A data arrangement method for a continuous-seamless printing mode

Abstract

The present application relates to the technical field of web printer, in particular to a data arrangement method of continuous seamless printing mode, step 1: calculating the starting position of the nozzle, step 2: calculating the dead zone range, according to the printing area and the starting position of the nozzle, the dead zone range C is calculated, step 3: virtual printing area, step 4: transforming the printing area, in the equal step method, the nozzle at the first position of the work does not print all the data in the printing area, and there is a dead zone, which is the reason for the blank distance, first, the starting position of the nozzle is calculated, according to the specified PASS number rule, the nozzle position N can be calculated, the dead zone range is calculated, according to the printing area and the starting position of the nozzle, the dead zone range C is calculated, finally, the printing area is transformed, the advantage is that it is unnecessary to return the material and repeat the positioning, so as to affect the accuracy, and the dynamic puzzle technology is not adopted, the printing logic is still the mode of single artwork operation, and the original state machine is retained to improve the robustness of the software.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present application relates to the technical field of web printer, in particular to a data arrangement method of continuous seamless printing mode. BACKGROUND

[0002] It is known that the scanning multi-pass printing is a printing technology in which the same picture is printed multiple times to improve the accuracy and color saturation of the picture. In the traditional scanning multi-pass printing, most of the web positioning accuracy cannot be very high, so the printing mode is a mode of equal step printing. However, this mode has a significant defect, that is, there is an unfixed blank distance at the end of the printed picture, which will cause serious waste of materials and increase the complexity of the subsequent process. Therefore, some ways are needed to avoid the blank distance.

[0003] The currently used solutions on the market are as follows:

[0004] Solution 1: material returning

[0005] The size of the returned material is calculated according to the height of the picture, and the material returning is performed after the picture is printed.

[0006] Solution 2: large picture splicing

[0007] The overall printing process does not end, and the picture is dynamically spliced before or during printing to realize seamless printing of the picture.

[0008] Disadvantages of solution 1:

[0009] The disadvantage is very obvious. Since the continuous printing scene is mostly web printing, the vertical positioning accuracy of the web printing is not high, and the walking accuracy of the web is very dependent on the tension control of the material. Therefore, after printing each picture, the blank distance is calculated and the material is returned and repositioned, which will destroy the tension of the material and affect the printing accuracy of the subsequent picture. In order to ensure the printing accuracy, the tension mechanism needs to be adjusted and calibrated after the material is returned, and the material tension is adjusted to the optimal state before printing the next picture. This obviously reduces the efficiency and cannot realize high-efficiency automatic production.

[0010] Disadvantages of solution 2:

[0011] Because the next picture printing does not need to reposition, the scheme effectively avoids the shortcomings of scheme 1, but because the splicing large picture is built on the condition of not ending the printing process, the dynamic splicing, so in the process of directly printing a picture work flexible, will bring many inconvenience to the production process, in addition, because all printing jobs in actual production are not determined when the first job is produced, but in the printing process, the production plan is arranged, so the picture must be dynamically spliced in the printing, such splicing method cannot respond to the addition operation of the next picture at the end of the current job, thereby causing the job to be forced to stop and cause logical error when printing continuously;

[0012] At the same time, because one picture is actually processed in actual work, the stop in printing will greatly affect the original state machine and thus affect the robustness of the whole system, therefore, a data arrangement method of continuous seamless printing mode is needed. SUMMARY

[0013] (1) Technical problems to be solved

[0014] In view of the deficiencies of the prior art, the present application provides a data arrangement method of continuous seamless printing mode to solve the problems in the background art.

[0015] To achieve the above object, the present application provides the following technical scheme: a data arrangement method of continuous seamless printing mode, step 1: calculating the starting position of the printhead;

[0016] The starting position of the initial printhead is at the position of 0, after the picture is printed, the position N of the printhead is calculated according to the PASS number rule, the position of the printhead is at the stepping position+½*print height for 2PASS picture, the position of the printhead is at the stepping position+2 / 3*print height for 3PASS picture;

[0017] Step 2: calculating the dead zone range;

[0018] The dead zone range C is calculated according to the printing area and the starting position of the printhead, the dead zone range C=printhead position-last printhead position+last picture length;

[0019] Step 3: virtual printing area;

[0020] According to the specified position of the printhead, a new printing area of 2*N is virtually printed, and the number of PASSes to be printed is calculated;

[0021] Step 4: changing the printing area.

[0022] Preferably, the printhead is a pigment spraying tool on a web printer, which is responsible for spraying pigment onto the substrate.

