Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica-minolta Holdings, Inc.

Konica Minolta Ij Technologies, Inc.

Toshiyuki Mizutani

Kenichirou Hiramoto

Toshiyuki Takabayashi

Koji Washio

Toyoaki Sugaya

Masanori Yoshizawa

Yorihiro Yamaya

Takakazu Kuki

Takashi Muramatsu

Kenichiro Hiramoto

Mitsuru Obata

Masakazu Date

Yutaka Hosono

Atsumi Momose

An image forming apparatus includes: a nozzle head in which nozzles that ejects ink is arranged in a first direction; a moving mechanism that moves a recording medium relative to the nozzle head; an image acquirer that acquires image data; a quantization processor that quantizes density of pixels forming an image based on the image data; a grouping processor that groups adjacent pixel positions into one group in the quantized data; and a rearrangement processor that rearranges a quantized pixel value at each pixel position in the group that is grouped, wherein the grouping processor groups such that a direction intersecting the first direction is set to a second direction, arrangement of groups in the first direction is set to a row, rows is arranged in the second direction, and a row in which an initial position of the row is different at least by one pixel is included.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and image forming program

An inkjet recording device including: a recorder; a mover; and a hardware processor, wherein a pair of recording heads having recording elements in overlapping arrangement ranges in a width direction are at positions different in one movement direction orthogonal to the width direction, ink changes the phase to a solid in a time shorter than a difference between times when the ink adheres to a same position in the one movement direction, the hardware processor performs recording control of causing a selected recording element to perform an output operation to each position in the one movement direction and determines an execution order of output operations such that the output operation by each of downstream-side recording elements is performed twice or more continuously and at least a part of the output operations by upstream-side recording elements is not continuous.

Inkjet recording device and inkjet recording method

An inkjet recording apparatus includes: a recorder having a line head, the recorder ejecting ink through each of the ink ejection ports toward a recording medium; a mover that moves the recording medium and the line head relative to each other in a direction intersecting the arrangement direction of the ink ejection ports in the line head, and causes each pair of ink ejection ports of two adjacent head modules facing each other in the overlapping region to pass through a same place on the recording medium; and a recording controller that controls ink ejection operations of the plurality of head modules on the recording medium in accordance with dot data, and causes either of a pair of ink ejection ports of two adjacent head modules to eject ink to implement complementary ink ejection operations by the pair of ink ejection ports of the two head modules.

Inkjet recording apparatus, inkjet recording method, and inkjet recording program

The present invention has a problem of suppressing liquid gathering of an interpolation dot which interpolates a discharge defective nozzle and preventing deterioration of image quality, and the problem is solved by the present invention including: an inkjet head configured to separately discharge a large droplet, a medium droplet, and a small droplet from each of a plurality of nozzles; and a control unit which forms an image in a single-pass system by discharging the medium droplets from the plurality of nozzles respectively, and forms an interpolation dot to interpolate a discharge defective nozzle by discharging a droplet from a different nozzle when the discharge defective nozzle is present, the control unit forming the interpolation dot to interpolate the discharge defective nozzle with the use of the large droplet and forming at least one adjacent dot which is in contact with the interpolation dot with the use of the small droplet.

Inkjet recording apparatus, method for driving inkjet head, and method for forming image

An ink jet recording apparatus includes an ink discharger provided with a plurality of nozzles which discharge ink; and a processor. The processor discharges ink onto a recording medium from the plurality of nozzles of the ink discharger, and uses the ink discharger to record on the recording medium a composite test image including a halftone image with a predetermined density and a defective nozzle specifying image which specifies a defective nozzle in which a defect in ink discharge is occurring. The processor obtains information regarding the defect in the ink discharge from the nozzle based on a density distribution of the halftone image read from read data of the composite test image and specifies a defective nozzle based on the above information and a portion in the defective nozzle specifying image of the read data.

Ink jet recording apparatus and method for detecting defective nozzle

An image recording device includes a recorder, a reader and a hardware processor. The recorder records an image on a recording medium. The reader reads, with an imaging element, a surface of the recording medium and a surface of a predetermined reference member. The hardware processor calibrates the reader for a value to be detected by the imaging element, based on a reading result of the reading of the surface of the reference member. Further, the hardware processor performs the calibration in at least one of: a case where a type of the image to be recorded on the recording medium satisfies a predetermined image type condition; and a case where a predetermined reading influence factor which affects a reading result of the reading of the surface of the recording medium satisfies a predetermined reading influence factor condition.

Image recording device with a reader and processor for calibrating the reader

An image forming device includes: a hardware processor that performs halftone processing on input image data using a threshold matrix of a dither method, and that, when dot missing exists in a formed image by the image forming part, performs interpolation by rearranging a missing dot to peripheral pixel position; and an image forming part that forms an image on a recording medium on the basis of image data after halftone processing by the halftone processing part, wherein the hardware processor, using the threshold matrix, sets a blank pixel having a high probability of being generated next when gradation is increased, as a rearrangement destination of the missing dot.

