IP Library Granted Patent US 11,331,934
Granted Patent B2
US 11,331,934 · App. 17/051,255 · Granted May 17, 2022

Printer

Inventors: Masaaki Takagi (Kashihara, JP); Akira Hayashi (Kakogawa, JP)
Assignee: FUNAI ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
B41J3/407A45D29/00A45D34/04B41J2/04586G06T7/73A45D2029/005
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 11,331,934
App. No.
17/051,255
Granted
May 17, 2022
Kind
B2
Abstract

A printer includes a head which includes a nozzle face which ejects ink toward a top of a surface of a nail of a finger, a driving mechanism which moves the head in a predetermined direction, an image capturer which generates a nail side image showing a side of the nail of the finger by capturing an image of the nail of the finger, and a display controller which performs image processing on the nail side image from the image capturer, causing a display to display an image for height position adjustment including a target height position indicator added to the nail side image, the target height position indicator indicating a target height position of the nail of the finger spaced from the nozzle face by a predetermined distance.

Claims (20)

1. A printer for printing on a fingernail of a user, comprising:

a head which includes a nozzle face which ejects ink toward a surface of the fingernail;

a driving mechanism which moves the head in a predetermined direction;

an image capturer which captures an image of the fingernail to generate a nail side image showing a side of the surface of the fingernail; and

a display controller which causes a display to display an image for height position adjustment including a target height position indicator added to the nail side image by performing image processing on the nail side image from the image capturer, the target height position indicator indicating a target height position of the fingernail spaced from the nozzle face by a predetermined distance.

2. The printer according to claim 1 ,

wherein the image capturer captures an image of the fingernail to generate a nail top image showing a top of the surface of the fingernail, and

the display controller causes the display to display the image for height position adjustment and an image for horizontal lengthwise position adjustment including a target horizontal lengthwise position indicator added to the nail top image by performing image processing on the nail top image from the image capturer, the target horizontal lengthwise position indicator indicating a target horizontal lengthwise position of the fingernail with respect to the nozzle face.

3. The printer according to claim 2 , further comprising:

a mirror which reflects the side of the surface of the fingernail,

wherein the image capturer generates the nail top image by directly capturing an image of the top of the surface of the fingernail, and generates the nail side image by capturing an image of the side of the surface of the fingernail reflected on the mirror.

4. The printer according to claim 2 , further comprising:

a mirror which reflects the top of the surface of the fingernail,

wherein the image capturer generates the nail side image by directly capturing an image of the side of the surface of the fingernail, and generates the nail top image by capturing an image of the top of the surface of the fingernail reflected on the mirror.

5. The printer according to claim 1 ,

wherein the display controller further causes the display to display a notice for informing the user when a height position of the fingernail is deviated from the target height position.

6. The printer according to claim 1 ,

wherein the target height position indicator indicates a target height position range between a target upper limit height position of the fingernail spaced from the nozzle face by a first predetermined distance and a target lower limit height position of the fingernail spaced from the nozzle face by a second predetermined distance longer than the first predetermined distance.

7. The printer according to claim 6 ,

wherein the first predetermined distance is 1 mm and the second predetermined distance is 3 mm.

Assignments (2)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Apr 3, 2025
From: FUNAI ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
To: BRADY WORLDWIDE, INC.
Reel/Frame 070724/0730 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Oct 28, 2020
From: TAKAGI, MASAAKI; HAYASHI, AKIRA
To: FUNAI ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
Reel/Frame 054198/0313 →
Continuity (2)
Provisional Application 62773537 · Nov 30, 2018
Related Publication 20210229464A1 · Jul 29, 2021