Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Nippon Sanso Kabushiki Kaisha

Nec Corporation

Masahiro Sakamoto

Akihiro Katayama

Yoshinori Sato

Takeshi Ono

Yasuhide Ueno

Yasuyuki Shinada

Sadasuke Kurahayashi

Junnosuke Kataoka

Shinichi Ishida

Tsuneo Negi

Shigeo Miura

Tsunehiro Watanabe

Masatomo Takahashi

Motoaki Yoshino

Masashi Takahashi

Mamoru Osada

Tsuneo Suzuki

Hidefumi Ohsawa

Takuya Tsujimoto

Teruyuki Nishii

Hiroshi Nobuta

Katsutoshi Ushida

Tadashi Takano

Kouichi Serizawa

Shinji Oshima

Shigeto Suzuki

Yasuhiko Satomi

Tadayoshi Iwasaki

Norio Sugiyama

Tomoaki Miyazaki

Shozo Tanaka

Yasunobu Shimada

Seiji Okino

Small and large flat electrodes and between which alternating current voltage is applied are touch on respective outer side surfaces of an ink bag of each of main ink tanks to so as to face each other. Surface area (B) of the large electrode is set equal to a surface area of the largest outer side surface of the main ink tank, for example, so as to be much different from surface area (A) of the small electrode. The surface area (A) of the small electrode is set to about one tenth of the surface area (B).

Ink tank and printer with the same

An original scanning apparatus is described that scans an original placed on an original placing plane line by line by moving a scanning unit including a plurality of light-receiving elements that are arranged in a prescribed direction in a direction perpendicular to the prescribed direction. The original scanning apparatus includes: a pattern unit that is provided in a vicinity of a side of the rectangular original placing plane extending along a moving direction of the scanning unit; a control unit configured to calculate drive information in the moving direction per line-scanning cycle of the scanning unit based on a result of scanning the pattern unit; and a driving circuit configured to feed back the calculated drive information so as to control the scanning unit to thereby drive the scanning unit in the moving direction.

Original scanning apparatus and control method thereof

An image reading apparatus for reading an image on an original includes a reading unit for optically reading the image of the original while the image is illuminated by light from a light source; a moving unit for moving the reading unit relative to the original; a position signal generator for outputting a position signal in accordance with movement of the reading unit by the moving unit; a lighting control unit for controlling the light source for lighting for a first period in synchronism with the position signal; and an output control unit for generating a control signal for outputting an image signal corresponding to the image read by the reading unit after the light source lights for the first period and for outputting the image signal for a second period in synchronism with the control signal.

Method and apparatus for image reading with synchronized readout and lighting control

An image processing apparatus or a facsimile apparatus or the like is constructed by an input unit for inputting image data, a data conversion unit for converting density characteristics of image data inputted by the input unit, and an output unit such as ink jet printer, laser beam printer, or the like for outputting the image data at a predetermined resolution. The data conversion unit converts density characteristics so as to almost equalize densities even when a resolution of the image data that is outputted by the output unit differs. The data conversion unit converts the density characteristics of the input image data on the basis of a luminance/density conversion table formed every resolution of the image data that is outputted by the output unit. The resolution of the output image data is higher than the resolution of the input image data.

Image processing apparatus and method

An image processing apparatus having: an input unit for inputting image data; a unit for producing a plurality of parameters from a region consisting of data for the input object pixel and peripheral pixels; and a discriminating unit for discriminating to what extent the region preferably, just the object pixel is to be regarded as character image or halftone image, in accordance with correlation of the plurality of parameters.

Precise discrimination of image type

Transmission of an entered image, in the color mode, without passing memory means, and, in the monochromatic mode, after storage once in the memory means allows to avoid unnecessarily long image entering operation for image reading in case of monochromatic images, and also to provide an image transmitting apparatus of a smaller size and a lower cost in comparison with the conventional color communication apparatus. Also processing of a received color image without passing memory means and of a received monochromatic image through the memory means allows to store such monochromatic image even in the absence of a recording material and to provide an image receiving apparatus of a smaller size and a lower cost in comparison with the conventional color communication apparatus.

