text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Oct 3, 2006
|Filing date
|Jun 15, 2004
|Priority date
|Aug 7, 1995
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Michael W. Barry, Jack N. Bartholmae, Francis A. Rowe, E. Neal Tompkins, Peter A. Zuber
|Original Assignee
|Electronics For Imaging, Inc.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (48), Non-Patent Citations (2), Referenced by (8), Classifications (27), Legal Events (3)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
This application is a Continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 09/044,539, filed on Mar. 19, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,977,752 titled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING TONER LEVEL IN ELECTROPHOTOGRAPHIC PRINT ENGINES" which is a Continuation-in-Part of Ser. No. 08/698,999, filed Aug. 16, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,859,711 titled "MULTIPLE PRINT ENGINE WITH VIRTUAL JOB ROUTING" which is a Continuation-in-Part of Ser. No. 08/511,641, filed Aug. 7, 1995, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,657,741 titled "VIRTUAL SINGLE PRINTER ENGINE WITH SOFTWARE RIP".
The present invention pertains in general to electrophotographic printers and, more particularly, to a plurality of print engines arranged in parallel to process print jobs in a parallel manner.
Electrophotographic print engines have been utilized with both printers and copiers. In a printer, the print engine is typically interfaced with a computer to select and organize fonts or bit map the images. In a copier application, the print engine is interfaced with an input device that scans the image onto the photoconductor drum of the print engine. However, a CCD device could also be utilized in this application in the form of a CCD scanner. In either of the applications, a conventional print engine for a monochrome process would typically feed a single sheet of paper and pass it by the photoconductor drum for an image transfer process and then pass it to a fuser. Thereafter, the completed sheet will be output. Multiple copy print jobs will sequentially feed the paper in a serial manner. The speed of the printer is a function of the speed at which the image can be created, the speed at which the image can be transferred to the paper and the speed of the fuser. As increased output is required, the speed of each of these elements must be increased.
In a monochrome process, only one transfer operation is required. However, in a multipass color process, multiple images must be superimposed on one another on the sheet of paper in a direct transfer system, thus requiring multiple passes of the paper or image carrier through the print engine. In a double transfer system, the image is disposed on an intermediate drum and then the composite image transferred to the paper or image carrier. In a multiple print job on a direct transfer system, this requires each sheet of paper to be printed in a serial manner by passing it through the print engine. For either the monochrome process or the color process, a conventional serial feed print engine has the output thereof defined by the speed of the input device and the speed of the print engine itself.
One technique that has been utilized to increase throughput is a tandem print engine. In a tandem print engine, multiple colors can be disposed on the sheet of paper or the image carrier at different stations that are disposed in serial configuration. In this manner, the speed is the same for one, two, three or four color printing.
When dealing with multiple print engines, there can be a problem that exists with respect to insuring that there is adequate "color balance". In general, all color devices have a native range of colors in which they operate. This is called the color gamut of that device. Any color that falls within this gamut can be reproduced. Any color that falls outside cannot. This gamut is defined by the hardware of the device and its addressability. A monitor uses a phosphors of some given type and is addressed in 8 bits per channel of RGB. This native gamut or range of colors changes for every different device. If it is desirable to reproduce a color on some devices, two things have to occur. First, those devices would have to be able to make that color, meaning, have that given color inside their gamuts. Second, the color would have to be correctly described, or defined as it moves from one device to another. RGB, CMYK, Lab, LCH, are all methods that devices can utilize to describe colors. They do not always have a direct translation between them, however. A method is needed to correctly translate between these methods. The analogy is as if one person would speak German and another spoke French, wherein an intermediate or interpreter would be required in order to provide communication. One method for solving this problem is to use a device independent (or color independent) space. A number of years ago, the CIE created a device independent space (XYZ) that defines color based on the light source they are viewed under, and the color response of the eye. A color independent space is a mathematical way to map device gamuts to see where they intersect. Where they intersect represents the colors they share. It is also the best platform for determining which color to use if gamuts do not intersect. Also, in this master color space, all colors are described or defined using the same terms, independent of any device. In this space, all colors are brought to a common ground. Once a color is defined in XYZ space, it can be sent and accurately reproduced on any device whose gamut in XYZ space includes that color. The reproduction of any color is accomplished by correlating the device native gamut to the color independent space.
During a conventional print operation, toner is used up at a rate that is actually defined by the amount of information that is disposed on the given page multiplied by the number of pages. Typically, systems incorporate some type of page counter that, when it exceeds a predetermined number of pages, indicates that the toner is low. This, of course, is reset when a new toner cartridge is disposed in the printer. However, this toner decision is made strictly based upon the number of pages and not the amount of toner actually depleted from the toner cartridge. This is due to the fact that some pages have a very light toner usage compared to others. For example, an image having a large percentage of black area associated therewith will utilize a large amount of toner, whereas a page having very light gray regions will utilize a small amount of toner. As such, the determination of a low toner level in a cartridge is extremely inaccurate.
The present invention disclosed and claimed herein comprises a method for determining the actual toner density level in a toner cartridge for a printer. Each page in a multi-page document is rasterized and then the rasterized image evaluated to determine what percentage of the pixels are turned on and to what level they are turned on. An average value is then generated to determine the percent toner relative to a full page that is to be utilized by the printer. When the page is printed, a toner density value register is decremented such that the toner density value will represent the toner that remains in the cartridge.
In another aspect of the present invention, each page of the multi-page document is rasterized and evaluated prior to printing. The toner usage for the entire document is then decremented from the toner density value and this value compared to a minimum value. If it falls below the minimum value, then printing is inhibited.
For a more complete understanding of the present invention and the advantages thereof, reference is now made to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying Drawings in which:
Referring now to
Referring now to
Once the pages are stored in the page buffer 24, then the pages are sent to an image task manager 26 to determine how to organize the pages. This operates in conjunction with an engine manager 28 to determine which of the print engines 16 the job is to be passed to. In order to effectively increase the throughput from the engine manager 28, there are provided interface circuits 32 which are referred to as Peripheral Connect Interface (PCI) adaptors. Each print engine 16 has a PCI 32 associated therewith. Therefore, the engine manager 28 interfaces with the PCIs 32 through a parallel bus 36, such that data can be transferred thereto at a fairly high data rate, which is the bus transfer data rate of the processor 14. The PCIs 32 therefore provide an increased rate of transfer to the print engine 16. The print engines 16 then place their output into a separate output bin 40 for each of the print engines 16.
As will be described hereinbelow, the image task manager 26 is operable to arrange the copies such that they can be placed in the output bins 40 in a predetermined order. For example, if there were two print engines, each with a 100 sheet paper supply and four print jobs of 50 copies each were to be sent to the printers and the workstation 10, the system of the present invention would parse these print jobs such that the first two print jobs went to the first print engine and the second two print jobs went to the second print engine. If, alternatively, the two print engines with the one hundred sheet paper supplies handled two print jobs, one at a 150 sheets and one at 50 sheets, then the first print engine would receive the first 100 sheets from the first print job, the second print engine would receive the first 50 sheets of the first print job and the second 50 sheets of the second print job. However, they would be sent to the printer in such a manner that when the paper output trays were unloaded and stacked together, the jobs would be arranged in the appropriate manner. Therefore, even though there are multiple printers, to the user they appear as a virtual single printer. All decision making is made in the processor 14.
Referring now to
Referring now to
During the print operation, the photoconductor drum 144 is rotated and the surface thereof charged by the corona 148. An undeveloped latent image is then formed on the surface of the photoconductor drum 144 and then passed under the developing stations 150–158. In a multi-pass operation, the latent image is generated and only one color at a time utilized in the developing process for the latent image. This latent image is then passed through the nip 146 and transferred to an image carrier, such as paper, which is disposed on the surface of the transfer drum 142. Thereafter, the surface of the drum 144 is passed under a cleaning station 168, which is operable to remove any excess toner particles which were not passed over to the transfer drum 142 during the transfer operation and also discharges the surface of the drum 144. The system then begins generation of another latent image, either for a different color on the same sheet of paper or the first color on a different sheet of paper.
In the color operation, multiple passes must be made such that the image carrier, i.e., paper, remains on the surface of the transfer drum 142 for the multiple passes. In the first pass, the first latent image is transferred to the surface of the transfer image carrier and then the image carrier maintained on the transfer drum 142. The next latent image of the next color is superimposed on the first latent image, it being noted that the registration is important. This registration is provided by the mechanical alignment of the various drums, drive mechanisms, etc. Thereafter, the third color latent image is disposed on the image carrier followed by the fourth color latent image.
