panther

Release 10 Panther RIP

The Panther® RIP is a true Adobe® PostScript® 3 raster image processor for Panther Imagesetting Systems. Running on Macintosh® or Windows 2000 Server platforms, Panther RIP harnesses the horsepower of today's workstations. It's an ideal solution for applications from simple pages of text through imposed signatures containing many high-resolution scanned images. The Panther RIP accepts jobs in PostScript, PDF, TIFF, EPS, or JPEG formats.

The Panther RIP is a pure software RIP, driving film and plate recorders through a standard SCSI-2 interface. Starting with Adobe CPSI as a building block, PrePRESS engineers add input software, user controls, and drivers for film and plate recorders. Since one engineering team designs the entire Panther Imagesetting System, you are assured of smooth integration of the components.

The SCSI-2 interface allows one RIP to feed data to multiple recorders. And with PrePRESS' unique Multiport Option, PantherPro recorders accept data simultaneously from up to four Panther RIPs. These features offer unparalleled options for Automatic Load Balancing and redundant operation.

The Panther RIP is designed for flexibility and ease of use. Multiple Hot Folders or Network Input Channels automatically change settings for resolution, priority, screening, and positive/negative output modes as required for different jobs, thereby increasing productivity by eliminating the need for operator intervention.

The Panther RIP provides a robust feedback system. The Status Window displays job progress and recorder status. The Job Accounting Log keeps a record of all jobs processed on screen and in a text file for later analysis. By adding PrePRESS RIP Tracker you can monitor the RIP from anywhere on the network.

Optional modules let you customize a workflow solution for the most specialized and demanding requirements. Panther PageTrapper adds Adobe in-RIP trapping, for automatic trap compensation on colour jobs. Panther PageImposer watches for completion of individual pages rasterized by the Panther RIP and assembles them into digital flats.

ESCOR III screening precisely controls halftone dots and eliminates angle and frequency moiré with patented PrePRESS technology. ESCOR-FM screening uses stochastic screening to render finer detail. Panther OPI image management improves productivity by integrating high-resolution images at the Panther RIP.

The Panther RIP offers a comprehensive growth path. When you upgrade to a higher-performance recorder, you won't need to buy a new RIP. And since there's no special interface card, upgrading to a faster RIP workstation is easy. The Panther RIP even includes a driver for Hewlett-Packard DesignJet plotters for large-format colour output and digital proofing.

Platform Overview

The Panther RIP runs on a variety of high-performance Mac and PC platforms. Greater RIPing productivity can be achieved by utilizing faster processor speeds and larger memory complements. Larger hard drive capacity provides greater storage of fonts, images, PostScript files and RIPed files. Configurations to best meet your specific requirements should be determined with the assistance of your sales representative.

Macintosh Hardware

A Mac OS system with a minimum PowerPC processor running System 8.5 (or higher). Minimum Mac memory is 128MB. Additional memory can increase performance depending upon content and complexity of job. Extra memory is required for optional Panther PageTrapper software module. Disk capacity 1- 4GB, CD-ROM required.

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PC Hardware

PrePRESS provides and supports specific Windows NT platform configurations that have been tested for use as a Panther RIP. The following guidelines are offered for those who choose to take the responsibility of configuring and obtaining their own PC/Windows NT RIP platforms.

The recommended configuration includes at least a high-performance Windows-NT based computer with 128MB of memory. Faster processor speeds and additional memory can increase performance for most applications. Extra memory is required for optional Panther PageTrapper software module.

Recommended System:

High performance Pentium System with

256K minimum cache**

256MB minimum RAM

SCSI Controller** with external SCSI-2 connector

Min. 4 GB Disk Drive

Ethernet Controller**

CD-ROM Drive**

1.44MB Floppy Drive**

MS-Windows NT v4.0 (with current Service Pack)

**Must be certified Windows NT compatible.

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Description

The Panther® RIP is a true Adobe® PostScript® 3 raster image processor for Panther

Imagesetting Systems. Running on Power Macintosh® or Windows NT PC platforms, Panther RIP harnesses the horsepower of today's workstations. It's an ideal solution for applications from simple pages of text through imposed signatures containing many high-resolution scanned images. The Panther RIP accepts jobs in PostScript, PDF, TIFF, EPS, or JPEG formats.

