Patent ID: 11932010
Assignee: ENTRUST CORPORATION
Field: Textile and paper machines (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B | IPC B

Claim 13:
14. A method of direct-to-card thermal printing on a plastic card in a plastic card printing system having a thermal printhead with a plurality of individually energizable heating elements, and a multicolor print ribbon that includes a plurality of dye color panels, the method comprising:
receiving a print request for printing on the plastic card in the plastic card printing system using the thermal printhead and the multicolor print ribbon, the print request including print data;
processing the print data to, for each pixel to be printed, generate strobe pulse length data used to energize the individually energizable heating elements, where the strobe pulse length data for each pixel factors in a temperature of the thermal printhead and a density of the pixel; and
using the generated strobe pulse length data for each pixel to energize the individually energizable heating elements to transfer dye from the dye color panels and print on the plastic card.