Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Joseph Leigh Belbin

Dixon De Sheng Deng

David Ian Johnston

Thomas Grant Fraser

Vincent Groarke

Edward James Iskenderian

Ian Geoffrey Combes

Rolfe Craig Bozier

Zachary Theodore Warren

Michael Warwick Chipman

Gregory William Tan

Described is a method of rendering first page data to a document, by receiving the first page data in a first format, removing a portion of the first page data having a predetermined attribute; storing the removed data in a memory of the rendering device; inserting references to the removed data into the first page data to produce altered first page data in the first format; transmitting the altered first page data to a platform service device; forming second page data in a second format, the second page data containing the inserted references; and receiving, by the rendering device, the second page data from the platform service device, the rendering device rendering to the document the second page data using the inserted references and the copied data stored in the memory of the rendering device.

Cloud assisted rendering

Disclosed is a method of modifying a graphics command. The method receives a graphics command comprising a drawing operation and a pattern (ROP3) of the region and obtains spatial frequencies of the pattern. The method determines if the obtained spatial frequencies of the pattern in the graphics command define a transparency attribute of the region to be rendered and replaces at least the pattern in the graphics command with a transparency coefficient based on the obtained spatial frequencies.

Method of rendering an overlapping region

A method of associating a shared fill with a plurality of objects, is disclosed. Each of the objects is associated with a fill. A bounding region of the shared fill is determined based on a fill of a first of the plurality of objects. The first object is associated with the shared fill. A second object is received and the shared fill is updated based on a fill of the second object if: (a) the fill of the second object is contained within the bounding region; and (b) the fill of the second object is non-overlapping with the fill of the first object. The second object is associated with the updated intermediate fill. The updated shared fill is shared by the first object and the second object.

Method, apparatus and system for associating an intermediate fill with a plurality of objects

A computer implemented method to modify an intermediate representation of graphics data written in a page description language is described. The method renders the graphics data to produce a print preview representation stored as intermediate graphics data in an intermediate graphics format. A modifying operation for modifying graphics content of the print preview representation is detected, and the method determines whether the print preview representation contains information about the graphics data required to perform the modifying operation based on a class of the modifying operation and a content of the print preview representation affected by the detected modifying operation. Where the print preview representation contains information required to perform the modifying operation, the print preview representation is modified, and otherwise the method utilizes the graphics data written in the page description language to apply the modifying operation. An apparatus, storage medium and printer using the method(s) are also discussed.

Print-ready document editing using intermediate format

A method for producing a set of compositing instructions to render a region of a page receives a plurality of objects partitioned into at least two z-order bands, the received objects being associated with at least one transparency group that spans at least two bands. A transparency characteristic for at least one object within a z-order band is established. The method identifies a transparency group in the one band which is active in at least one other band and contains at least one object active in the region, determines contributing objects for the region in the band using the identified transparency group, the determination being performed by at least interpreting a change of the transparency characteristic of at least one object in the band, and produces a set of compositing instructions to render the region using the determined contributing objects.

Need-below processing across z-band boundaries

A method for combining layers of an image represented using an intermediate format receives at least two layers from the plurality of layers to be combined and estimates resources required to combine the received layers using a first combining operation. The first combining operation comprises at least rasterizing data of the received layers. The method attempts to combine the received layers using a second combining operation to produce an output in the intermediate format. In response, the method generates a combined layer for the image by combining the received layers in accordance with a selected one of the first combining operation (merge & flatten) and the second combining operation (merge). The selected combining operation is based on success of the attempt. Desirably the method is performed within a printer apparatus where limited memory and/or computing resources are available for image rendering which could otherwise limit the rendering of complex pages.

Method of processing graphics with limited memory

A method of forming print instructions in a host for rendering within a fixed amount of memory on a printer receives intermediate data comprising regions which are associated with drawing instructions. A first amount of memory available to render the intermediate data is calculated based on a second amount of memory needed by the printer to store the intermediate data. The host determines a subset of the drawing instructions as complex drawing instructions and renders the complex drawing instructions to the printer as simpler drawing instructions. For regions associated with the complex drawing instructions, the host reassociates the regions with the corresponding simpler drawing instructions to form altered intermediate data which can be rendered on the printer within the determined first amount of memory. The print instructions, including the altered intermediate print data, can then be rendered by the printer to pixel data within the fixed amount of memory.

Fixed memory rendering

A method () is disclosed of generating a representation of a page () to be rendered to a raster image () of pixels. The page () comprises one or more graphical objects (and), arranged in a rendering order. Each the object (and) comprises one or more object edges and an associated fill. The method () comprises decomposing the objects (and) into a plurality of fillmap edges (, and) defining disjoint regions (, and) of the page. The method () further comprises setting a reference from at least one fillmap edge (, and) to a sequence comprising a plurality of fills to be composited to generate the values for all pixels within the defined region (, and).

Growing community of inventors

Mount Colah, Australia

Joseph Leigh Belbin