on the information about the scan.

FIG. 32 is a schematic structural diagram of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

Hereinafter, as an example of a mode for implementing the present invention, an image forming method performed by a droplet discharge device, an image output device, a program executed by the image output device, and the like will be described with reference to the drawings.

<About the initial position of the HHP in the present embodiment and the orientation on the printing medium>

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of the orientation and initial position of the HHP 20 placed on the printing medium. FIG. 1( a ) shows an example of the orientation and initial position of the HHP 20 for lateral scanning on the print medium. When viewed from the user in a horizontal scan from left to right, as shown in FIG. 1( a ), the HHP 20 is often arranged in the upper left corner of the image area 80 (including the upper left vertex and the surrounding area of the vertex).

FIG. 1(b) shows an example of the orientation and initial position of the HHP 20 for vertical scanning on the print medium. In this embodiment, when viewed from the user in a vertical scan from top to bottom, the user can place the HHP 20 on the print medium in the horizontal direction as shown in FIG. upper left corner. The upper end of the nozzle 71 becomes the origin of the image area 80 .

After the orientation and initial position of the printing medium are determined, the scanning direction viewed from the user is also determined, so the user can determine the initial position and orientation of the HHP 20 according to the direction in which he scans. For example, in the initial position and the orientation on the printing medium shown in FIG. 1( b ), from the start of the first printing, it is possible to print vertically written characters by vertical scanning.

In FIGS. 1( a ) and ( b ), the initial position is the upper left corner, but in this embodiment, the user can set an arbitrary position of the image area 80 as the initial position. FIG. 1( c ) shows an example of the initial position of the HHP 20 that can be set by the user. For example, when the scanning direction from the bottom to the top from the user's point of view is easy to print (for example, when the notebook is opened up and down from the user's point of view and scanned from the center of the notebook to the top direction), as shown in Figure 1 (c ), the user can place the HHP 20 on the print medium 12 laterally, and set the lower right corner of the image area 80 as the initial position.

In this way, in the present embodiment, since the combination of the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation of the HHP 20 to be placed on the printing medium 12 can be arbitrarily set, the user can start from the initial position where he can easily scan, and when viewed from the user, the user can Scan in an easy-to-scan direction.

＜About terminology＞

The scan information of the droplet discharge device is information on how to scan the HHP 20 . In this embodiment, for example, it is at least one of the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation in which it is placed on the print medium 12 .

The conversion of the positional information of the ejection nozzles refers to the conversion of the positional information detected by the HHP 20 into other positional information. The so-called position information refers to one-dimensional or two-dimensional coordinates.

The system state refers to an internal state related to the operation of the HHP. In each state, the action performed by the HHP is determined, and the transition condition from a certain state to another state is determined.

<Image formation of HHP>

FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing an example of image formation of the HHP 20 . In the HHP 20 , for example, an image forming an object and information related to scanning are transmitted from the image outputter 11 . The information about scanning includes, for example, the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation of the HHP 20 placed on the print medium, scan mode information (single-path mode, multi-path mode), the number of scan paths (in the case of single-path mode), cancellation of a print job, or printing task retries, etc.

The HHP 20 and the image outputter 11 , and the program operating in the HHP 20 and the image outputter 11 are referred to as the droplet discharge system 100 . The user holds the HHP 20 and scans by hand in such a way that the HHP 20 does not float from the print medium 12 (eg, paper, notebook, etc.).

The image output device 11 may be an information processing device having a function of wireless or wired communication with the HHP 20 . The image output device 11 includes, for example, a smartphone, a tablet terminal, a PC (Personal Computer), a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), a mobile phone, a handheld terminal, a wearable PC (for example, a watch type, a sunglasses type), a portable game console, and a vehicle. Navigators, digital cameras, projectors, video conferencing terminals or drones, etc.

The HHP 20 detects positional information using a navigation sensor and a gyro sensor as described later, and when the HHP 20 moves to the target ejection position, ejects ink of the color to be ejected at the target ejection position. Since the position where the ink has been ejected is masked (because it is not the object of ink ejection), the user can scan the HHP 20 on the printing medium 12 in any direction seen from the user, and can form an image.

The reason why the HHP 20 does not float from the printing medium 12 is preferable because the navigation sensor detects the amount of movement using the reflected light from the printing medium 12 . If the HHP 20 floats from the printing medium 12, the reflected light cannot be detected, and thus the amount of movement cannot be detected. A set of images such as Pn lines that can be formed by one scan is formed based on a certain initial position. If the HHP 20 is in a state where the position information cannot be detected during the formation of a group of images, the user instructs the image outputter 11 to cancel or retry.

Since the HHP 20 ejects ink onto the print medium 12 to form an image, it may be referred to as an ink jet printer. The fluid to be ejected is not limited to ink, as long as it is in a liquid state at least when ejected, so it may also be referred to as a droplet ejection device. In addition, it may also be called an image forming apparatus or a printing apparatus because it forms an image, and it may also be called an image processing apparatus because it processes an image. In addition, since the HHP 20 is portable by the user's hand, it is sometimes called an HMP (Handy Mobile Printer).

In addition, in this embodiment, the HHP 20 that ejects ink to form an image has been described, but the HHP 20 may form an image by a thermal transfer method, or may form an image by a swipe method. The thermal transfer method may be a method of transferring the ink ribbon onto the printing medium 12 with a thermal head, or a method of developing color on the printing medium 12 with a thermal head using thermal paper. In addition, if it is a click-and-tap method, an image can be formed at one time on a copying form such as a delivery slip or a subpoena.

The printing medium 12 only needs to have a flat surface in a part. A plane can also be a curved surface. For example, paper, a notebook, and the like can be exemplified. The print media can be either horizontal or vertical to the table or floor. In addition, the printing medium 12 is not limited to a sheet-like shape, and the HHP 20 can also form an image on a wall, a ceiling, or the like. For example, it is also possible to print on the sides, bottom, top, etc. of corrugated cardboard. In addition, it can also be printed on three-dimensional objects fixed on the ground or facilities.

<Configuration example>

<<HHP>>

FIG. 3 shows an example of a hardware configuration diagram of the HHP20. The entire operation of the HHP 20 is controlled by a control unit 25 to which the communication I/F 27 , the IJ head drive circuit 23 , the OPU 26 , the ROM 28 , the DRAM 29 , the navigation sensor 30 and the gyro sensor 31 are electrically connected. In addition, since the HHP 20 is driven by electric power, it has a power supply 22 and a power supply circuit 21 . The power generated by the power supply circuit 21 is supplied to the communication I/F 27 , the IJ recording head drive circuit 23 , the OPU 26 , the ROM 28 , the DRAM 29 , the IJ recording head 24 , the control unit 25 , the navigation sensor 30 , and the gyroscope through the wiring shown by the dotted line 22 a , etc. sensor 31.

A battery is mainly used as the power source 22 . The battery can be either a commercially available dry battery or a rechargeable battery, or a dedicated rechargeable battery. A solar cell, a commercial power source (AC power source), a fuel cell, or the like can also be used. The power supply circuit 21 distributes the power supplied by the power supply 22 to each part of the HHP 20 . In addition, the voltage of the power supply 22 is stepped down or stepped up to a voltage suitable for each part. In addition, when the power source 22 is a rechargeable battery, the power source circuit 21 detects the connection of the AC power source and connects to the battery charging circuit, so that the power source 22 can be charged.

The communication I/F 27 performs image reception and the like from an image output device 11 such as a smartphone or a PC (Personal Computer). The communication I/F 27 is, for example, a communication device compliant with communication standards such as wireless LAN, Bluetooth (registered trademark), NFC (Near Field Communication), infrared, 3G (cellular phone), or LTE (Long Term Evolution). In addition to such wireless communication, a communication device corresponding to wired communication using a wired LAN, a USB cable, or the like may be used.

The ROM 28 stores firmware for controlling the hardware of the HHP 20 , drive waveform data of the IJ recording head 24 (data for defining voltage changes for ejecting droplets), initial setting data of the HHP 20 , and the like.

The DRAM 29 is used for storage of images received by the communication I/F 27 or storage of firmware developed from the ROM 28 . Therefore, it is used as a work memory when the CPU 33 executes firmware.

The navigation sensor 30 is a sensor that detects the amount of movement of the HHP 20 in every predetermined cycle. The navigation sensor 30 includes a light source such as a light emitting diode (LED) or a laser, and an imaging sensor that captures an image of the printing medium 12 . As the HHP 20 scans on the print medium 12, minute edges of the print medium 12 are continuously detected (imaged), and the amount of movement is obtained by analyzing the distance between the edges. In the present embodiment, only one navigation sensor 30 is mounted on the bottom surface of the HHP 20 . There may also be two navigation sensors 30 . When there are two navigation sensors 30, the HHP 20 can detect the rotation angle. In this embodiment, the rotation angle is detected by the gyro sensor 31 . In addition, as the navigation sensor 30, a multi-axis acceleration sensor may be further used, and the HHP 20 may detect the movement amount of the HHP 20 only by the acceleration sensor.

The gyro sensor 31 is a sensor that detects the angular velocity when the HHP 20 rotates around the axis perpendicular to the printing medium 12 . The control unit 25 integrates the angular velocity to calculate the posture of the HHP 20 . The posture refers to the rotation angle of the HHP 20 with respect to a vertical axis of the printing medium 12 . An example of the reference of the rotation angle is the longitudinal direction of the HHP 20 at the start of printing.

The OPU (Operation panel Unit) 26 has an LED for displaying the state of the HHP 20 , a switch for the user to instruct image formation on the HHP 20 , and the like. However, it is not limited to this, a liquid crystal display may be provided, and a touch panel may be further provided. In addition, a voice input function may be provided. The OPU 26 has a print button 26a. The print button 26a is a button for accepting the start of printing.

The IJ recording head driving circuit 23 generates a driving waveform (voltage) for driving the IJ recording head 24 using the above-described driving waveform data. A drive waveform corresponding to the size and the like of a droplet of ink can be generated.

