Method for automatically deriving print engine capabilities for incremental scheduling from compositional print engine models

• Main Author: FROMHERZ; MARKUS P. J
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 23.06.1998
• Edition: 6
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; CONTROL OR REGULATING SYSTEMS IN GENERAL; CONTROLLING; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; ELECTRICITY; FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF SUCH SYSTEMS; i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; LINING MACHINES; MONITORING OR TESTING ARRANGEMENTS FOR SUCH SYSTEMS ORELEMENTS; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION; PRINTING; REGULATING; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS; STAMPS; TRANSPORTING; TYPEWRITERS

A method and apparatus is provided for compositional modeling of print engines. The system automatically derives a complete list of all of the capabilities of a described print engine. The method includes providing compositional models of components forming the print engine. The models describe local capabilities of each component including part transformation abilities as well as timing constraints. Using the component models, configurations are created by connecting the components. Once the component models are connected, the capabilities of the configurations are directly derived. A capability is a part that can be produced by the configuration, together with the itinerary required to produce the part, the inputs from which the output is assembled, and the timing constraints to be observed when executing the itinerary. Capabilities are the fundamental connection between the description of a job to be printed by a print engine and the print engine scheduling and control software. Capabilities are themselves compositional and are used to automatically derive scheduling and control software for customer-configured print engines.