System and method for automatically optimizing a control quantity for a printer

An operation support unit for automatically setting control quantities of control objects for a printer, based on printing conditions for said printer, printing-quality information on a print, and mechanical information on said printer, and then outputting the set control quantities to a printer control unit which controls operation of the control objects of said printer, said operation support unit comprising:

• information storage means in which said printing conditions, said printing-quality information, and said mechanical information are correlated and stored as a sequence of data sets;
• allocation means for setting an suppression factor that is suppressed according to a control mode, and then allocating a plurality of control objects for said printer effective in suppressing said suppression factor, as a control group;
• information collection means for collecting a set of data that is under printing conditions nearly coinciding with the present predetermined printing conditions, from said sequence of data sets stored in said information storage means;
• and
• control-quantity set means for setting, for each said suppression factor, a principal axis component which represents a distributed characteristic of said data set collected by said information collection means, as a characteristic line for said control objects selected as said control group, and then setting control quantities of said control objects, based on said characteristic line in order to suppress said suppression factor.