The IJ recording head 24 is a head for ejecting ink. In the figure, four colors of ink such as CMYK can be ejected, but a single color or five or more kinds of ink may be ejected. The plurality of ink ejection nozzles 71 (discharge portions) arranged in a row are arranged in one row (two or more rows may be used) for each color. In addition, the ejection method of the ink may be a piezoelectric method, a temperature difference method, or other methods. The IJ recording head 24 is a functional component that ejects and ejects liquid from the nozzles 71 . The liquid to be ejected is not particularly limited as long as it can be ejected from the head and has viscosity and surface tension, but is preferably a liquid with a viscosity of 30 MPa·s or less at normal temperature and pressure, or during heating and cooling. More specifically, it includes solvents such as water or organic solvents, colorants such as dyes and pigments, and functional-imparting materials such as polymerizable compounds, resins, and surfactants, and biological adaptations of DNA, amino acids, proteins, and calcium. Solutions, suspensions, latexes, etc. of edible materials such as natural pigments and edible materials, etc., which can be used in, for example, inkjet inks, surface treatment liquids, constituent elements of electronic components and light-emitting components, and electronic circuit resists Application of pattern forming liquid, three-dimensional modeling material liquid, etc.

The control unit 25 includes the CPU 33 and controls the entire HHP 20 . The control unit 25 performs position information of each nozzle 71 of the IJ recording head 24 and determination of an image formed based on the position information, which will be described later, based on the movement amount detected by the navigation sensor 30 and the angular velocity detected by the gyro sensor 31 . Whether the ejection nozzle can be judged, etc. Details of the control unit 25 are as follows.

FIG. 4 shows an explanatory diagram of the configuration of the control unit 25 . The control unit 25 has a SoC 50 and an ASIC/FPGA 40 . SoC 50 and ASIC/FPGA 40 communicate via buses 46,47. The ASIC/FPGA 40 can be designed using any assembly technology, and can also be constructed using other assembly technologies other than the ASIC/FPGA 40 . In addition, the SoC 50 and the ASIC/FPGA 40 may not be separate chips, but may be constituted by one chip or a substrate. Alternatively, three or more chips or substrates may be assembled.

The SoC 50 has functions such as a CPU 33 , a position calculation circuit 34 , a memory CTL (controller) 35 , and a ROM CTL (controller) 36 connected via a bus 47 . In addition, the constituent elements included in the SoC50 are not limited to these.

In addition, the ASIC/FPGA 40 includes an ImageRAM 37 , a DMAC 38 , a spinner 39 , an interrupt controller 41 , a navigation sensor I/F 42 , a print/sensor timing generation unit 43 , an IJ recording head control unit 44 , and a gyro sensor I/F, which are connected via a bus 46 . F45. In addition, the constituent elements of the ASIC/FPGA 40 are not limited to these.

The CPU 33 executes the firmware (program) etc. developed from the ROM 28 to the DRAM 29 , and controls the operations of the position calculation circuit 34 , the memory CTL 35 , and the ROM CTL 36 in the SoC 50 . In addition, it also controls the ImageRAM 37, DMAC 38, rotator 39, interrupt controller 41, navigation sensor I/F 42, print/sensor timing generation unit 43, IJ head control unit 44, gyro sensor I/F 45, etc. in the ASIC/FPGA 40. action.

The position calculation circuit 34 calculates position information (eg, coordinates) of the HHP 20 based on the movement amount per sampling period detected by the navigation sensor 30 and the angular velocity per sampling period detected by the gyro sensor 31 . Strictly speaking, the positional information of the HHP 20 is the positional information of the nozzle 71 , and the positional information of the nozzle 71 can be calculated by knowing any positional information of the navigation sensor 30 . In addition, the position calculation circuit 34 may be realized by software by the CPU 33 .

The position information of the navigation sensor 30 is calculated based on, for example, a predetermined origin (the initial position of the HHP 20 when image formation is started), as will be described later. In addition, the position calculation circuit 34 estimates the movement direction and acceleration from the difference between the past position information and the latest position information, and predicts, for example, the position information of the navigation sensor 30 at the next ejection timing. In this way, it is possible to suppress the user's delay in scanning and to eject ink.

The memory CTL35 is an interface with the DRAM 29 , and requests the DRAM 29 to transmit the acquired firmware to the CPU 33 or transmit the acquired image to the ASIC/FPGA 40 .

ROMCTL36 is an interface with ROM28, requests data from ROM28, and transmits the acquired data to CPU33 or ASIC/FPGA40.

The rotator 39 rotates the image acquired by the DMAC 38 according to the head from which the ink is ejected, the position of the nozzles in the head, the mounting error, and the like. The DMAC 38 outputs the rotated image to the IJ head control unit 44 .

The ImageRAM 37 temporarily stores the image acquired by the DMAC 38 . That is, a certain amount of images are buffered and read out based on the position information of the HHP 20 .

The IJ head control unit 44 performs dither processing or the like on the image (for example, Tiff format), and converts the image into a set of dots representing the image in size and density. Thereby, the image becomes the data of the ejection position and the size of the dot. The IJ recording head control unit 44 outputs a control signal corresponding to the size of the dot to the IJ recording head driving circuit 23 .

The IJ recording head drive circuit 23 generates the drive waveform (voltage) using the drive waveform data corresponding to the control signal as described above.

The navigation sensor I/F 42 communicates with the navigation sensor 30 , receives the movement amounts ΔX′ and ΔY′ (these will be described later) as information from the navigation sensor 30 , and stores the values in an internal register.

The print/sensor timing generation unit 43 notifies the navigation sensor I/F 42 and the gyro sensor I/F 45 of the timing of reading information, and notifies the IJ recording head control unit 44 of the drive timing. The period of the timing of reading information is longer than the period of the timing of ejecting the ink. The IJ recording head control unit 44 determines whether or not the ejection nozzles are available, and determines that the ink is ejected if there is a target ejection position where ink should be ejected, and determines that the ink is not ejected if there is no target ejection position.

In the timing generated by the print/sensor timing generation unit 43, the gyro sensor I/F 45 obtains the angular velocity detected by the gyro sensor 31, and stores the value in a register.

The interrupt controller 41 detects the completion of communication between the navigation sensor I/F 42 and the navigation sensor 30 , and outputs an interrupt signal for notifying the SoC 50 of this. The CPU 33 acquires ΔX' and ΔY' stored in the internal register of the navigation sensor I/F 42 by this interrupt. In addition, there is a function to notify the status of errors, etc. The same is true for the gyro sensor I/F 45 , and the interrupt controller 41 outputs to the SoC 50 an interrupt signal for notifying the end of the communication with the gyro sensor 31 .

<<Image exporter>>

FIG. 5 shows an example of a hardware configuration of the image outputter 11 . The illustrated image outputter 11 includes a CPU 201, a flash ROM 202, a RAM 203, a wireless communication module 204, an antenna 205, a camera 206, an LCD 207, a touch panel 208, an external I/F 209, a microphone 210, and a speaker 211. These are all connected to the bus 212, allowing the exchange of data. In addition, the image outputter 11 includes a battery 213 for supplying electric power to each of the above-described devices.

The CPU 201 controls the entire image output device 11 by performing arithmetic processing of various data in accordance with a program stored in the flash ROM 202 . The flash ROM 202 is used as a memory for storing various kinds of data while storing the program 202p for controlling the entire image output device 11 . Program 202p is an application developed to make HHP 20 work correctly.

The RAM 203 is used as a work memory of the CPU 201 . The program 202 p stored in the flash ROM 202 is read into the RAM 203 and executed by the CPU 201 .

The wireless communication module 204 communicates with the HHP 20 through Bluetooth (registered trademark), wireless LAN, NFC, or infrared rays, or the like. Voice communication or data communication using a mobile phone line such as 3G or LTE is also possible.

The camera 206 performs A/D conversion on the image signal output from the imaging element. The LCD 207 displays icons and various data for operating the image outputter 11 . The touch panel 208 is overlapped and brought into close contact with the LCD 20, and the position information of the contact position of the finger is detected.

The external I/F 20 9 is, for example, a USB interface, which is an interface for connecting an external device. The microphone 210 performs A (analog)/D (digital) conversion on the input audio signal. The speaker 211 D/A converts the sound data and outputs an audible signal.

＜About the function＞

FIG. 6 shows a functional block diagram showing the functions of the image output unit 11 and the control unit 25 in a block-like manner.

＜＜Image exporter＞＞

The image output unit 11 has various functions such as a communication unit 51 , a display control unit 52 , an operation accepting unit 53 , a print control unit 54 , an image processing unit 55 , and a storage unit 59 . These functional units of the image output device 11 are functions or means realized by the CPU 201 executing the program 202p and in cooperation with the hardware shown in FIG. 5 . In addition, the program 202p may be distributed from a server for program distribution, or may be distributed in a state stored in a portable storage medium such as a USB memory or an optical storage medium.

Various kinds of information are sent and received between the communication unit 51 and the HHP 2 . In this embodiment, information about images and scans is sent to the HHP 20, and the system status (standby, warm-up, printing (ready for printing, image forming operation, image forming operation completed), etc.) is received from the HHP 20. . The communication unit 51 is realized by the CPU 201 executing the program 202p developed from the flash ROM 202 to the RAM 203 and controlling the wireless communication module and the like.

The display control unit 52 performs control related to the display of various screens displayed on the LCD 207 . In this embodiment, a scanning direction setting screen that accepts the initial position and the orientation of the printing medium is displayed, and the like. The display control unit 52 is realized by the CPU 201 executing the program 202p developed from the flash ROM 202 to the RAM 203 and controlling the LCD 207 and the like.

The operation accepting unit 53 accepts various operations of the image outputter 11 by the user. What is accepted in this embodiment is the initial position, the orientation of placement on the print medium, and the like. The operation accepting unit 53 is realized by the CPU 201 executing the program 202p developed from the flash ROM 202 to the RAM 203 and controlling the touch panel 208 and the like.

The print control unit 54 performs control related to printing of images. That is, the control related to the communication of the HHP 20 , the generation of an image, and the interruption/restart of printing, etc. are performed. The print control unit 54 is realized by the CPU 201 executing a program 202p or the like developed from the flash ROM 202 to the RAM 203 .

The image processing unit 55 converts the text data into vertical writing using a vertical writing font when printing the text data. Alternatively, after transforming the text data into an image, rotate each character by 90 degrees. The image processing unit 55 is realized by the CPU 201 executing the program 202p or the like developed from the flash ROM 202 to the RAM 203 .