The Panther RIP is a pure software RIP, driving film and plate recorders through a standard SCSI-2 interface. Starting with Adobe CPSI as a building block, PrePRESS engineers add input

software, user controls, and drivers for film and plate recorders. Since one engineering team designs the entire Panther Imagesetting System, you are assured of smooth integration of the components.

by eliminating the need for operator intervention.

Optional modules let you customize a workflow solution for the most specialized and

demanding requirements. Panther PageTrapper adds Adobe in-RIP trapping, for automatic trap compensation on colour jobs. Panther PageImposer watches for completion of individual pages rasterized by the Panther RIP and assembles them into digital flats.

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RIP Software All Platforms

The Panther Licensed Software Package includes:

Standard

Adobe CPSI PostScript 3 Interpreter.

Output device drivers for Panther Family Image recorders, HP DesignJet series large-format plain-paper plotters.

Adobe Accurate Screens.

Large complement of fonts for Macintosh or Windows NT systems.

Optional

ESCOR III Screening

ESCOR-FM Screening

Panther OPI Apple Macintosh & Power Macintosh

Panther OPI Windows NT v4.0 (with current Service Pack)

Panther OPI Solo Integrator for Macintosh and Power Macintosh

PrePRESS RIP Tracker

Panther Compression Option

Panther PageTrapper

Panther PageImposer

Recorder Subsystems

The Panther RIP drives the complete Panther Family of film imagesetting and platesetting systems. Available systems include the PantherPlus and PantherPro series of film/plate recorders, which provide imaging widths up to 625mm (24.625") and recorder imaging speeds up to 1354mm (53.3") per minute, and the Panther FasTRAK metal platesetting systems which image metal plates up to 625 x 914mm (24.625" x 36") at recorder speeds up to a plate a minute.; Proofing from the Panther RIP can be done on the Hewlett-Packard DesignJet colour Plotter Series.
RELEASE 10 Panther RIP

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1. New Adobe RIP software

Panther RIP release 10 includes new versions of Adobe's PostScript 3 interpreter software. Release 10 is based on the latest version of Adobe's Configurable PostScript Interpreter (CPSI) software, version 3011, which provides many improvements and bug-fixes over previous releases. Most importantly, CPSI 3011 fully supports direct printing of Acrobat 4 (PDF 1.3) files, which are not compatible with previous releases of the Panther RIP. Additionally, our PageTrapper option is now based on a new version of Adobe's in-RIP trapping library, which provides many performance and quality improvements over the version which was provided in Panther RIP release 9. Release 10 demonstrates our continuing commitment to providing state-of-the-art RIP solutions based on the latest PostScript technology from Adobe Systems.
: 2. ESCOR III and other screening improvements
: Release 10 provides a completely redesigned set of controls for halftone screening. In addition to providing quality improvements using the ESCOR III screening option, we've also been working to make our screening solutions more automatic and easier to use.; In previous releases, all halftone screens were limited to 256 levels of each color, which could cause noticeable banding and loss of detail for certain types of gradient blends. ESCOR III screens support a full 4096 color levels, so when used in conjunction with PostScript 3's smooth shading operators, banding in gradient blends is virtually eliminated. ESCOR III screening is fully supported in the release 10 RIP.; We have also improved the operator notification of which screens are used in each job. For each halftone screen used in a PostScript job, a message is displayed in the RIP's job accounting log describing the detailed parameters of the screen. This information is also provided in the report files which can optionally be generated for each job which is processed from a hot folder (see item #6 below).

Previously, it has sometimes been difficult to determine which screen is being used in a particular situation, and our screening interface presented several concepts, such as frequency and angle filtering, which many users found difficult to use effectively. In release 10, there is no need to manually specify frequency or angle filtering ranges, as all frequencies and angles are automatically mapped to the nearest supported ESCOR screen.

