Streaming print data directly to printhead electronics

The IJC Dusseldorf, 29th October 2019Tom Mooney, Product Manager
Streaming print data directly to
printhead electronics

Agenda
▪ About Global Graphics Software
▪ Inkjet quality: problem solved!
• Mitigating chaining, mottling artifacts
• Solving the banding problem
▪ Now, what about speed?
• Customer demands for driving up the data rate
• New developments to supply print data at press speed
▪ Questions + resources
Copyright © Global Graphics Software Limited 2019

About Global Graphics Software
▪ A developer of software for inkjet printing
• Head Office and R & D in Cambridge, UK
• US office in Sarasota, FL
• Technical office in Tokyo, Japan
▪ A Global Graphics PLC company; sister to:
• Meteor Inkjet
• Develops electronics, software, tools and services for
industrial inkjet systems.
• www.meteorinkjet.com
• URW type foundry
• Designers and developers of digital fonts and font technology
• www.urwpp.de

High-performance, market leading products
Harlequin, the fastest RIP engine available, keeps your Bill Of Materials
down because you’ll need less processing power
Powerful independent screening engine SDK/desktop app gives high-
quality at high-speed for inkjet by mitigating artefacts.
PrintFlat removes banding artefacts in inkjet output by correcting the
problem of non-uniformity from inkjet printheads.
Agile up-stream tools for viewing and manipulation of PDF and for the
creation of custom pre-press workflows
The building blocks essential to creating your customized Digital Front
End (DFE)

Global Graphics Software: a selection of customers
Plus many others under NDA

Inkjet quality: problem solved.

Mottling is most common on less absorbent
substrates, often caused during drying/curing
Micro effects
Streaking is most common on more absorbent substrates,
caused by ink drops coalescing on the substrate surface

Solving the problems
▪ Vendors should make reasonable
efforts to tune inks, wave forms,
encoders etc.
▪ After that software is usually the
fastest and most effective solution
▪ Micro effects
• Advanced Inkjet Screens
▪ All for both single-pass and
scanning head printers

Macro effects
▪ Variation within a head
• Commonly a ‘smile’ shape
• Caused by pressure or voltage changes
▪ Variation between heads
• Especially as heads become field replaceable
▪ Head wear
Density
ONE HEAD

Correction in software gives maximum quality
▪ Macro effects
• PrintFlat applied during ScreenPro processing
▪ Very fine granularity
• Can address every nozzle separately
• On any head/electronics
▪ Almost instant once output is measured
• Can be automated for closed-loop correction
▪ Doesn’t affect
• Jetting stability or head lifetime
• Warranty compliance
• Ink pressure and timing/drop speed variation
• Ink coalescence on the substrate
• Halftoning
*images blurred to make the density variation more obvious
Corrected in software
Original
Blurred
Original
Blurred
Uncorrected

Before… and after

Why is ScreenPro significant?
High-quality at ultra high-speed
▪ Works on any inkjet press
▪ With any workflow
▪ With any ink or substrate
▪ With any combination of printheads and electronics
The only solution to improve inkjet output quality that is generally
available to any inkjet press manufacturer
In use by multiple inkjet press vendors in industrial inkjet markets

Recipient of a 2018 and 2019 InterTech Award
Awarded by the Printing Industries of America
▪ ScreenPro ▪ PrintFlat

Customers are demanding more from
Digital Print

RIP and Screen “Direct” to the Device
• Printing variable data jobs where every page or item is different is here now.
• Inkjet is becoming an industrial process in a production workflow.
• Variable data is no longer just barcodes or text regions, it can encompass the whole print
area.
• Key to success is 24/7 uptime and running at full speed maximising return on investment.
• Resolutions of devices, print heads and bars are rising (e.g. 600dpi to 1200 dpi,
quadrupling raster data).
• Devices are wider and faster (up to 4 metres wide and over 300 m/min).
• RIPing and screening offline to disk and then sending them to the
press is becoming a performance and storage capacity bottle neck.
• The solution is to RIP and Screen direct to the device.

RIPing “Direct” to the device
• PDFs can vary greatly in complexity if uncontrolled.
• The RIP becomes a critical component running the device and not a pre-press
process.
• It can be hard to know what hardware to choose to achieve the rated speed of
the device without increasing impractically the bill of materials cost.
• Achieving all of this on current PC hardware at the device speeds, resolutions,
widths, etc. requires integrated innovation between multiple components.
• Having flexibility to choose the right hardware (head and driver board) for the job
can be key to introducing digital inkjet technology to a new market.

Driving data “direct” to the electronics

Direct Architecture (Harlequin and ScreenPro)
Shared
Memory
Controller
RIP
Farm RIP ScreenPro
Hardware.dll
Hardware
(Driver
electronics and
print heads)
Farm RIP
Farm RIP
Farm RIP
ScreenPro
ScreenPro
Pack
Pack
Stream
Output
Scheduler
Contone
Rasters
PDF Job
Direct
Direct

Mako Streamline Direct
▪ Pre-Process designed to produce PDFs
• that are fast to RIP
• without any loss of quality.
• Deterministic (predictable RIPing speed)
• Mark objects that can be cached by Harlequin Direct
• OptimiseVariable Data Jobs
• Fix poorly constructed PDFs
• Down-sample large images
• Flatten complex transparency
• Convert to device colour-space
▪ Support other PDLs
• PCL
• Postscript
• IJPDS

Harlequin Direct
• RIPs PDFs directly to hardware at device speed
(including screening and colour management)
• Sample front end that displays metrics and allows it to
be tested prior to integration into a PDF workflow
(Direct DFE).
• PDF workflow agnostic
• Integrated into our Fundamentals PDF workflow
• Windows and Linux (Reduce bill of materials)
• Head driver electronics agnostic
• PrintFlat ready

ScreenPro Direct
• Takes contone rasters (e.g.TIFF) from a RIP and
halftone screen directly to the hardware (driver
electronics and print heads) at device speed.
• RIP and workflow agnostic
• Head driver electronics agnostic
• PrintFlat ready.
• Windows and Linux (reducing BOM).
• An ideal stepping stone to ripping directly:
• Inherently deterministic as the content of the
contone raster doesn’t vary the processing time
• Can be considered when changing the RIP would
be too disruptive to the customer or workflow

The result
“For a workflow to be viable, it has to be able to process and send full
color, fully variable work at a rate that supports the press printing, nearly
continuously, at high speed to produce hundreds of thousands of linear feet
or meters weekly.This was previously a challenge with the industry leading
production speeds of Digital Series HD at 240 fpm.”
Peter Rathje, Senior Manager of digital press solutions for Mark Andy.

Highly optimised open architecture
• Solid, stable and proven technology
• Unrivalled output fidelity (PrintFlat applied at device speed)
• Designed to deliver the extreme data rates to the electronics with optimal
efficiency (over 4Gb/s).
• Development by Specialist Engineers
• Fully automated testing, unit tests and integration tests
• Fully automated performance and regression testing
• Flexible
• Select a ready made end to end package or pick and choose components
• Develop your own value added solutions
• Not tied to one supplier

Questions?
More information:
tom.mooney@globalgraphics.com
Copies of resources on stand A16
www.globalgraphics.com/ais

Streaming print data directly to printhead electronics

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Streaming print data directly to printhead electronics

Similar to Streaming print data directly to printhead electronics (20)

More from Global Graphics Software

More from Global Graphics Software (6)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Streaming print data directly to printhead electronics