Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.P.

Hewlett-packard Company

Robert J Kunz

David Alan Bartle

In a distributed computing environment, the following arrangements and procedures provide an imaging device and an imaging metric information server to distribute the imaging device's operational metrics (e.g., print media and toner utilization information) The metrics information are accessible by applications at any time from the server in real-time, independent of forwarding any request for the imaging metrics to the imaging device. Because imaging operational metrics are accessed by an application through the server, the imaging device does not use valuable resources such as bandwidth and processing power to respond to metrics information requests received from the application.

Real-time distribution of imaging metrics information

The printing speed of a page printer is modified relative to rasterization execution time (RET) for display commands that define images to be printed on each page strip of a page. The printer includes a variable frequency clock for producing a plurality of clock frequencies for modifying the printing speed. A processor compares the RET for each page strip with a threshold value. When a complex page strip is found whose RET exceeds the threshold, the variable frequency clock is appropriately controlled to generate a lower frequency clock signal to the print engine. The lower frequency signal causes the print engine to operate at a modified (slower) rate for a sufficient amount of time on any previously queued page strip(s) to provide an extended time frame for allowing the complex page strip to be rasterized. Printing speed is slowed, but rasterization time (clock speed) for the complex page strip is not slowed. Accordingly, display commands in the complex page strip are rasterized within the extended amount of time provided by the reduced print speed, thereby preventing a print overrun.

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Boise, ID, United States of America

Robert J Kunz