Method and device for checking the print on an article

Abstract

The present invention relates to a device (100) for checking the printing of an article, wherein the device (100) comprises: a data provision device (10) configured to provide printing data for the article from product data of the article; a camera device (20) configured to capture an image of an article printed by a printing process and to provide it as image data; and a computer device (30) configured to perform a quality check of the printing process based on a comparison of the printing data with the image data.

Description

Technical field

[0001] The present invention relates to systems for checking printing processes.

[0002] In particular, the present invention relates to a device and a method for testing the printing of an article. Technical background

[0003] Optical printing process verification of freely configurable articles cannot rely on databases of photographs of articles printed in accordance with standards and quality standards.

[0004] DE 10 2011 075343 A1 describes a system for evaluating a product specimen at the control station of a printing press, comprising a storage unit for the product specimen to be evaluated, a monitor for displaying a print image reference simulating a printed image of the product specimen, and a light illuminating the storage unit, which is designed to emit light of several different types of light with at least one defined type of light and at least one defined intensity, wherein a sensor is provided in the area of ​​the storage unit to determine the type of light of the light incident on the storage unit in the area of ​​the sensor.

[0005] DE 10 2009 046594 A1 describes a method for controlling a printing process, in which a substrate is printed on the basis of data from a prepress stage using a printing device, wherein the printing result on the substrate is compared with a target value and a correction value is derived from it, and wherein the data of the prepress stage are corrected with the correction value.

[0006] WO 2010 1149453 A describes a device for controlling a metering unit of an inking and / or dampening unit of a rotary printing press with a plurality of physical zones assigned to a printing unit and whose ink or dampening agent quantity can be individually adjusted by actuating elements, with form cylinders assigned to the printing units that carry the printed images of at least three printed sides side by side.

[0007] Product printing can often be done on a new, customer-specific configured item that has not been produced before or only rarely, and for which therefore no image data is available for successful printing that meets quality standards.

[0008] Manual training processes or conventional production control with optical systems and imaging methods, as well as automatic optical inspection methods based on such image databases with a large number of images of correctly executed printing processes, are therefore often not possible for freely configurable articles and fail due to the availability of corresponding training data and image databases. Summary of the invention

[0009] It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved device and an improved method for testing the printing of an article.

[0010] This problem is solved by the subject matter of the independent patent claims. Further developments and embodiments can be found in the dependent patent claims, the description, and the figures in the drawings.

[0011] A first aspect of the present invention relates to a device for checking the printing of an article, wherein the device comprises a data provision device, a camera device and a computer device.

[0012] The data provisioning facility is designed to provide printing data for the item from the item's product data, where the product data defines the item's parameters, properties, and execution options, and where the product data defines and classifies an item according to customer-specific configuration.

[0013] The camera system is designed to capture an image of an article printed using a printing process and to provide the image as image data. The image of the printed article is digitized using an electronic image converter or image sensor and provided in the form of image data.

[0014] The computer system is trained to perform a quality check of the printing process based on a comparison of the printing data with the provided image data, wherein the computer system is trained to perform a quality check of the article properties based on a comparison of the printing data with the image data, wherein the computer system is trained to create a virtual image of the article based on the printing data for the quality check of the printing process and to compare the virtual image of the article with the image of the article captured by the camera system.This advantageously allows even freely configurable items, whether limitedly or unlimitedly configurable, to be subjected to print process control and the printing to be checked even during new production runs of an item without requiring a large number of reference images that depict a correct print image on model items. The computer system is designed to perform automatic optical inspection procedures to ensure the correct printing of the item.

[0015] The present invention makes it possible to monitor the printing of a product based on predicted properties using product data for a customer-specific assembled product, without requiring training data from previously carried out and recorded printing processes.

[0016] This increases the reliability of monitoring the printing process. Control units can reliably detect printing errors without ever having printed on the item beforehand.

[0017] This provides a monitoring function for the printing process, which, especially in the area of ​​freely configurable and customer-specific products, allows process control of the printing of newly created items via configurator or variant configurator.

[0018] The present invention enables quality control of the printing and quality control of other product properties, whereby the required information is derived, for example, from product data available in a neutral format or neutral data format. This makes it possible to test newly created products even without a manual training process for the testing system. Therefore, no prototypes of the product are required, which would only be used to obtain a reference image of a correctly printed product.

[0019] Advantageous embodiments of the present invention can be found in the dependent claims.

[0020] In an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, it is provided that the product data is provided in a neutral data format.

