(v13) Timelines in the RIP

This page applies to Harlequin v13.1r0 and later; both Harlequin Core and Harlequin MultiRIP

The work that the RIP is doing is sub-divided and each stage of the RIP process is represented with a timeline. As far as the core RIP is concerned there is a timeline to represent the job (eventually the skin also will have its own timeline to represent a job). The reason for doing this is that a number of distinct files might make up one job. For example, if you had a simple PostScript language file that used PDF exec to run other jobs, then the concept of “the job” becomes more difficult. The PostScript language program could load, for example, two or more PDF files as part of the same “job”. In this case we could use individual job timelines to represent the overall PostScript language job and each of the separate PDF jobs that the PostScript language file is running. This means we can sub-divide what the RIP is doing and then have a unique

identifier for the particular thing we are dealing with whilst still allowing the RIP skin, for example, to understand the overall, bigger picture. You can work to whatever scale you want.

There are timelines that represent the job and timelines that represent the interpretation and rendering of any particular page. In addition, there are timelines that represent the page buffer with an extent of how many bands make up the page buffer, and there are progress reports along that timeline as each band is delivered. Eventually, more processes will be represented by timelines as they are replacing a large number of individual separate events the RIP used for very short periods. Many of these events were repeatedly doing the same tasks: informing that something has started, something is making progress and something has finished, whether it was processing the job, sending the page buffer, or doing the halftone generation and so on. The timeline concept replaces all these individual messages along with the benefits of the hierarchy as well as other benefits such as context.