Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
  • G06F3/12—Digital output to print unit, e.g. line printer, chain printer
  • G06F3/1201—Dedicated interfaces to print systems
  • G06F3/1278—Dedicated interfaces to print systems specifically adapted to adopt a particular infrastructure
  • G06F3/1291—Pool of printer devices: self-managing printing devices in a network, e.g. without a server
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
  • G06F3/12—Digital output to print unit, e.g. line printer, chain printer
  • G06F3/1201—Dedicated interfaces to print systems
  • G06F3/1202—Dedicated interfaces to print systems specifically adapted to achieve a particular effect
  • G06F3/1211—Improving printing performance
  • G06F3/1215—Improving printing performance achieving increased printing speed, i.e. reducing the time between printing start and printing end
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
  • G06F3/12—Digital output to print unit, e.g. line printer, chain printer
  • G06F3/1201—Dedicated interfaces to print systems
  • G06F3/1223—Dedicated interfaces to print systems specifically adapted to use a particular technique
  • G06F3/1237—Print job management
  • G06F3/1241—Dividing a job according to job requirements, e.g. black/white and colour pages, covers and body of books, tabs
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
  • G06K15/00—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers
  • G06K15/02—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers using printers
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
  • G06K15/00—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers
  • G06K15/02—Arrangements for producing a permanent visual presentation of the output data, e.g. computer output printers using printers
  • G06K15/18—Conditioning data for presenting it to the physical printing elements
  • G06K15/1848—Generation of the printable image
  • G06K15/1856—Generation of the printable image characterized by its workflow
  • G06K15/1859—Generation of the printable image characterized by its workflow involving data processing distributed amongst different data processing apparatus

