Methods and Systems for Rendering Data

• US 20100245887A1
• Filed: 03/30/2009
• Published: 09/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Nguyen, Uoc H., Owen, James E., Henerlau, Paul R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,339,670 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 358/1.150
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/02 using printers
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/1849 using an intermediate representation, e.g. a list of graphical primitives
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/1856 characterized by its workflow
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/203 Drawing of straight lines or curves
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00278 with a printing apparatus, e.g. a laser beam printer

Abstract

Aspects of the present invention are related to systems and methods for rendering graphical objects in a printing system. According to one aspect of the present invention a graphic list may be partitioned, and the graphic-list partitions may be rendered “out-of-order” or concurrently.

Claims

1. A printing system comprising:

a) a partition generator for partitioning a graphic list associated with a print job;

b) a partition-renderer scheduler for associating a partition of said graphic list with a renderer; and

c) a partition bit-blitter for bit-blitting a rendered partition.

2. The printing system as described in claim 1, wherein said partition bit-blitter resides on a device in said printing system selected from the group consisting of a host computing device, a print server, a cloud computing device and a printing device.

3. The printing system as described in claim 1 further comprising a page bit-blitter for bit-blitting a bit-blitted rendered partition to a page memory.

4. The printing system as described in claim 3, wherein said page memory resides on a printing device.

5. The printing system as described in claim 1, wherein said partition generator resides on a device in said printing system selected from the group consisting of a host computing device, a print server, a cloud computing device and a printing device.

6. The printing system as described in claim 1, wherein, said partition-renderer scheduler resides on a device in said printing system selected from the group consisting of a host computing device, a print server, a cloud computing device and a printing device.

7. The printing system as described in claim 1 further comprising a renderer.

8. The printing system as described in claim 7, wherein said renderer resides on a device in said printing system selected from the group consisting of a host computing device, a print server, a cloud computing device and a printing device.

9. The printing system as described in claim 7, wherein said renderer is a specialized renderer.

10. The printing system as described in claim 1 further comprising a partition processor for processing a plurality of partitions generated by said partition generator, wherein said processing is based on system performance.

11. The printing system as described in claim 1 further comprising:

a) a first specialized renderer specialized to render text objects;

b) a second specialized renderer specialized to render vector objects; and

c) a third specialized renderer specialized to render pictorial objects.

12. The printing system as described in claim 1, wherein:

a) said graphic list comprises a plurality of graphical objects, wherein each graphical object in said plurality of graphical objects is associated with a graphical-object type; and

b) said partition generator partitions said graphic list based on said associated graphical-object types.

13. The printing system as described in claim 1 further comprising:

a) a z-depth determiner for determining the z-depth of a graphical object in said graphic list; and

b) wherein said partition generator partitions said graphic list based on said determined z-depth.

14. The printing system as described in claim 1, wherein:

a) said graphic list comprises a first plurality of graphical objects; and

b) said partition generator partitions said graphic list into a first partition comprising;

i) a second plurality of graphical objects comprising all graphical objects in said first plurality of graphical objects that overlap at least one other graphical object in said first plurality of graphical objects; and

ii) a third plurality of graphical objects comprising all graphical objects in said first plurality of graphical objects that are overlapped by at least one other graphical object in said first plurality of graphical objects; and

c) a second partition comprises all graphical objects in said first plurality of graphical objects not in said second plurality of graphical objects and not in said third plurality of graphical objects.

15. The printing system as described in claim 1, wherein:

a) said graphic list comprises a plurality of graphical objects; and

b) said partition generator partitions said graphic list into a first partition, a second partition and a third partition wherein;

i) said first partition comprises all graphical objects in said plurality of graphical objects that do not overlap another graphical object in said plurality of graphical objects and are not overlapped by another graphical object in said plurality of graphical objects;

ii) said second partition comprises a first group of graphical objects from said plurality of graphical objects, wherein a first graphical object in said first group overlaps a second graphical object in said first group;

iii) said third partition comprises a second group of graphical objects from said plurality of graphical objects, wherein a third graphical object in said second group overlaps a fourth graphical object in said second group; and

iv) no graphical object in said first group overlaps any graphical object in said second group.

16. A method, in a printing system, for rendering a print job, said method comprising:

a) partitioning a graphic list associated with a print job, thereby producing, at least, a first partition and a second partition;

b) sending said first partition to a first renderer;

c) sending said second partition to a second renderer;

d) rendering said first partition at said first renderer and said second partition at said second renderer; and

e) bit-blitting said rendered first partition and said rendered second partition.

17. The method as described in claim 16, wherein said bit-blitting comprises bit-blitting said rendered first partition prior to bit-blitting said rendered second partition.

18. The method as described in claim 16, wherein said bit-blitting comprises concurrently bit-blitting said rendered first partition and said rendered second partition.

19. The method as described in claim 16, wherein said first renderer is a specialized renderer.

20. A printer driver comprising a partition generator for partitioning a graphic list associated with a print job into concurrently renderable partitions requiring bit-blitting.