Pad printing is used to decorate consumer goods largely because of its unique ability to apply graphics to doubly curved surfaces. The Intelpadrint project was conceived to develop a better understanding of the process and new printing pads, inks and printers. The thesis deals primarily with the research of a printer control system including machine vision. At present printing is manually controlled. Operator knowledge was gathered for use by an expert system to control the process. A novel local corner- matching algorithm was conceived to effect image segmentation, and neuro-fuzzy techniques were used to recognise patterns in printing errors. Non-linear Finite Element Analysis of the rubber printing-pad led to a method for pre-distorting artwork so that it would print undistorted on a curved product. A flexible, more automated printer was developed that achieves a higher printing rate. Ultraviolet-cured inks with improved printability were developed. The image normalisation/ error-signalling stage in inspection was proven in isolation, as was the pattern recognition system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:396064 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Freear, Nicholas David |
| Publisher | University of Birmingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/890/ |
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