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:
Jun. 10, 1997
Filed:
Dec. 13, 1993
Kimiyoshi Hayashi, Souka, JP;
Kazuhiko Hirooka, Tokyo, JP;
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An image forming apparatus arranged to synthesize a plurality of images having different numbers of steps of tone representation, and thereafter form an image at different degrees of resolution corresponding to the respective numbers of steps of tone representation. According to one representative embodiment, an image forming apparatus inputs first and second image information to be synthesized with each other, the number of tone-levels of the second image information being less than the number of such levels of the first information. An image synthesizer, which is capable of changing an image forming resolution, forms a synthesized image from the first and second image information, and a controller controls the image forming resolution of the image synthesizer such that the first image information is formed at a first resolution and the second information is formed at a second resolution higher than the first resolution.