Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

A printer includes a procedure for assigning received print commands, in a page intermediate form, to page strips to be printed. The page strips are subsequently rasterized. The printer implements a method for predetermining whether the received print commands exceed an adaptively determined complexity threshold and, if so, the received print commands are rasterized immediately and stored in supplemental memory. The method includes the steps of: determining for each object to be printed on a page, in which page strip or page strips the object resides; for a portion of the object residing in a first page strip, finding a print complexity factor for the portion of the object; summing the found print complexity factor to previously found print complexity factors to determine an intermediate strip complexity factor for the page strip; providing an immediate rasterization threshold value which is varied in accordance with the amount of available supplemental memory; comparing the intermediate strip complexity factor to the immediate rasterization threshold and if it exceeds the threshold, rasterizing all objects in the first strip and storing the rastered data in the supplemental memory. The method further provides for adjustment of an amount of memory assigned to supplemental memory so as to enable more immediate rasterization when memory is plentiful.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim