Thermal line printer with staggered head segments and overlap

Abstract

A method of and apparatus for sequentially printing lines of image pixels in the thermal printing of a two-dimensional image on a wide receiver media employing a print head arrangement of the type comprising a plurality N of linear thermal print head segments each comprising a set n of thermal print elements, each element having a data bit input terminal, in an alternating, staggered pattern in first and second rows of N.sub.1 and N.sub.2 print head segments arranged across the media in a print line direction such that respective sub-sets of n.sub.1 thermal print elements of the adjacent ends of the N.sub.1 and N.sub.2 print head segments arranged in the first and second rows overlap in the print line direction. Each line of image print data into first and second print line data sub-sets which, when applied to the respective first and second rows of print head segments, print respective first and second line sub-images each having a complete segment and a partially complete segment, wherein the partially complete segments positionally overlap one another. The partially complete segments of the first and second line sub-images have their complete areas distributed throughout the respective segment in complementary patterns, which may reflect an arbitrary or random distribution.