[0021] In an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, it is provided that the neutral data format is a i) XML format; and / or ii) platform-independent data format; and / or iii) implementation-independent data format; and / or iv) M2M data format This includes an M2M data format, also known as a "machine-to-machine data format". This refers to data stored in a format that enables direct communication between two machines or data processing systems, i.e., without a human having to start, execute, or monitor process steps.

[0022] In an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, the data provision device is configured to be coupled to a printing press used for the printing process and to receive and provide machine-specific printing data and / or printing process-specific printing data from the printing press. This advantageously enables the predictive printing process control to be adapted to the respective printing press and / or printing process used.

[0023] In an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, the computer system is configured to perform quality control of the printing process based on a comparison of the received machine-specific printing data and / or the received printing process-specific printing data with the image data. This advantageously enables the predictive printing process control to be adapted to the specific printing press and / or printing process used.

[0024] In a second aspect of the present invention, a method for testing a print on an article is provided, wherein the method comprises the following process steps: As a first step in the process, printing data for the article is provided from the article's product data using a data provisioning tool. Optionally, the product data is available in a neutral data format.

[0025] As a second process step, an image of an article printed by a printing process is captured using a camera device and image data is provided based on the captured image using the camera device.

[0026] As a third process step, a quality check of the printing process is performed based on a comparison of the print data with the image data using a computer system. The product data defines the parameters, properties, and execution options of the item, defining and classifying an item according to customer-specific configuration. The process further includes, as a process step: performing a quality check of the item's properties based on a comparison of the print data with the image data using a computer system.

[0027] The present invention provides that the method further comprises the following process steps: Creating a virtual image of the article based on the printing data using the computer setup; and comparing the virtual image of the article with the image captured by the camera setup using the computer setup.

[0028] In an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, the method provides printing data in neutral data format, and the neutral data format is a i) XML format; and / or ii) platform-independent data format; and / or iii) implementation-independent data format; and / or iv) M2M data format includes.

[0029] In an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, the method further comprises the following process steps: Receiving machine-specific printing data and / or printing process-specific printing data from a printing press used for the printing process; and providing the machine-specific printing data and / or printing process-specific printing data received from the printing press.

[0030] In an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, the method further comprises the following process steps: Performing the quality check of the printing process further based on a comparison of the received machine-specific printing data and / or the received printing process-specific printing data with the image data captured by the camera.

[0031] In an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, the method further comprises the following process steps: To extract the work steps to be carried out in the printing process from the product data of the article using the data provisioning device; and to limit the quality check of the printing process to the work steps to be carried out using the computer device.

[0032] The accompanying drawings are intended to provide a further understanding of the embodiments of the present invention.

[0033] The accompanying drawings illustrate embodiments and serve, in connection with the description, to explain concepts of the present invention.

[0034] Other embodiments and many of the aforementioned advantages become apparent with regard to the figures in the drawings. The elements depicted in the figures in the drawings are not necessarily shown to scale. Brief description of the characters

[0035] They show: Fig. 1: a schematic representation of a device for checking the printing of an article; and Fig. 2: a schematic representation of a flowchart of a method for checking the printing of an article; and Fig. 3: a schematic representation of a data structure for checking the printing of an article.

[0036] In the figures of the drawings, identical reference numerals denote identical or functionally equivalent elements, components, parts or process steps, unless otherwise stated.

[0037] The term "neutral data format" as used by the present invention includes, for example, data or file formats for neutral file exchange between units, such as computers, of a computer network.

[0038] The term "neutral data format" as used by the present invention can be understood, for example, as an intermediate file format to translate data between participating systems of the computer network, such as production systems or ordering systems - webshop - or internal data processing systems - backend.

[0039] In other words, a neutral file is generated from original data that exists in other file formats. Unlike the original data, the target system can read and process the neutral file.

[0040] The term "product data," in particular product data of the article as used by the present invention, describes data that defines and classifies an article according to customer-specific configuration. In other words, the product data describes and identifies parameters, properties, and design options of the article.

[0041] The Fig. 1 shows a schematic representation of a device for checking the printing on an article.

[0042] The device 100 comprises a data provision device 10, a camera device 20 and a computer device 30.

[0043] The data provisioning unit 10 is trained to provide printing data for the article from the article's product data.

[0044] The camera device 20 is designed to capture an image of an article printed by a printing process and to provide it as image data.

[0045] The computer system 30 is designed to perform a quality check of the printing process based on a comparison of the printing data with the image data.

[0046] The present method enables the printing process control of freely configurable articles. The device can be coupled with computer-aided product manufacturing systems or a process structure for product manufacturing and internet-based product configuration systems, and can provide autonomous and adaptable verification systems via M2M communication.