After the last color latent image is disposed on the image carrier in the color process, a picker mechanism 172 comes down on the surface of the transfer drum 142 in order to lift up the edge of the image carrier or paper. This is then fed to a fuser mechanism 174.
The image carrier is typically comprised of a predetermined weight paper. The transfer drum 142 utilizes electrostatic gripping for the purpose of adhering the paper to the surface of the transfer drum 142 for multiple passes. This therefore utilizes some type of charging mechanism for charging the surface of the drum 142 at an attachment point 176 where the paper is fed onto the surface of the transfer drum 142. The transfer drum 142 is, in the preferred embodiment, manufactured from a controlled resistivity type material that is disposed over an aluminum support layer which is a hollow cylindrical member. A voltage supply is provided that provides a uniform application of voltage from the voltage supply to the underside of the resilient layer that is disposed over the surface of the aluminum support member. This resilient layer is fabricated from a carbon filled elastomer or material such as butadaiene acrylonitorile, which has a thickness of approximately 3 mm. Overlying this resilient layer is a controlled resistivity layer which is composed of a thin dielectric layer of material at a thickness of between 50 and 100 microns. This controlled resistivity layer has a non-linear relationship between the discharge (or relaxation) point tying and the applied voltage such that, as the voltage increases, the discharge time changes as a function thereof. The paper is then disposed over the surface of the drum. The construction of this drum is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,459,560, issued Oct. 17, 1995, and entitled, "Buried Electrode Drum for an Electrophotographic Print Engine with a Controlled Resistivity Layer", which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. No. 5,276,490, and entitled, "Buried Electrode Drum for an Electrophotographic Print Engine", which U.S. patents are incorporated herein by reference.
The paper is retrieved from one of two paper supply bins 178 or 180. The paper supply bin 178 contains one type of paper, typically 8�″�11″ paper, and the paper bin 180 contains another type of paper, typically 8�″�14″ paper. The paper bin 178 has the paper stored therein selected by a first gripping roller 182, which is then fed along a paper path 180 into a nip 182 between two rollers and then to a nip 184 between two rollers. This is then fed to a paper path 186 to feed into a nip 188 between two rollers. The paper in the nip 188 is then fed into a nip formed between two precurl rollers 190 and 192, which have different durometers to cause the paper to have a curl bias applied thereto in the direction of the curvature of rotation of the transfer drum 142. The operation of the pre-curl rollers is described in detail in U.S. Patent No. 5,398,107, issued Mar. 14, 1995, and entitled, "Apparatus for Biasing the Curvature of an Image Carrier on a Transfer Drum." The paper from the bin 180 is extracted by a gripping roller 189 and pushed along a paper path 191 to the nip 188 and therefrom to the pre-curl rollers 190 and 192.
The paper is fed from the nip between the two pre-curl rollers 190 and 192 at the attachment point 176. At the attachment point 176, an attachment electrode roller 194 is provided which is operable to operate on a cam mechanism (not shown) to urge the roller 194 against the surface of the drum 142 to form the attachment nip 176. This is done during the initial attachment of the paper to the drum 142. Typically, this attachment electrode roller 194 is connected to ground. The surface of the drum 142 is charged to a positive voltage of between 800–1,000 volts. The voltage is disposed on the surface of the drum 142 by a positive electrode roller 196 that contacts the surface of the drum 142 at a point proximate to the photoconductor drum 144. Since the electrode 194 is grounded, the voltage will decrease along the surface thereof until a lower voltage is present at the attachment point 176. When the paper reaches the transfer nip 146, the portion of the surface of the photoconductor drum 144 in the nip 146 has a potential thereof reduced to ground such that the charged particles will be attracted from the surface of the photoconductor drum 144 to the surface of the paper on the drum 142.
For a multiple pass operation, the attachment electrode 176 will be pulled outward from the drum and the paper allowed to remain on the drum and go through the transfer nip 146 for another pass. When the final pass has been achieved at the transfer nip 146, the picker 172 is swung down onto the surface of the drum 142 to direct the paper on the surface of the drum 142 to the fuser 174. A discharge electrode 198 is then swung down into contact with the drum 142 to provide a discharge operation before the surface of the drum enters the nip 176 for the next paper attachment process.
When the paper is fed into the fuser 174, it is passed into a nip between two rollers 200 and 202, both of which have different durometers. Typically, there is one roller that is formed from a metallic material and one roller that is formed of a soft material. The rollers are oriented with the roller 200 having the smaller durometer, such that a reverse bias curl will be applied to the paper that is the opposite direction of the curvature of the drum 142. This will remove the curvature added to the paper. One of the rollers 200 is heated such that the transferred image is "fused". The paper is then fed into a paper path 204 by a pair of rollers 106. The paper path 204 is fed to a set of output rollers 108, which feed bins 110, 112 and 114 for each of the printers 136, 138 and 140. Again, these are conventional print engines, although the speeds of the print engines may be different.
Referring now to
The flowchart is initiated at a start block 230 and then proceeds to a decision block 232. A decision block 232 multiples the number of pages N by the number of copies M and determines whether this number if greater than or equal to the number of engines. If not, then the program flows along a "N" path to a function block 234 to utilize only a single engine for the print job. However, if the number is greater than the number of engines, then the program proceeds along the "Y" path to a decision block 236 to determine the number of copies M is greater than the number of engines E. If not, the program flows along a path "N" to a decision block 238 to determine if the number of pages in a single document "N" is greater than or equal to the number of engines. If not, the program will flow along a "N" path to a function block 240 to utilize the only M engines with the ith copy in the ith engine. Therefore, if there are ten engines and only five copies, then the fifth copy of a job will be in this ith engine. If, however, the number of copies in a single document is greater than the number of engines, then the program will flow along a "Y" path to a function block 242 wherein the copies will be distributed in accordance with the equation:
If it was determined in the decision block 236 that the number of copies M was greater than the number of engines with the number of copies times the number of pages in a single document also being greater than the number of engines, then the program flows along the "Y" path from decision block 236 to a decision block 244 to distribute copies. These are distributed in accordance with the algorithms illustrated in
Referring now to
Referring now to
In general, to provide routing of the different images or pages to the various print engines 16 provides the ability for the system to make certain decisions about how a particular job is output. This is facilitated by the fact that each print job, when it has been initially assembled and transmitted to the system, is disassembled during the RIP operation and then buffered in the form of separate and distinct pages. With knowledge of print related information for each of the pages in a given job, additional processing can be performed on those pages. This processing can be in the form of routing the pages to engines that are more adapted to the particular printing operation associated with that particular page. For example, a page that has no color on it would be better handled by a dedicated black and white engine as opposed to a page having color on it being handled by a color engine. Typically, color engines, although they do have a black and white mode, operate best in the color mode. Dedicated black and white engines are significantly faster than color engines operating in the black and white mode.
One example of a type of problem that occurs when attempting to handle a print job having mixed color and black and white sheets is that where a high speed black and white print engine can be provided to print black and white pages more efficiently than a color engine with black and white capability. By incorporating different types of engines as a portion of the overall virtual system in the print engine 16, a higher level of versatility will be facilitated. One reason that color engines have difficulty in switching from color to black and white is that these types of engines have an internal sequencer that must be programmed when changing printing mode (color versus black and white). To reload the sequencer requires the engine to wait for the current page to exit the fuser.
In order to facilitate this system, the print engines 16 are grouped into physical engines of similar characteristics. For example, a set of four color physical engines can be configured as one virtual engine and a set of four high speed black and white engines can be configured as another virtual engine. To the outside world, these virtual engines simply appear as a high speed entity (the speed is equal to the sum of the individual engines rated print speed). In this case, the outside world will see two high speed devices, one of which has color capability.
There are two methods of collation that exist in the present system, automatic and gather. In an automatic collation system, collated documents are generated and the user is then required to stack them and perform whatever finishing is required. For example, if there were 10 copies of a 6 page document, the following sequence would be printed:
This particular sequence will result in the collated copies being present in the output bin. Of course, the particular number of engines can be configured and controlled to determine how to most efficiently provide the collated copies. However, once the copies are in the stack, they are in a sequential collated configuration.
