Minolta Camera Kabushiki Kaisha

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Minolta Company, Ltd.

Minolta Camera Co., Ltd.

Yoshihiro Hattori

Suguru Hamamichi

Kazuyuki Fukui

Yoshinobu Hada

Sachio Nagamitsu

Hideaki Kodama

Hisashi Kodama

Yoshikazu Naito

Takanobu Yamada

Takeru Kinoshita

Osamu Ogawa

Sanji Inagaki

Hiroshi Fukao

Shinichi Yoshimoto

Tetsuya Yamada

Etsuaki Urano

Mayumi Sakai

Yoichi Nagata

Tuneko Okada

Hisasi Kodama

A fluid analyzer including a physical property value setting section for setting a physical property value in accordance with grid information for boundary conditions and object positions, a number-of-dimension control section for controlling the number of dimensions of a space to be analyzed, a momentum correction section for automatically correcting the momentum of the speed vector of an inlet or outlet, and a boundary condition control section for automatically setting a boundary condition not diverged even in natural convection computation, which repeats repetitive computation until resulting in convergence after generating grids. Thereby, it is possible to accurately set a physical property value and an analysis dimension according to grid division, correct a momentum, and control natural convection computation.

Fluid analyzer and program recording medium

A developer transporting device for electrophotographic copiers has a pair of walls, a rotating shaft supported between the pair of walls, a first transporting member provided on the rotating shaft, a rotating cylindrical screw concentrically sheathing the rotating shaft and having a second transporting member provided on an exterior surface thereof and apertures provided at both ends thereof, an inflow pipe mounted on one wall of the pair of walls and extending into one end of the cylindrical screw and provided with a developer inflow opening facing an aperture of the cylindrical screw, and an outflow pipe mounted on the other wall of the pair of walls and extending into the other end of the cylindrical screw and provided with a developer outflow opening facing an aperture of the cylindrical screw. Developer outside the cylindrical screw is transported from the outflow pipe to the inflow pipe by the second transporting member and developer in the cylindrical screw is transported from the inflow pipe to the outflow pipe by the first transporting member. Developer is thus circulated inside and outside the cylindrical screw in a manner to ensure proper mixing thereof. The cylindrical screw preferably includes interior and exterior surfaces which have different coefficients of friction for more effective transport of the developer.

Developer mixing and transporting device

The present invention provides a simulator which is easy to manipulate, and with which a user can experience a realistic simulation in various 3-D spaces, or a designer can understand physical environment conditions with the spaces intuitively or analyze mutual affects when there are a plurality of people in the spaces. The simulator comprises an input manipulation unit that the user can manipulate with one hand, a soft-robot display unit for displaying a soft-robot in accordance with the physical environment conditions, and a soft-robots display unit for producing a plurality of soft-robots.

Simulator for producing various living environments mainly for visual

The zenithal angle of a spherical surface is divided at regular intervals, the horizontal angle thereof is also divided at regular intervals in correspondence with each of the zenithal angles, and in addition, the intensity of each energy line emitted from the center of the bottom surface of the spherical surface at the divided zenithal and horizontal angles corresponds to each zenithal angle. Thus, the energy lines can be isotropically emitted from the center of the bottom surface the spherical surface. The emitted energy lines are traced from the center to each object surface and the intensity of each energy line which has reached each object surface are added to each other. Then, the intensity obtained by the addition is divided by the intensity of entire energy lines emitted from the center. Thus, the geometrical view factor of each object surface can be found quickly and accurately.

Apparatus for calculating geometrical view factor

In an electrophotographic image forming apparatus including a charger for electrically charging the photoconductor to a predetermined initial electric potential, a laser projects a light onto the photoconductor so as to form an electrostatic latent image thereon, and a developing device develops the latent image with toner so as to form a toner image thereon. Further, a charger controller controls the charger based on a detection result of a detector for detecting a state of the photoconductor so that the initial electric potential of the photoconductor changes in a predetermined range, and a selection controller selects one of the plurality of gradation correction data stored in a storage unit based on the detection result of the detector when the initial electric potential of the photoconductor is an upper or lower limit value of the predetermined range. Moreover, a light projecting controller controls the laser to change a light amount of the light projected, based on the gradation correction data selected by the selection controller, according to an image density signal for representing densities of respective pixels of an image to be formed.

Electrophotographic image forming apparatus comprising means for

In a method of analyzing a lighting environment, the lighting environment is initially divided into a plurality of blocks so that all surfaces defining said lighting environment may be divided into a plurality of surface patches. The surface patch that radiates the most light energy is then searched. If the quantity of light radiated from this surface patch exceeds a given value, the quantity of light radiated from this surface patch which arrives at each of said plurality of surface patches is computed. Thereafter, the surface patch that radiates the next most light energy is searched, and the quantity of light radiated from this surface patch which arrives at each surface patch is computed. In this way, the total quantity of light received by each surface patch is obtained. In this method, mirror reflection is taken into account.

