Prepress: Powerful Digital Front Ends Drive Production Inkjets By Joann Whitcher Every time a production inkjet digital press manufacturer releases a new machine with faster throughput or an expanded color range, there’s a Variable data workflow within a DFE newly engineered digital front end (DFE) hovering in the background, ensuring the process improvements are realized. High-speed printing puts a big requirement on the DFE in terms of data processing speed and throughput, especially when personalization or graphically intense elements, such as live transparencies, are involved, acknowledged Martin Bailey, CTO, Global Graphics. “As the technological limits of inkjet printing in terms of printing speed and width are still a long way from being achieved, we can expect the requirements for faster data processing only to grow phenomenally in the decade to come.” The HP T400 color inkjet press that is driven by the Harlequin RIP, for example, requires approximately 15GB of raster data every second to keep it running at engine speed. Correct rendering of live transparency greatly increases the amount of processing required per page. There are two critical factors that can affect how a DFE attempts to drive any continuous feed inkjet solution—resolution and speed, said Nick Fiore, senior manager, product marketing, Ricoh. “A DFE has to be able to have enough processing capability and over- all bandwidth to run a given solution at the highest rated speed and/ or resolution. When Ricoh evaluates customers’ DFE needs, we thoroughly test a variety of application types in an effort to meet and exceed our customers’ requirements. Our goal in mind is to always run at full rated speeds and at the corresponding resolutions.” The biggest challenge, unequivocally, is speed, combined with the quality levels expected, agreed Tod Viniski, worldwide marketing Manager, Workflow & Solutions, Xerox Corp. In the old days (not even 10 years ago) production inkjet was mainly involved in a classic transactional workflow, 20 Inkjet’s Age | June 2015 MyPRINTResource.com
InkJetsAge_0615
To see the actual publication please follow the link above