Victor Company of Japan, Limited

Toru Nibe

Itsuo Takanashi

Toshinori Takahashi

Tadao Shinya

Hiroki Kitamura

Hideshi Tanaka

Yutaka Mizoguchi

Katsuhiko Terada

Kenichi Miyazaki

Terumi Ohara

Yutaka Endo

Each pixel receives a digital picture data having a multi-gradation data. A line composed of printing pixels having a thickness difference of multi-gradations is obtained on a recording paper by controlling whether or not there exist ink transcription by each gradation with a line head. A digital printer of printing a picture by recording a plurality of lines on a recording paper with scanning by the line head, comprising counting devices ( - - ) for counting a number of pixels to print at each gradation, dividing devices ( - - - - - - ) for dividing all pixels into several groups in accordance with the counting devices and deciding devices ( - - - - ) for deciding a number of groups. A range of grouping and as number of groups can be changed so as for a number of printing pixels in every group to be equal to a predetermined number of simultaneous turn-on pixels. During a printing operation at each gradation, a pixel of simultaneously printing in one line is limited to a unit of the group and prints each gradation a plurality of times. Accordingly, a number of simultaneous turn-on pixels can always be held constant except a specific case.

Digital printer and its printing method

A thermal printing apparatus for printing input gradational images, characters and figures by using multilevel density which can appropriately regulate the levels of the densities representing the gradational images etc. to be printed by a linear thermal head having n heating resistors arranged in a line, the printing apparatus is provided with a density control unit for regulating, for example, the multilevel durations for energizing the heating resistors in accordance with n gradational printing data each corresponding to respective one of said resistors, and a data conversion unit, receiving a set of n original data for each line as the printing data, for producing p sets of n data for p split lines on the basis of the n original data, where p is an integer being equal to or greater than two, the p sets of n data being sequentially supplied to the density control unit set by set to print each line corresponding to the input gradational image, character and figure printing data as a plurality of split lines corresponding thereto, thereby increasing uniformity of density of print lines of pixels of the input gradational images, characters and figures by overlapping low density portions of dotes of adjacent split lines.

Thermal printing apparatus

A heat-sensitive hot-melt image transfer sheet transfers an ink image to a recording sheet when selectively heated by the heating element of the thermal head of a thermal printer. The image transfer sheet comprises a base coated on a surface thereof with a matrix of circular hot-melt ink dots at a constant pitch. The hot-melt ink dots are selectively meltable with heat applied through the base by the heating elements for transferring an ink image to the recording sheet held against the matrix of hot-melt ink dots.

Heat-sensitive hot-melt image transfer sheet

A thermal printing apparatus prints input gradational images, characters and figures by using multilevel density regulates the levels of the densities representing the gradiational images etc. to be printed by a linear thermal head having n heating resistors arranged in a row. The printing apparatus is provided with a density control unit for regulating, for example, the multilevel durations for energizing the heating resistors in accordance with n gradational printing data each corresponding to a respective one of said resistors, and a data conversion unit, receiving as printing data a set of n original data for each a plurality of lines parallel with the row of n resistors, for producing p sets of n data for p split lines on the basis of the n original data, where p is an integer equal to or greater than two, each of the p split lines being disposed in an area in which the line corresponding to the printing data should be printed, in parallel with the row of n resistors, the p sets of n data being sequentially supplied to the density control unit set by set to print the original line corresponding to the printing data by printing the split lines corresponding to the original line split line by split line so by shifting the linear thermal head in a direction perpendicular to the row of n resistors every time each of the split lines is printed, that each of the n printing data is represented by p dots.

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Yokosuka, Japan

Toru Nibe