TECHNICAL FIELD

The disclosure relates to a solid object printing system and a solid object printing method.

BACKGROUND ART

As a conventional solid object printing apparatus for printing an image on a solid object, there is known a printer which includes a recording head of an inkjet system and a solid object support for rotatably supporting the solid object while a side surface of the solid object opposes to a nozzle surface of the recording head, thereby printing an image on the side surface of the solid object by the recording head while rotating the solid object by the solid object support (see JP 2006-335019 A).

SUMMARY

In the conventional solid object printing apparatus, since it is constructed so that a single solid object is rotatable on the solid object support, the production efficiency when performing printing on a plurality of solid objects is low.

In the conventional solid object printing apparatus, additionally, it is necessary to appropriately control the rotation of a solid object as the printing target to improve the quality of printing. For that reason, there is a problem of requiring complicated and precise control technology, thereby causing the cost to be increased.

Furthermore, a method using a printing jig has also been proposed as a conventional solid object printing method. However, such a printing method requires a printing jig for each of solid objects of different shapes, and also requires time and effort to fix the solid object to the printing jig. Therefore, there is a problem of increasing the cost required for printing.

In view of the above circumstances, an object of the present application is to provide a solid object printing system and a solid object printing method that do not require rotation control of a solid object and also enable high-definition printing without using a fixing jig.

In order to solve the above-described problems, a solid object printing system according to a first aspect of the present application includes: a print table configured to mounting a solid object to be subjected to printing; a detection unit configured to detect a position and an orientation of the solid object mounted on the print table; a print data generation unit configured to generate print data corresponding to the solid object on a basis of a detection result of the position and the orientation of the solid object performed by the detection unit; a print unit configured to perform printing on the solid object by the print data generated by the print data generation unit; and a control unit configured to control the operations of the detection unit, the print data generation unit and the print unit.

A solid object printing method according to a second aspect of the present application includes: a detection process of detecting a position and an orientation of a solid object mounted on a print table; a print data generation process of generating print data corresponding to the solid object on basis of the detected position and the detected orientation of the solid object; and a printing process of performing printing on the solid object by the generated print data.

With the aspects of the present application, it is possible to provide the solid object printing system and the solid object printing method that do not require rotation control of a solid object and also enable high-definition printing without using a fixing jig.