The storage unit 59 stores the image 591 . The image 591 may be in any file format, for example, may be an image file of TIFF, JPEG, BMP, and the like. Alternatively, it may be print data (PostScript, PDF, etc.) described in PDL (PageDescriptionLanguage: page description language).

<<Control Section>>

The control unit 25 includes an information acquisition control unit 61 , a position management unit 62 , a startup processing unit 63 , a communication unit 64 , an image storage unit 65 , a print control unit 66 , a state control unit 67 , and a display control unit 68 . These functions of the control unit 25 are functions or means realized by the CPU 33 shown in FIG. 4 executing a program stored in the ROM 28 .

The communication section 64 communicates with the image outputter 11 and transmits and receives various kinds of information. In the present embodiment, the image output unit 11 receives information about images and scans, and transmits the system status to the image output unit 11 .

The image storage unit 65 is an image storage unit constructed by the ImageRAM 37 or the like, and the image received by the communication unit 64 is stored in the image storage unit 65 .

The information acquisition control unit 61 determines whether or not it is a timing to acquire information detected by the sensors from various sensors, and if it is the timing to acquire information, acquires information from each sensor.

The position management unit 62 controls the image forming operation of the HHP 20 . That is, the origin is determined according to the user's operation to start printing, and the position information of the nozzles 71 calculated by the position calculation circuit 34 is converted into the same position as the initial position and the orientation of the nozzle 71 placed on the printing medium according to the initial position and the orientation placed on the printing medium. The orientation is in the appropriate location information. In some transformations, the position management section 62 converts the coordinate system of the HHP 20 to the coordinate system of the image. Details will be described later.

The state control unit 67 controls the system state of the HHP 20 . The system state includes I. Standby, II. Warming up, III. Printing (IV. Printing ready, V. Image forming operation, VI. Image forming operation completed) and the like. For example, when the press of the print button 26a, the timeout of the stationary state, the detection of floating, or the outside of the image area is detected, the system state is transitioned from the image forming operation to the end of the image forming operation.

When the user scans with the HHP 20 , the print control section 66 controls the IJ recording head drive circuit 23 using the image based on the position information of the nozzles 71 converted by the position management section 62 .

When the power of the HHP 20 is turned on, the startup processing unit 63 executes processing necessary for startup of the hardware, such as initialization of the hardware, state detection of each piece of hardware, and the like. The display control unit 68 generates information displayed by the OPU 26 and displays it on the OPU 26 .

<Regarding the nozzle position in the IJ recording head>

Next, the nozzle positions and the like in the IJ recording head 24 will be described with reference to FIG. 7 . Figure 7 shows the bottom surface of HHP20. The bottom surface is the surface facing the printing medium 12 .

The HHP 20 having one navigation sensor 30 is shown in FIG. 7 . The distance from the navigation sensor 30 to the IJ recording head 24 is a. The distance a may also be zero (contact with the IJ recording head 24). When the number of navigation sensors 30 is one, the navigation sensor 30 may be located anywhere around the IJ recording head 24 . The illustrated location information of the navigation sensor 30 is an example. However, when the distance between the IJ recording head 24 and the navigation sensor 30 is short, it is easy to reduce the size of the bottom surface of the HHP 20 .

When there are two navigation sensors 30, the longer the distance between the two navigation sensors 30, the higher the detection accuracy of the rotation angle. Therefore, although it is preferable to arrange the two navigation sensors 30 in the longitudinal direction of the HHP 20 , when the number of the navigation sensors 30 is two, the navigation sensors 30 may be arranged anywhere around the IJ recording head 24 .

The distance from the end of the IJ recording head 24 to the first nozzle 71 is the distance d, and the distance between adjacent nozzles 71 is the distance e. The values of a to e are stored in the ROM 28 or the like in advance.

If the position calculation circuit 34 calculates the position information of the navigation sensor 30 and detects the inclination by the gyro sensor, the position calculation circuit 34 can calculate an arbitrary nozzle position of the nozzle 71 using the distance a, the distance d, and the distance e.

The nozzle 71 is close to the upper side in the longitudinal direction of the HHP 20 when viewed by the user. This is because when the user holds the HHP 20 , the position information of the nozzle 71 can be easily grasped intuitively. However, the nozzle 71 may be arranged in the center of the HHP 20 or other places.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 7 , the arrangement direction of the nozzles 71 coincides with the longitudinal direction of the HHP 20 . Of course, the nozzle 71 is fixed on the HHP 20 . Therefore, if the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 is determined, the orientation of the nozzle 71 when placed on the print medium 12 is also determined.

The nozzles 71 have N nozzles 71 . The HHP 20 calculates the position information for each nozzle 71 so that each nozzle 71 is numbered in order from the center to become the nozzle 1 , the nozzle 2 , . . . , and the nozzle N. The numbers of the nozzles 71 may be assigned sequentially from the upper end. If the distance e is constant, the higher the number of N, which is the number of nozzles 71, the more high-resolution images can be obtained. As an example, N may be 192, but N is not limited to 192.

<Information about the location of the HHP in the print medium>

FIG. 8 shows an explanatory diagram of the calculation method of the coordinate system and position information of the HHP 20 . In the present embodiment, the horizontal direction in the print medium 12 is the X axis, and the vertical direction is the Y axis. The origin is the position information of nozzle N or nozzle 1 at the start of printing. The coordinates are referred to as print medium coordinates. On the other hand, the navigation sensor 30 outputs the movement amount along the coordinate axes (X' axis, Y' axis) of FIG. 8 . That is, the movement amount is output with the arrangement direction of the nozzles 71 as the Y' axis and the direction orthogonal to the Y' axis as the X' axis.

As shown in FIG. 8( a ), a case where the HHP 20 rotates θ in the clockwise rotation direction with respect to the printing medium 12 is described as an example. Since it is difficult for the user to scan the HHP 20 with no tilt at all with respect to the print medium coordinates, θ that is not zero results. If there is no rotation at all, then X=X', Y=Y'. However, when the HHP 20 is rotated relative to the print medium 12 by the angle θ, the output of the navigation sensor 30 does not coincide with the actual position information in the print medium 12 of the HHP 20 . The rotation angle θ is positive in the clockwise direction, X and X' are positive in the right direction, and Y and Y' are in the downward direction.

Fig. 8(a) is an explanatory diagram of the X-coordinate of HHP20. As shown in FIG. 8( a ), when the rotation angle θ is only the HHP20 in the X direction, when the navigation sensor 30 moves from t1 to t2 at the same rotation angle θ, the movement amount ΔX′ detected by the navigation sensor 30, The corresponding relationship between ΔY' and X, Y. In addition, when there are two navigation sensors 30, since the relative position is fixed, the output (movement amount) of the two navigation sensors 30 is the same. The X coordinate of the navigation sensor 30 changes to X1+X2 in the positive direction. X1+X2 is obtained from ΔX', ΔY' and the rotation angle θ.

As shown in FIG. 8(b), the rotation angle θ is only the movement amounts ΔX', ΔY' and X detected by the navigation sensor 30 when the HHP 20 moves from t1 to t2 at the same rotation angle θ in the Y direction. , Y corresponding relationship. The Y coordinate of the navigation sensor 30 changes to Y1+Y2 in the positive direction. Y1+Y2 is obtained from ΔX', ΔY' and the rotation angle θ.

Therefore, when the HHP 20 moves in the X direction and the Y direction while keeping the rotation angle θ unchanged, ΔX′ and ΔY′ output by the navigation sensor 30 can be converted into X and Y of the printing medium coordinates as follows.

X=ΔX'cosθ-ΔY'sinθ... Formula (1)

Y=ΔX'sinθ+ΔY'cosθ... Formula (2)

<Rotation angle θ>

Next, a calculation method of the rotation angle θ using the output of the gyro sensor 31 will be described. The output of the gyro sensor 31 is the angular velocity ω.

Since ω=dθ/dt, when dt is the sampling period, the rotation angle dθ can be as follows.

dθ=ω×dt

Therefore, the rotation angle θ at the present (time t=0 to N) is as follows.

In this way, the rotation angle θ can be obtained by the gyro sensor 31 . As shown in equations (1) and (2), the position information can be calculated using the rotation angle θ. If the position information of the navigation sensor 30 can be calculated, the position calculation circuit 34 can calculate the coordinates of each nozzle 71 based on the values of a to e shown in FIG. 7 . In addition, since X in Equation (1) and Y in Equation (2) are the amount of change in the sampling period, respectively, the current position information can be obtained by accumulating X and Y.

<Target ejection position>

Next, the target ejection position will be described with reference to FIG. 9 . FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the relationship between the target ejection position and the position information of the nozzle 71 . The target ejection positions G1 to G9 are target positions where the HHP 20 lands ink from the nozzles 71 (pixel formation destinations). The target ejection positions G1 to G9 can be obtained from the initial position of the HHP 20 and the resolution (Xdpi, Ydpi) in the X-axis/Y-axis direction of the HHP 20 .

For example, when the resolution is 300 dpi, the target ejection position is set at intervals of about 0.084 mm in the longitudinal direction of the IJ recording head 24 and the direction perpendicular to the initial position of the HHP 20 . If there are pixels ejected to the target ejection positions G1 to G9, the HHP 20 ejects ink.

However, in practice, since it is difficult to capture the timing when the nozzle 71 and the target ejection position completely match, the HHP 20 provides an error margin 73 between the target ejection position and the current position information of the nozzle 71 . Then, when the current position information of the nozzles 71 is within the range of the error tolerance 73 from the target ejection position, the ink is ejected from the nozzles 71 (setting such an tolerance range is referred to as "ejection nozzle availability determination"). ).

In addition, as indicated by the arrow 72, the HHP 20 monitors the moving direction and acceleration of the nozzle 71, and predicts the position information of the nozzle 71 at the next ejection timing. Therefore, by comparing the predicted position information with the range of the error margin 73, it is possible to prepare for the ejection of the ink.

<Original position of image area and HHP>

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram of the initial position of the conventional HHP 20 . FIG. 10( a ) shows the scanning direction of the HHP 20 viewed by the user with respect to the image generated from the text data, and FIG. 10( b ) shows the image area 80 where the image is arranged. As shown in FIG. 10( b ), in the conventional HHP 20 , the nozzle N is aligned with the origin of the image area 80 . The same applies to Fig. 10(a).