Currently, ESCOR III screening requires the operator to use the screen builder application to construct screens before they can be used by the Panther RIP. We are currently working to automate this process even further, so that screens can be automatically constructed as they are needed. At this point, we anticipate that this feature will be available for ESCOR III screens in time for our initial shipments of release 10.

ESCOR screening technology has long been recognized as one of the most powerful and high-quality screening solutions available in the industry. With the introduction of ESCOR III screening technology and the other improvements we have added in release 10, it is now much easier to use, as it requires less configuration by the operator and provides much more detailed information on which screens area actually being used. We anticipate continued improvements in this area in the near future.
TOP: 3. In-RIP Separation Controls

In the past, most prepress workflows relied on the page layout application to separate color data into individual color planes before sending it to the imagesetter for printing. In this model, the page layout application was responsible for providing an appropriate set of separation controls, since the application was responsible for determining which colors were imaged on each separation. With the recent industry trends towards PDF-based workflows and in-RIP trapping, however, color separation is increasingly being performed in the RIP rather than at the application. In order to support these requirements, RIPs need to provide an equivalent set of separation controls to those found in front-end applications.

The release 10 Panther RIP addresses this issue by providing several new in-RIP separation controls. Previously, the RIP's user interface only allowed either monochrome or CMYK separations to be produced. Release 10 provides a new separation settings dialog which allows any subset of CMYK separations, plus an arbitrary number of spot color separations, to be printed. For example, the operator can now configure the RIP to output a black plate and a spot color plate for two-color printing, which in the past could only be done by using a front-end application which supported in-RIP separations.

Release 10 also provides a screening settings dialog which allows screen frequencies and angles to be individually specified for each color separation. The operator can choose to allow PostScript job settings to change these frequencies and angles, or an override option can be selected which uses the RIP's settings regardless of any screening settings provided in the job. This option provides the operator with complete control over screening parameters for all separations.

In previous RIP versions, the screen preview display showed all spot colors as shades of gray rather than their actual print colors, since the RIP did not provide any interface to allow the operator to specify the actual color corresponding to a particular spot color name. Release 10 now allows the operator to specify the preview color for any spot color using standard color-selection tools. With this enhancement, the screen preview provides a much more accurate representation of the actual page colors that will be printed.

One problem which can occur with in-RIP separation is unwanted printing of blank color plates. For example, if a CMYK job is sent down which does not contain any magenta data, a blank magenta plate will be printed, causing unnecessary media waste. Release 10 addresses this problem in two ways. First, if the operator knows that a certain plate will always be blank for all jobs, the RIP can be configured to output only a subset of color plates, omitting the blank plates. Secondly, if blank plates occur less predictably on a job-by-job basis, the operator can configure the Panther RIP to dynamically suppress printing of any plate which does not contain any data.

The blank-plate suppression code works by examining each plate as it is rasterized, to determine if the plate is completely empty (containing either all white or all black data). Since some plates may contain registration marks in the plate border areas even if they are otherwise empty, the blank plate configuration dialog allows the operator to specify page margin areas on all four sides of the plate. Marks in the page margin areas are not treated as page marks, so pages which contain nothing but registration marks can still be suppressed by setting the margins appropriately.
: 4. Press control features - CIP3 PPF Files and separation-based page mirror settings

Many printing presses require the press operator to adjust a series of ink well controls to match the ink flow to the distribution of various ink colors on the plate being printed. Performing this adjustment manually can result in increased press startup times and media waste, since it may require many pages to be printed before the ink controls can be brought into proper adjustment. Automated ink control systems have been designed to address this issue, by allowing the RIP to communicate information about each page to the press. This allows the ink controls to be preset before the first page is printed, which can greatly reduce press startup times and media/ink waste.

The release 10 Panther RIP now provides an option to output plate information according to a standard interchange format which has been developed by the Committee for Integration of PrePress, Press, and PostPress (CIP3). This option is also available in the release 10 version of PageImposer, which is also capable of outputting plates. Whenever CIP3 output is specified, the RIP will automatically generate a separate CIP3 Print Production Format (PPF) file for each plate, which contains a preview image of the plate, as well as identifying information such as the page number and section name. This PPF file can be analyzed by an ink key presetting system which then automatically sets up the ink keys on the printing press.