The gather method of collation is employed when external finishing and collation is available. In this case, all copies of each individual page must be printed before the next page in the document is printed. Therefore, without the multiple engine concept as described hereinabove, this would require one engine to perform all of the necessary copies of page 1, then the necessary copies of page 2, etc. This would result in a stack that had M sheets of page 1, followed by M sheets of page 2, etc. In the above example with the 10 copies of the 6 page document, the following sequence would be present:
Referring now to
There are instances where the gather method of collation has a significant speed advantage over the automatic collation method. Using the above noted example with 6 pages and 10 copies, assume that pages 2, 4 and 6 are color pages and pages 1, 3 and 5 are black and white pages. Also assume that it is desired to have 100 copies in order to notice a difference between the two operations. If the print job is to be printed with the color virtual engine, a time penalty is allotted each time the color engine is switched between the color mode and the black and white mode and back to the color mode. In one type of color engine, a Canon P320 model, this penalty is on the order of 8 seconds. In this example, the time penalty will occur between pages as follows:
TABLE 1 Engine 1 Engine 2 Engine 3 Engine 4 1–6 � 25 1–6 � 25 1–6 � 25 1–6 � 25
It can be seen from Table 1 that each physical virtual engine in the four engine virtual engine would print 25 copies of the 6 page document in the order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, such that each physical engine would have a time penalty of 25�8=200 seconds.
If the gather collation method is utilized in the above example, the pages would be divided among the engines as set forth in Table 2:
Engine 1
Engine 2
Engine 3
Engine 4
1 � 100
2 � 50
4 � 100
5 � 50
2 � 50
3 � 100
5 � 50
6 � 100
In this example of Table 2, the first engine prints 100 copies of page 1 and 50 copies of page 2, engine 2 prints the other 50 copies of page 2 and 100 copies of page 3 and so on. This results in each engine only making one mode change in order to allot only a single 8 seconds per engine and, since they are running in parallel, it is only 8 seconds for the entire virtual engine.
A further optimization could be applied to achieve the following print sequence set forth in Table 3:
TABLE 3 Engine 1 Engine 2 Engine 3 Engine 4 1 � 100 3 � 50 2 � 100 4 � 50 3 � 50 5 � 100 4 � 50 6 � 100
In Table 3, the black and white pages have been grouped and printed on engines 1 and 2 and the color pages have been grouped and printed on engines 3 and 4. As such, there are no penalty hits due to mode changes, since each engine is never required to change modes. In order to achieve this configuration, of course, it is necessary to know whether or not a page contains color information. This information is determined after the RIP operation in the RIP 22, as described hereinabove.
Referring now to
If the gather operation were selected at the stack define block 324, the stack would be defined as set forth in a block 329 which would be as described above with respect to
For the gathering operation, in order to determine how to define the parsing operation for the stack, it is necessary first to determine the number of sheets that will be present for each job. This is the number of pages in a document "N" multiplied by the number of copies "M". It is then necessary to determine how many sheets are to be accommodated by each engine which number of sheets is the value of "Q" which is defined by the following equation:
Referring now to
In another aspect of the present invention, the system is operable to divide a particular job into multiple jobs and provide "virtual job routing". When virtual job routing is utilized, the job is examined and then converted into two separate jobs, depending upon whether it may be faster to group the operations, for a job such as a mixed color and black and white job. The color job would then be defined as a single group and would be submitted to a color virtual engine, wherein the black and white job would be grouped separately and submitted to a high speed black and white virtual engine. Each of the color virtual engines and black and white virtual engines are a combination of multiple engines. As an example, a high speed black and white engine is provided that is assumed to be four times faster than the black and white mode of the color engines. In the virtual job router, two jobs would be generated as illustrated in Tables 4 and 5.
Black and White Job
Engine 1
Engine 2
Engine 3
Engine 4
1 � 75
1 � 25
3 � 50
5 � 75
3 � 50
5 � 25
TABLE 5 Color Job Engine 1 Engine 2 Engine 3 Engine 4 2 � 75 2 � 25 4 � 50 6 � 75 4 � 50 6 � 25
In the example noted above with respect to Tables 4 and 5, it can be seen that the basic job has been divided into two completely separate jobs that will then be submitted to a job manager, with each to be completed by its respective virtual engine. This involves both error handling and other aspects that would be handled by a single printer. It can be seen from the example from Tables 4 and 5 that a significant speed advantage has been achieved by not burdening the color engines with the black and white pages. In many cases, a cost savings will also be achieved since it is cheaper to print black and white pages on a black and white engine than it is to print on a color engine. Of course, in this example, the number of color pages was equal to the number of black and white pages. In most instances, this is not the case, with the black and white pages usually outnumbering the color pages, which makes the virtual routing a more important process.
Referring now to
Referring now to
If the decision block 378 had determined that there were no job specific pages, the program will then flow along the "N" path and proceed with the normal virtual print engine parsing, as described hereinabove, this indicated in a function block 392. The program will then flow to a function block 394 to transfer the pages to the page buffer as a function of the parsing operation and then to a function block 396 to transfer the pages from the page buffer to the virtual printer. The program will then flow to the end block 390.
Referring now to
There are illustrated four print engines 408, labeled PE1, PE2, PE3 and PE4. In a preferred embodiment, the print engines 408 are realized with a Canon P320 color laser printer print engines. Each engine is rated at 3 ppm for four-color pages and 12 ppm for black pages. In a mixed document, black-only pages are printed at 12 ppm and color pages at 3 ppm. The print engines are configured to accept letter-size (or A4) or legal-size paper and prints on only one side, although double-sided printing could be facilitated with another type of engine. In general, the print engine in the preferred embodiment utilizes a 60-to-80 micron spot and images at 600�600 dpi.
The print engines 408 are interfaced on the input side thereof with a print station manager 410 through an interconnect 412, the interconnect 412 defined hereinabove as the PCI interface, which will be described in more detail hereinbelow. The print station manager 410 in general is operable to define the way in which jobs are initially assembled and reported to the printers. The output of each of the print engines 408 is basically disposed in bins associated with the print engines and these are then fed to a document assembly operation, represented by a block 414. This is any type of technique for retrieving documents from the print engine and placing them in an appropriate order. In one embodiment, this is done manually.
The Print Station Manager 410 receives the input therefrom from an electronic collator 418, which is in part described hereinabove with reference to
The software RIP 416, as described hereinabove, is a PostScript RIP created by Harlequin as the Level 2 ScriptWorks software RIP running under Windows NetWork. The configuration for this software RIP in the present embodiment requires 64 MegaBits of memory and a 4-GB hard disk for storing compressed rasterized pages. In general, the software RIP can rasterize an entire job, store it on disk, and then start sending it to another recording engine, this being the preferred mode when utilizing slower recording engines and when rasterized data must be saved on disk for reuse later. Alternatively, the RIP is operable to pass rasterized pages to the print engines at the same time it writes them to disk. This is what is referred to as the "writethrough" mode, as it effectively results in bypassing of the print queue. In cases where the engines are not able to keep up with the RIP, the system terminates transmission of data directly to the engine and continues to pass pages to the disk, from which they are fed to the engine at a later time. The bit maps are compressed utilizing a compression algorithm which is referred to as a "pack bit" compression algorithm, a conventional algorithm. These rasterized pages are available to be printed and reprinted, either on a document or a page basis, at any time.
This software RIP is operable to provide dispersed screening techniques and conventional half-tone screening techniques, in addition to a contone dot generator. The user can select which form of outlet is desired for any situation. Additionally, the software RIP rasterizes data at a variety of bit depths, from 600�600 dpi at eight bits per pixel per color for contone output to 600�1200 dpi at one bit per pixel to be screened by a screening algorithm that is proprietary to the Harlequin software RIP. When rasterizing data at 1200 dpi for output at 600 dpi, the present system utilizes the extra data to modify the laster spot utilizing the print engine's ability to modulate the beam.
The software RIP is connected to the printer via a PCI interface, as described hereinabove and which will be described in more detail hereinbelow. This PCI interface will allow two engines to be connected to the PC bus and a parallel data channel associated therewith, which provides a data transfer rate of 13 megabytes per second per engine, fast enough to handle hundreds of compressed pages a minute. The PCI bus feeding these engine interfaces operates at up to 120 MB per second. The job parser 412 is operable to split virtual print engines across multiple print stations, as described hereinabove, which in conjunction with the electronic collator 418, is operable to set up and monitor queues, support "virtual printers," and provide diagnostic feedback and status of the print stations, which is received from the print engines 408.
The electronic collator 418 is, as described hereinabove, the process of rasterizing every page in a document only once and then printing the pages in order, such that no mechanical or manual collation or sorting is required on the output of the print engines 408, this being a function of the actual way in which the print engines bins are configured. The compressed bit maps are saved, such that multiple copies of the pages can be printed subsequently at the engines' full rate of speed, this being the result of rasterizing on a page-by-page basis, with no additional rasterizing being necessary for each multiple page, i.e., once a page is rasterized, it can be printed any number of times without requiring further rasterization of the original input. The job parsing operation, as described above, is operable to determine the total number of pages in the job (the number of pages in a document times the number of copies of the document in the job), and then spread the job out "equitably" among the available engines, such that the output of one engine placed on top of the other engine yields a complete job, as if it had come out of one engine. This, of course, is a function of the number of engines utilized and the way in which their output bins are disposed. However, each of the engines is combined in a particular configuration setup that will define a virtual printer that will be associated with a particular job.
