This application claims the priority benefit of China application serial no. 201710760887.8, filed on Aug. 30, 2017. The entirety of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of this specification.
The technical field relates to an inkjet technique, and more particularly, to an inkjet method and a three-dimensional printing device.
Along with advances in computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), the manufacturing industry has developed three-dimensional printing technology capable of rapidly fabricating products from an original design concept. Three-dimensional printing technology is actually a generic term for a series of rapid prototyping (RP) techniques. A basic principle thereof is laminate manufacturing on a printing platform, wherein an RP machine sequentially prints, on the printing platform, a plurality of layer objects within a horizontal plane through scanning, so that the layer objects can be stacked to form a three-dimensional printed object.
Moreover, current three-dimensional printing technology further includes performing an inkjet operation on the three-dimensional printed object. That is, when a three-dimensional printing device prints the layer objects, it can at the same time perform the inkjet operation on each of the layer objects. However, in the inkjet operation of the three-dimensional printing device, whether or not to perform the inkjet operation on positions in the layer objects that correspond to a plurality of pixels of an inkjet image is determined according to pixel values of the pixels. Thus, if an image which a user inputs to the three-dimensional printing device is a reference image having higher resolution, the three-dimensional printing device may not be able to perform the inkjet operation according to this reference image. Alternatively, in another case, due to a difference between an inkjet resolution of the three-dimensional printing device and the resolution of the reference image, an object image of the three-dimensional printed object after the inkjet operation may be seriously distorted. In view of the above, several exemplary embodiments are proposed to overcome the problems.
The disclosure provides an inkjet method and a three-dimensional printing device, in which an inkjet image is generated according to a reference image, so that the three-dimensional printing device can accurately perform an inkjet operation on a three-dimensional printed object.
An inkjet method of the disclosure is adapted to a three-dimensional printing device. The three-dimensional printing device includes a processor, a storage device and an inkjet head. The storage device stores a first reference image and a second reference image. The first reference image and the second reference image are two adjacent layer images obtained by horizontally slicing a three-dimensional model. The inkjet method includes the following steps. By the processor, whether a first reference pixel value of a first reference pixel in the first reference image is greater than or equal to a preset threshold value is judged to determine a first pixel value of a first pixel in a first inkjet image. By the processor, according to number of at least one second reference pixel adjacent to the first reference pixel in at least one of the first reference image and the second reference image, at least one weight value corresponding to the at least one second reference pixel is generated. By the processor, according to the first reference pixel value, the first pixel value and the at least one weight value, at least one second reference pixel value of the at least one second reference pixel in the at least one of the first reference image and the second reference image is adjusted.
A three-dimensional printing device of the disclosure includes a storage device, a processor and an inkjet head. The storage device is configured to store a plurality of modules, a first reference image and a second reference image. The first reference image and the second reference image are two adjacent layer images obtained by horizontally slicing a three-dimensional model. The processor is coupled to the storage device. The processor is configured to execute the plurality of modules. The inkjet head is coupled to the processor. The inkjet head is configured to perform an inkjet operation on a three-dimensional printed object. The processor judges whether a first reference pixel value of a first reference pixel in the first reference image is greater than or equal to a preset threshold value to determine a first pixel value of a first pixel in a first inkjet image. According to number of at least one second reference pixel adjacent to the first reference pixel in at least one of the first reference image and the second reference image, the processor generates at least one weight value corresponding to the at least one second reference pixel. According to the first reference pixel value, the first pixel value and the at least one weight value, the processor adjusts at least one second reference pixel value of the at least one second reference pixel in the at least one of the first reference image and the second reference image.
Based on the above, in the inkjet method and the three-dimensional printing device according to the disclosure, each pixel of a plurality of reference images is analyzed and sequentially adjusted by an error diffusion method so as to accurately generate a plurality of corresponding inkjet images. Accordingly, the three-dimensional printing device according to the disclosure is capable of accurately performing an inkjet operation on a three-dimensional printed object according to the inkjet images.
To make the above features and advantages of the disclosure more comprehensible, several embodiments accompanied with drawings are described in detail as follows.
