Eastman-kodak Company

Other

USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Nexpress Solutions, Inc.

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Ag

Alameda Applied Sciences Corporation

John R Thompson

Eric C Stelter

Yee S Ng

Patrick Metzler

Christopher B Liston

Karlheinz Walter Peter

Robert Michael Peffer

Heiko Hunold

Donald Calvin Buch

Mahadevan Krishnan

Hwai-Tzuu Tai

James D Allen

William J Staudenmayer

Eric Karl Zeise

Thomas K Hilbert

Christopher Stephen Garcia

Edwin A Hediger

Richard George Allen

Ingo Klaus Dreher

Timothy Gilbert Armstrong

Ralph Petersen

Frank Pierel

Hwai T Tai

Milton S Sales

Curtis L Stephens

Victor F Tarasenko

James G Jarvis

G&uuml;nther Voss

Stephan Walter Pareigis

Evgeny H Baksht

Michael Mordhorst

Mikhail I Lomaev

Dmitry V Rybka

Michael Kowalczyk

An apparatus for the formation of a dense plasma focus (DPF) has a center electrode formed about an axis, where the center electrode includes a cylindrical part and a tapered part. An outer electrode is formed about the center electrode, and may be either cylindrical, tapered, or formed from a plurality of individual conductors including a helical conductor arrangement surrounding the tapered region of the center conductor. The taper of the center electrode results in an enhanced azimuthal B field in the final region of the device, resulting in increased plasma velocity prior to the dense plasma focus. Using the outer electrode helical structure an auxiliary axial B field is generated during the final acceleration region of the plasma, which reduces axial modal tearing of the plasma in the final acceleration region.

Dense plasma focus apparatus

The invention relates to the use of custom color inks in printing. According to various aspects of the invention, printing apparatus and processes are provided for dispensing a first primary color ink to a custom color chamber associated with a print head, dispensing a second primary color ink to the custom color chamber, mixing the first primary color ink and the second primary color ink to create a custom color, and printing the custom color ink from the custom color chamber with a print head. The invention also relates to using valves to select a printing ink from a number of available ink chambers.

Custom color printing apparatus and process

An apparatus for providing power to a gas discharge lamp comprises a storage capacitor and an ignition switch coupled through a primarily parasitic first inductor to a parallel combination of a diode assembly and a second inductor in series with a gas discharge lamp. The second inductor is selected to optimize the energy transfer from the capacitor to the gas discharge lamp. During a first interval determined by the time constant of the series combination of a storage capacitor, a first inductor, and a second inductor, the diode assembly is not conducting and a forward sense current builds in the first and second inductors. During a second interval determined by the interaction of the two parallel circuits driving the gas discharge lamp, during which the diode array is conducting, the smaller reversed sense current flowing in the first inductor and a larger forward sense current flowing in the second inductor add, thereby generating a unipolar, forward sense, single pulse current output for the generation of optical energy by a gas discharge lamp.

Gas discharge lamp power supply

The invention relates to the use of roller fusing in printing. In particular, the invention relates to the use of heated rollers. According to one aspect of the invention, a fixing process and system for use with a printing apparatus is provided wherein a flow of heat exchange medium through a first heating zone within a fixing roller and a second heating zone within the fixing roller is controlled, and marking material is fixed to a receiver with the fixing roller. According to another aspect of the invention, a fixing process and system for use with a printing apparatus is provided wherein marking material is fixed to a receiver with a fixing roller and wherein a heat exchange medium is flowed through a first heating zone within the fixing roller, the first heating zone being biased toward the receiver.

Fixing roller system and method

Correcting register faults in a multicolor printing machine having a number of items of equipment for the digital production of color separations, wherein correction values are determined and assigned to angular positions of at least one image cylinder and, as a result, taken into account for the control of the production of the color separations on the image cylinder. Correction values are to be made available for the correction of register faults, which, with a fine graduation, make it possible to assign them to angular positions of machine elements in a repeatable way. This is achieved by determining circularity errors of machine elements which have an influence on the register, assigned to their angular positions and, from these, the correction values for the control of the production of the color separations on the at least one image cylinder being determined.

Method and apparatus for correcting register faults in a printing machine

The invention relates generally to apparatus for electrostatic image development and, in particular, apparatus that implement a magnetic brush with a drum photoconductor. According to an aspect of the invention, a method and apparatus for developing an electrostatic image are provided implementing a drum photoconductor and a magnetic brush contacting the drum photoconductor. The magnetic brush includes a mixture of toner and hard magnetic carriers.

Electrostatic image developing method and apparatus using a drum photoconductor and hard magnetic carriers

A copier or a printer includes a controller with a rendering algorithm that groups sets of adjacent pixels into sets of adjacent cells where each cell corresponds to a halftone dot of an image. The algorithm operates in conjunction with a gray scale printhead In sending data to the printhead, the controller parses a scanned image and set the exposure for each pixel in accordance with a growth and density program. The algorithm selectively grows halftone dots from zero size to a desired size equal to or less than a maximum size. It repeats this step for the rest of the pixels until the cell is at its desired size and at an initial density. If a higher density is desired, the algorithm selectively adjusts the fully grown cells by sequentially increasing the level of exposure of each pixel in the cell. The image is developed with developer including a hard magnetic carrier and toner.

