Pre-press Warping for Digital Watermark Readability on Heat-Shrunk Labels
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing technologies face challenges in maintaining the readability of digital watermarks on 3D containers due to warping and physical area distortion, especially when viewed from different angles.
Innovation Solution
The proposed solution involves pre-warping the digital watermark pattern to counteract physical area distortion and differential scaling, ensuring that the watermark appears square and readable from various viewpoints, even when the container is non-cylindrical.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Shape
If the label artwork is pre-warped to compensate for heat-shrinking distortion, then the visual appearance of the label is improved, but the readability of digital watermark patterns deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary warping to the watermark pattern in advance, before the heat-shrinking process occurs. By pre-computing and applying the inverse warp to the watermark, the system ensures that when the label is subsequently heat-shrunk, the watermark maintains its intended geometric relationships and remains readable, thus resolving the contradiction between visual appearance and information preservation
2Device complexity
If a single warp is applied to the entire label artwork, then the manufacturing process is simplified, but different regions of the label experience different physical area distortion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements local quality by dividing the label artwork into multiple regions (such as left and right halves) and applying different warp parameters to each region. This allows each region to receive customized warping that compensates for its specific physical area distortion characteristics, achieving uniform distortion compensation across the entire label while maintaining manageable process complexity through regional segmentation
Data Source
AI summary
Consumer product labels sometime include 2D machine readable codes, such as digital watermark patterns. When such label artwork is printed on a plastic sleeve that is then heat-shrunk to conform to a plastic container, the code can become distorted and unreadable. Various techniques are detailed to cope with this problem. Additionally, methods are disclosed to assess—before a heat-shrink label is applied to a product—the expected final readability of any machine readable code included in the label artwork. A variety of other features and arrangements are also detailed.