In order to make the disclosure more comprehensible, exemplary embodiments are described below as the examples to demonstrate that the disclosure can actually be realized. Moreover, wherever appropriate in the drawings and embodiments, elements/components/steps with the same reference numerals represent the same or similar parts.
In the present exemplary embodiment, the processor 110 may include a processing chip, an image processing chip, or, for example, a central processing unit (CPU), or a programmable general purpose or special purpose microprocessor, a digital signal processor (DSP), a programmable controller, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a programmable logic device (PLD), other similar processing circuit or a combination of the foregoing devices.
In the present exemplary embodiment, the storage device 130 may be, for example, a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), a flash memory, or a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) or the like. In the present exemplary embodiment, the storage device 130 may, for example, store an image editing module, an operation module, image data and so on, so that the processor 110 can read or execute the modules and image data to realize an inkjet method described in the exemplary embodiments of the disclosure. In the present exemplary embodiment, the storage device 130 further stores a plurality of reference images, the reference images being a plurality of adjacent layer images obtained by horizontally slicing a three-dimensional model.
In the present exemplary embodiment, when the three-dimensional printing device 100 completes printing of a certain layer object of the three-dimensional printed object, the three-dimensional printing device 100 reads a corresponding inkjet image to continue to perform the inkjet operation on this layer object. In the present exemplary embodiment, the three-dimensional printing device 100 performs the inkjet operation in such a manner that, according to whether a pixel value of each pixel position in the inkjet image is 1 or 0, the three-dimensional printing device 100 judges whether to perform the inkjet operation on a corresponding position on the three-dimensional printed object or not. However, in the present exemplary embodiment, since a resolution of the reference images received by the three-dimensional printing device 100 may be higher than an inkjet resolution of the three-dimensional printing device 100, the three-dimensional printing device 100 analyzes and adjusts the reference images in advance to acquire a plurality of corresponding inkjet images. That is, in the present exemplary embodiment, the three-dimensional printing device 100 is configured to convert the externally input reference images into the inkjet images having the inkjet resolution applicable to the three-dimensional printing device 100. In addition, in the present exemplary embodiment, the inkjet image may be, for example, a binary image. Hence, the three-dimensional printing device 100 may clearly judge whether or not to perform the inkjet operation according to a pixel value (1 or 0) of each pixel position of the inkjet image.
Specifically,
Next, according to the number of a plurality of reference pixels 302_1 to 302_5 adjacent to the reference pixel 301 in the reference images 300(k) and 300(k+1), the processor 110 generates a plurality of weight values corresponding to the reference pixels 302_1 to 302_5. That is, since the number of the reference pixels 302_1 to 302_5 is five, the processor 110 establishes two error diffusion matrices as shown by the following formula (2) and formula (3).
In the present exemplary embodiment, the magnitude and number of the weight values in the error diffusion matrices of the above formulae (2) and (3) may be designed by developing an error diffusion method such as the Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion method, the Jarvis-Judice-Ninke error diffusion method or the like. However, the disclosure is not limited thereto. In the present exemplary embodiment, the processor 110 may apply the aforementioned error diffusion matrices to the reference images 300(k) and 300(k+1) respectively. In terms of the above formulae (2) and (3), the error diffusion matrix of formula (2) includes weight values 7/21, 3/21, 5/21 and 1/21, and the error diffusion matrix of formula (3) includes the weight value 5/21.
In detail, first of all, since the reference pixel 302_1 (i.e., the next object to be analyzed) is located to the right of the reference pixel 301, the processor 110 judges that the reference pixel 302_1 has the greatest relevance to the reference pixel 301, and thus defines the weight value as 7/21, namely the highest weight value. Next, since the reference pixels 302_3 and 302_5 are located respectively right under the reference pixel 301 and at a position on the next reference image 300(k+1) that corresponds to the reference pixel 301, the processor 110 judges that the reference pixels 302_3 and 302_5 have the second greatest relevance to the reference pixel 301, and thus defines the weight value as 5/21, namely the second highest weight value. Finally, since the reference pixels 302_2 and 3024 are located respectively to the lower left and to the lower right of the reference pixel 301, the processor 110 judges that the reference pixels 302_2 and 302_4 have less relevance to the reference pixel 301, and thus defines the weight values as 3/21 and 1/21 respectively. That is, the magnitude of the weight values is directly proportional to the relevance of the reference pixels 302_1 to 302_5 to the reference pixel 301. Moreover, in the present exemplary embodiment, the sum of these weight values is 1.
