Parallel processing of page description language data stream
AssigneeAgfa-Gevaert
InventorPierre Vennekens
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The image to be printed on a hard copy such as paper, micro film and photographic film, can be specified in a page description language. A raster image processor, for converting the page description language data stream in a bitmap representation, usually first translates the original data stream in an intermediate data stream. By properly segmentation of the original data stream and inclusion of control commands, this translation process can be handled by several processors parallelly. This improves the throughput of the translation process by a factor which is almost a linear function of the number of processing systems used parallelly.
Claims14
A method for reproducing an image described by a PDL data stream, comprising the following steps:
- recognising in said PDL data stream data commands and control commands;
- generating a plurality of independent PDL data stream segments;
- assigning each data command to one of said segments;
- assigning at least one control command to more than one of said segments;
- translating each of said segments to intermediate data stream portions;
- combining said portions to one intermediate data stream;
- and,
- reproducing said image from said intermediate data stream.
An image reproduction system comprising:
- means for recognising in a PDL data stream data commands and control commands;
- means for generating a plurality of independent PDL data stream segments;
- means for assigning each data command to one of said segments;
- means for assigning at least one control command to more than one of said segments;
- means for translating each of said segments to intermediate data stream portions;
- means for combining said portions to one intermediate data stream;
- means for reproducing an image from said intermediate data stream.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.