[0023] Further, the web printer is a special stretching mechanical tool, which functions to control the material winding and unwinding, so as to realize accurate step control of the material.

[0024] Still further, the printing support is a printed carrier, which is a single sheet, a plate or a web.

[0025] In a further scheme, the PASS number rule refers to the number of times of printing required for picture forming, and the higher the PASS number, the slower the printing speed and the better the quality, for example, a 4PASS picture is printed by 4 times of covering printing of each pixel point, and the increase of the PASS number can improve the picture quality.

[0026] Compared with the prior art, the application provides a data arrangement method of continuous seamless printing mode, which has the following beneficial effects:

[0027] The data arrangement method of continuous seamless printing mode, the reason for the gap generated by N-PASS printing is that, in the equal step method, in order to ensure that each area in the work picture is covered N times, the printhead does not output data for all the printing areas at the beginning of the work, so that there will be a dead zone in the next picture in the printing area, and the dead zone is the reason for the blank distance. Avoiding the dead zone is the key to solving and eliminating the blank distance. First, the starting position of the printhead is calculated. The starting position of the initial printhead is at the position of 0. After the picture is printed, the new printhead position N can be calculated according to the specified PASS number rule. Then, the dead zone range is calculated. The dead zone range C is calculated according to the printing area and the starting position of the printhead. The printing area is virtually output according to the specified position of the printhead. The new printing area of 2*N is virtually output according to the specified position of the printhead. The number of passes required for printing coverage is calculated. Finally, the printing area is transformed. The advantage is that it is not necessary to retreat and reposition, so as to affect the accuracy. Moreover, the dynamic picture splicing technology is not adopted, the printing logic is still in the mode of single picture work, the original state machine is retained, and the software robustness is improved. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0028] Figure 1 The flowchart for the embodiment of the application;

[0029] Figure 2 The schematic diagram of 2PASS printing of the application;

[0030] Figure 3 The shadow schematic diagram of the blank dead zone of the application;

[0031] Figure 4 The schematic diagram of the working principle of the application. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0032] With reference to the drawings and the embodiments of the present application, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application will be described clearly and completely. Obviously, the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present application, rather than all the embodiments of the present application. Based on the embodiments of the present application, all other embodiments obtained by a person of ordinary skill in the art without creative effort belong to the scope of the present application.

[0033] Step 1: calculate the starting position of the nozzle;

[0034] The starting position of the initial nozzle is at the position of 0. After the artwork is printed, the position N of the nozzle can be calculated according to the PASS number rule. For example, for a 2PASS artwork, the position of the nozzle is at the position of the stepping position + 1 / 2 printing height. For a 3PASS artwork, the position of the nozzle is at the position of the stepping position + 2 / 3 * printing height.

[0035] Step 2: calculate the dead zone range;

[0036] The dead zone range C is calculated according to the printing area and the starting position of the nozzle, and the dead zone range C = nozzle position - last nozzle position + last artwork length.

[0037] Step 3: virtual printing area;

[0038] A new printing area of 2*N is virtually generated according to the specified position of the nozzle, and the number of passes that need to be printed is calculated.

[0039] Step 4: transform the printing area;

[0040] The transformation of the printing area requires feeding and feeding back. The feeding is the forward direction of the printing Y direction, and the feeding back is the backward direction of the printing Y direction.

[0041] The nozzle is a pigment spraying tool on the web printer, which is responsible for spraying pigment onto the substrate. The web printer is a special stretching mechanical tool, which is used to control the feeding and feeding back of the material, so as to realize the precise stepping control of the material.

[0042] Before the substrate is printed, the material is wound together using the roller process (similar to the paper roll). In the industrial field, the material in the roll is very important in order to maximize the efficiency, so the printer needs to be checked.

[0043] The substrate is the carrier of printing, and common substrates include single-page paper, board, and web.

[0044] The PASS number rule refers to the number of times the picture needs to be printed (the number of times per unit area). The higher the PASS number, the slower the printing speed, and the better the quality.

[0045] For example, print a 4PASS image, each pixel point needs to be divided into 4 times of coverage printing to complete, usually increasing the number of PASS can improve the image quality;

[0046] 1PASS refers to the scanning printing, the horizontal movement of the spray car is 1PASS printing data;

[0047] Multi-PASS printing is a method of multi-pass printing in scanning printing mode, similar to brushing N times in the same place to improve accuracy. According to the requirement of printing accuracy, multi-PASS printing is required in the printing process to improve the printing accuracy.