As shown in FIG. 10( a ), when viewed from the user, when the user starts scanning from the upper left corner of the print medium 12 , the characters “HAND” are scanned and printed by the user in the +X direction of the HHP 20 .

As shown in FIG. 10( b ), the circumscribed rectangle of the image is called an image area 80 . The area determined by the maximum value Xmax of the X coordinate in the image coordinates, the maximum value Ymax of the Y coordinate in the image coordinates, and the origin (0, 0) is the image area 80 . Since the image sent from the image outputter 11 to the HHP 20 is already in the format of the image, the image area 80 is known to the print control section 66 . In the case of FIG. 10( a ), the circumscribed rectangle of “HAND” is the image area 80 .

Regardless of the initial position and orientation of the HHP 20 on the print medium, the image area 80 always takes the upper left corner as the origin, the right direction from the user's point of view is the +X axis, and the downward direction from the user's point of view is the +Y axis. The coordinates of the image area 80 are the same as the coordinates of the image in the RAM of the HHP 20 .

<Initial position set by image outputter and orientation on print medium>

Next, the initial position set by the image output unit 11 and the orientation of placing on the print medium 12 will be described with reference to FIGS. 11 and 12 . The orientation is the orientation in the initial position of the HHP 20 with respect to the image forming the object.

First, FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the orientation of the HHP 20 placed on the print medium 12 . FIGS. 11( a ) to ( d ) respectively show the orientations of the HHP 20 placed on the printing medium 12 which can be set by the user through the image output device 11 . The orientation of the HHP 20 in Fig. 11(a) is the first direction, the orientation of the HHP 20 in Fig. 11(b) is the second direction, the orientation of the HHP 20 in Fig. 11(c) is the third direction, and the orientation of the HHP 20 in Fig. 11(d) The orientation of HHP20 is an example of its fourth orientation.

The orientation of the nozzles 71 is determined by the orientation of the HHP 20 placed on the print medium 12 . FIG. 11( a ) shows the orientation of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the printing medium 12 as in FIG. 10( a ). Specifically, the outer side of the HHP 20 and the side with a shorter distance between the nozzles 71 are placed upward with respect to the printing medium 12 . The orientation to be placed on the print medium 12 shown in Fig. 11(a) is suitable for lateral scanning.

11(b) shows the orientation of the nozzle 1 being placed on the printing medium 12 by rotating the HHP 20 of FIG. 11(a) by 180 degrees (opposite to the direction of the HHP 20 of FIG. That is, the outer side of the HHP 20 and the side closer to the distance between the nozzles 71 are placed downward with respect to the printing medium 12 . When the nozzle N coincides with the origin, in that case, even if the user scans in the right direction, the ink cannot be ejected. Since the arrangement direction of the nozzles 71 is the longitudinal direction with respect to the printing medium, the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the printing medium 12 as shown in FIG. 11( b ) is suitable for horizontal scanning. In addition, in FIG. 11( b ), since the nozzles 71 near the upper side of the HHP 20 reach the user side, there is an advantage that the origin of the image area 80 can be easily matched with the desired position information of the printing medium 12 . In addition, it is preferable to scan the entire HHP 20 without protruding beyond the printing medium 12 (this is because the navigation sensor 30 may float due to the step of the printing medium and the periphery). The advantage of the blank on the lower side of the medium (the blank on the upper side becomes larger). In the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the printing medium 12 shown in FIG. 11( a ), the upper margin can be reduced (the lower margin is increased).

FIG. 11( c ) shows the orientation of the HHP 20 shown in FIG. 11( a ) after being rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise and placed on the printing medium 12 . That is, the side with the closer distance between the outer side of the HHP 20 and the nozzle 71 faces left with respect to the printing medium 12 . Since the arrangement direction of the nozzles 71 is transverse with respect to the printing medium 12, the orientation shown in FIG. 11(c) is suitable for a right-handed user to perform vertical scanning. When the HHP 20 is held with the right hand, it is easy to align the nozzle N with the origin of the image area 80 . In addition, the margin on the left side of the print medium 12 can be reduced (the margin on the right side is increased).

Fig. 11(d) shows that the HHP20 of Fig. 11(a) is rotated 90 degrees in the clockwise direction (opposite to the direction of the HHP20 of Fig. 11(c)), and the nozzle 1 is placed in the same position as the origin. Orientation on print medium 12 . That is, the side with the closer distance between the outer side of the HHP 20 and the nozzle 71 is oriented to the right with respect to the printing medium 12 . When the nozzle N coincides with the origin, in that case, even if the user scans in the downward direction, the ink cannot be ejected. Since the arrangement direction of the nozzles 71 is transverse with respect to the printing medium 12, the orientation shown in FIG. 11(d) is suitable for a left-handed user to perform longitudinal scanning. In addition, the margin on the right side of the print medium 12 can be reduced (the margin on the left side becomes larger).

Further, when the orientation of the HHP 20 placed on the printing medium 12 is selected as shown in FIGS. 11( a ) to ( d ), the initial position of the HHP 20 may be any one of the four corners of the image area 80 . The user can also arbitrarily determine the initial position. The initial position of the HHP 20 may be the initial position of the IJ recording head 24 as the image forming section. Therefore, the orientation can also be said to be the orientation in the initial position of the IJ recording head 24 (image forming section) with respect to the image to be formed.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of the scanning direction setting screen U displayed on the image output unit 11 . For convenience, the scanning direction setting screens U of FIGS. 12( a ) to ( d ) are referred to as U1 to U4 . The scanning direction setting screen U receives the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation of the HHP 20 placed on the printing medium 12 . The scanning direction setting screen U1 shown in FIG. 12( a ) shows the possible initial positions of the HHP 20 . In order for the image outputter 11 to assist the user's operation, the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation of being placed on the print medium 12 are initially set. In FIG. 12( a ), the initial position of the initial setting is the upper left corner, and the orientation of being placed on the printing medium 12 is the vertical direction. In addition, the initial setting will be described with reference to FIG. 13 .

The display control unit 52 of the image output device 11 displays a preview 401 of the image and marks 403 in the four corners of the image. An icon 402 of the HHP 20 that is initially set is displayed on one of the four corner marks 403 . Alternatively, the marker 403 may be highlighted.

The user can change the initial position of the HHP 20 or the orientation of the HHP 20 placed on the printing medium 12 . When the user changes the initial position of the initial setting, he selects any one of the remaining three marks 403 , and when the orientation on the printing medium 12 is changed, the icon 402 is selected. In the scanning direction setting screen U2 of FIG.12(b), the icon 402 is pressed. The operation accepting unit 53 of the image output device 11 accepts the user's selection.

When the icon 402 or the mark 403 is selected, the display control unit 52 displays a list 404 of orientations when placed on the HHP 20 . List 404 represents the preferred orientations of HHP 20 when placed on print medium 12 . As shown in FIG. 11( b ), there are four orientations of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the printing medium 12 . The orientations shown in the list 404 of FIG. 12( b ) when placed on the printing medium 12 are referred to as orientation D1 , orientation D2 , orientation D3 , and orientation D4 in order from top to bottom. Since the icon 402 in FIG. 12( b ) is placed on the printing medium 12 with the orientation facing D1 , it is displayed with emphasis by inverting the color facing D1 in the list 404 . The user may select the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 from the list 404 taking into account the positions of landscape scanning, portrait scanning, right-handed, left-handed, and blank. The operation accepting unit 53 of the image output device 11 accepts the user's selection.

FIG. 12( c ) shows the scanning direction setting screen U3 in which the direction D4 is selected in the list 404 . The operation accepting unit 53 accepts the selection of the direction D4.

FIG. 12( d ) shows the scanning direction setting screen U4 displayed when the orientation D4 is selected. The display control unit 52 displays the icon 402 of the HHP 20 facing D4 in the upper left corner of the image area 80 in accordance with the user's operation. In this way, the display control unit 52 of the image output device 11 displays the icon 402 of the HHP 20 having the orientation and initial position when placed on the print medium 12 on the scanning direction setting screen U4 according to the user's operation.

Since there are four initial positions and four orientations placed on the printing medium 12 , there are 4×4=16 combinations of the initial positions and the orientations placed on the printing medium 12 in total.

In this way, the user can arbitrarily set the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation of the HHP 20 placed on the printing medium 12 . The initial position of the preview 401 is selected through the scanning direction setting screen U, and the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 is selected from the list 404. Through such intuitive operations, the initial position and placement on the print medium 12 can be set. The orientation of the HHP20 when going up. The setting in FIG. 12 may be performed in common in the single-path mode or the multi-path mode, which will be described later.

In addition, in FIG. 12 , it is set in the order of the initial position→the orientation on the printing medium 12, but it may be set in the order of the orientation on the printing medium 12→the initial position. In addition, the settings of the initial position and the orientation of placement on the print medium 12 may be accepted at the same time. In this case, the display control unit 52 displays a list of 16 modes as icons, and the operation accepting unit 53 accepts the setting of the initial position and the orientation of the print medium 12 at the same time.

<Initial setting of the initial position and orientation placed on the print medium>

FIG. 13 shows an explanatory diagram of the initial setting of the initial position and the orientation placed on the printing medium 12 which are easy for the user to use. For example, in the case of Japanese or English written horizontally, the characters are written from left to right from the user's point of view. Furthermore, since it is written from the upper line to the next line, when the user selects horizontal scanning , by setting the initial position of the display control unit 52 at the upper left corner of the image area 80 and setting the orientation D1, it is easy for the user to use.

On the other hand, in the case of vertically written Japanese, Chinese, etc., the characters are written from top to bottom when viewed by the user. Furthermore, since the text is written from the right line to the left line, when the user selects When vertical scanning is performed, by setting the initial position at the upper right corner of the image area 80 and setting the orientation to D4, it is easy for the user to use.

As described in FIG. 14 , since the user can easily set vertical scanning or horizontal scanning, when the operation accepting section 53 accepts selection of vertical scanning or horizontal scanning, the display control section 52 sets the scanning direction in FIG. 12 . The initial positions displayed on the setting screens U1 to U4 and the initial settings of the orientations to be placed on the print medium 12 are changed. When horizontal scanning is selected, the upper left corner is set as the initial position and the direction D1 is set, and when vertical scanning is selected, the upper right corner is set as the initial position and the orientation is set D4. In the initial position of the initial setting, an icon 402 with the downward orientation of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the printing medium 12 in the initial setting is displayed. In addition, the orientation of the HHP 20 that is initially set when placed on the print medium 12 is displayed prominently in the list 404 .