Apparatus and method for gray level printing

A method and apparatus for setting register on a multicolor printing machine ( ) having color printing units ( ) allocated to various printing inks and having image cylinders ( ), equipment ( ) for producing images, in particular electrostatic latent images, on the image cylinders ( ), a carrier ( ) for printing substrates ( ) and image transfer points ( ) for the transfer of the color separations ( ) from the color printing units ( ) to the printing substrates ( ), an allocation of the image productions ( ) on the image cylinders ( ) to the printing substrates ( ) being carried out in order to achieve coincidence of register of the color separations ( ) in the print. This is achieved by a time-independent allocation of the positions of the image productions ( ) on the image cylinders ( ) to the printing substrates ( ) being carried out for at least one defined area ( ) of all the color separations ( ).

Method and apparatus for setting register on a multicolor printing machine by time independent allocation of positions of image productions to printing substrates

Image forming apparatus makes at least a two color image from an original having some color. The apparatus includes a color scanner which scans the original area-by-area for color content and picks an accent color from available accent colors in the apparatus from the color content analysis. A typical output would be a print in which an original is reproduced in a combination of black and a color picked which color is closest to one of the predominant colors in the original.

Accent color image forming method and apparatus

Image forming method and apparatus is capable of making images in at least a two different colors or toners. An original is electronically scanned for recognizing a predetermined characteristic of a pattern on the original, such as its color, size and/or shape. The image forming apparatus then provides the recognized pattern in a chosen accent color or in a toner different from that used for the rest of the image.

Multi-toner image forming apparatus and method having pattern recognition

A manually pull-type carrier includes a mobile carriage and a towing handle assembly slidably mounted to the carriage for changing the overall length of the carrier. The mobile carriage includes a pair of longitudinal rails rigidly interconnected and spaced laterally apart by a plurality of fore-and-aft spaced transverse bars, and a pair of wheels or skis with axle assemblies movably supporting the rails and being adjustable for changing the height of the rails above the ground. The towing handle assembly includes a pair of angle side braces and a front U-shaped handle telescopic with the angle side braces for adjusting the height of the handle to fit hunters of differing heights who tow the carriage.

Manual pull-type carrier for transporting a large game carcass

An image forming apparatus includes an image member, for example, an endless web photoconductor, and a transfer member, for example, a transfer drum. The endless web is driven by a frictional engagement with a drive roller. A web drive output roller fixed to and rotatable with the drive roller in turn drives an idler roller which drives a drive belt positioned around the idler roller and a transfer drive member. The transfer drive member is fixed with respect to the transfer drum and rotates the transfer drum. The outside diameter of the transfer drive member is maintained equal to that of the transfer drum despite varying ambient conditions, by employing similar materials, for example, employing a similar thickness of polyurethane as the outside layer of the transfer drive member. Thus, the peripheral speed of the transfer drum stays the same as the image member despite a varying outside diameter of the transfer drum as ambient conditions vary.

Image forming apparatus having a transfer member

A printer includes a RIP for converting a received stream of image instructions into electrical image signals and a hybrid marking engine with at least one stage operable in an asynchronous mode, wherein a page can be processed in portions, and at least one stage restricted to synchronous operation, wherein the synchronous stage runs at a predetermined fixed speed during its entire processing of a page. The marking engine may be electrostatographic device having an asynchronous writer stage and a synchronous development stage, transfer stage, or fusing stage. The transfer stage may operate asynchronously from the developer such that there is an indeterminate time period between the development operation and the transfer operation.

Color printer with synchronous and asynchronous stages

An image processing system for converting gray level, digital, pixel information into binary data. Pixels with digital values close to the threshold value are further processed to determine the binary value to be specified for that pixel. In such cases, the adjacent horizontal pixel is tested and, if that test is inconclusive, the adjacent vertical pixel is tested. Depending upon the tests of whether the adjacent pixels were also close to the threshold value, the current pixel value is assigned the opposite value as the previous adjacent pixel. This has the effect of specifying, for transition areas at the boundaries of text characters and graphic lines, alternating pixels which produce a serrated edge along the borders of the character or line. These edges are of high spatial frequency and are substantially undetectable under ordinary circumstances by an observer. These edges are also smoothed in the printing process by the fusing of the toner to the output medium. The invention is also applicable to adding alternating pixel areas to larger areas defined by digital values close to a predetermined threshold value, and enhances the information stored by binary bits for continuous-tone and half-tone pictorial images.

System for producing serrated, alternating pixel pattern on character

The number of pages of a multi-page document which can be stored in a buffer memory, when one or more of the pages of the document is substantially non-compressible, is increased by the invention. A machine, which is adapted to reproduce multi-page documents from image data of interleaved compressible and substantially non-compressible types of pages, includes multi-page buffer memory. The image data of the compressible page type is compressed and stored in the buffer memory. All pages of one type, either compressible or substantially non-compressible, are reproduced and the reproductions stored. Then, all the pages of the other type are reproduced, during which time, the stored reproductions of the one type page are delivered seriatim from storage into the reproduction document in collated fashion at the position corresponding to the position of the associated original in the multi-page document.

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Webster, NY, United States of America

John R Thompson