The Panther RIP also provides another option to support the requirements of certain printing presses, which require some color plates to be mirrored in respect to the other plates (sometimes known as s/wrap presses). For example, a printing press may require the Cyan, Magenta, and Black plates to be imaged in right-reading mode, while the Yellow plate must be imaged in wrong-reading mode. The Release 10 RIP now provides the capability to automatically mirror pages based on their plate color names, so any combination of the CMYK plates can be automatically mirrored by the RIP to support this press requirement. This feature works for pages which are separated at the front end by a page layout application, as well as for pages which are separated in the RIP.

5. Support for CCITT Group IV TIFF files

The release 10 Panther RIP now supports an additional compression format for TIFF files, the CCITT Group IV standard. This is a commonly used interchange format for prepress systems; many products such as classified ad systems output data in CCITT Group IV format, and other products, including some ink control systems, use Group IV compressed TIFF files as an input format. The Panther RIP now accepts Group IV compressed TIFF files as an input format, and is also capable of generating these files as an output format. This feature allows the Panther RIP to be interfaced to a wide variety of prepress equipment, including a variety of legacy systems which previously could not be supported.
TOP: 6. Hot folder improvements - completed job expiration options and job report files.

The release 10 RIP provides several enhancements which further automate the processing of jobs which are printed through hot folders. A hot folder is a directory which is actively scanned by the RIP for incoming files, which are automatically processed as soon as they are placed into this directory. The RIP now provides several new options for disposing of jobs after they have been processed, and also provides a more flexible set of options for generating job report files.

In previous RIP releases, the operator could specify that jobs be automatically deleted after processing, or to move jobs to "Completed Jobs" or "Error Jobs" where they would remain indefinitely after they were processed. The Release 10 RIP now supports timed deletion, which helps prevent these folders from filling up with saved copies of jobs which are no longer required. Timed deletion can be specified using two options: expiration intervals or periodic deletion.

Expiration intervals work on a file-by-file basis; once each file has been processed, it will be saved in the completed/error jobs folders for a specified time period and deleted once this time period has expired. For example, the operator can configure the RIP to delete each job one week after it has been processed.

Periodic deletion works by deleting all jobs from the completed/error jobs folders at specific time intervals. For example, the operator can configure a hot folder to delete all completed jobs every Saturday at 12:00 AM. This option is useful for publications which operate under deadline, when all job files are only needed until the time the edition is published.

The RIP now provides a set of controls over job report generation for files processed from hot folders. A job report file is a small text file which describes relevant information about the job, including page count, processing times, PostScript errors, missing fonts, screen usage, and other information. In previous RIP releases, job reports were automatically created for hot folder jobs with errors, but could not be created under any other circumstances. The release 10 RIP now provides a selection which allows job reports to be generated for successful jobs only, error jobs only, all jobs, or no jobs. Job reports are currently available only for jobs processed through hot folders.
: 7. Per-channel RIP settings and device templates.

Jobs can be sent to the Panther RIP using multiple input sources. Each input source can be an AppleTalk channel, a Windows Print Manager port, or a hot folder. Multiple input channels of each type are supported; for example, the operator can configure up to 16 independent AppleTalk input channels, each of which appears as a separate name on their AppleTalk network. Many RIP settings can be independently configured for each input channel; for example, one channel could be configured to print to a DesignJet plotter for proofing purposes, while another channel is set up to print to a Panther-family recorder at a specified resolution.; Release 10 provides several improvements to the per-channel configuration settings. First, per-channel settings are now specified in a centralized location as a set of named "device templates," rather than being configured independently for each channel. This allows a particular set of settings to be used for multiple input channels; for example, a Print Manager port and a hot folder can both be configured to use the same device template. An input channel can be configured either to use the RIP's default settings or to override certain settings with settings from the device template.

Secondly, several additional settings can now be specified in the device template, including screening controls, PageTrapper settings, in-RIP separation parameters, transfer function selection, and CIP3 settings. This means that any of these parameters can be configured independently for each channel. For example, the operator can configure a particular input channel to generate a CIP3 output file for each job which is processed through that channel, or set up two channels, one of which prints monochrome output and another which prints CMYK separations.
: 8. Memory Management

Recent improvements in operating systems and larger memory and disk space configurations have provided us with several opportunities to improve the Panther RIP's performance through more efficient use of available memory. In previous RIP releases, users who upgraded their RIP hardware platforms could not always achieve the full benefits of these platforms due to internal restrictions within the Panther RIP.

Release 10 provides several changes in this area. First, the Windows NT RIP now allocates more memory to CPSI (160 megabytes instead of 40 megabytes) and performs automatic tuning of PostScript memory parameters to take advantage of this additional memory. This can result in significant performance improvements for many types of jobs.

For the MacOS RIP, we have addressed a problem which prevented the RIP from being used with virtual memory turned on. Release 10 fully supports virtual memory, so the RIP's memory partition size can be increased to much larger sizes without increasing the amount of memory which is physically installed in the RIP. Because of this, we have increased the MacOS RIP's standard memory partition size to 200 megabytes, which improves performance significantly in several areas.
TOP: 9. Other improvements

Release 10 provides many improvements and bug-fixes besides the ones mentioned here. Some of the additional features include: -

An option is provided to generate a PostScript error for jobs with missing fonts. When this option is selected, a PostScript error will be generated when a missing font is encountered, rather than printing the page using the Courier substitution font.; - The MacOS RIP has improved its user interface for dialogs and user report messages. Dialogs are now displayed using the MacOS platinum appearance, and in particular all dialogs are fully movable, so if a dialog is obscuring another dialog or window it can be moved out of the way without requiring the operator to cancel out of the dialog. User error and informational reports also use a new format which allows more information to be displayed in the report window; user report windows are also fully movable.

- A new version of the SCSIProbe control panel is included with RIP release 10. This version features a new and more powerful user interface, and is fully compatible with the latest Power Macintosh models including the G4

. - The PantherPlus/52 image recorder now supports an additional resolution, 3048 dpi. Previously, this recorder was only capable of imaging up to a maximum of 2540 dpi. This change does not require any hardware modifications to the recorder; the new resolution will be automatically available when an existing PantherPlus/52 recorder is upgraded to use a release 10 RIP; . - Several additional options have been added to the advanced naming conventions for archive and TIFF file output. These include the ability to use the input file name directly as part of the output file name, and a variety of additional job numbering options for improved flexibility. Naming conventions are particularly important for users of PageImposer, since the RIP must create archive files whose names match the format specified by the PageImposer job. The new file naming options in the RIP provide much more flexibility in this area.

- The plate settings dialogs for narrow (1.3") and Pro/62-class recorders now support an additional vertical image alignment option: vertical centering onto a fixed-length plate

. - Panther RIP release 10 supports several additional models of the DesignJet plotter, including the 1050C, 1055CM, and 3000CP. Additionally, we have added a "Generic DesignJet" selection which can be used to access models which are not on the standard list of supported models. The generic selection will produce either CMYK or monochrome output at 300, 600, or 1200 dpi using maximum widths up to 54 inches.

- A new option is provided to use software compression for archive files. Software compression is an alternative to using the PCI compression option for archive file creation. Software compression may not achieve the same level of performance, or produce the same compression factors, as hardware compression, but it is a significantly better alternative than creating uncompressed archive files. One of the benefits of hardware compression is that it produces significantly better SCSI transfer rates, since the data can be sent in compressed format to recorders which support hardware decompression. Software compression does not provide this benefit, as data is decompressed before sending it to the recorder, but it does result in significantly reduced archive file sizes compared to uncompressed output.

- Release 10 features a new software protection method which is based on software access codes. Previously, customers who purchased major RIP version upgrades, or added optional features to an existing RIP, were required to go through a cumbersom process of returning their old security key and receiving a new one, since all options were controlled from the security key. With the new system, security key swaps are no longer required, making it easier than ever before to purchase RIP upgrades or to add new features to an existing RIP. Since access codes are based on serial numbers, customers will be required to send in their current RIP serial number when purchasing RIP or feature upgrades; however, they will no longer be required to swap their security key for a new one.

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