By such an initial setting, it is possible to shorten the setting man-hours (time) of the user on the scanning direction setting screen U.

FIG. 14 is a diagram showing an example of the horizontal scan vertical scan setting screen 411 displayed on the image output device 11 . The horizontal scan and the vertical scan setting screen 411 are a screen for setting by the user whether to scan horizontally or vertically.

Horizontal Scan The Vertical Scan setting screen 411 has radio buttons 412 and 413 corresponding to "Landscape Scan" and "Longitudinal Scan". The user selects either of the two radio buttons 412 and 413 . If the user does not select portrait or landscape scan, landscape scan is the default.

By setting "lateral scan" or "longitudinal scan" by the user on the horizontal scan vertical scan setting screen 411 shown in FIG. 14 before the scanning direction setting screen U shown in FIG. 12, the user can easily set the initial position and placement The orientation of the HHP 20 when on the print medium 12 . In addition, when "horizontal scan" or "vertical scan" is set in the horizontal scan and vertical scan setting screen 411 of FIG. 14, if the initial setting is possible, the scanning direction setting screen U of FIG. 12 may not be set. .

In addition, in either of the single-path mode and the multi-path mode, which will be described later, horizontal scanning and vertical scanning can be selected.

FIG. 15 is an example of a flowchart showing the procedure of displaying the scanning direction setting screen U by the image output unit 11 .

First, the operation accepting unit 53 accepts the display of the scanning direction setting screen (S301). The display control unit 52 determines whether or not the scanning direction has been accepted on the horizontal scanning vertical scanning setting screen 411 shown in FIG. 14 ( S302 ).

When the determination in step S302 is "NO", the horizontal scanning is set as the set mode, and the display control unit 52 uses the upper left corner as the initial position and the orientation D1 as the initial setting, and displays the scanning direction setting screen. on U1 (S303).

When the determination in step S302 is "Yes", since vertical scanning is set, the display control unit 52 uses the upper right corner as the initial position and the orientation D4 as the initial setting, and displays it on the scanning direction setting screen U1 ( S304).

The operation accepting unit 53 determines whether or not the initial position or the orientation of the HHP 20 when set on the print medium 12 has been accepted on the scanning direction setting screen U1 ( S305 ). If the user does not change the initial position and the orientation of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the printing medium 12 , the process of FIG. 15 ends.

When the operation accepting unit 53 accepts the change of the initial position or the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the printing medium 12 on the scanning direction setting screen U1 (YES in S305 ), the display control unit 52 will display The icon 402 of the HHP 20 is displayed in the initial position (S306). The orientation of the HHP 20 when the icon 402 is placed on the print medium 12 may be the orientation set initially. Icon 402 has been displayed when only changing the orientation of HHP 20 when placed on print medium 12 .

Next, the display control unit 52 displays a list 404 of the orientations of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the print medium 12 ( S307 ). Therefore, the scanning direction setting screen U2 is displayed.

Next, the operation accepting unit 53 accepts the change in the orientation of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the print medium 12 ( S308 ). The user sometimes does not change the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 . When receiving the change in the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 , the display control unit 52 displays the scanning direction setting screen U3 .

The display control unit 52 displays the changed initial position and the HHP icon 402 in the orientation of the HHP 20 when the HHP 20 is placed on the print medium 12 ( S309 ). Therefore, the scanning direction setting screen U4 is displayed.

<About system status>

Next, the system state of the HHP 20 will be described with reference to FIG. 16 . Figure 16 shows a transition diagram of the system state of the HHP20. As shown in the figure, the system states mainly include I. Standby, II. Warming up, and III. Printing. In III. Printing, IV. Printing ready, V. Image forming operation, and VI. Image forming Action ends. The system state shown in the figure is only an example, and there may be various states other than those shown in the figure.

I. Standby is a standby state, II. Preheating is a state ready for printing, and III. Printing is a state in which printing can be performed immediately as long as the user performs a predetermined operation. IV. Ready to print is the state in which the user presses the print button 26a to wait, V. During the image forming operation is the state where the user is scanning, VI. The end of the image forming operation means the transition from V. The image forming operation starts to 1 Temporary state when printing of the page has ended.

Immediately after the HHP20 is powered on, it is I. Standby. The transition from I. Standby to II. Preheating is performed under the following transition conditions.

(i) I. Standby → II. Warming up

Data input, long press of the print button 26a (for maintenance), remaining pages (the remaining pages will be described later)

The transition from II. preheating to III. printing is carried out under the following transition conditions.

(ii) II. Preheating → III. Printing

Image reception is complete, temperature is ready, and gyro offset correction is complete

Immediately after transitioning to III. Printing, the system status changes to IV. Printing ready. The transition from IV. printing ready to V. image forming action is made by the following transition conditions.

(iii) IV. Ready for printing → V. Image forming operation

Depression of the print button 26a

The transition from the V. image forming operation to the VI. image forming operation completion is made by the following transition conditions.

(iv) V. Image forming operation → VI. Image forming operation completed

Out of image area, floating detection, stop timeout, press of print button 26a

The transition from the completion of the image forming operation to the preparation for printing IV. is based on the following transition conditions.

(v) End of image forming operation → IV. Ready for printing

There are remaining pages

The transition from the end of the image forming operation to the II. warm-up is the following transition conditions.

(vi) VI. Image forming operation completed → II. Warming up

No pages remaining and data entry is in progress

The transition from the completion of the VI. image forming operation to the I. standby is performed under the following transition conditions. (vii) VI. End of image forming operation → I. Standby

no pages remaining

For example, in the transition of (v), after the transition to the image forming operation is completed, if there are any remaining pages, the transition to the state of being ready to print is made. Therefore, the user can transition to V by pressing the print button 26a. . The image forming action is in progress. The remaining pages refer to the remaining paths to be scanned when the image is divided into Pn times of paths and printed in the single-path mode described later. Therefore, even when multiple scans are required in the single-pass mode, as long as the user moves the HHP 20 out of the image area, the user can press the print button 26a to start the next scan, thereby improving operability. In addition, in the case of the multi-path mode, as long as the user satisfies the transition condition (iv), printing can be ended even if an unprinted image remains.

<Coordinate table conversion by HHP>

In the scanning direction setting screen U shown in FIG. 12 , at least one of the initial position set by the user and the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 is included in the information related to scanning and sent to the HHP 20 . The position management unit 62 of the HHP 20 converts the coordinates of the position information calculated by the position calculation circuit 34 based on the initial position and the orientation of the HHP 20 when the HHP 20 is placed on the print medium 12 .

FIG. 17 is an explanatory diagram of the coordinate transformation when the initial position is in the upper left corner facing D3. The origin of the image area 80 is the upper left corner, and is two-dimensionally arranged in the +X direction and the +Y direction. The user scans quadrant 4 with the HHP20. In this case, when the position information detected by the HHP 20 is represented by lowercase letters x, y, the coordinates detected by the HHP 20 in the image area 80 are -x, -y. Since the absolute values of x and y are equal to the absolute values of X and Y, the following transformations may be performed.

-x→+X

-y→+Y... Formula (3)

17, the directions of the nozzles 1 to N and the +Y direction are opposite to the normal direction of the nozzle 71 (FIG. 12(a)) (the nozzle 1 corresponds to the origin). Therefore, the position management unit 62 processes the position information of the nozzles 1 to N upside down. On top of this, the transformation of formula (3) is performed.

Nozzle 1 → Nozzle N

Nozzle 2 → Nozzle N-1

:

Nozzle N → Nozzle 1

If this conversion is not performed, the ink with the coordinates of the nozzle N is ejected with the coordinates of the nozzle 1 , and the ink with the coordinates of the nozzle 1 is ejected with the coordinates of the nozzle N.

FIG. 18 is an explanatory diagram of the coordinate transformation when the initial position is in the upper left corner toward D4. Likewise, the user scans quadrant 4 through the HHP20. In this case, when the position information detected by the HHP 20 is represented by lowercase letters x, y, the coordinates detected by the HHP 20 in the image area 80 are -x, +y. In this case, as is clear from the figure, it is only necessary to perform the following transformations.

-x→+Y

+y→+X... Formula (4)

In addition, in FIG. 18, since the nozzle N matches the origin, the conversion of the nozzles 1 to N is unnecessary.

FIG. 19 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the coordinate transformation when the initial position is in the upper left corner facing D2. Likewise, the user scans quadrant 4 through the HHP20. In this case, when the location information detected by the HHP 20 is represented by lowercase letters x, y, the coordinates detected by the HHP 20 in the image area 80 are +x and -y. In this case, as is clear from the figure, it is only necessary to perform the following transformations.

+x→+Y

-y→+X... Formula (5)

In addition, in FIG. 19 , the directions of the nozzles N to 1 and the +X direction are opposite to the normal direction of the nozzle 71 ( FIG. 12( a )) (the nozzle 1 matches the origin). 5. Therefore, the position management unit 62 processes the position information of the nozzles 1 to N upside down.

The transformations in FIGS. 17 to 19 can be obtained by transformation of the coordinate system. In Figure 17, the coordinate system of HHP20 rotates 180 degrees counterclockwise, the coordinate system of HHP20 in Figure 18 rotates 90 degrees counterclockwise (clockwise rotation is -90 degrees), and the coordinate system of HHP20 in Figure 19 is reversed When the clockwise rotation direction is rotated 270 degrees (the clockwise rotation direction is -270 degrees), it is consistent with the XY coordinate system (print medium coordinates). That is, the position management unit 62 converts the coordinate system of the HHP 20 into the coordinate system of the image.

In FIGS. 17 to 19 , the case where the initial position is the upper left corner has been described, but the coordinate transformation may be performed when the initial position is in the upper right corner or the like.

FIG. 20( a ) is an example of a diagram illustrating coordinate transformation when the initial position is the direction D1 of the upper right corner. Likewise, the user scans quadrant 4 through the HHP20. In this case, if the position information detected by the HHP20 is represented by the lowercase letters x, y, the coordinates detected by the HHP20 in the image area 80 are -x, and the maximum value Xmax of the X coordinates in the image area 80 is Moved the coordinates of HHP20. Therefore, it is only necessary to perform the following transformations.

