Facsimile and static presentation processing – Static presentation processing – Detail of image placement or content
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-02
2002-08-27
Wallerson, Mark (Department: 2622)
Facsimile and static presentation processing
Static presentation processing
Detail of image placement or content
C358S001100, C358S001150
Reexamination Certificate
active
06441919
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to methods and apparatus for personalization of printed documents.
Variable printing involves the production of printed pages that are each personalized while sharing a common structure and content with other pages. As a very simple example, if many copies of a document are to be printed, a user may define the document so that each printed page includes a reusable element, such as a border or corporate logo, and a single-use element, such as a person's name and address.
In conventional variable printing systems, the reusable element is rendered and stored in a cache, from which it is copied as needed into a frame buffer, and the single-use element is rendered by a raster image processor (commonly called a “RIP”) to produce a pixelmap (which may be one or more bits deep) and a mask. The mask identifies which of the pixels of the pixelmap are to be painted into a frame buffer to appear on a printed page. The single-use pixelmap is composited with the reusable element in the frame buffer by a compositor. When the page (or band or other unit of printing) in the frame buffer is complete, the page is transmitted to a print engine for printing.
A raster image processor creates raster data from page description language (PDL) data. A PDL is a high level language for describing graphical objects (such as text, vector-based art, raster images, and so on) to be displayed by an output device. Two examples of page description languages are the PostScript® language and the Portable Document Format (PDF) language, both of which are supported by-products available from Adobe Systems Incorporated of San Jose, Calif. (“Adobe Systems”). In general, raster image processing (also called rendering) involves converting PDL data into a raster format (such as a rectangular pixelmap that is one or more bits deep) for printing or other form of display. Raster image processing may occur in the printer side or the host side of a printing process.
The above-described process of variable printing commonly results in either the RIP or the compositor being idle at times. For example, during the latter stages of a print run when the cache already contains all the necessary reusable data, the RIP may be idle while the compositor is busy. In addition, for a complex page containing many single-use and/or reusable elements, the composition process may be slower than the speed of the high-speed print engine. Consequently, during a print run, multiple blank sheets may be printed during portions of the compositing process, thereby slowing the entire print operation and wasting paper.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention provides methods and apparatus, including computer programs, that implement techniques that are useful in the context of variable printing.
In general, in one aspect, the invention features a technique for rendering a description of a print area, the description including graphical objects and a paint order for the graphical objects, the graphical objects including one or more reusable objects and one or more other objects. The technique includes rendering the reusable objects and storing the resulting raster data in a cache; and then rendering and compositing the print area by painting the reusable objects and the other objects in the paint order into a frame buffer memory, the reusable objects being read as raster data from the cache and composited into the frame buffer memory, and the other objects being rendered directly into the frame buffer as the other objects are required by the paint order.
Implementations of the invention can include the following advantageous features. The print area is at least a part of a page, and technique includes receiving a page description language description input stream that includes a description of the page, the reusable objects, and the other objects, that also includes page layout information specifying the positions of the reusable objects and of the other objects on the page, and that also includes information identifying graphical objects as reusable. The input stream is expressed in elements of the Portable Document Format (PDF) version 1.2 page description language; and the information identifying a graphical object as reusable includes the presence of an XUID attribute in a form object. The raster data resulting from the rendering of the reusable objects includes data specifying which pixels of the raster data are transparent. The data specifying transparent pixels is a bitmap mask. The reusable objects include two objects overlapping each other on the print area. The technique includes making the contents of the frame buffer memory available to a print engine when rendering of the print area is completed. The technique includes receiving the reusable objects and the other objects in a print data stream in the Portable Document Format page description language, the print data stream including page layout information specifying the positions of the reusable objects and the other objects on a page. The print area is a page. The cache includes disk storage, and the frame buffer memory is an assigned portion of a random access memory. The technique includes providing multiple integrated rasterizer-compositors; for each of the reusable objects, assigning one of the multiple rasterizer-compositors to render the reusable object; and assigning one of the multiple rasterizer-compositors to render the print area, where any or all of the selected rasterizer-compositors can be the same or different rasterizer-compositors. The technique includes providing a selector to receive the description of the print area, to assign rasterizer-compositors to render reusable objects, and to assign a rasterizer-compositors to render the print area. The technique includes communicating, to the rasterizer-compositor selected to render the print area, the graphical objects to be printed on the print area and the paint order of the graphical objects.
In general, in another aspect, the invention features a technique for preparing personalized pages for printing. The technique includes receiving an input stream describing multiple personalized pages in terms of graphical objects including reusable objects and other objects; rendering each reusable object and caching the resulting raster data for multiple use on one or more of the personalized pages; and rendering a first page of the personalized pages by compositing a first and a second reusable object and a first other object, rendering a second page of the personalized pages by compositing the first reusable object and a third reusable object different from the second reusable object and a second other object different from the first other object, the first page not including the third reusable object and the second page not including the second reusable object. Implementations of the invention can include the following advantageous features. The resulting raster data includes data identifying transparent pixels. The raster data resulting from reusable objects is stored in a cache before compositing into a page; and the other objects are painting by rendering and compositing into a composited page on the fly.
In general, in another aspect, the invention features a technique for preparing personalized pages for printing on a variable printing system. The technique includes providing a print data stream describing multiple personalized pages in terms of graphical objects including reusable objects and other objects; providing a first-level set of one or more reusable objects, each of which appears on each of the multiple personalized pages; and providing a second-level set of two or more reusable objects, no more than one of which appears on any of the multiple personalized pages. Implementations of the invention can include the following advantageous features. The technique includes providing a third-level set of two or more reusable objects, each third-level reusable object being different from all the reusable objects in the second-level set, and no more than one of the third
Gaffney John
Parker Michael L.
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Fish & Richardson P.C.
Wallerson Mark
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