Whenever a multi-page document requires multiple pages to be printed, it is first necessary to rasterize the entire document and store it in the memory 414. Thereafter, a virtual job stack is created that has one copy on top of the other, as described above with respect to the stacks 326 and 328 in
The electronic collation step is completely automatic, transparent to the operator, which operator merely directs the print station as to which job to print and how many copies are needed, the print station comprising all of the printers. This creation of the job stack and defining of boundaries of the job stack for distribution to the engines is determined in a relatively short amount of time on the order of seconds. The purpose is primarily to ensure that the resources are utilized at their maximum ability. At the completion of a press run, the operator then stacks the various output piles on top of each other to complete the collated job. Of course, as will be described hereinbelow, an automatic "finishing" system could be utilized to extract the documents and put them in the appropriate stacks. It is only important that, when the stacks are defined within a given printer, there is some indication, such as a separator page, that will allow the particular stack created between separators, to be assembled with another stack from another printer in the desired print job output.
If one of the print stations, i.e., one of the print engines 408, is down, the job will automatically be reconfigured such that it is parsed over the remaining print stations. An output will then be provided to instruct the operator how to arrange the pages for pickup from the output bin.
With respect to duplex printing, duplexing can be performed by a dedicated engine or, with an engine that does not have an automatic duplex feature, a "work-and-turn" procedure is utilized. In this procedure, after the first sides are printed, the lights on the print station console blink red and send a message to reload the paper. The operator then removes the sheets printed on one side from the output of the print engine 408, turns them over and places them in the input tray. The process then prints the other side and places them into the output bins. The result is pre-sorted output of the entire job. The operator then moves from one machine to the next, putting the sets in one collated stack. If needed, slip sheets fed from the printers' manual input trays can be inserted between jobs or between copies, these being separator sheets. This technique can be facilitated, since the system has stored the individual pages and associated with those pages information regarding which job it is associated with and the page number it is associated with. Therefore, once the job is rasterized and the compressed bit image is stored, it is only necessary to extract the even-numbered pages, print them, turn over the documents, and then print the odd-numbered pages.
By providing the page-by-page basis, this allows a merge operation to be facilitated. If the user desires, the print station manager 410 can merge pages of a "form" document with pages of another job. This is to be distinguished from a conventional word processing system in that the image formed of a bit mapped image for each page can merely be printed in a predetermined order. For example, a page from a form document could be inserted between pages 10 and 11 of a single other document, such that the final document results in page 10 being followed by the form page and then being followed by page 11. This merely requires the job stack to be redefined and redefine the output job. Of course, if two jobs are input at the same time and are to be merged, it will require initial rasterizing and storing of the jobs prior to the merging operation. If the jobs have already been rasterized and pre-stored, then it is only necessary to create the virtual job stack, which is relatively quick.
The spooler 419 is operable to optimize printing over the network. The spooler can take jobs directly from a workstation and route them either to disk or directly to the RIP 416 in order to begin processing. This is primarily directed toward Macintosh computers. For general IBM-compatible PC's, the jobs will go directly through the print manager on the Windows NT print manager directly to the spooler. After the jobs are rasterized by the RIP 416, they are then stored on the disk 414 prior to output to a print engine.
Jobs may be printed as contone images or screened. The spooler will publish print cues representing printer characteristics. This will then be displayed to the user as printers in the print setup menus for Windows. Also, different queues can be provided with other characteristics, such as different paper sizes or collating requirements.
Referring now to
In the block diagram of
In general, the engine allocation block 422 is required to give each virtual printer 420 access to the print engines 408 in a controlled and predictable manner that will guarantee maximum use of each engine. The engine allocator 422 works in concert with the electronic collator 418, while the electronic collator 418 itself generates job stacks for each engine, the engine allocator 422 ensuring that there is a physical print engine 408 available to execute a particular job stack.
The resource allocator 424 has two basic functions: memory management and performance management. If a system has only a limited amount of memory, and all engines wish to utilize this memory to load bit maps at once (which contain more data than available memory), the system may cause unpredictable behavior unless the memory is managed. In some systems, it is more desirable to dedicate more memory usage (bus CPU time and bus bandwidth) to the RIP versus the physical engine or vice versa. With the resource allocator 424, this is a relatively straightforward method which can be presented as a slidebar to the user. One end of the slidebar increases engine performance while the other increases RIP/spool performance. The block diagram of
Each of the print engines 408 has associated therewith in the software a physical print engine object 426, labeled PPE1, PPE2, PPE3 and PPE4, respectively. The physical print engine objects 426 provide control of the engine. All access to the print engines 408 is controlled through the PPEs 426 that are associated therewith. The PPE 426 is responsible for maintaining real-time status of the print engine and is also operable to isolate the associated print engine 408 from the remainder of the system. This permits different types of print engines to have different PPEs. New engine types can be added to the system by simply developing new PPEs. The PPE 426 maintains the physical link to the engine. A logical link is also maintained by the engine allocator 422. In this manner, if the user physically switches cables, the logical link is maintained.
Each of the PPEs 426 drives a kernel device engine 428. These are created during system utilization to develop kernel mode device objects for each printer port, with these portions then registered in the system hardware register. These kernel objects are different from PPEs. During initialization, it is a function of the engine allocator 422 to enumerate each of these physical ports, create a PPE object, and attach one per port. Once assigned a port, the PPE object then begins communication with the associated physical print engine 408 through the kernel mode device engine 428 and the associated kernel mode device object.
The engine allocator 422 will maintain a list of pointers into the PPE objects and kernel mode device objects to access status functions, as well as control functions. As such, the engine allocator 422 will be connected to the PPEs 426 through interconnections 430, which are logical interconnections to the virtual printers 420. With these connections, any routine system can request status of a physical engine 408 from the engine allocator 422. When a request for real-time status is presented to the engine allocator 422, it reads the status from the PPE 426 associated with that engine and returns to the call-in function. All status requests must go through engine allocator 422. The request can be made of logical as well as physical engines. The engine allocator 422 maintains the logical and physical mappings of each engine.
The PPE object 426 is instantiated from a derivative from the C Printer class. The C Printer class is the base class all printer objects are built upon. In a preferred embodiment, there is only a single printer class associated with the Canon P320 engine class. The interfaced printer object is the same regardless of the type of physical printer they are connected to. The PPE object isolates the rest of the system from the physical device. Each time a new device is to be connected to the system, an associated PPE class must be developed for that device.
The kernel device engines are output to a controller object 436, which is then operable to interface a host adapter 438, there being one for each two printers 408. This is essentially the PCI adapter described above.
The print engine C Printer class is, as described above, specific to the Canon P320 laser engine. This class must communicate through the kernel mode driver to the physical engine. The higher levels of communication protocol are implemented in this class, while the lower level layers are implemented in the kernel device engine 428. Since the Canon P320 does not send any unsolicited messages, the messaging protocol between the Canon P320 class and the engine is a master/slave protocol, with the engine being the slave. However, it should be understood that solicited messages can be accommodated with a different engine. In the preferred embodiment, the Canon P320 class must maintain a real-time engine status. This is accomplished via polling the engine every three seconds. Only changes are updated during this polling interval. Each time the Canon P320 class detects that the engine has been powered on or reset, an entire status update is performed.
In order to understand the engine allocation, the concept of "job stacks" will be further elaborated upon. A job stack is basically a dynamically sized array of instructions which is delivered to the PPE 426. Each entry in the array is defined by a number of variables. There is a Number of Copies variable, which instructs the PPE 426 to print each page a defined number of times before moving on to the next page. There is a Begin Page variable to define when the first page of a document is to print, and an End Page variable which defines the last page of the document for this instruction. A Command variable is also input, which is utilized for special commands, such as printing separation pages. In the following example in Table 6, a Command value of "0" indicates nothing, while a Command value of "1" indicates that a job separator page must be printed. Job stacks are dynamic and can contain any number of entries. The example in Table 6 utilizes a ten-page document that is to be printed with four copies utilizing three engines, with a separator page between jobs feature turned on. Table 6 is as follows:
TABLE 6 PPE1 PPE2 PPE3 Instruction 1 1, 1, 10, 0 1, 4, 10, 0 1, 7, 10, 0 Instruction 2 1, 1, 3, 0 1, 1, 6, 0 1, 1, 10, 0 Instruction 3 1, 0, 0, 1 1, 0, 0, 1 1, 0, 0, 1
Examining the above Table 6, it can be seen that PPE1 will print one copy of pages 1–10, followed by one copy of pages 1–3 of a document followed by a job separator. PPE2 will print one copy of pages 4–10, followed by one copy of pages 4–6 followed by a job separator. PPE3 will print one copy of pages 7–10, followed by one copy of pages 1–10, followed by a job separator. Since the printing is face-down printing, once the job is complete, the user simply takes the pages from PPE3 and stacks them on top of the pages from PPE2 (still face down), and then takes this new stack and places it on top of the pages from PPE1 for a completed and collated job.