-x+Xmax→+X

+y→+Y... Formula (7)

When the Y coordinate is changed so that the initial position is at the lower right corner or the lower left corner, it is sufficient to change -y+Ymax to Y. When the initial position is changed and set to be in the direction D2 to D4, the rotation of the coordinate system and the displacement of the coordinates may be combined.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 20( b ), the image area 80 may be moved. In Figure 20(b), the image area 80 is moved horizontally to the third quadrant. The Y coordinate of the image has not changed, the X coordinate is -Xmax as a whole. The user scans the third quadrant with the HHP20. In this case, when the position information detected by the HHP 20 is represented by lowercase letters x, y, the coordinates detected by the HHP 20 in the image area 80 are -x, +y, but since the X coordinate of the image has been changed, it is not Coordinate transformation is required.

-x→-X

+y→+Y... Formula (8)

<Effect of setting the initial position and the orientation of the HHP20 when it is placed on the print medium>

Next, the effect of setting the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 by the user as in the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 21 and 22 . FIG. 21 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the effect of printing on the notebook-shaped printing medium 12 .

FIG. 21( a ) shows a situation when the left page of the notebook 501 is scanned from left to right from the user's point of view. However, in this case, when the user starts scanning from the left end of the notebook 501 , the paper may bend as the HHP 20 approaches the center of the notebook 501 . Fig. 21(b) shows the case where the paper is deflected. When the paper is deflected, it is difficult to scan smoothly, and there is a possibility that operability and image quality may be degraded.

On the other hand, in the present embodiment, the left page can be scanned from the center of the notebook in the left direction as viewed by the user. FIG. 21( c ) shows, as an example, when the user scans the right page of the notebook 501 from left to right. At this time, when the user starts scanning from the center of the notebook 501 in the right direction as viewed by the user, the HHP 20 does not easily bend the paper regardless of which part of the notebook is scanned. Fig. 21(d) shows a state in which the paper is not bent.

Therefore, regardless of whether the HHP 20 of the present embodiment prints the right page or the left page of the notebook 501 , since the user can select the initial position, it is possible to reduce the possibility of lowering of operability and image quality.

Figure 22 shows an illustration of the effect of starting printing from an arbitrary position in the image. FIG. 22( a ) shows an example of a general image. In most of the photographs and the like, there is a face or a beautiful scenery in the center, and the main subject 511 to be printed tends to be biased toward the center.

However, when the user starts printing from the four corners of the image, since the printing starts from the background of the photo, it takes time to reach the main subject 511 . As shown in FIG. 21( b ), arrows 512 indicate the scanning direction of the HHP 20 from the four corners of the image to the entire print by bidirectional printing. For example, in the scan of the first line, since the scan is an area with few subjects, the user may feel unnecessary.

Then, as shown in FIG. 22( c ), in the present embodiment, by setting the initial position to an arbitrary position by the user, printing can be started from the vicinity of the central portion of the image. As shown in FIG. 22C , the user can print the main subject 511 with less scanning distance.

In addition, for the unnecessary background, since the user only needs to press the print button 26a or float the HHP 20 from the print medium 12 to make the system state transition, printing can be forcibly ended even if the image remains, so the image can be completed at an arbitrary timing. Action is formed.

FIG. 23 shows an example of the scanning direction setting screen U5 for the user to set an arbitrary position of the image in the initial position. Shown in FIG. 23(a) is a "Please tap the place to start printing" message 513 and a preview 401 of the image. The user can set an arbitrary position as the initial position by tapping the vicinity of the main subject. For this initial position, the user can also set the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 .

FIG. 23( b ) is an explanatory diagram illustrating coordinate transformation when an arbitrary part is set as the initial position. When the user sets (X0, Y0) as the initial position, since the coordinates when the HHP 20 starts scanning is (X0, Y0), the position management unit 62 acquires and sets (X0, Y0) from the image outputter 11 . (X0, Y0) is included in the scan-related information. That is, the initial coordinates of HHP20 are not (0, 0) but start from (X0, Y0). After that, the coordinates need only be determined based on the x and y calculated by the position calculating circuit 34 .

<Single path mode and multipath mode>

Next, the single-path mode and the multi-path mode, which are scan modes of the HHP 20, will be described. As illustrated in FIG. 26 , the user sets the single-path mode or the multi-path mode in the image outputter 11 .

Figure 24 shows an illustration of the single path mode. The single-path mode is a scan mode that prints while scanning in only one direction from the user's point of view. In FIG. 24, from the user's point of view, the ink is ejected only when scanning from right to left. Therefore, in the single-path mode, the HHP 20 does not calculate the Y coordinate (even if it is calculated, it is not used for ejection control). In addition, the position management unit 62 handles any one or the average value of the nozzles 1 to N as the X coordinates of all the nozzles 1 to N. Since the nozzles 1 to N print images with the same X-coordinate at the same timing, the image quality in the single-path mode can be improved.

In the single-path mode, there is also a setting in which scanning is performed from left to right from the user's point of view. Whether it is the single-path mode of scanning from right to left or the single-path mode of scanning from left to right from the user's point of view, when the origin, initial position, and orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 are determined, the image and The relative position of HHP20 is determined. When scanning from left to right from the user's point of view, the coordinates of the image when scanning from left to right only coincides with the coordinates of the nozzle 71, and when scanning from right to left from the user's point of view, From the user's point of view, only the coordinates of the image when scanned from right to left coincide with the coordinates of the nozzle 71 . Therefore, in the single-pass mode, ink can be ejected only when scanning in a certain scanning direction.

The image outputter 11 calculates how many scans (paths) are required for printing of the image. The image outputter 11 calculates the number of paths Pn required to print the text data based on the character size and number of lines of the text data and the heights h[mm] of the nozzles 1 to N, and sends the Pn images to the HHP 20 . In this way, dividing this into Pn pieces and printing is called Pn path printing.

For example, when the character size is 16 points, the height of one line is "16×0.35[mm]=5.6[mm]". This "0.35" is a value converted to mm for 1 point. The length of the IJ recording head 24 determined as a specification by the height that the HHP 20 can print in one scan is as follows. The length is h[mm]. Since the size (point) of one character is limited to the h or less in advance, scanning of one line of text does not require a plurality of scan paths. As a result, it is possible to suppress deterioration of image quality after characters are interrupted on the way.

The image outputter 11 increases the number of lines line by line, and determines whether the height of the number of lines is equal to or less than h. It is also good to consider between lines. The height of 2 lines is calculated in consideration of the size of characters and the space between lines, and compared with the height h of the IJ recording head 24 . This comparison is repeated until the height of the k rows is greater than the height h of the IJ recording head 24 . K-1 lines is the maximum number of lines that can be printed in one scan.

In this way, the image output unit 11 calculates the number of lines that can be printed in one scan, divides it into Pn scans, and transmits the image to the HHP 20 . In FIG. 24 , it is determined that three scans are required. The method of considering the case of vertical scanning is also the same.

Next, Fig. 25 shows an explanatory diagram of the multipath mode. The multi-path mode is a scan mode in which ink is ejected in both left-to-right scans and right-to-left scans when viewed from the user (scanning modes in which images are formed by scanning in the reciprocating direction). This has the advantage that the amount of scanning by the user is small, and also has the advantage of being able to print even a large-size image that cannot be printed in one scan.

In addition, text can also be printed in multi-path mode (imaged when printing). However, in characters printed in the multi-path mode, the image quality may be degraded due to the limitation of the height h of the nozzles 71 .

As shown in FIG. 26, the user can operate the image outputter 11 to set the scanning direction mode. FIG. 26 is a diagram showing an example of the scanning direction setting screen 421 displayed on the image output device 11 . The scanning direction setting screen 421 has a message 422 "Please set the scanning direction" and radio buttons 423 and 424 corresponding to "one-way" and "two-way". The user selects either of the 2 radio buttons 423, 424. In addition, even in the case where the user does not select the scanning direction, the default value is determined.

In addition, either of the scanning direction setting screen 421 of FIG. 26 and the scanning direction setting screen U of FIG. 12 may be set first. The user can independently set "unidirectional" or "bidirectional" and the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 .

<Orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium of the HHP in portrait scanning in single-pass mode>

12 and the like, the initial position and the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the printing medium 12 can be arbitrarily set, but vertical scanning can be relatively easily realized in the single-path mode in which characters are mainly printed. As described above, in Japanese or Chinese, since characters are written vertically, there is a need to print characters by vertical scanning. At this time, if the user performs the setting as shown in FIG. 12, the characters written vertically are printed by vertical scanning. However, in the single-pass mode, it is easier to print text written vertically by scanning vertically.

FIG. 27 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of scanning of characters converted to vertical writing. First, FIG. 27( a ) shows a state in which horizontally written characters are arranged as an image in two dimensions with the origin at the upper left corner and arranged in the +X direction and the +Y direction. In Fig. 27(a), letters such as "HAND" are described, and in the case of Japanese as well, an image in which the characters are written horizontally is transmitted. Therefore, the user cannot print characters in a portrait-oriented manner.

Therefore, in the present embodiment, the image processing unit 55 of the image output device 11 converts the horizontal writing to the vertical writing by any of the following methods. a. Use the vertical writing font b. Rotate the characters one by one by 90 degrees Figure 27(b) shows the characters after converting into vertical writing by any of the methods a.b. As you can see, "HAND" has been converted to vertical writing. In the state of FIG. 27( b ), when the user scans from left to right from the user's point of view, since the characters are printed 90 degrees upside down from the user's point of view, the user's scanning feeling is not good.

Next, consider the case where the user scans the HHP 20 with the holding method toward D2. Figure 27(c) shows the characters scanned by the user after rotating the HHP20 90 degrees clockwise (holding method toward D2). Figures 27(b) and (c) are only the orientation changes of the images, and the images as "HAND" are the same.

In FIG. 27( c ), characters can be written longitudinally on the printing medium 12 . In the single-path mode, since the HHP 20 does not detect the Y coordinate, the user can perform vertical scanning by changing the scanning direction without setting the orientation or initial position of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 .