Method and apparatus for analyzing a lighting environment

A digital half-tone image is reproduced by exposing a photoconductor by modulating the intensity of laser beam. In order to correct the effect of the size of laser beam on the gradation characteristic, the surface potential of the photoconductor is detected under various conditions. The sensitizing potential and the sensitivity of the photoconductor are corrected according to the measured values for stabilizing the gradation potential. Then, the beam size is corrected according to the surface potential or the amount of adhered toners detected under prescribed conditions, without detecting the beam size.

Apparatus for forming digital images

In forming a digital image on the photoconductor wherein the intensity of the laser beam is modulated according to multi-level image data, a standard toner image is formed at an intermediate intensity at which the reproduced image density is not affected by the beam size, and the toner density is detected. On the other hand, the size of the beam for exposing the photoconductor is measured. Then, the gradation characteristic is controlled according to the toner density and the beam size. Thus, the effect of the beam size on the gradation characteristic is corrected.

Apparatus and method for forming digital image

An image forming apparatus having a toner density detecting sensor, a humidity sensor and a memory for storing past record of detected humidity. The toner density is compensated by referring to the detected toner density, currently detected humidity and past record of humidity to maintain image density stability.

Image forming apparatus maintaining image density stability against

In an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, a charger sensitizes the photoconductor at a desired initial potential and the photoconductor is exposed to form an electrostatic latent image, which is developed by a developer to form a toner image. A gradation correction table on the relation of the input image signal to the exposure amount is provided in a memory, and it is amended by adding a common amendment value to the image density signal in the gradation correction table. The common amendment value is determined according to the density of a standard toner image. If a plurality of gradation correction tables are stored in a memory, one of them is selected according to the output voltage of the charger or the bias potential of the developer. The selected gradation correction table is amended according to the surface potential of the photoconductor, the temperature of the photoconductor or the humidity of the photoconductor. Alternately, the detection value of the surface potential, the temperature or the humidity may be used to select the gradation correction table. The gradation table may be amended according to the state of the photoconductor. The amplification factor of the exposure amount for the photoconductor can be changed according to the state of the photoconductor, the temperature or the humidity of the photoconductor. The bias voltage of the developer or the output voltage of the charger may also be changed according to the state of the photoconductor.

Image forming apparatus having correction means for modifying image

In an image forming apparatus with use of electrophotographic process, a plurality of toner images are formed on a photoconductor by changing stepwise a predetermined operating parameter such as light intensity of laser beam or the grid potential of sensitizing charger, and the densities of the toner images are measured. Thus, the value of the operating parameter is determined which corresponds with the smallest non-zero toner density among the measured densities. When an image is formed on the photoconductor, for example the gamma table is corrected according to the determined minimum light intensity.

Image forming apparatus controlled according to smallest non-zero toner

In an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, a corona charger electrically charges the photoconductor to a predetermined initial electric potential so as to supply an amount of electric charge thereto, and a laser projects a light onto the charged photoconductor so as to form an electrostatic latent image thereon. A light projecting controller controls the laser to change a light amount of the projected light according to an image density signal, and a developing device develops the formed electrostatic latent image with toner so as to form a toner image thereon. Then, a voltage generator applies a developing bias voltage to the developing device. Moreover, a density controller controls the corona charger and the voltage generator to change the amount of supplied electric charge and the developing bias voltage, and further controls the voltage generator so that a difference between the initial electric potential and the developing bias voltage becomes larger and a minimum light amount of first starting reproducing an image becomes smaller as the amount of supplied electric potential becomes larger.

A photoelectronic image forming apparatus reproduces an image on the basis of an electrostatic latent image produced on a photo-sensitive body by using a developer containing a toner and a carrier, and comprises a plurality of toner density measuring units for respectively producing outputs each indicative of a toner density of the developer and a toner density determining unit responsive to the outputs for determining an actual toner density so as to precisely control the tone of the image.

Toner density measurement apparatus having output characteristics

A cleaner in a transfer section of a copying machine for cleaning a soil toner transferred from a photoconductive member and adhering to the surface of a transfer drum, which includes a cleaning device which electrically attracts and cleans the soil toner on the surface of the transfer drum and an electrode disposed at the interior surface of the transfer drum for weakening the electrostatic force between the soil toner and the surface of the transfer drum. The electrode disposed in the interior of the dielectric drum is movable.

Cleaner provided in a copying machine

A corona charging device for charging a surface of a moving member, the device including a plurality of wire electrodes for generating corona discharge at a high voltage applied thereto, and a grid electrode located between the moving member and the wire electrodes, wherein a distance between the grid electrode and the moving member is shortest immediately below the wire electrode located most downstream in the moving direction of the moving member.

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Osaka, Japan

Yoshihiro Hattori