The engine allocator 422 provides for Controlled Dynamic Engine Allocation. The goals of engine allocation are two-fold: provide equitable (round-robin) allocation of engines, while at the same time maximizing the use of individual engines. Controlled engine allocation means that virtual printers consist of predefined sets of print engines and cannot utilize engines outside of the set with the predetermined job stack for a physical engine unable to be changed "on-the-fly."
As an example, if Virtual Printer A consists of physical engines PE1 and PE2, it can never utilize physical engines PE3 or PE4, unless the system is reconfigured. As an example, if a virtual printer consisted of three print engines and was presented with a one-page job, it would not be efficient to tie up all three physical engines to complete this one-page job. In this case, the virtual printer 420 would submit the job to the electronic collator. The electronic collator would then return only one job stack. Since there is only one job stack, the virtual printer 420 would request only a single one of its engines. A more complicated case to this is one that will be more common. Consider the case of two virtual printers, Virtual Printer A and Virtual Printer B, and four print engines, PE1, PE2, PE3, and PE4. Virtual Printer A consists of physical engines PE1 and PE2, while Virtual Printer B consists of physical engines PE2 and PE3. If a 100-page job is assumed, which 100-page job has been split up by the electronic collator into job stacks of 50 pages each, it is then necessary to process these with the virtual printers 420. If the jobs arrive at each of the virtual printers at the same time, one job for one of the virtual printers 420 and one job for another of the virtual printers 420, since only one virtual printer 420 can utilize PE2, the other must wait. In this case, assume that Virtual Printer A received the job first, such that PE1 and PE2 are printing the job for Virtual Printer A. If there were no dynamic allocations provided by the engine allocator 422, PE3 would remain idle until PE2 was released. This is not desirable, since there may be more jobs behind the two mentioned, and PE3 is sitting idle, i.e., system resources are not being utilized at their maximum potential. If a user walked up to the console, he would then see several jobs waiting and an engine sitting idle.
In the controlled dynamic allocation provided by the engine allocator 422, the following sequence of events would occur. First, engines PE1 and PE2 would begin printing their 50-page job stacks for Virtual Printer A. Engine PE3 would begin printing its 50-page job stacks for Virtual Printer B for the portion that has been designated to be printed by PE3. At a later time, PE1, PE2, and PE3 would complete their job stacks at about the same time. Once PE2 is released from Virtual Printer A, it can then begin printing its job stack that was designated for being printed by Virtual Printer B. At this point, engines PE1 and PE3 are available for other jobs, thus maximizing throughput. An important rule to note is that PE2 will print its jobs for Virtual Printer B in their entirety. Although it may seem more efficient to send a portion of the PE2 job stack to PE3 once it is released, this may not be the most efficient method for a given mode, since this would mean splitting the PE2 job stack real-time and printing part of it on PE2 and part of it on PE3. This does not provide significant advantages and can cause some collation problems when a user stacks the documents after the job has been completed. If additional jobs are waiting, the engine usage is the same and no benefit is gained. If this approach were taken, the stacking order would be disrupted in an unpredictable manner for the user, since the PE2 job stack is partially printed on PE3. However, with the use of page separators and indicators, this could be achieved. Further, if a more sophisticated finishing system other than a user stacking documents were utilized, this could be facilitated.
Each virtual printer is allowed to only have one request into the engine allocator 422 at a time. If the engine allocator 422 receives a request from a virtual printer that has already queued a request, then the request fails immediately. The requesting virtual printer must pass several bits of information to the engine allocator. For each physical engine the virtual printer wishes to utilize, it must supply a handle for the physical printer (this was obtained by performing logical to physical mapping), and a handle of an event object to signal when the engine is available. This is information that is passed in as a pointer to a list of request structures in the engine allocator 422.
It is the task of the virtual printer 420 to create a "thread" to pass the job stack to the PPE 426, these threads illustrated in
Once the virtual printer has completed a job stack on a particular printer, it must then free the physical printer by calling an engine-free handle. At this point, the engine allocator 422 will move on to the next request in that engine's queue.
Engines in an Error state are treated no differently by the engine allocator 422. It is the task of the virtual printer 420 to decide what to do with an engine in an Error state. Virtual printers can still request and be granted use of the physical engines in the Error state. If the virtual printer has no use of an engine in an Error state, it can then release this physical engine back to the system immediately. If the virtual printer determines that the Error condition will be corrected, then it can hang on to the engine and release it later. A virtual printer does not have to request all of its physical engines to print a job. If a virtual printer 420 is configured with three physical engines and only receives two job stacks back from the electronic collator, then it has the ability to only request two engines from the engine allocator.
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
If decision block 474 had determined that no request was received from the PPE, the program will flow along the "N" path to a decision block 482 in order to determine if an indication has been made that memory was freed from one of the PPEs. If not, the program will flow along the "N" path back to the input decision block 474. However, if additional memory had been freed from one of the PPEs, the program will flow to a function block 484 to increment the memory and then to a function block 486 to send an instruction to the queue. Basically, when a job stack is forwarded for printing and memory is unavailable, the resource allocator will place that job in a queue and it will remain in the queue until the memory is available. When the memory is available, the queue is served on a first-in-first-out basis. The program will then flow back to the input of decision block 474.
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
The CPU 560 also interfaces with the marking engine 514 through a control/status bus 564. This control/status information can then be read by the CPU 560 to a UART 566, which interfaces with the cable 522 through the driver/receiver 550. Control information can then be transferred between the cable 522 and the CPU 560, such that the marking engine 514 can be controlled and status information requested from the marking engine 514.
Each print adapter connects to a host adapter using a custom cable assembly that consists of 16 individually shielded balanced twisted pair conductors (one unused pair).
No. Of Input/Output Name Pairs (@HostAdapter) PxD7:0 8 Out:Date PCLKx 1 Out:Clock PWEx 1 Out:Printer Write Enable HTXDx 1 Out:Host Tx (status) HRXDx 1 In:Host Rx (status) PAFx 1 In:Printer Almost Full Flag EOPx 1 In:End of Plane (Data extracted out for page -- used for page sync) FLUSHx Out:Resets state of print adapter x => A or B
HostAdapter to PrintAdapter Cable Differential Pair Definitions
Printer Image Data, D7 is MSB, D0 is LSB, sense is positive
true, and is clocked into the PrintAdapter buffer FIFO on the
positive transition PCKx.
Printer Buffer FIFO Load Clock, used to clock image data
into PrintAdapter Buffer FIFO. Setup and hold times of image
data are reference to the positive transition of this signal.
Printer Buffer FIFO Almost Full Flag, sense is negative true.
The HostAdapter will stop transmitting data and de-assert
PWEx within 4 positive transitions of PCKx.
Printer Buffer FIFO Write Enable, sense is negative true. This
signal is used to enable the loading of a synchronous FIFO on
the PrintAdapter with image data. When this signal is
asserted, image data should be accepted by the PrintAdapter
on the positive transition of PCKx.
HostAdapter Asynchronous Start/Stop Transmit Data, sense is
positive true, i.e., the start bit is a logical flow. The
asynchronous data rate is 9600 Baud. The form is one stop bit
and no parity.
HostAdapter Asynchronous Start/Stop Receive Data, sense is
positive true, i.e., the start bit is a logical low. The
asynchronous data rate is 9600 Baud. The form is one stop
bit and no parity.
End of Plane Pulse, sense is positive true. Asserting this signal
for at least 3 positive transitions of PCKx will result in an
interrupt being generated on the PCI bus by the HostAdapter
(interrupt support logic must have the EOP interrupt
Printer Buffer FIFO and Support Circuitry Reset, sense is
negative true. This signal should be used by the PrintAdapter
to flush the image data FIFO and to re-initialize image
generation circuitry.
Referring now to
As will be described hereinbelow, there is a command FLUSHx, which is an output from the system to the printer that is operable to reset the state of the print adapter. This is utilized for a situation where there is no page synchronization. The FLUSH operation is operable to flush the FIFO 552 in the print adapter between pages, such that there is a clean state. This occurs at the end of a plane (or page) after the EOPx signal is generated by the print adapter. With page synchronization, on the other hand, information is provided that indicates that the FIFO 552 is flushed and the print adapter is ready to receive a new page of information. Page synchronization also provides for counting the number of pages to determine how many pages have been printed. If a page is not received in a predetermined amount of time, then an Error condition is generated. At the EOPx, the system then looks at the FIFO 552 to determine if it is empty. If it is not empty, this indicates that all the information has not been transferred from the FIFO and, thus, an error is indicated. In any event, this indicates to the system that a given page has not been printed and either this page needs to be reprinted or sent to another engine. In order to facilitate this page synchronization, of course, it is necessary to know what the status of the printed page is when the end-of-page signal is generated. If page synchronization is not utilized, the FLUSH signal is utilized to ensure that an error occurring on one page does not carry over to the next page.
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
In the present system, the system color space is defined as being that for a standard printer, which is defined prior to the RIP operation. During the RIP operation, in the preferred embodiment, the color matching operation performed is a part of the RIP operation, such that after going through a RIP operation, as illustrated by a block 610, there will be rasterized images for each page of a document that have been color balanced to the system color space. This rasterized image will then be routed to the desired engine via the methods described hereinabove with respect to the virtual printers and physical print engine objects, etc. The marking engines in
The color mapping devices 618–622 allow each of the engines 612–616 to be mapped to the system color space after the RIP operation. The mapping process, as will be described in more detail hereinbelow, first renders the engines linear in response, such that similar changes in density are achieved for similar changes in data. This is a combination of an internal linearization algorithm that runs on power up and an additional linearization added. This process utilizes a manual gamma calibration which is facilitated by setting the lookup table to a 1:1 ratio with no calibration difference between the system color space and that of the printer and then running a test pattern therethrough. The test pattern is then examined with a colorimeter to determine if the printed image represents the image that should have been printed. If not, an offset is determined and stored in the lookup table. For contone images, there are typically 256 values. Each of these values can have a mapping value associated therewith, such that when a bit value is input to one of the color mapping devices 618–622, the value in the lookup table is an output. For example, if a value of 255 were input and the lookup table determined that it should be 217, then a value of 217 would be output to the marking engine.
Referring now to
The colorimeter will basically determine a value for each of the spaces and provide an output therefor. The program will then flow to a function block 634 to compare the output of the colorimeter to the system color space values that would be expected to be on the colorimeter. There is a standard table that is provided for the colormetric values that are associated with an 8 bit input value. For example, if the maximum density at the 8 bit value of 255 were found associated with that generated when an 8 bit value of 217 was input to the printer, then one would expect that the generation of an 8 bit value of 217 would result in the correct output color. This would in effect be the mapping function which is determined by taking the difference in a function block 636 and then creating the mapping values in a function block 638. These mapped values are then downloaded to the print adapter in the lookup table 562, as indicated by a function block 640, and then the program flows to an end block 642. For each printer, this procedure can be followed to determine the lookup table values, which lookup table values will operate on each "dot" that is to be generated by the printer and at each color. The table that is generated for the colormetric values is already linearized in the generation of that table, which table was generated in an iterative manner. The lookup table 562 in conjunction with the transform 558 can therefore provide a constraint on the output density as a function of the bit value input.
The above noted procedure is acceptable for color balancing contone images, but there are some aspects of bi-level and quad-level techniques that may provide a problem, since the different levels are achieved by spacing dots over a given area, each of the dots generated at the maximum pixel value. Therefore, there is an additional adjustment that is provided for bi-level and quad-level printing formats. This is an adjustment to the maximum pixel value of 255 that is generated, this defines the maximum density value for the printer. In order to determine how this value is to be adjusted, a test pattern is developed. It essentially is a series of patches with the center patches being at a 50% level such that they are equal portions of cyan, magenta and yellow. These, in an ideal printer, would provide a gray patch. However, if there are any aberrations in the printer, this gray will not be true gray. The patches are adjusted, such that as the patterns move to the right in the center location, another patch will be present with 50% cyan, 51% magenta and 50% yellow. The next patch to the right, a patch 648, will have 50% cyan, 52% magenta and 50% yellow. If one moves to the left in the center row, the first patch, will have 51% cyan, 50% magenta and 51% yellow. The next patch in the center row, will have 52% cyan, 50% magenta and 52% yellow. This gradual change will be noticeable to the eye and the user need only select which patch appears to be the true gray. This is then input to the system and the system makes an adjustment in a percentage of the density, which will be provided as a compensation factor in the iookup table whenever bi-level is utilized.
The above noted operation with respect to the calibration procedure for bi-level and quad-level. first creates the pattern for the bi-level test. The patches are visually examined for the most perceptively gray patch. The correction factor is then determined for each color at maximum density. This correction is then stored as an offset for maximum density at the bi-level and quad-level formats.
Referring now to
Referring now to
In order to ascertain the toner level in each of the printer engines, the present invention utilizes a system whereby the actual rasterized image is evaluated as to the amount of toner that it will require. This is accumulated over a job stack which will be sent to a given printer. Once the job stack has been printed, an accumulation register is decremented indicating that the toner value has decreased for that particular print engine. Additionally, the accumulator can be examined prior to printing the job, but after rasterizing and determining the amount of toner that will be required, such that it can be determined whether there is sufficient toner available to run the print operation on that printer for that particular job stack.
Referring now to
After the toner use for a given page is calculated, the program will flow to a decision block 780 to determine if the last page in the job has been processed. If not, the program will flow along a "N" path to a function block 782 to increment the job toner value, this being the total toner utilized for a given job. This will be divided up into the job stacks, as the job stacks are the smallest number of pages that will be sent to one of the multiple printers during a print job, the multiple printers defining the virtual printer. The program will then flow to the input of function block 724 to fetch the next page.
After the last page of the job, the program will flow along a "Y" path to a function block 784 to set the total toner value equal to the previous toner total value minus the job toner value, and the program will then flow to a decision block 786 to determine if the total toner value is less than a minimum value. If not, the program will flow to a function block 788, print the job, and then back to the input of decision block 722. If the total toner value is determined to have decreased below a minimum value, the program will flow to a function block 790 to send a toner low command to the user. The program will then flow to a function block 792 to reset the total toner value equal to the total toner value plus the job toner value, i.e., the value before function block 784. The program will then flow to an end block 794. Along this path to the N block 794, the printer will be inhibited from printing that particular job stack. Once this error signal is returned to the job manager, the job manager can then generate an overall default or it can merely reroute the job to another one of the printers defined in the virtual printer with an error separator page provided thereby.
In general, the provision of the accumulated total toner value in a register provides, in effect, a "gas gauge" or "toner gauge" for a given toner module. This total toner value will be reset when a new toner is placed in the system. It will be reset to a value that approximates the known toner level. Additionally, characteristics of the toner module and the toner associated therewith in combination with the characteristics of the print engine will be utilized to calculate the amount of toner that is deposited on a sheet of paper with all pixels on to their maximum value. This is relatively easy to determine by running continuous pages through the printer until the toner has depleted to a value that is below an acceptable level. This will provide the total amount of toner output for a given number of pages, which will be proportional to that for a single page. This can then be divided down by the determined average value. This provides a significant advantage, in that it is an actual value, as opposed to an estimated value based upon the input print job. This is facilitated due to the fact that the rasterized image for each page in the job is collected prior to the job being printed. By comparison, conventional systems would have no method for determining usage of toner, since the rasterized image is developed in the printer after the processing section.
In an alternate mode of operation, the toner level determination can be utilized to make a determination as to whether to print a particular page. This determination is made as a function of either the cost of a document or the level of toner in a particular print engine. In a first example, consider a large document that has multiple colors associated therewith. The user can input information as to cost of the toner as a criteria for printing. If the amount of toner can be determined prior to printing, then the amount of toner required for a particular job can be determined. With information as to the amount of toner required and the cost of the toner, the total cost of the job can be determined prior to actually printing the job. If the cost is too great, then the printing operation can be terminated. This can only be facilitated by a system that can make a fairly accurate estimation of the amount of toner that is required for a particular job.
