The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 07, 1996
Filed:
Nov. 16, 1993
Hiroshi Maeda, Kashihara, JP;
Toshio Yamagishi, Nara, JP;
Norihide Kunikawa, Yao, JP;
Toshihiro Okahashi, Kashihara, JP;
Tatsuya Itoh, Nara, JP;
Masatsugu Nakamura, Koshiba, JP;
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, , JP;
Abstract
The present invention is made to reduce the effect of variation of pulses for driving a printer when recording image data and to improve the gray level representation of picture images to be printed. Data incoming through an image reading device are quantized and processed two pixels at a time by a gray level image processing circuit. The two-pixels' data are first discriminated by an edge discriminator to determine whether they represent an edge portion within the image or not. An object image, on which an operation for inter-pixel spacing shall be conducted, is selected according to the discrimination result. The arithmetic and logic portion performs the above-mentioned operation by two pixels at a time if the data correspond to a non-edge portion and performs correction for enhancement if the data correspond to an edge. This may eliminate the effect of dot displacement due to variation of drive pulses of a printer and improve the quality, in particular, of a gray level image portion.