Definitions

• the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for efficient distribution of page description language (PDL) objects among processors for a digital front end system in order to provide digital data required for high speed digital printers conforming to printers speed needs.
• PDL page description language
• a frontend element 11 processes digital files in a form of a page description language (PDL) 13, such as, for example, PostScript (PS).
• PDL page description language
• PS PostScript
• the frontend element 11 is equipped with PDL processing means, and the output of the processing means is data 14 in a ready-to-print (RTP) form.
• RTP ready-to-print
• a backend element 12 receives the RTP data and sends it to a digital printer for printing via a video interface 15 to the printer.
• RTP data buffers Most of color print servers produce the RTP data buffers in line with the print engine, in other words, the data that is generated by the frontend 11 is immediately consumed by the backend 12, without a step of generating RTP objects and saving them on an intermediate storage for further printing.
• One line of commercial color print services uses the above method of intermediate RTP generation, and defines a special RTP format and a data flow based on the RTP format.
• the RTP format consists of reusable as well as from non-reusable elements which are represented as separate RTP elements.
• Frontend 11 receives incoming PDL jobs in, for example, a page definition file (PDF), PS or variable PostScript (VPS). Frontend 11 processes the jobs, and converts the PDL to RTP jobs.
• Backend 12 merges and assembles the RTP elements into page-bitmaps and outputs the bitmaps to the printer using a video interface 15.
• the use of intermediate saved RTP format is to better for meeting the digital printer's engine speed.
• VDP non-variable data printing
• multiple copies are printed at the engine speed. This is achieved by preparing the RTP once and printing the RTP multiple times, hi the case of typical VDP jobs, the RTP is prepared at engine speed.
• FIG. 2 is a top-level view of a typical commercial color print server illustrating the separation between the frontend 11 and the backend 12 as discussed above.
• a merger-board merges and assembles RTP elements in real-time at the engine speed.
• the rest of the system can be viewed as a production line and its main purpose is to produce a plurality of RTP object in order to feed the merger-boards. This view of the system is convenient, however, other alternative views are possible as well.
• RTP format is a proprietary format of the Eastman Kodak Company for ripped jobs. According to this format, a ripped job consists of RTP pages and each page refers to RTP elements.
• RTP is an element-based format and rendered reusable and non-reusable elements are represented as separate RTP elements. Each RTP element can be viewed as a compressed raster-element. RTP is prepared accordingly to accommodate the specifics of the fusion cards and engine characteristics.
• Processing frontend 11 consists of the following main components: Job input 22, responsible for importing jobs to the system; Raster image processor (RIP) 23;
• RTP preparation module 25 As described above, the frontend 11 receives incoming PDL jobs 13 and converts them to RTP format 14. PDL-to-RTP is a multi-step operation that consists of the following processing steps:
• the job is received and imported to the system. 2. The job is scheduled for processing.
• the pipelined job processing starts by RIP 23, image processing 24 such as trapping and anti-aliasing.
• RTP preparation module 25 transforms the final raster-data to RTP format 14. 5.
• RTP format 14 is further stored to RTP storage 26.
• trapping may start after a few raster scanlines are RIPed and RTP creation may start after a few raster scanlines on the page are prepared.
• Printing backend 12 consists of the following components: 1.
• RTP storage 26 an efficient raster-element storage that guarantees reading of raster-elements at print engine speed.
• RTP storage is typically implemented as a fast disk or a disk-array. This enables a large storage capacity at high- speeds as dictated by the engine speed.
• Data feeder 27 a component that schedules work for merger card/cards. It is responsible for loading RTP layout, initiating merge operations, and monitoring merge process.
• Merger boards 28 - the components responsible for merging and assembling RTP elements into final page-bitmaps and sending said bitmaps to the print engine.
• the backend 12 is responsible for printing RTP data at the engine speed. This includes the following operations:
• the main operations performed by the backend are the operations of merging and assembling of RTP data to the resulting bitmaps.
• the merging process can be implemented either in software or in hardware, typically the merger is implemented in hardware in order to meet printer engine speed.
• each board can be responsible for one or more process colors. For example, in the case of two merger boards 28, one board will handle C and M color channels 53 whereas the other board will handle Y and K colors.
• a method for distribution of a print job for digital printing is accomplished by distributing elements of the print job between a plurality of processors.
• a print job reference file and composition requirements are provided.
• the print job reference file is processed according to the job composition requirements.
• the print job reference file is split into plurality of segments wherein the segments are generated in accordance with the availability of the processing means.
• the segments are distributed to the processing means, which generates a plurality of ready to print elements.
• a ready-to-print (RTP) pages structure is generated according to the job composition requirements and the plurality of ready to print elements.
• Printer specific data is created according to the generated ready-to-print (RTP) pages structure and sent to the digital printer.
• Figure 1 is a schematic illustrating a simplified commonly used print color servers architecture
• Figure 2 is a schematic illustrating a detailed print color servers architecture
• Figure 3 is a schematic illustrating evolution from current print color servers architecture to an architecture according to the present invention
• Figure 4 is a schematic illustrating a simplified print color servers architecture according to the present invention.
• Figure 5 is a schematic illustrating data flow within the architecture according to the present invention.
• Figure 6 is a schematic illustrating processing stages within the architecture according to the present invention.
• Figure 7 is a schematic illustrating data flow from input through process to print.
• FIG. 3 describes a top-level view of current system architecture and system architecture according to the present invention, illustrating the main new components that are used in order to achieve the new goal.
• the new distributed architecture print color server architecture includes new components as well as a plurality of backend 34 and frontend 32 components.
• a job organizer 35 is capable of generating a print job reference file or a common job file (CJF) representation of the incoming PDL jobs 13.
