Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Infoprintsolutions Company, LLC

Ricoh Production Print Solutions LLC

Justin James Coulter

David Ward

Timothy LeRoy Towns

Israel Kee Maloney

John Thomas Varga

John Forrest Meixel

Edward Francis Chatcavage

Miki Judy Ushijima

Iosif Keri

Systems and methods are provided for handling print data. One embodiment is a system that includes an interface that receives rasterized print data, a memory that stores the rasterized print data; and a print controller that compresses each scanline of the rasterized print data by culling a region of leading whitespace, culling a region of trailing whitespace, compressing a data region disposed between the leading whitespace and the trailing whitespace, and inserting a tag having whitespace offset information for the data region within the scanline.

Rasterized print job compression

Embodiments described herein manage conflicts between media descriptions in a print job, and media descriptions in a job ticket associated with the print job. One embodiment comprises a print controller. The print controller identifies a logical page having an unmodifiable media attribute, directs a Raster Image Processor (RIP) of the print controller to rasterize the logical page based on the unmodifiable media attribute, and modifies the raster data generated by the RIP for the logical page based on a media attribute specified in a job ticket for the logical page.

Job ticket conflict resolution for print jobs

Embodiments herein describe a two-phase printing process that utilizes page-to-resource tracking during the first rip-to-spool phase in order to perform resource scheduling during the second print-from-spool phase. In one embodiment, compute nodes include a RIP and a raster builder. A controller receives a print job, identifies a distribution of logical pages in the print job to the compute nodes, and generates page assignment information that maps the logical pages to the compute nodes based on the distribution. The compute nodes rasterize the logical pages to generate intermediate data using the RIPs, and store the intermediate raster data at a RIP spool. The controller directs a distribution of the intermediate raster data from the RIP spool to the compute nodes based on the page assignment information, and the compute nodes assemble the intermediate raster data into complete raster data using the raster builders.

Data cache synchronization in two-phase printing processes

A subset of pages in a job are analyzed for page complexity to determine if a repeating complexity pattern is present in the job. If a repeating complexity pattern is found, then the page complexities can be extrapolated to other pages in the job. One embodiment comprises a plurality of Raster Image Processors (RIPs) and a scheduler. The scheduler receives a print job, identifies a subset of logical pages in the print job for complexity analysis, and calculates a page complexity value for logical pages in the subset. The scheduler determines that a repeating pattern of page complexity values is present in the subset, and assigns page complexity values to remaining logical pages in the print job by extrapolating the repeating pattern of page complexity values to the remaining logical pages. The scheduler assigns the logical pages in the print job to the RIPs based on their page complexity value.

Page complexity analysis for print jobs

Embodiments herein describe RIP allocation schemes that consider a number of factors during page scheduling to improve the performance of a print controller. One embodiment comprises an apparatus that includes a plurality of RIPs collectively comprising a total number of RIPs that process logical pages. The apparatus further includes a scheduler. The scheduler receives a print job, determines that a number of available RIPs of the plurality of RIPs to process logical pages in the print job is less than the total number of RIPs, and to iteratively increase a number of the logical pages in the print job that are assigned to each of the available RIPs as the number of available RIPs increases over time.

Raster image processor allocation scheme

A printing system is disclosed. The printing system includes an interpreter module to generate Tagged Object Bit-plane data corresponding to drawing objects for each colorant of a device color space during rasterization a print job data and a common buffer to store the Tagged Object Bit-plane data for each colorant.

Raster pixel object identification mechanism

A method is disclosed. The method includes receiving a request to perform color conversion during rasterization of a print job object at a printer, determining if a substitution mapping file is available for an output color space to be generated by the color conversion, determining if the substitution mapping file includes a substitution entry for the input color space color value to the output color space in use, generating the output color by using the substitution mapping file to map an input color from an input color space to an output color space if the substitution entry is available and generating the output color by using a color management system to map the input color from the input color space to the output color space if the substitution entry is not available.

Color substitution mechanism

A print control unit coupled with a printer, the print control unit having host to provide partial resource components to a complex resource generator, the partial resources components including printing instructions. The complex resource generator to generate a shell representing a complex resource, generate a partial complex resource having the partial resource components, the shell to hold the partial complex resource, and store the partial complex resource to be referenced later.

Method and system for storing and referencing partial complex resources using object identifiers in a printing system

A print control unit coupled with a printer, the print control unit electronically connected to the host to provide one or more base resources to a unique Object Identifier (OID) generator, the one or more base resources including printing instructions. The unique OID generator generates a unique OID relating to a derived resource via a unique OID generation module. The unique OID includes the printing instructions of the one or more base resources. A resource generator internally generates the derived resource.

Method and system for generating unique object identifiers for derived objects

Methods and systems for coordinating sharing of resources among a plurality of tasks operating in parallel in a document presentation environment while host communications and task processing may be performed asynchronously with respect to one another. A mapped resource manager manages activation (addition) and deactivation (deletion) of resources shared by a plurality of tasks operating in parallel to assure that each task may continue processing with a consistent set of files as resources despite changes made by other tasks or by operator intervention.

Growing community of inventors

Longmont, CO, United States of America

Justin James Coulter