THERMAL PRINTER

摘要

A thermal printer is disclosed which is adapted to form an image on a thermal print medium of a type in which a donor element transfers dye to a receiver element upon receipt of a sufficient amount of thermal energy. The printer includes a plurality of diode lasers (36) which can individually be modulated to supply energy to selected dots on the medium in accordance with an information signal. The print head (20) of the printer includes a fiber optic array having a plurality of optical fibers coupled to the diode lasers. The thermal print medium is supported on a rotatable drum (12), and the fiber optic array is movable relative to the drum. In order to prevent banding in an image produced on the print medium, the two outside fibers in the array are used for preheating and postheating of inner scan lines. The printer is particularly well adapted for use as a proof printer for half-tone reproductions of images. The printer suppresses any visual artifacts that are resultant from interactions of selected patterns of half-tone dots and incremental dots which are used by the printer to generate an image. The printer does not however mask any artifacts that are resultant from interaction of image components (such as picket fences) with a selected pattern of half-tone dots.