In a second example, consider a situation wherein there is a printing job that is ongoing and there is a determination made that the toner has fallen below an acceptable level. At this point, the print job can be terminated at that engine and the remainder of the job routed to another printer, or the entire job can be rerouted to another printer. This can only be facilitated with a sysem that has the capability to determine toner usage coupled with a system that can dynamically reroute pages to be printed.
In a third example, the determined toner level can be utilized to set the number of pages to be printed. When the job is evaluated prior to printing to determine the toner requirements, then the remaining toner for the target printer is compared to the total toner required. If there is insufficient toner available for the total job, then only the number of pages for which there is available toner will be printed. This can only be facilitated with a system that has the ability to print select pages after a determination of toner requirement is made.
Referring now to
The power-on sequence is utilized to minimize power requirements for multiple print engines with multiple fusers. These fusers utilize heater lamps that have low resistance characteristics when the filaments are cold. Therefore, when the filaments are initially powered, a current surge will result from a cold start. As soon as the lamp filament temperature climbs appreciably, only several seconds or less, the current through the lamp stabilizes. The initial current pulse is much greater than the average current at a given temperature. Multiple (two or more) lamps on a single circuit could blow a breaker if the lamps are all started at the same time from a cold start. By sequencing the power-on operation, the software can control each of the engines, since the print adapter allows control/status information to be transferred between the printer and the processing section.
Referring now to
Once the merge operation has been determined, the program will flow along a "Y" path to a function block 814 to receive the documents and pages to merge and the order thereof, this determined by the Print Station Manager. The program will then flow to a function block 816 to assemble the virtual job stack with the merge documents. This will create a hybrid job. The hybrid job and the associated virtual stack will then be divided into individual job stacks for the engines and then forwarded to the job manager and the printer, as indicated by function block 818. The program will then flow to the end block 819, as the remaining portion of the system in the form of the PPI objects and the kernel device drivers will take care of the printing at that time.
Referring now to
It can be seen that this system automatically determines errors and, upon determination of an error, can automatically change the configuration of the system, such that a given job stack can be routed to a different printer. It is only necessary to create some type of separator page to indicate to an operator that an error has occurred and how the job is to be assembled.
Referring now to
The page synchronization operation of
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
If a new job has not been received, the program will flow along a "node" path from decision block 884 around function blocks 885 and 886. Additionally, when an error has been defined, the program will flow from decision block 892 to a function block 900 to requeue the operation, i.e., send it to a different print engine 872.
The automatic finishing machine 878 can be reconfigured by the distribution control 876 or, it can merely act in response to separator pages that are provided for each job stack. This will then merely require an individual manually moving the stacks from the print engine output bin to the automatic finishing device 878. Alternatively, the automatic finishing machine 878 could automatically extract the output from each of the print engines 872 and assemble it in accordance with the information received from the distribution control 876.
Although the preferred embodiment has been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
|Cited Patent
|Filing date
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|Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
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|U.S. Classification
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|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification
|Aug 25, 2005
Owner name: T/R SYSTEMS, GEORGIA
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:BARRY, MICHAEL W;BARTHOLMAE, JACK N;ROWE, FRANCIS A;AND OTHERS;REEL/FRAME:016450/0971
Effective date: 19980313
|Mar 23, 2010
|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 4
|Mar 5, 2014
|Fee payment
Year of fee payment: 8


text:
Loux: Staying on the roller coaster
Right-hander understands what a winning team is like
My career has been filled with extreme highs and extreme lows. It's been a roller coaster, but I've tried to keep a level head and know there is a plan for me. I've kept the mindset that, if I ride it out, good things will happen.
So, when I come to the ballpark, I try to keep my mouth shut and work as hard as I can when given the opportunity. That has paid off so far since joining the Angels organization last year.
I started in professional ball in 1997, but this was the first year I made a club out of Spring Training. I've also started my first game in the big leagues since 2003 this season. The fact that I was out of the game for a couple of years altogether makes this experience that much sweeter.
I broke in originally with Detroit, but that was a long time ago. I pitched in three games one year and in 11 games the next. Looking back on that early part of my career, I just wish that I knew then what I know now.
I was real young back then -- 21, 22 years old -- and I was on top of the world. I really thought I deserved everything that came to me. But that wasn't the case.
With the Tigers, we had a rough go of it for years. It was a hard time to be positive. You felt like you really couldn't show any emotion or what was going on with you because of all the other, larger problems going on around you.
It took me a long time to figure out what it means to be part of a Major League club. Those are all things I will never again take for granted.
During my time away from pro baseball, I spent some time coaching at the high school level. I also worked at baseball facilities and coached more kids. That's one of the things I enjoy the most. Even if I had nothing going on, I would always be coaching.
At the same time, I was keeping myself in shape and working toward another opportunity. I didn't want to feel unprepared if the time came for another shot at the big leagues. Fortunately, when everything happened, I felt like I was in a position where everything would pay off.
All of these experiences helped me get where I am now. I'm very fortunate to have another shot and to be here. I don't plan on letting my inexperience become a problem again.
With the Angels, there's a winning atmosphere. You just see people acting different. It's kind of hard to explain. People walk into the clubhouse and they say "hi" to people. You hang out at lunch and have a fun time at practice.
You can't really do those things on a very bad team. People tend to worry about themselves on bad teams. Around here, nobody worries about himself.
I've never been around a group of guys who focus more on everyone else on the team than themselves. It's no wonder the Angels have a winning organization. Now that I'm here, I see how it works.
Coming into this clubhouse has shown me what it's like to be around a winning atmosphere on a daily basis.
There were five years between Shane Loux's second season in the Majors with the Tigers in 2003 and his return with the Angels in 2008. Injuries to John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar helped the 29-year-old right-hander make the club out of Spring Training, and he was 2-3 with a 5.40 ERA before going on the disabled list with shoulder tendonitis in mid-May. He's currently on a rehab assignment.
This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
By Gene I. Maeroff
Unlike higher education -- where scholarship, research, and publication are taken for granted -- elementary and secondary education seldom has such expectations for its faculty members. School districts across the country emphasize instructional skills, and in that respect they differ from institutions of higher education, which give far less attention to the quality of teaching.
So it was notable when the Edison, N.J, school board offered, and the union accepted, a provision to allow for a limited number of sabbatical leaves to promote scholarship, research and, potentially, publication. The district of almost 15,000 pupils, the fifth-largest in the state, completed the agreement with its teachers in May after a year of negotiations.
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text: After many years of happy XC4 ownership, I decided it was time to take the plunge* to one of the new fuel injected bikes. I'm a luddite at heart, so I tried to hold out, but when I got to demo a 13 450XCW for a week at the CO600, it was just flat better than my beloved XC4 450XCW in every way. Better chassis, better power, better throttle response, better fuel economy, just plain better. All of my attempts to find shortcomings were met with a good answer. I was forced to conclude that new is better than old, with one caveat which I'll get to. Next year, I want to do some enduro racing. I feel like my speed has been stagnant for years, but after riding with some AA guys here in CO this summer, I see what I need to do to improve and I want to work at it. There's nothing worse than trying to go fast on something you know isn't the best you can have... which led me to a new bike. I'm going to leave it almost totally stone stock. The bike works so well as delivered, that I'm not going to mess with the usual suspects- no steering damper, no exhaust system, no big tank, no computers or lights or anything. I want to go fast, and the bike will do that in stock form. Without a mile-long list of bolt-ons, this could be a short thread! There are, however, a few items that belong on any bike I own, I'll get to those in subsequent posts. Now for the caveat. I still think FI is more complicated, and more failure prone, than carbs. I still have an XC4 (made up of Dakar leftovers), and when I go on big loops to the middle of BFE (like Baja, or places in Nevada or Utah), I'll use that. I hope this thread can turn into a repository of info on the new bikes, I'll add everything I learn, feel free to chime in as well with a question or a lesson learned. *I got one of the first 500s last year, and unlike apparently everyone else in the world, did not like it. The chassis was great, but my motor was rough and stall-prone to the point that the dealership wound up taking it back. After hours of testing fuel pumps, injectors, and ECUs, it turned out to be a bad spark plug cap. Oh how we all laughed. Something like that could happen to any bike, of any age... unfair to hold it against FI although I certainly did for a time!