[0047] The Fig. 2 shows a schematic representation of a flowchart of a procedure for checking the printing of an article.

[0048] As a first process step, printing data (S1) for the article is provided from the article's product data using a data provisioning device. Optionally, the product data is stored in a neutral data format.

[0049] The neutral data format can be, for example, an XML format, a platform-independent data format, an implementation-independent data format, or an M2M data format.

[0050] As a second process step, an image S2 of an article printed by a printing process is captured using a camera device and image data is provided based on the captured image using the camera device.

[0051] As a third procedural step, a quality check of the printing process is carried out (S3) based on a comparison of the printing data with the image data using a computer system.

[0052] The Fig. 3 shows a schematic representation of a data structure for checking the printing of an article.

[0053] The one in Fig. 3The data structure format shown can include product data for the article in a neutral data format. Furthermore, the data structure format can be configured to be used by a procedure for checking the printing on an article.

[0054] Furthermore, the neutral data format can be used in the data structure format shown. i) XML format; and / or ii) platform-independent data format; and / or iii) implementation-independent data format; and / or iv) M2M data format include.

[0055] The data structure format can include hierarchically structured product data in the format of a text file.

Claims

1. An apparatus (100) for checking a print on an article, the apparatus (100) comprising: - a data provision device (10) adapted to provide printing data for the article from product data of the article, the product data defining parameters, characteristics, and design options of the article, the product data defining and classifying an article according to customer-specific configuration; - a camera device (20) adapted to capture and provide as image data an image of an article printed by a printing process; and - a computer device (30) adapted to perform a quality check of the printing process based on a comparison of the printing data with the image data, wherein the computer device (30) is adapted to perform a quality check of article properties of the article based on a comparison of the printing data with the image data, wherein the computer device (30) is adapted to create a virtual image of the article based on the printing data for the quality inspection of the printing process and to compare the virtual image of the article with the image of the article captured by the camera device (20).

2. Apparatus (100) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the data provision device is adapted to provide the printing data for the article from the product data of the article available in a neutral data format; and wherein preferably the neutral data format comprises a i) XML format; and / or ii) platform-independent data format; and / or iii) implementation independent data format; and / or iv) M2M data format.

3. Apparatus (100) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the data provision device (10) is adapted to be coupled to a printing machine used for the printing process and to receive and provide machine-specific printing data and / or printing process-specific printing data from the printing machine.

4. Apparatus (100) according to claim 3, wherein the computer device (30) is adapted to perform the quality check of the printing process further based on a comparison of the received machine-specific printing data and / or the received printing process-specific printing data with the image data.

5. Apparatus (100) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the data provision device is adapted to read out working steps to be carried out in the printing process from the product data of the article; wherein the computer device (30) is adapted to limit the quality check of the printing process to the work steps read out and to be performed.

6. A method of checking a print on an article, the method comprising the following method steps: - providing (S1) printing data for the article from product data of the article by means of a data provision device; - capturing (S2) an image of an article printed by a printing process by means of camera device, and providing image data based on the captured image by means of the camera device; and - performing (S3) a quality check of the printing process based on a comparison of the printing data with the image data by means of a computer device; wherein the product data define parameters, properties, and design options of the article, the product data defining and classifying an article according to customer-specific configuration, performing a quality check of article properties of the article based on a comparison of the printing data with the image data by means of the computer device, the method further comprising the following method steps: - creating a virtual image of the article based on the printing data using the computer device (30); and - comparing the created virtual image of the article with the image captured by the camera device by means of the computer device.

7. Method according to claim 6, wherein the printing data for the article is provided from the product data of the article available in a neutral data format; and wherein preferably the neutral data format comprises a i) XML format; and / or ii) platform-independent data format; and / or iii) implementation independent data format; and / or iv) M2M data format.

8. Method according to any one of the preceding claims 6 or 7, the method further comprising the following method steps: receiving machine-specific printing data and / or printing process-specific printing data from a printing machine used for the printing process; providing the machine-specific printing data and / or printing process-specific printing data received from the printing machine.

9. Method according to claim 8, the method further comprising the following method steps: performing the quality check of the printing process further based on a comparison of the received machine-specific printing data and / or the received printing process-specific printing data with the image data captured by the camera.

10. Method according to any one of the preceding claims 6 to 9, the method further comprising the following method steps: reading out operations to be performed in the printing process from the product data of the article by means of the data provision device; and limiting the quality check of the printing process to the steps to be performed by means of the computer device.

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