Image tiling in ink jet printing systems
View Patent ↗A system or method of removing whitespace between tiled or repeated patterns generated during a printing operation. The system takes an initial image and determines if there exist extraneous bits of whitespace around the edge of actual image. Once this information is established, the printer application program uses that information to alter the tiled output accordingly to produce a seamless image with repeated or tiled patterns of the actual image.
1. A method of removing whitespace around a pixel image, comprising the steps of:
identifying whitespace around an initial image which, when repeated, appears as seams in repeated actual images, wherein identifying includes initializing image edges to obtain a raw image size of the initial image;
removing the whitespace to produce an actual image; and
tiling the actual image so that the actual image is repeated without seams appearing between the repeated actual images.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of identifying includes scanning the image for whitespace for a particular edge.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein if whitespace exists for the particular edge, that edge is moved towards an opposite side by one pixel of the image.
4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising determining if the edge has moved to the opposite side indicating that the image is all whitespace.
5. The method of claim 2 , further comprising determining an edge of the actual image if there is no whitespace.
6. The method of claim 2 , wherein a particular edge is a top edge, a bottom edge, a left edge, or a right edge.
7. The method of claim 6 , wherein if the top edge, the bottom edge, the left edge, and the right edge of the actual image has been determined, further comprising generating whitespace data.
8. The method of claim 2 , further comprising generating raw colorplane data prior to the identifying.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein scanning the image for whitespace data is performed for each color of the colorplane data.
10. A method of removing whitespace around a pixel image, the method comprising:
identifying whitespace around an initial image which, when repeated, appears as seams in repeated actual images;
removing the whitespace to produce an actual image, wherein removing include generating whitespace data; and
tiling the actual image so that the actual image is repeated without seams appearing between the repeated actual images, wherein tiling includes tiling raw data and adjusting the raw data with the whitespace data to generate data pertaining to the actual image.
11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising sending the adjusted data to a printer after the tiling of the data.
12. A method of removing whitespace around a pixel image, comprising:
preprocessing an image file;
generating raw colorplane data from the preprocessed image file;
determining whitespace around an initial image based on the colorplane data;
generating whitespace data;
tiling the preprocessed image file by adjusting for whitespace based on the whitespace data to create tiling data for an actual image;
sending the tiling data to a printer; and
printing tiled actual images based on the tiling data, adjacent tiled actual images having no whitespace between the images.
13. A computer program product for removing whitespace around a pixel image, the computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code thereon, comprising:
program code for identifying whitespace around an initial image which, when repeated, appears as seams in repeated actual images, wherein the program code for identifying includes program code for initializing image edges to obtain a raw image size of the initial image;
program code for removing the whitespace to produce an actual image; and
program code for tiling the actual image so that the actual image is repeated without seams appearing between the repeated actual images.
14. A system for removing whitespace around a pixel image, comprising:
means for identifying whitespace around an initial image, which, when repeated, appears as seams in repeated actual images, wherein the means for identifying includes means for initializing image edges to obtain a raw image size of the initial image;
means for removing the whitespace to produce an actual image; and
means for tiling the actual image so that the actual image is repeated without seams appearing between the repeated actual image.
15. The system of claim 14 , comprising:
means for printing tiled actual images based on the tiling data, adjacent tiled actual images having no whitespace between the images.