1996-07-24
1999-06-15
Au, Amelia
395112, 395114, 395115, G06K 1500
Patent
active
059130180
ABSTRACT:
A method and apparatus for efficiently rendering and printing bands of image information defined by a page description language. The invention estimates the print time for each print band sufficiently in advance to control a page-oriented output device print engine. In a first embodiment, the present invention controls the speed of the print engine for each page to be printed, based on a "rendering cost" or rasterization time estimate for some or all of the bands on each page. In a second embodiment, the present invention controls the speed of the print engine for each band to be printed, based on a "rendering cost" or rasterization time estimate for each band. An additional aspect of the present invention is that the print engine can be sped up for empty or sparse pages or bands, thus improving overall print speed. A third variation of the invention controls the speed of the print engine between groups of bands ("subpages") when the engine speed cannot be changed for each band, but can be changed for spaced-apart bands or groups of bands. In each case, the print speed is matched to the rendering speed to eliminate or reduce the need to pre-render, compress, and decompress page description language print information. By rendering and printing each band of data "on the fly", memory requirements are reduced. Print speed is optimized by providing band print data "on the fly" while maintaining the highest print engine speed possible for the complexity of particular data.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5129049 (1992-07-01), Cuzzo et al.
patent: 5138561 (1992-08-01), Crowe
patent: 5504842 (1996-04-01), Gentile
patent: 5608848 (1997-03-01), Walker
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Au Amelia
Bali Vikkram
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