Method, system and apparatus for rendering a document

A system for rendering a document described in a page description language, the system comprising:

• a memory for storing data and a computer program;
• a processor coupled to the memory for executing said program, said program comprising instructions for:
• receiving page description data representing the document comprising a plurality of images, the page description data including image metadata for the plurality of images;
• forming an intermediate graphical representation of the document based on the image metadata, the intermediate graphical representation being subdivided into a plurality of tiles, each tile being associated with a counter indicating a number of images contributing to said tile determined based on the image metadata;
• in response to receiving image pixel data of one of the plurality of images subsequent to the intermediate graphical representation being formed, marking a tile of the intermediate graphical representation by comparing a determined number of images for which image pixel data is received with the number of images contributing to said tile as indicated by the counter;
• and
• rendering the marked tile.

An apparatus for rendering a document described in a page description language, the method comprising:

• a memory for storing data and a computer program;
• a processor coupled to the memory for executing said program, said program comprising instructions for:
• receiving page description data representing the document comprising a plurality of images, the page description data including image metadata for the plurality of images;
• forming an intermediate graphical representation of the document based on image metadata for the plurality of images, the intermediate graphical representation being subdivided into a plurality of tiles, each tile being associated with a counter indicating a number of images contributing to said tile determined based on the image metadata;
• in response to receiving image pixel data of one of the plurality of images subsequent to the intermediate graphical representation being formed, marking a tile of the intermediate graphical representation by comparing a determined number of images for the tile for which image pixel data is received with the number of images contributing to said tile as indicated by the counter;
• and
• rendering the marked tile.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having a computer program stored thereon for rendering a document described in a page description language, the computer program comprising:

• code for receiving page description data representing the document comprising a plurality of images, the page description data including metadata for the plurality of images;
• code for forming an intermediate graphical representation of the document based on the image metadata, the intermediate graphical representation being subdivided into a plurality of tiles, each tile being associated with a counter indicating a number of images contributing to said tile determined based on the image metadata;
• code for, in response to receiving image pixel data of one of the plurality of images subsequent to the intermediate graphical representation being formed, marking a tile of the intermediate graphical representation by comparing a determined number of images for the tile for which image pixel data is received with the number of images contributing to said tile as indicated by the counter;
• and
• code for rendering the marked tile.