In FIG. 27( c ), although characters can be written vertically, the user may feel difficult to align the HHP 20 by positioning the nozzle 1 at the upper left corner of the H character. However, in the case of scanning with the left hand, it is possible to reduce the difficulty of positional alignment.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 28 , it is effective to set the orientation of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the print medium 12 in the opposite direction to that of FIG. 27 , and to perform the operation by turning the position information of the nozzles 1 to N upside down. FIG. 28 is an illustration of the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the print medium 12 in the single-pass mode.

Although the orientations of the HHPs 20 when placed on the print medium 12 shown in FIGS. 28( a ) to ( c ) are different, the relative positions of the HHPs 20 to the image area 80 are the same. In FIGS. 28( a ) to ( c ), since the user positions the HHP 20 by positioning the nozzle N at the upper left corner of the H character, alignment is easy. For characters written in portrait orientation, the user can scan in a left-to-right (Fig. 28(a)), or right-to-left (Fig. 28(b)), or top-to-bottom direction as viewed by the user (Fig. 28(c)).

In addition, in the case of the initial position of FIG. 28 and the orientation of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the printing medium 12, the position management unit 62 performs the same coordinate transformation as when the orientation is set to D3. Since the Y coordinate is not used for ink jetting, no transformation is required.

-x→+X... Formula (9)

In addition, in FIG. 28 , the directions of nozzles 1 to N and the +Y direction are opposite to the normal direction of nozzle 71 ( FIG. 12( a )) (nozzle 1 corresponds to the origin). Therefore, the position management unit 62 inverts the position information of the nozzles 1 to N up and down (otherwise, it becomes a mirror image).

FIG. 29 shows an example of a flowchart of processing performed by the image outputter 11 when scanning vertically in the single-path mode.

First, the user performs the setting of the single-path mode and the vertical scan through the horizontal scan vertical scan setting screen in FIG. 14 and the scan direction setting screen in FIG. 26 . The operation accepting unit 53 of the image output device 11 accepts the setting of the vertical scan in the single-path mode (S401).

The image processing unit 55 rotates the image of the vertical writing font or character ( S402 ). Since this image is sent to the HHP 20, the HHP 20 can perform vertical scanning printing by performing coordinate transformation and processing the position information of the nozzles 1 to N upside down.

<Overall operation procedure>

FIG. 30 is an example of a flowchart for explaining the operation procedure of the image output unit 11 and the HHP 20 . First, the user presses the power button of the image outputter 11 (U101). After receiving this operation, the image outputter 11 is powered up from a battery or the like and starts up.

The user operates the image outputter 11 to select an image to be printed (U102). The operation accepting unit 53 of the image output device 11 accepts selection of an image. Input or selection of text data may also be accepted. The display control unit 52 may also display a preview.

Next, as described in FIG. 12 , the user sets the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the print medium 12 ( U103 , U104 ). Next, the operation accepting unit 53 accepts the initial position and the orientation of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the print medium 12 . In addition, the user sets the single-path mode or the multi-path mode. Simple vertical writing settings are also possible.

The user performs an operation of executing the selected image as a print job (U105). That is, the start button of printing is pressed. The operation accepting unit 53 of the HHP 20 accepts a request for execution of a print job. Information about images and scans is sent to the HHP20 as requested by print jobs.

The user holds the HHP 20 and determines an initial position on the print medium 12 (eg, a notebook) (U106).

Then, the user presses the print button 26a of the HHP 20 (U107). The HHP 20 accepts the pressing of the print button 26a.

The user slides the HHP 20 on the print medium 12 to scan freely (U108).

Next, the operation of HHP20 will be described. The following operations are performed by the CPU 33 by executing the firmware.

The HHP20 is also activated by turning on the power supply. The startup processing unit 63 of the HHP 20 initializes the hardware elements of FIGS. 3 and 4 built in the HHP 20 ( S101 ). For example, the registers of the navigation sensor I/F 42 or the gyro sensor I/F 45 are initialized, or the timing value is set to the print/sensor timing generation unit 43 . In addition, communication between the HHP 20 and the image outputter 11 is established. For example, when communicating by Bluetooth (registered trademark), the user performs pairing of the image outputter 11 and the HHP 20 in advance.

The startup processing unit 63 of the HHP 20 judges whether or not the initialization has been completed, and repeats the judgment if not completed ( S102 ).

When the initialization is completed (YES in S102), the display control unit of the HHP 20 notifies the user that printing is possible by turning on, for example, an LED of the OPU 26 (S103). Thereby, the user knows that the printing is possible, and requests the execution of the print job as described above.

The communication I/F 27 of the HHP 20 receives input of an image from the image outputter 11 in response to a request for execution of a print job, and the display control unit 68 notifies the user that the image has been input by blinking the LED of the OPU 26 ( S104 ).

When the user determines the initial position of the HHP 20 on the print medium 12 and presses the print button 26a, the HHP 20 receives the operation, and the information acquisition control section 61 causes the navigation sensor I/F 42 to read position information (S105). Thereby, the navigation sensor I/F42 communicates with the navigation sensor 30, acquires the movement amount detected by the navigation sensor 30, and stores it in a register etc. (S1001). The information acquisition control unit 61 reads the movement amount from the navigation sensor I/F 42 .

The movement amount acquired immediately after the user presses the print button 26a is 0, but even if it is not 0, the position management unit 62 stores, for example, the coordinates (0, 0) in a register of the DRAM 29 or the CPU 33 (S106).

Further, when the limitation is determined, the print/sensor timing generation unit 43 starts timing generation (S107). When the print/sensor timing generation unit 43 reaches the initially set acquisition timing of the movement amount of the navigation sensor 30 , the timing is instructed to the navigation sensor I/F 42 and the gyro sensor I/F 45 . This is done periodically, ie the sampling period described above.

The information acquisition control unit 61 of the HHP 20 determines whether or not it is a timing to acquire the movement amount and angular velocity information ( S108 ). Although this determination is made based on the notification from the interrupt controller 41 , the CPU 33 may count the same timing as the print/sensor timing generation unit 43 for determination.

When it is time to acquire the movement amount and angular velocity information, the information acquisition control unit 61 of the HHP 20 acquires the movement amount from the navigation sensor I/F 42 and the angular velocity information from the gyro sensor I/F 45 ( S109 ). As described above, the gyro sensor I/F 45 acquires the angular velocity information from the gyro sensor 31 at the timing generated by the print/sensor timing generation unit 43 , and the navigation sensor I/F 42 obtains the angular velocity information from the navigation sensor 30 at the timing generated by the print/sensor timing generation unit 43 . Get the amount of movement.

Next, the position calculation circuit 34 calculates the current position information of the navigation sensor 30 using the angular velocity information and the movement amount (S110). Specifically, the position calculation circuit 34 adds the movement distance calculated from the movement amount (ΔX', ΔY') and angular velocity information acquired this time to the position information (X, Y) calculated in the previous cycle, to calculate the current position information of the navigation sensor 30 . Only the initial position If there is no position information calculated last time, the current navigation is calculated by adding the movement distance calculated from the movement amount (ΔX', ΔY') and angular velocity information obtained this time to the initial position. Location information of the sensor 30 .

Next, the position calculation circuit 34 calculates the current position information of each nozzle 71 using the current position information of the navigation sensor 30 (S111).

In this way, since the angular velocity information and the movement amount are obtained by the print/sensor timing generation unit 43 at the same time or almost at the same time, the position information of the nozzle 71 can be calculated from the rotation angle and the movement amount obtained at the timing when the rotation angle is detected. Therefore, even if the positional information of the nozzles 71 is calculated from the information of different kinds of sensors, the accuracy of the positional information of the nozzles 71 is difficult to degrade.

Next, the position management unit 62 converts the position information of the nozzles 71 according to the initial position and the orientation of the HHP 20 when it is placed on the printing medium 12 ( S112 - 2 ). The processing for step S111-2 will be described in FIG. 31 .

Next, the print control unit 66 controls the DMAC 38 to transmit the image of the peripheral image of each nozzle 71 from the DRAM 29 to the ImageRAM 37 based on the calculated position information of each nozzle 71 ( S112 ). In addition, the rotator 39 rotates the image according to the head position (holding method of the HHP 20 , etc.) designated by the user and the inclination of the IJ recording head 24 .

Next, the printing control unit 66 uses the IJ recording head control unit 44 to compare the position coordinates of each image element constituting the peripheral image with the position coordinates of each nozzle 71 ( S113 ). The position calculation circuit 34 calculates the acceleration of the nozzle 71 using the past position information and the current position information of the nozzle 71 . Thus, the position calculation circuit 34 calculates the position information of the nozzles 71 in each ink ejection cycle of the IJ recording head 24 which is shorter than the cycle in which the navigation sensor I/F 42 obtains the movement amount and the gyro sensor I/F 45 obtains the angular velocity information.

The print control unit 66 determines whether or not the coordinates of the image elements are included in a predetermined range from the position information of the nozzles 71 ( S114 ).

When the discharge conditions are not satisfied (NO in step S114), the process returns to step S108. When the discharge conditions are satisfied (YES in step S114), the printing control unit 66 uses the IJ recording head control unit 44 to output the image elements to the IJ recording head driving circuit 23 for each nozzle 71 (step S115). ). As a result, the ink is ejected in the printing medium 12 . The IJ recording head control unit 44 updates the discharge control table.

Next, the state control unit 67 determines whether all the images are output, whether floating is detected, whether outside the image area is detected, or whether the print button 26a is released (step S116). When the determination of step S116 is "NO", the process of step S108 to step S115 is repeated.

When the determination of step S116 is "Yes", the display control part 68 turns on the LED of the OPU26, for example, and notifies the user that printing has been completed (step S117).

＜＜Actions of HHP＞＞

FIG. 31 is an example of a flowchart illustrating the processing performed by the HHP 20 based on the information about the scan. The process of FIG. 31 is performed at step S111-2 of FIG. 30 .

As described in step S104 of FIG. 30 , the communication unit 64 of the HHP 20 receives information on images and scans (step S201 ).

The location management unit 62 determines whether the user has selected the multi-path mode (step S202). In the case of the multi-path mode (YES in step S202 ), the position management unit 62 further determines whether the initial position is the upper left corner, and whether the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the set print medium 12 is the orientation D1 (step S203). This is because, in this case, it is not necessary to transform the coordinates. When the determination of step S203 is NO, the process proceeds to step S205.