text: Elizabeth Hurley's famous safety pin dress was yesterday hailed as the greatest red carpet gown of all time, according to research by leading UK department store Debenhams. The black Versace frock was worn by Liz, then 29, as she accompanied ex-boyfriend Hugh Grant to the 1994 premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral. A spokeswomen for Debenhams, which carried out the poll, said: "Liz Hurley's daring safety pin dress is one of the most famous black dresses worn on the red carpet, which made her a household name overnight. Our research shows how iconic the dresses worn on the red carpet have become with many of the stars making headlines from their outfits." Audrey Hepburn's white flower patterned Givenchy dress, which she wore to the 1954 Oscars, was in second place, while third in the poll of 3,000 women was Julia Roberts' black and white vintage Valentino dress, which she donned to collect her Best Actress award at the 2001 Oscars. Catherine Zeta-Jones is at number four with the red Versace gown she wore to the 1999 Oscars, while Jennifer Lopez's daring dress for the 2000 Grammys, by the same designer, was at five. Click here to see the full list. Tell us: What do you think is the greatest red carpet dress of all time?


text:
They were filming on the street to Pienza, near Montepulciano today. You can see again the stunt with the Alice's wig and gloves!See the video here and more pics over at Twilight Italia as well.
Also he found what could be the Volturi's throne and a picture of the fountain already finished!
Thanks, Ale & Shire!


text:
Spring Training: The Phillies' first Spring Training game is in less than two days.
As the Phillies continue to get ready for their first game of the regular season on Sunday, April 5 against the Atlanta Braves, their first game of Spring Training will take place in less than two days. On Wednesday, February 25, they will play a 1:05 pm Eastern Grapefruit League game with the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Pirates' Spring Training home of Bradenton, Florida, at McKechnie Field. The Phillies will open their Spring Training schedule with Jamie Moyer and Joe Blanton on the mound.
Meanwhile, Chase Utley has been participating in fielding his position and in batting practice, but not taking any swings while in the cage, although he has taken swings elsewhere, and not on the batting tee, as he tries to get himself ready for opening day, although the Phils will be keeping an eye on him to prevent the possibility of a set-back through Utley's eagerness to start. At the same time, Pedro Feliz is also taking grounders, but he has not been taking any swings in the batting cage, as the Phils worry about his back. But, with such options as Eric Bruntlett, prospect Jason Donald, Marcus Giles and Miguel Cairo in camp, the Phillies should be able to start the season okay in the infield for a few days if either player isn't ready for opening day.
Phils' opening day starter, Cole Hamels, will not pitch in a Grapefruit League game until March 4, as the Phils plan to go slowly with their ace, so that he will be ready to pitch by opening day, as well as to prevent him getting injured during spring training, as last year was his first year in the major leagues that he did not get injured.
Ah, opening day can't come soon enough for me. GO PHILS!!! REPEAT!!!


text:
Authorities on Wednesday identified the victim of Tuesdays fatal fall in the Weminuche Wilderness as 18-year-old Caitlin Kremp, a student at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Kremp was among a group of nine students, mostly from VCU, along with a leader, who were part of a trip sponsored by the Outdoor Adventure Program at the college, according to a statement posted on the universitys website.
Kremp fell about 100 feet from a rock outcrop near the groups campsite, said investigators with the La Plata County Sheriffs Office.
Kremp landed face-down in a stream and died from drowning, according to a medical examiner.
Durangos 911 dispatch center received notification of a distress call from a GPS locator beacon at 8:03 a.m. Tuesday.
Rescue workers pinpointed the location of the signal to a steep canyon wall in the Chicago Basin of the Weminuche Wilderness, about 27 miles north of Durango.
A medical helicopter was dispatched with two members from La Plata Countys Search and Rescue.
We had no information as to the situation other than there being an emergency at a particular location, said Butch Knowlton, director of the countys Department of Emergency Preparedness, in a news release.
The aircraft landed near the scene. Upon arrival, the group that triggered the 911 beacon informed rescue workers of the death.
Rescue workers recovered the body and brought it back to Durango.
Members from the Fort Lewis College Outdoor Pursuits program helped the remaining group members exit the Wilderness area on Wednesday.
Kremps death is the second fatality this summer in the Chicago Basin. Martin Pigeon fell about 230 feet July 7, near the top of Windom Peak, one of three Fourteeners that make up the upper portion of the basin.
GPS-enabled locator beacons are becoming more widely popular among outdoor enthusiasts.
When used for severe accidents and life-threatening situations, they provide exact locations and help reduce response times for emergency responders, according to a news release issued Wednesday by La Plata County.
The countys Office of Emergency Preparedness reminds backcountry users to be prepared, carry a capable communications device and participate in the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Search and Rescue program, which helps reimburse county sheriffs offices for search-and-rescue missions.
Kremp of Hampton, Va., was about to begin her sophomore year at VCU. She was majoring in business and was on VCUs Deans list, according to the college.
An obituary provided to The DurangoHerald from Kremps family said Kremp died doing what she loved, hiking in the mountains of Colorado at sunrise.
An earlier version of this story reported that Kremp fell 200 feet and died instantly. Incorrect information was given to the Herald.


text:
Hey guys!
Went out for a few hours today with one of the mates that I work with to target some triple tail since he told me he has never caught or eaten one. So we left the dock around 12:30pm with a few dozen hand pick shrimp in search of some triple tail. Started running the crab pots and with in minutes we had our first tail in the box, only about a 16 incher but a good way to start the day. For the next half hour or so we probably caught 7-10 shorts between 12-15 inches and then I see the beast of triple tail hanging on a buoy. We throw the biggest shrimp we had on a circle hook, put it right in front of his nose and he sucked it down! Ended up fighting that fish for almost 15 min but we finaly got him in the boat and we put him on the scale to see what he weighed.......... 18 POUNDS!!!!!!
High fives all around and we were off for some more, about 20 minutes later I run across another monster, ended up catching him too and he weighed 11 Pounds. So with our cooler full of meat we head in to fillet our catch. Was great conditions out there, it was slick calm and sunny, we probably saw over 20 tails out there including the ones we caught.
Here are some pics, enjoy!
Captain Tim


text:
Expanded powers sought for Conn. tribal police
HARTFORD, Conn. -- For decades, chief state's attorney Kevin Kane has opposed expanding the powers of police for the state's two gambling tribes, citing differences between the laws of Connecticut and those of the Mohegan Tribe and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.
But Kane now supports legislation to allow tribal police to arrest non-Indians. What's changed, he said, is the willingness of the tribes behind Mohegan Sun and the Foxwoods Resort Casino to enter into agreements to adhere to state laws and policies.
"If the tribal police departments comply with state laws and recognize their obligations to enforce state laws, this would confer arrest powers on them," said Kane, who has led the Division of Criminal Justice since 2006. "The tribes have had a lot of discussions over the last year, and there is more momentum and willingness to do this than has existed in the past."
The legislation, proposed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration, is an example of how the tribes, which have been struggling through slumps in gambling revenue, have worked with the state to find ways to ease their financial burdens. By winning authority to carry out tasks typically reserved for state troopers, the tribes reduce the need for state agents at the casinos where their salaries have to be covered by the tribes.
Tribal police currently are allowed to arrest members of federally recognized tribes but can only detain nontribal members for arrest by state police. Tribal and state police both have jurisdiction over the reservations and the two mammoth casinos.
For approval of expanded powers, the tribes will have to agree to recognize and follow state laws covering the Freedom of Information Act, common arrest records and bans on racial profiling.
Chuck Bunnell, a spokesman for the Mohegans, said the tribe's willingness to enter such an agreement does not reflect a concession, but rather an affirmation of tribal sovereignty.
"Sovereignty is the right to make the decision whether you enter or don't enter into the agreement," Bunnell said.
Officials from the state and local police departments joined tribal officials testifying in favor of the proposal at a hearing Thursday.
"We have to be careful with our money now. Things are getting tougher and tougher," said Jackson King, an attorney for the Pequots. "The administration has been very realistic and very cooperative, as has the state in general, in recognizing that we have new competition out there and it's in our best interest to have Foxwoods and Mohegan as flourishing employers in the state of Connecticut."
Andy Matthews, the president of the state police union, opposes the legislation. He said there are issues of public safety to consider in shifting authority away from state troopers, whose numbers at the two casinos have dropped in recent years from 39 to 21.
"You can't have tribal police who are appointed and supervised and report to the tribal council regulating the gaming floor," he said. "It's like allowing a private corporation to have their own police department."
The tribes say their officers have or are pursuing the same certification as other law officers around the state.
The proposed legislation would allow the commissioner of public safety to enter agreements with the tribes spelling out the role of their police forces.
Kane, who would have to sign off on the new agreements with the tribes, said the proposal could help eliminate duplication of efforts. If a tribal police officer stopped a drunk driver in a casino parking lot, for example, he said a state trooper would have to respond to process the arrest.
"We seem to have brought about potential for a solution which seems to me to be pretty good," he said.
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