Interactive visual card-selection process for mitigating light-area banding in a pagewide array

US7815275B2 · kind B2 · utility

Inventors

• Shilin Guo · San Diego, US
• Guo Li · San Diego, US
• Rob Patrick Chohan · San Diego, US
• Julie Huynh · Santa Clara, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jul 27, 2007
• Grant date: Oct 19, 2010
• Expiry date: Aug 17, 2029

Classification

• Technology area (CPC B): Performing Operations; Transporting
• CPC primary: B41J2202/20
• WIPO field: Textile and paper machines
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

Preferably, test-patterns print on separate, multiple print-medium cards, each including a ramp with colors graded along a certain direction—and, superimposed on the ramp, a candidate add-on colorant. Ramps preferably are printed in so-called “customer colors”, common in snapshots and particularly snapshot regions that include sky. Positions or amounts of the candidate add-on colorant canvass a likely range of values that optimize camouflaging or suppression of a banding artifact (due to seams in the pagewide array) that is extended along the same certain direction. For each seam and each “customer color” used, an operator holds up several cards for comparison, selecting the best one to three. Operators thus can evaluate candidate colorant patterns in context of many different tones of the sky and other customer colors. Preferably banding suppression is integrated with linearization: at each seam a series of linearization tables is smoothly interpolated between measurement-based tables for adjacent inkjet dice.