[0048] Scanning multi-PASS printing refers to printing 1PASS data by horizontal (X direction) printing of the spray car, and then printing subsequent PASS data by walking in the paper direction (Y direction) to complete the printing of the entire image.

[0049] Referring to Figure 2 In this embodiment, when 2PASS printing, assuming the printing height is 400mm, and the image height is N, we assume that the image is printed 4 times to complete the printing, according to the principle of equal step;

[0050] The light color stripe shadow part is the area that the image can be printed under the condition of 4 passes. Assuming that there is no blank at the head of the image, each partition is 400mm / 2=200mm, and the actual area of the image under the condition of 4 passes is between 400mm and 600mm.

[0051] We assume that the length of the image is 500, so we can get a new schematic diagram as follows Figure 3 The dark color shadow area shown is the position of the image. When the device starts printing, attention should be paid to the printing height. The printing height is the total height of all the nozzles stacked in the vertical direction. Often we can abstract multiple nozzles in the vertical direction into one head, that is, the total printing height.

[0052] The printing mode is divided into two kinds, one is equal step mode, and the other is large step mode. The equal step mode is a kind of vertical data stacking walking strategy in printing, and the step is basically the same each time, which is used to average the step error. This scenario is often applied to low vertical positioning accuracy, especially in roll mode. The large step mode is a kind of vertical data stacking walking strategy in printing, which is a mode of large step and small step. This scenario is often applied to high vertical positioning accuracy, and the complete printing height is connected with the small step.

[0053] Referring to Figure 3In the embodiment, it can be clearly seen from the schematic diagram that in the case of a printing area of 400 mm and a drawing length of 500 mm, because the next nozzle can only start printing at a position of one half in the case of a fixed nozzle in the Y direction, a blank dead zone of 100 mm (dark stripe shaded part) is generated.

[0054] Referring to Figure 4 In the embodiment, Figure 3 For the method schematic diagram and working principle, the specific parameter data is still taken as the above-mentioned embodiment 1 and embodiment 2 as examples, and the core of the improvement scheme is to virtually generate a new printing area through the actual nozzle height to realize 2PASS printing.

[0055] When the printing area exceeds the dead zone range, the printing area is switched back to the normal printing area to realize the optimization processing of the blank dead zone. The material tension is also considered during printing. The material tension is a key factor affecting the step control in some special rolls. In order to ensure that the material tension does not change, the material is not retreated. The retreat operation may damage the original tension coefficient, thereby affecting the step precision of subsequent printing.

[0056] The step control mentioned in the above-mentioned embodiments is that after the nozzle is transversely printed 1PASS data in scanning printing, it needs to be moved longitudinally by a step distance. The step distance is calculated according to different PASS numbers.

[0057] Although the embodiments of the present application have been shown and described, it can be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes, modifications, replacements and variations can be made to the embodiments without departing from the principles and spirits of the present application, and the scope of the present application is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

Claims

1. A data arrangement method for a continuous, seamless printing mode, the method comprising the following steps: Step 1: Calculate the initial position of the nozzle; The initial position of the printhead is 0. After the artwork is printed, the position N of the printhead is calculated according to the PASS number pattern. For artwork with 2 PASS, the printhead position is at the step position + ½ * print height. For artwork with 3 PASS, the printhead position is at the step position + 2 / 3 * print height. Step 2: Calculate the dead zone range; The dead zone range C is calculated based on the printing area and the printhead starting position. Dead zone range C = printhead position - previous printhead position + previous artwork length. Step 3: Virtual printing area; Based on the specified position of the printhead, a new 2*N printing area is virtually generated, and the number of passes that need to be printed and covered is calculated. Step 4: Change the printing area.

2. The data arrangement method for a continuous seamless printing mode according to claim 1, characterized in that: The printhead is a pigment spraying tool on a roll-to-roll printer, responsible for spraying pigment onto the substrate.

3. The data arrangement method for a continuous seamless printing mode according to claim 2, characterized in that: The roll-to-roll printer is a specialized stretching machine tool used to control the unfolding and rewinding of materials, thereby achieving precise step-by-step control of the materials.

4. The data arrangement method for a continuous seamless printing mode according to claim 3, characterized in that: The printing substrate is the medium for printing, and the printing substrate can be a single sheet of paper, board, or roll material.

5. The data arrangement method for a continuous seamless printing mode according to claim 4, characterized in that: The PASS number rule refers to the number of times the image needs to be printed to be formed. The higher the PASS number, the slower the printing speed, but the better the quality. To print a 4-PASS image, each pixel needs to be printed in 4 separate overlays. Increasing the PASS number can improve image quality.

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