When the determination in step S203 is YES, the position management unit 62 converts the coordinates of the HHP 20 as described in FIG. 13 and the like, and inverts the nozzles 1 to N upside down according to the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the printing medium 12 (step S204). In addition, when the user selects an arbitrary position of the image as the initial position, the position management unit 62 sets the coordinates of the arbitrary position as the initial coordinates of the HHP 20 .

The print control unit 66 ejects ink based on the coordinates of the HHP 20 and the coordinates of the image (step S205 ). This process corresponds to steps S114 and S115 in FIG. 30 .

In the case of the single-path mode (NO in step S202), the position management unit 62 determines whether or not vertical scanning is set (step S206). This is because coordinate transformation is not required in the case of horizontal scanning. When the determination of step S206 is NO, the process proceeds to step S205.

In the case of vertical scanning (YES in step S206 ), the position management unit 62 converts the X coordinate of the HHP 20 (−x→+X), and inverts the nozzles 1 to N upside down (step S207 ).

The print control unit 66 ejects ink based on the coordinates of the HHP 20 and the coordinates of the image (step S205 ).

In addition, in FIG. 31, HHP20 specifically refers to the case of vertical scanning in single-pass mode, and HHP20 can print characters (images in HHP20) written vertically according to the coordinate transformation described in FIG. 13 and the like.

＜Summary＞

As described above, in the present embodiment, since the user can arbitrarily set a combination of the initial position of the HHP 20 and the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the printing medium 12, the user can start from the initial position where he can easily scan, and Scan from a direction that is easy for the user to scan by themselves. In addition, it is possible to print only the portion of the image that is desired to be printed. The image output unit 11 can print the characters written in the vertical direction by scanning in the vertical direction by converting the characters written in the horizontal direction into the characters written in the vertical direction. When the user selects horizontal scanning or vertical scanning, the image output unit 11 initially sets the initial position and the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the printing medium 12 , so that the user's man-hours for operation can be reduced.

<Other application examples>

The best mode for carrying out the present invention has been described above by way of examples, but the present invention is not limited to these examples, and various modifications and substitutions can be added without departing from the gist of the present invention.

For example, the HHP 20 of the present embodiment has both the single-path mode and the multi-path mode, but the HHP 20 only needs to have either the single-path mode or the multi-path mode.

In addition, the HHP20 can also communicate with the server. The user transmits the image to the server in advance, and records it in association with the user ID or the like. When the HHP 20 sends the user ID (login) to the server, since the server sends the image to the HHP 20, printing can be performed.

Alternatively, the user may input text to be printed by voice, or the image output unit 11 may transmit voice data to the server, and the server may perform voice recognition processing.

Additionally, the HHP 20 may have a camera. The HHP20 can print images captured by the camera.

In addition, the HHP 20 may directly accept the setting of the initial position and the orientation of the HHP 20 when placed on the printing medium 12 .

In addition, the configuration example of FIG. 6 and the like shown in the above embodiment is divided according to the main functions in order to facilitate the understanding of the processing of the image output unit 11 and the HHP 20 . However, the present invention is not limited to the method or name of the division of each processing unit. The image outputter 11 and the HHP 20 may be divided into more processing units according to the processing contents. In addition, a processing unit can also be divided into more processing.

In addition, the position calculation circuit 34 is an example of a position information acquisition unit, the IJ recording head 24 is an example of an image forming unit, the position management unit 62 is an example of a position information acquisition unit, and the communication unit 64 is an example of a scan information acquisition unit. The unit 53 is an example of a reception unit, the communication unit 51 is an example of a communication unit, and the LCD 207 is an example of a display unit.

As described above, the HHP 20 of the present invention is a computer device including a processor and a memory storing computer program instructions that can be executed by the processor to implement the image forming method according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 32 is a schematic structural diagram of an image forming apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 32, each network interface 501 in the image forming apparatus (HHP20) and the devices are interconnected through a bus, and one or more central processing units (CPU201) represented by the processor 502 are connected by the storage operating system 5041 and the one or more central processing units (CPU201). One or more memories represented by the memory 504 of the application program 5042, and various circuits such as the hard disk 505 and the display device 506 are connected together.

The methods disclosed in the foregoing embodiments of the present invention may be applied to, or implemented by, a processor. The processor may be an integrated circuit chip with signal processing capability. In the implementation process, each step of the above-mentioned method can be completed by a hardware integrated logic circuit in a processor or an instruction in the form of software. The aforementioned processors may be general purpose processors, digital signal processors (DSPs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or other programmable logic devices, discrete gate or transistor logic devices, discrete hardware components , each method, step, and logic block diagram disclosed in the embodiments of the present invention can be implemented or executed. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor or the processor may be any conventional processor or the like. The steps of the method disclosed in conjunction with the embodiments of the present invention may be directly embodied as executed by a hardware decoding processor, or executed by a combination of hardware and software modules in the decoding processor. The software modules may be located in random access memory, flash memory, read-only memory, programmable read-only memory or electrically erasable programmable memory, registers and other storage media mature in the art. The storage medium is located in the memory, and the processor reads the information in the memory, and completes the steps of the above method in combination with its hardware.

It will be appreciated that the embodiments described herein may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, middleware, microcode, or a combination thereof. For a hardware implementation, the processing unit may be implemented in one or more Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), Digital Signal Processing Devices (DSPDs), Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays ( FPGA), general purpose processors, controllers, microcontrollers, microprocessors, other electronic units for performing the functions described herein, or combinations thereof.

For a software implementation, the techniques described herein may be implemented through modules (eg, procedures, functions, etc.) that perform the functions described herein. Software codes may be stored in memory and executed by a processor. The memory can be implemented in the processor or external to the processor.

Those of ordinary skill in the art can realize that the units and algorithm steps of each example described in conjunction with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented in electronic hardware, or a combination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether these functions are performed in hardware or software depends on the specific application and design constraints of the technical solution. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality using different methods for each particular application, but such implementations should not be considered beyond the scope of the present invention.

Those skilled in the art can clearly understand that, for the convenience and brevity of description, the specific working process of the above-described systems, devices and units may refer to the corresponding processes in the foregoing method embodiments, which will not be repeated here.

In the embodiments provided in this application, it should be understood that the disclosed apparatus and method may be implemented in other manners. For example, the device embodiments described above are only illustrative. For example, the division of the functional parts is only a logical function division. In actual implementation, there may be other division methods, such as multiple functional parts, units or Components may be combined or may be integrated into another system, or some features may be omitted, or not implemented. On the other hand, the shown or discussed mutual coupling or direct coupling or communication connection may be through some interfaces, indirect coupling or communication connection of devices or units, and may be in electrical, mechanical or other forms.

The units described as separate components may or may not be physically separated, and components displayed as units may or may not be physical units, that is, may be located in one place, or may be distributed to multiple network units. Some or all of the units may be selected according to actual needs to achieve the purpose of the solutions in the embodiments of the present invention.

In addition, each functional unit in each embodiment of the present invention may be integrated into one processing unit, or each unit may exist physically alone, or two or more units may be integrated into one unit.

The functions, if implemented in the form of software functional units and sold or used as independent products, may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. Based on this understanding, the technical solution of the present invention can be embodied in the form of a software product in essence, or the part that contributes to the prior art or the part of the technical solution. The computer software product is stored in a storage medium, including Several instructions are used to cause a computer device (which may be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to execute all or part of the steps of the image forming method described in the various embodiments of the present invention. The aforementioned storage medium includes: U disk, removable hard disk, ROM, RAM, magnetic disk or optical disk and other media that can store program codes.

The above are only specific embodiments of the present invention, but the protection scope of the present invention is not limited thereto. Any person skilled in the art can easily think of changes or substitutions within the technical scope disclosed by the present invention. should be included within the protection scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention should be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims (14)

1. An image forming apparatus, characterized by comprising:

an image forming section that forms an image on a medium;

a scan information acquiring unit that acquires scan information regarding a scan of the image forming unit with respect to an image to be formed;

a position information acquiring unit for acquiring position information of the image forming unit, and

and a control unit that controls an image forming operation of the image forming unit based on the scanning information and the position information.

2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that:

the control unit converts the position information into the position information in a coordinate system of the image to be formed.

3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that:

the scan information includes at least one of an initial position of the image forming unit and an orientation of the image forming unit with respect to the image to be formed, and the control unit controls the image forming operation based on at least one of the initial position and the orientation.

4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 3, characterized in that:

the orientation is an orientation in the initial position of the image forming section with respect to the image to be formed.

5. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that:

the orientation is any one of a first direction, a second direction opposite to the first direction, a third direction perpendicular to the first direction, and a fourth direction opposite to the third direction.

6. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that:

the initial position is an arbitrary position in the image of the formation object.

7. The image forming apparatus according to claim, wherein:

the initial position is any one of four corners of an image area in the image of the formation object.

8. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that:

the image forming section is a recording head in which a plurality of nozzles are arrayed,

the control unit controls an image forming operation for each of the plurality of nozzles based on the scanning information and the position information.

9. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that:

has a state control section for controlling a system state of the image forming apparatus,

the state control unit changes the system state from the image forming operation to the end of the image forming operation even during the image forming operation of the image forming unit in accordance with an operation by a user.

10. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that:

the scanning information further includes scanning mode information indicating one of a single-path mode in which an image is formed when scanning in only one direction and a multi-path mode in which an image is formed by scanning in the forward and backward directions.

11. An information processing apparatus that communicates with the image forming apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 10, characterized by comprising:

a display unit that displays a screen for accepting setting of the scan information;

a reception unit which receives the scan information, an

A communication unit that transmits the scan information to the image forming apparatus.

12. An image forming method performed by an image forming apparatus having an image forming section for forming an image on a medium, comprising:

acquiring scan information on scanning of the image forming unit with respect to an image to be formed;

a step of acquiring positional information of the image forming section, and

and controlling an image forming operation of the image forming unit based on the scanning information and the position information.

13. A computer-readable storage medium characterized by storing a computer program for executing, in an image forming apparatus having an image forming section that forms an image on a medium:

acquiring scan information on scanning of the image forming unit with respect to an image to be formed;

a step of acquiring positional information of the image forming section, and

and controlling an image forming operation of the image forming unit based on the scanning information and the position information.

14. An image forming apparatus comprising a memory, a processor and a computer program stored in the memory and executable on the processor,

the method is characterized in that: the computer program, when executed by the processor, implements the image forming method of claim 12.

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