NON-LINEAR EDGE STITCHING APPARATUS AND METHOD

摘要

A method and apparatus for stitching the edges of adjacent strips (12) or swaths printed by a strip or swath printer in a manner which reduces the effects of visual artifacts caused by a difference in print quality, density or shape between pixels at or near the edge of the adjacent strips and other pixels in the strips. Two adjacent strips, each having a number of lines, are printed such that a portion (16) of one or more lines in one of the strips (12a) overlaps a portion (16) of a corresponding number of lines in the other strip (12b), with the pixels in corresponding overlapping line portions being superposed. When the strips are printed, certain predetermined pixels in all or some of the line portions in each of the two strips (12a, 12b) which will overlap are not printed. The pixels not to be printed may be selected such that the border or boundary between the adjacent edges of the two overlapping strips forms a nonlinear, predetermined pattern, such as a regular, repeating pattern, e.g., triangular, or a random or pseudo-random pattern. As a result of this process, overlapping line portions contain a mixture of pixels of higher and lower density or quality, thus reducing the effects of the visual artifacts caused by the clear contrast between such higher and lower density pixels when strips are not overlapped.