Image forming device and method of interpolation of missing image dots

An inkjet recording device includes a hardware processor. The hardware processor: performs, for respective recording heads of a recorder, setting relevant to adjustment of an amount of ink to be discharged from nozzle groups; based on ink discharge amount information on a distribution of ink discharge amounts that are discharged from the nozzle groups based on image data, performs the setting such that at each joint in the nozzle groups, a difference between representative values of the ink discharge amounts of the nozzle groups satisfies a predetermined continuity condition, and a representative value of the ink discharge amounts of the nozzle groups satisfies a predetermined discharge amount condition; and adjusts at least a part of the setting such that a difference between a maximum value and a minimum value of the ink discharge amounts of the nozzle groups reduces.

Inkjet recording device and ink-discharge adjustment method for inkjet recording device

An ink jet recording apparatus includes an ejector, a fixing unit, a reversing unit and a hardware processor. The ejector performs an ejection operation of ejecting a color material and an overcoat material onto a recording medium. The fixing unit fixes the overcoat material, thereby forming an overcoat on the medium. The reversing unit reverses the medium. The processor causes the fixing unit to form the overcoat on one side of the medium after causing the ejector to perform the ejection operation on the one side at a predetermined ejection position, causes the reversing unit to reverse the medium with the overcoat formed on the one side, and causes the fixing unit to form the overcoat on the other side of the medium after causing the ejector to perform the ejection operation on the other side at the ejection position.

Ink jet recording apparatus

An inkjet recording device includes a recorder which discharges ink from a plurality of recording elements disposed in each of a plurality of recording heads onto a recording medium, the ink changing a phase between a solid and a liquid; a mover which causes the recording medium and the plurality of recording heads to move relative to each other; and a hardware processor which performs record control causing each of the plurality of recording elements disposed in the plurality of recording heads of the recorder to perform an output operation of discharging or not discharging ink onto the recording medium which moves relative to the recording heads in a predetermined movement direction according to a pixel value of image data.

An image forming apparatus includes the following. A recorder applies a colorant to a recording medium in accordance with a recording operation of a plurality of recording devices. An image-formation controller instructs the recorder to form a combined image including a plurality of normal images and a test image on the recording medium, the normal image being laid out in a recording area on the recording medium. A reader reads the images formed on the recording medium. A failure detector detects a recording operation failure of any of the recording devices based on the test image read by the reader. A determiner determines the quality of each of the normal images based on the detected result of the recording operation failure by the failure detector and positional information on the images in the combined image.

Image forming apparatus and quality determination method

A color conversion device includes color conversion sections, an obtaining section and a reconversion section. The color conversion sections perform color conversion in parallel to convert colors of pixels contained in image data of a predetermined number of rows. The predetermined number is two or more. For the color conversion, at least one color conversion section uses certain color conversion information, and the other color conversion section uses other color conversion information having an information amount less than that of the certain color conversion information. The obtaining section obtains attribute information indicating an attribute of each of the pixels. When the attribute information is predetermined attribute information, the reconversion section converts a pixel color-converted with the other color conversion information using a pixel color-converted with the certain color conversion information in a predetermined pixel area contained in the image data.

Color conversion device, image forming device, and color conversion method

A threshold matrix generating method includes: generating q(x, y, g) in which the number of dots in an initial dot pattern is varied; calculating an error matrix (ERR(x, y, g)) of q(x, y, g); calculating AVE(a, b) representing the uniformity of the number of dots in discrete blocks into which the dot pattern has been divided; determining two pixels, of which the dot positions are to be swapped, on the basis of ERR (x, y, g) and AVE(a, b); swapping the dot positions; calculating the evaluation value (MSE(n)) of q(x, y, g) after the positional swapping; and repeating the positional switch of the dots repeating the generation of q(x, y, g) and the positional swapping of the dots with q(x, y, g) functioning as the initial dot pattern until a q(x, y, g) satisfying MSN(n)&#x3c;MSN(n&#x2212;1) is obtained.

Method and device for generating threshold matrix for determining state of formation of dots composing output image, quantizer comprising threshold matrix for generating output image data, and image forming device and storage device comprising threshold matrix

An image processing apparatus to perform a screen process on color image data using threshold matrices includes an address calculation section, threshold processor and shift section. The address calculation section calculates an address in the threshold matrix. The threshold processor acquires a threshold by the address, and performs an n-valued process (n&#x2267;2) on a pixel value using the threshold. The shift section divides the image data into blocks in units of the threshold matrix, determines shift amounts for each block, and shifts the address. The threshold processor acquires a threshold by an address after the shift for at least one color, and performs the n-valued process using the threshold. The threshold matrix for a color for which the address is shifted has a screen ruling with a lower number of lines than the address is not shifted.

Image processing apparatus and image processing method to perform screen process on image data of a plurality of colors using threshold matrix for each color

An image recording device comprising a line head including a plurality of recording element arrays arranged in one direction such that the recording elements have overlapping regions at the mutually adjoining end portions, characterized by comprising a halftone processor for subjecting multilevel image data to a halftone process in accordance with a first half tone processing rule to form the pattern of the dots to be recorded, as a recording pattern, an allocation processor for allocating which of the recording element arrays adjoining in the overlapping regions is used to record according to the recording pattern, by using a second half tone processing rule to suppress the low-frequency component of a space frequency, and a driver for driving the recording elements so that the dot data allocated to the individual recording element arrays may be recorded by the recording elements of the individual recording element arrays contained in the line head.

Growing community of inventors

Hino, Japan

Toshiyuki Mizutani