• the resulted CJF components are stored for intermediate storage in job storage 31.
• the CJF is a special format that references to an original job and allows page- parallelism.
• the CJF format is described in detail in the commonly-assigned copending U.S. Patent Application No. 1 1/858,477, filed September 20, 2007, and entitled PARALLEL PROCESSING OF PAGE DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE, by Aronshtam et al.
• a multiple job organizer 35 is deployed.
• the multiplicity of each component is different and serves different purposes.
• a. Multiple job organizers 35 are used to create CJFs for multiple jobs, thus reducing startup time for each job.
• Multiple frontend nodes 32 and more specifically the RIP- nodes are primarily used to prepare RTP, typically for all color separation channels, of a single job using page- parallelism. This speed up data preparation needed for achieving the engine speed.
• Multiple backend nodes and more specifically merge-nodes are required to merge RTP and output the generated bitmap data via the printer video interface 15 at the engine speed.
• FIG. 4 depicts a simplified diagram illustrating the main elements of the architecture for the present invention.
• the simplified diagram described in Figure 4 shows major system components: organizers, rips, and mergers.
• the diagram depicts for example a typical high-end system that contains two organizers, eight RIPs, and four mergers.
• each RIP node 42 may reside on a separate computer, or each computer may have two RIP -nodes.
• each multiple merger 43 may reside on a separate computer, or each computer may host two mergers.
• Figure 5 describes the flow of data within the system according to the present invention.
• Figure 6 depicts the stages of data processing in the system and
• Figure 7 describes the data flow from job input through process to print.
• print jobs in a PDL form are spooled into spool disk 21 by submission of external clients 71.
• Input stage 22 prepares the job for further processing (ripping) and organizing it to CJF 41.
• job organizers 35 will read PDL job 13 from spool disk 21 and will parse PDL job 13 and will create a CJF 41 representation, in addition, filtering out of PDL elements 54 and storing them into PDL resource cache 51 will take place.
• the created CJF 41 will be stored on work disk 72.
• job-skeleton a simple job structure that contains basic information about a job, including job information such as number of documents in a job, number of pages in each document, and page size of each page.
• job-skeleton information is used, for making appropriate page imposition instructions created by composition engine 61, including rules information and imposition information, as well as proper page distribution to multiple RIP nodes 42.
• the process step prepares the job for printing by converting it to RTP 14. This includes at least the activities described hereunder:
• Process step reads CJF 41 which includes the job-skeleton 2.
• CJF 41 is divided into segments or CJF chunks 74 and the CJF chunks 74 are divided to conform to the load balancing algorithm used in the system to best utilize the available processing means.
• a CJF chunk includes mostly reference file information such as job metadata and references to job data is light-weight in nature, and therefore is suitable to be effectively distributed among the processing means.
• CJF chunks 74 are distributed to multiple RIP nodes 42 for processing.
• Each RIP 23 is responsible for preparing raster data. This includes the following steps: a. RIP 23 receives CJF chunk. RIP acquires job data and processes it element-by-element producing raster. b. When a new reusable element is encountered that was not already rasterized, it will be rasterized and stored in the local PDL resource cache 51 , thus assuring that each PDL element 54 is accessed remotely only once. c. The final raster is submitted to RTP prepare 25 and the page layout is kept in the job layout database 73. 5. RTP prepare 25 converts raster to RTP 14.
• RTP is distributed and stored to RTP storage 26. Each process/print-station keeps only some color separations, while others are distributed to RTP storage residing to other process/print stations.
• CJF 41 created for a single job is split among multiple RIP nodes 42.
• multiple RIP nodes 42 are deployed as well, however, in this case each of the multiple RIP nodes processes a different job represented by a different PDL 13.
• the rasterization process is based on CJF 41 and on rules information 78 that is received from composition engine 61 as well as on previously stored reusable PDL elements 54.
• the rules information 78 is a set of parameters that affect job rasterization. Some rules affect the entire job, while some rules affect just individual pages. The example of rules include resolution, page orientation, page scaling, color.
• the rules information 78 together with the imposition information 79 provided by the imposition engine 61 comprises the job composition requirement.
• Each RIP 23 receives CJF 41, chunk-by-chunk, and each CJF chunk may include rules.
• RIP loads PDL data (according to CJF), interprets and rasterizes PDL data according to rules.
• the RIP 23 encounters a reusable element placement, it performs the following steps: 1.
• RIP checks if the received PDL element 54 was previously rasterized by either of the RIPs. It includes checking of the raster-parameters such as color transformation matrix (CTM) or PDL element BoundingBox.
• CTM color transformation matrix
• PDL element BoundingBox PDL element BoundingBox
• the remaining PDL data is rasterized as a non-reusable element and raster is passed over to RTP prepare 25.
• RTP prepare 25 converts raster to RTP.
• RTP is stored in the RTP storage 26.
• the system comprises a plurality of process/print controllers 75.
• Each process/print controller 75 comprises RIP 23, RTP prepare 25, and RTP storage 26.
• RTP 14 can be prepared by RTP prepare 25 of process/print controller 76 and sent to process/print controller 77 for printing. Alternatively RTP 14 is generated by process/print controller 77 and will be used for printing by process/print controller 76.
• the data feeder and print manager 55 is responsible for merging RTP elements 14 into bitmaps and sending bitmaps via video interface 15 to digital printer 52.
• RTP prepare RTP storage data feeder merger and printer interface boards job storage multiple frontend nodes
• CJF common job file

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• Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
• Record Information Processing For Printing (AREA)
• Accessory Devices And Overall Control Thereof (AREA)

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• 2008
  • 2008-04-02 US US12/060,910 patent/US8064084B2/en active Active
• 2009
  • 2009-04-01 WO PCT/US2009/002033 patent/WO2009123722A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2009-04-01 CN CN200980108582.2A patent/CN101971135A/zh active Pending
  • 2009-04-01 JP JP2011502957A patent/JP2011516967A/ja active Pending
  • 2009-04-01 EP EP09726897A patent/EP2260372A1/en not_active Withdrawn

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