In an exemplary embodiment, if a reference pixel currently being analyzed is located at a boundary of the reference image 300(k), the reference image 300(k) has only three other reference pixels adjacent to this reference pixel, and the reference image 300(k+1) has only one other reference pixel adjacent to this reference pixel. That is, in this example, the processor 110 similarly establishes the error diffusion matrices described as above and only applies the corresponding weight values to the corresponding reference pixels. For example, the processor 110 only uses the weight values 7/21, 5/21 and 1/21 in the error diffusion matrix of formula (2) and the weight value 5/21 in the error diffusion matrix of formula (3) to adjust the corresponding reference pixels. However, the processor 110 does not use the weight value 3/21 in the error diffusion matrix of formula (2) as there is no reference pixel corresponding thereto. In addition, in another exemplary embodiment, if the reference pixel currently being analyzed is an initial reference pixel (e.g., the first pixel on the upper left corner of the reference image 300(1)), the processor 110 first directly presets a reference pixel value of this reference pixel as 1, and then analyzes and adjusts the neighboring reference pixels.
In the present exemplary embodiment, according to the reference pixel value X of the reference pixel 301, the pixel value X′, and the aforementioned weight values, the processor 110 adjusts reference pixel values n1 to n5 of the reference pixels 302_1 to 302_n of the reference images 300(k) and 300(k+1). Therefore, in the present exemplary embodiment, the processor 110 adjusts the reference pixels 302_1 to 302_5 as shown by the following formula (4) to formula (8), so as to acquire adjusted reference pixel values n1′ to n5′ of the reference pixels 302_1 to 302_5.
n1′=n1+(x−x′)×7/21 Formula (4)
n2′=n2+(x−x′)×3/21 Formula (5)
n3′=n3+(x−x′)×5/21 Formula (6)
n4′=n4+(x−x′)×1/21 Formula (7)
n5′=n5+(x−x′)×5/21 Formula (8)
For example, in the present exemplary embodiment, assuming that the reference pixel value X of the reference pixel 301 of the reference image 300(k) is 0.5, the processor 110 defines the pixel value X′ of the pixel 401 of the inkjet image 400(k) as 1 according to the above formula (1). Moreover, in the present exemplary embodiment, since the reference images 300(k) and 300(k+1) have the five reference pixels 302_1 to 302_5 adjacent to the reference pixel 301, the processor 110 establishes the error diffusion matrices as shown by the above formulae (2) and (3) to adjust the reference pixels 302_1 to 302_5. In the present exemplary embodiment, the processor 110 executes the operations as shown by the above formulae (4) to (8) to acquire the adjusted reference pixel values n1′ to n5′ of the reference pixels 302_1 to 302_5. Moreover, the processor 110 subsequently analyzes the reference pixel 302_1, so as to execute the operations as shown by the above formulae (1) to (8) to determine a pixel value of a pixel next to the pixel 401 of the inkjet image 400(k), and the processor 110 adjusts other five reference pixels adjacent to the reference pixel 302_1 in the same manner.
Referring to
In summary, in the inkjet method and the three-dimensional printing device according to the disclosure, the reference pixel value of each reference pixel of a plurality of reference images is analyzed to define the corresponding pixel value in a plurality of inkjet images. Moreover, in the three-dimensional printing device according to the disclosure, the reference pixel values of other reference pixels adjacent to the reference pixel currently being analyzed can be adjusted by the error diffusion method, so that, when analyzing the next reference pixel, the three-dimensional printing device can accurately define the corresponding pixel value in the inkjet images. Accordingly, the three-dimensional printing device according to the disclosure is capable of accurately performing an inkjet operation on the three-dimensional printed object according to the inkjet images.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the scope or spirit of the disclosure. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the disclosure covers modifications and variations provided that they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201710760887.8 | Aug 2017 | CN | national |