Image communicating apparatus

An image processor inputs coded image data, which is comprised of a plurality of resolution levels, and image processor thereafter rearranges and stores the coded image data into image memory 4 so that the resolution levels of the coded image data can be stored into a consecutive address area of the image memory 4. Thereafter DMA controller 11 reads out the coded image data stored in the image memory 4 into decoder 7 by accessing the consecutive address area of the image memory 4. The decoder 7 decodes the coded image data transferred at high speed.

Image processing method and apparatus thereof

An image processing apparatus has an image sensor for inputting image data obtained by reading an image, a shading correction processing unit for correcting variations in image data input from the image sensor on the basis of correction data, an arithmetic operation processing unit for performing image processing of the image data input from the image sensor, and a memory for storing the correction data to be supplied to the shading correction processing unit and image data to be supplied to the arithmetic operation processing unit.

Image signal processing apparatus

In an image processing apparatus, comprising: image data sent from a transmission-side apparatus is received, and discrimination is performed as to whether the image data received is a character image or a halftone image segmentation processing is then performed on the reception data. When the discrimination means discrimitaes that the received image data is a character image, interpolation processing is performed on the basis of reception image data in a predetermined area, to perform segmentation processing of image data of a pixel of interest, and so the apparatus can perform segmentation processing of input data by simple control at high speed and low cost.

Image processing apparatus

A drive control system for a stepping motor which stores values for the current driving each phase of the motor in data tables. A central processing unit drives the motor in accordance with the current values stored in the data tables. The current values are stored in the data table with corresponding addresses. The current values are read out sequentially from the addresses in the data tables. Each time the address is incremented by 1, the magnitude of the angle of rotation of the motor is set so that it is always the same.

Drive control system of stepping motor

The present invention relates to control of motor and strobe pulses in a printer which feeds a paper by a stepping motor and prints data by strobe pulses. A uniform record line density is attained by non-linearly changing currents and interval of phase excitation pulses for trigger of the motor and timing of the strobe pulses.

Recording control system for a recording apparatus

According to the present invention, when image data are subjected to quantization processing using an error diffusion method, the generation of a striped pattern which is a cause for deterioration of picture quality in the error diffusion method is prevented. In the present invention, an original image is read and image data are generated. The image data obtained by reading the original image are quantized using an error diffusion method, and the quantized image data can be output and recorded by a thermal-head printer. Furthermore, according to the present invention, an error between the density of an input image and the density of an output image after being subjected to a quantization processing using an error diffusion method is perfectly preserved. In an image processing apparatus for performing a quantization by dispersing an error between input image data and output image data which arises when the input image data are quantized, to image data of surrounding picture elements, the error between the input image data and the output image data is computed or otherwise determined, the error is subjected to a predetermined weighting processing, the error subjected to the weighting processing is dispersed to surrounding picture elements, and a surplus of the error generated in the weighting processing is corrected.

Image processing method and apparatus with reduction of granular noise,

A scanning device comprises: a stepping motor; a memory device for storing drive data for driving the stepping motor for each scanning unit which does not correspond to each drive step of the stepping motor; and a motor driving device for driving the stepping motor in accordance with the drive data read from the memory device.

Scanning device having a memory for storing driving steps for a stepping

A driving system for a stepping motor wherein the stepping motor is rotated by a predetermined angle for each driving step. The system counts the time between two successive driving triggers, and changes at least one of the phase energization current and the phase energization time at the start of the driving of the stepping motor in response to the time count.

Driving system for stepping motor

An image processing apparatus such as a digital printer or digital facsimile apparatus for half tone processing input image data has: an input device to input image data indicative of a concentration of an image; a discriminating circuit to discriminate whether the input image data is smaller than a threshold value or not; a binarizing circuit to binarize the input image data into binary data of high and low levels; and a setting circuit to set the binary output of the image data to the low (0) level irrespective of the result of the binarization by the binarizing circuit when the input image data is determined to be smaller than the threshold value. The input device includes a reading circuit to read the original image and a generator to generate image data indicative of the original image concentration. When the pixel concentration to be processed by an error diffusion method is smaller than the threshold value, the error data generated for that pixel is set to 0, with the result that particles-like noises in the high contrast portion are eliminated and the encoding efficiency in highlight portions is improved. Thus, a high quality image of excellent resolution and gradations can be transmitted at a high speed.

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Tokyo, Japan

Masahiro Sakamoto