Processing print jobs
View Patent ↗Methods for processing print jobs include flagging, or not, to-be-printed objects having PDL-specified math or logic functions requiring hard processing operations, such as two or more inputs. The math or logic functions preferably reside in ink attributes of display list objects corresponding to the to-be-printed objects. To-be-printed pages of the print job become divided into bands. Bands with to-be-printed objects therein have band display lists constructed in the event the to-be-printed objects become flagged. On a band-by-band basis, if bands have band display lists flagged with hard processing operations, contone bands become constructed. The contone bands result from color information blending between overlapping pixels of to-be-printed objects or an object and a contone page. A contone page includes color information of the to-be-printed page in a first color space. To-be-printed objects are rendered in a second color space in device specific page(s) of memory.
1. A method of processing a to-be-printed page of a print job in a device, said to-be-printed page having a plurality of to-be-printed objects thereof, comprising:
constructing a display list object for said to-be-printed object, a band display list for a band of said to-be-printed page and a contone band;
setting a flag or not corresponding to a condition of one of said display list object and said band display list;
blending color information of overlapping pixels of said plurality of to-be-printed objects, said blending occurring in creating said contone band; and
rendering said contone band in a device specific band in memory of said device.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said blending further includes constructing a contone page.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein said blending further includes blending color information of a pixel of said to-be-printed object with a pixel of said contone page to create a pixel of resultant color information.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein said rendering further includes converting said resultant color information into a color space of said device.
5. A method for processing a to-be-printed page of a print job in a device, said to-be-printed page having a plurality of to-be-printed objects thereof, comprising:
dividing said to-be-printed page of said print job into a plurality of bands;
constructing a contone page for color information of said to-be-printed page, said color information being in a first color space;
on a band-by-band basis, blending color information of said to-be-printed objects with said color information of said contone page to create a plurality of contone bands.
6. The method of claim 5 , further including on said band-by-band basis, blending color information of one of said to-be-printed objects with another of said to-be-printed objects.
7. The method of claim 5 , further including converting color information of said contone bands into a second color space of said device.
8. The method of claim 7 , further including performing a halftone operation.
9. The method of claim 5 , further including rendering said to-be-printed objects into a device specific page in a memory of said device.
10. The method of claim 5 , further including freeing memory locations for said contone bands.
11. The method of claim 5 , further including constructing a band display list for each said plurality of bands that contain said to-be-printed objects therein.
12. The method of claim 11 , further including determining whether a flag corresponding to said constructed band display lists is set or not.
13. The method of claim 12 , further including constructing a display list object for each said plurality of to-be-printed objects.
14. The method of claim 13 , further including determining whether a math or logic function of an ink attribute of said constructed display list objects requires a hard processing operation.
15. A method for processing a to-be-printed page of a print job in a device, said to-be-printed page having a plurality of to-be-printed objects thereof, comprising:
dividing said to-be-printed page of said print job into a plurality of bands;
for at least one of said bands, constructing a contone band for blended color information of overlapping pixels of said to-be-printed objects, said blended color information being in a first color space.
16. The method of claim 15 , wherein said constructing further includes constructing a contone page for color information of said to-be-printed page.
17. The method of claim 16 , wherein said constructing said contone band further includes blending pixels of said contone page with pixels of one of said to-be-printed objects.
18. The method of claim 15 , further including rendering said to-be-printed objects into a device specific page in memory of said device, said device specific page being in a second color space different than said first color space.
19. The method of claim 18 , further including freeing memory locations corresponding to said contone band.
20. The method of claim 15 , further including constructing a band display list for each said plurality of bands that contain said to-be-printed objects therein.
21. The method of claim 20 , further including determining whether a flag corresponding to said constructed band display lists is set or not.
22. The method of claim 15 , further including constructing a display list object for each said plurality of to-be-printed objects.
23. The method of claim 22 , further including determining whether a math or logic function of an ink attribute of said constructed display list objects requires a hard processing operation.