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RIPping through dataChallenges faced in the digital front end<br />Martin Bailey<br />CTO, Global Graphics<br />

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This presentation was created with assistance from our partners at Hewlett Packard. <br />Especial thanks are due to Dave Staas, Lead Software Architect, Indigo Digital Press DFE<br />Acknowledgements<br />

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Introduction<br />A Controller or Digital Front End (DFE) provides a number of functions for digital press print jobs:<br /><ul><li>Workflow definition, control, and management

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Job management (submission, status, view, edit, cancel, etc.)

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Color, ink, and media management

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Imposition and finishing management and control

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The conversion of rich document formats like PDF and PPML into “print ready bits” – data that is rendered and formatted for the marking engine of the digital press</li></ul>HP Indigo W7200 Digital Press<br />

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Constructing a DFE<br />Control process<br />RIP<br />RIP<br />Press controller<br />Pre-processing<br />Post-processing<br />RIP<br />Raster cache<br />Job cache<br />HP Indigo 7500Digital Press<br />

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Work allocation<br />Interpreting/rendering – <br />Color management – <br />Imposition – ,  or <br />Trapping –  or <br />Screening –  or <br />Font handling –  <br />Variable data – <br /> + for PPML etc  for PDF with no h/w assist + for PDF with h/w (+) or (++) for PDF/VT<br />Control process<br /><br />RIP<br /><br />Press controller<br /><br />Pre-processing<br /><br />Post-processing<br /><br />RIP<br /><br />RIP<br />

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What’s the Problem?<br /><ul><li>A typical print shop can have many digital presses and DFEs (Consolidated Graphics, for example, has more than 50 Indigo digital presses across several sites1)

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A standard mid-range digital press (120 PPM) requires the processing of over one hundred million pixels every second, worst-case, with possibly multiple transforms, and in 4 (or more) colors

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HP’s high-end presses (like the T400 below) require nearly three billion pixels every second

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The primary performance goal for a DFE is to process any job or workflow at or above press speed – strive to always have the DFE outpace the press over a shift

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Maximum efficiency must be exploited in every aspect of the system’s design in order to achieve this goal within reasonable cost constraints</li></ul>HP T400 Color Inkjet Web Press<br />HP Indigo 7500 Digital Press<br />

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18”<br />12”<br />

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Each color plane is 32 pixels/mm2 (4096 pixels as shown)<br />1mm<br />1mm<br />1 mm2<br />

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It’s solved for current jobs and current presses, but:<br />Presses need higher data rates<br /><ul><li>Larger format/wider webs

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Higher paper speeds/pages per minute

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Higher resolution (2x resolution = 4x raster size)</li></ul>It’s a solved problem, isn’t it?<br />

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Larger coverage of variable data in direct marketing, triggered by<br /><ul><li>Better demographic data

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Better data mining techniques

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Proven better response rates to well-crafted personalised mail</li></ul>More use of live transparency<br /><ul><li>Driving adoption of PDF for direct marketing

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Expanding out of general design practice for books, publication, POD, print-for-pay and general commercial print

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Many designers don’t even know they’re using transparency!</li></ul>In a well-optimized RIP transparency requires more processing than an opaque job<br /><ul><li>Color transforms & read/modify/write cycles</li></ul>Jobs are getting more complex<br />

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This is transparency …<br />

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And this …<br />

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And this<br />

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PDF/VT (ISO 16612-2) defines structures in a PDF file to:<br /><ul><li>Allow easier identification of re-used and single-use graphical elements

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Define which sets of pages go together in a hierarchical structure

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E.g. as components that will be supplied to a single direct mail recipient

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Enable pseudo-streaming</li></ul>This means that PDF/VT is a useful standard!<br />But it does not address the fundamental issues of:<br /><ul><li>Compute power required to process transparency

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Sheer data volume required to drive current and future digital production presses</li></ul>Doesn’t PDF/VT fix the problem?<br />

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Architectural Considerations<br /><ul><li>Some of the more relevant architectural considerations for enabling maximum efficiency:</li></ul>Reliability<br />Fast, unreliable systems usually aren’t worth much. Stability first, performance second<br />Work Avoidance<br />Look for ways to move or eliminate work first rather than scaling an inefficiency<br />Centralized or Distributed Caching<br />Caching can avoid work and improve performance<br />Watch for centralized caches becoming a bottleneck<br />Instrumentation and Measurement<br />Establish a way to measure performance in your code and system<br />Planning<br />An ounce of design effort up-front will save more than a pound in efficiency and cost-savings in development and manufacturing<br />If you drive a range of devices you may gain from a common, scalable solution across at least some of that range<br /><ul><li>No universal right answer on most of these considerations; they’re useful topics to think about in the context of efficiency</li></li></ul><li>With the right architecture and components you can make a DFE drive your press at engine speed<br /><ul><li>Every component makes a difference</li></ul>What matters is the throughput achievable per $ total bill of materials<br /><ul><li>Include hardware and software</li></ul>The target is to drive the press at rated speed while minimizing the cost of the DFE<br /><ul><li>If the software is faster or more efficient you can reduce the hardware required</li></ul>Reducing hardware reduces power consumption and cooling<br /><ul><li>Going green can be profitable!</li></ul>The real goal<br />

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<ul><li>Many machines per rack

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Typically one DFE per rack</li></ul>For very high end needs, one DFE in multiple racks<br /><ul><li>Up to 12 Indigo presses per DFE, depending on their type and speed </li></ul>“Ultra” version allows many more<br /><ul><li>Each DFE can drive:</li></ul>Multiple presses<br />Multiple press controller machines<br />Multiple RIP machines<br />Multiple pre-RIP and post-RIP storage arrays<br />Multiple remote UI instances<br /><ul><li>Each DFE has a central System Manager</li></ul>Generally speaking, no post-RIP data flows through<br />Parallelism – Within the DFE<br />

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Parallelism – End-to-End Solution<br />Press controllers deliver to presses<br />Split into page ranges and assign to RIPs<br />RIPs deliver data in parallel to press controllers<br />Split files into multiple “partitions” or chunks and process in parallel<br />Parallelize early, maintain multiple parallel pipelines<br />Parallelize in pre-RIP, where the data is much smaller (1/7th the size)<br />Process multiple jobs in parallel<br />Different variations optimize first-page-out, engine loading or throughput<br />

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<ul><li>Multiple CPUs per machine

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Multiple cores per CPU

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Multiple physical disks per machine

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Multiple physical disks per logical disk

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Multiple (teamed/bonded) network interfaces per logical network connection

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Multiple RIPs per machine

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Multiple threads per RIP</li></ul>Parallelism – Within a Machine<br />We invest effort to take advantage of all of these machine-level parallelisms:<br />

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Digital printing architectures need careful design<br />Many different strategies must be employed in unison for the best effect<br />Key architectural considerations can help guide your efforts<br />Selection of the best components and supplier/partners is an important aspect<br />The ultimate goal is to reduce cost, power, and cooling for customers<br />Summary<br />

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Q&A<br />More information at www.globalgraphics.com/imiconf<br />