Printer printing composited print image planes
View Patent ↗A printer is provided having a receiver for receiving compressed print data, a first decoder for decoding continuous tone image planes in the received compressed print data to produce first decoded data, a second decoder for decoding bi-level image planes in the received compressed print data to produce second decoded data, a ditherer for dithering separate image color planes of the first decoded data to produce dithered data, a compositor for compositing the second decoded data with the dithered data to produce composited data, and a printhead for printing the composited data.
1. A printer comprising:
a receiver for receiving compressed print data;
a first decoder for separately decoding separate continuous tone image color planes in the received compressed print data to produce first decoded data separated into image color planes;
a second decoder for decoding bi-level image planes in the received compressed print data to produce second decoded data;
a ditherer for dithering the separate image color planes of the first decoded data to produce dithered data;
a compositor for compositing the second decoded data with the dithered data to produce composited data; and
a printhead for printing the composited data.
2. A printer as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the ditherer and compositor are configured to scale the second decoded data.
3. A printer as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the ditherer and compositor are configured to scale the first decoded data.
4. A printer as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the second decoder is a Group 4 facsimile decoder.
5. A printer as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising a third encoder for encoding an infrared image plane to produce encoded infrared tags, the printhead being configured to print the encoded infrared tags with the composited data.