Rastering disjoint regions of the page in parallel

A method of rasterizing at least a portion of a page comprising a plurality of graphic objects, said method comprising:

• determining a single pixel generation path for the portion of the page;
• determining a plurality of crossing locations based on the single pixel generation path, the plurality of crossing locations comprising a vertical crossing location and a horizontal crossing location;
• determining an initial fill sequence of the single pixel generation path at a predetermined location;
• and
• rasterizing the portion of the page according to the initial fill sequence and at least a subsequent fill sequence upon encountering each of said vertical crossing location and said horizontal crossing location along the single pixel generation path.

A computer-implementable method of rasterizing a page comprising a plurality of graphic objects, said method comprising:

• dividing the page into a plurality of regions, and
• for at least one of the plurality of regions:
• determining a single pixel generation path for the portion of the page;
• determining a plurality of crossing locations based on the single pixel generation path, the plurality of crossing locations comprising a vertical crossing location and a horizontal crossing location;
• determining an initial fill sequence of the single pixel generation path at a predetermined location;
• and
• rasterizing the portion of the page region according to the initial fill sequence and at least a subsequent fill sequence upon encountering each of said determined crossing locations along the single pixel generation path.

A computer-readable storage medium having recorded thereon a representation of a page to be printed, said page comprising a plurality of graphic objects, wherein:

• said representation comprises a plurality of regions, at least one of the plurality of regions comprising:
• a plurality of crossing locations determined based on a single continuous pixel generation path, the plurality of crossing locations comprising a vertical crossing location and at least one other crossing location being a horizontal crossing location, each said crossing location activating a fill compositing sequence adapted to generate a colour of one or more pixels;
• and
• an initial fill compositing sequence of the single continuous pixel generation path at a start of the region.

A computer readable storage device having recorded thereon a computer program executable by computerised apparatus for rasterizing at least a portion of a page comprising a plurality of graphic objects, said computer program comprising:

• code for determining a single continuous pixel generation path for the portion of the page;
• code for determining a plurality of crossing locations based on the single continuous pixel generation path, the plurality of crossing locations comprising at least a vertical crossing location and a horizontal crossing location;
• code for determining an initial fill sequence of the single continuous pixel generation path at a predetermined location;
• and
• code for rasterizing the portion of the page according to the initial fill sequence and at least a subsequent fill sequence upon encountering each of said determined crossing locations along the single continuous pixel generation path.

Apparatus for rasterizing at least a portion of a page comprising a plurality of graphic objects, said apparatus comprising:

• determining means for determining a single continuous pixel generation path for the portion of the page;
• determining means for determining a plurality of crossing locations based on the single continuous pixel generation path, the plurality of crossing locations comprising at least a vertical crossing location and a horizontal crossing location;
• determining means for determining an initial fill sequence of the single continuous pixel generation path at a predetermined location;
• and
• rasterizing means for rasterizing the portion of the page according to the initial fill sequence and at least a subsequent fill sequence upon encountering each of said determined crossing locations along the single continuous pixel generation path.