Streamline Direct

Introduction

Streamline Direct is an application to pre-process PDFs destined to be ripped by Harlequin with the aim of improving RIP throughput by optimizing images, fonts, and reusable page components.

Streamline Direct can also be used to streamline "problem" PDFs to achieve the same output quality while maximizing your device speed. If you require non-PDF formats, you can adapt Streamline Direct to convert many formats to print-ready PDFs.

Streamline Direct is a stand-alone, command-line application whose behavior is controlled by a configuration file in JSON format. This approach simplifies integrating Streamline Direct into a print workflow.

Streamline Direct is built with Mako Core.

Usage

Run StreamlineDirect.exe on the command line to find the most up-to-date usage.

The current version yields:

StreamlineDirect 1.1.1.56 (Mako V6.1.1)
Copyright (c) 2021 Global Graphics Software Ltd. All rights reserved.

Usage:
   StreamlineDirect.exe /features
      Returns a list of processing features supported by the command line.
   StreamlineDirect.exe <configuration file> <input pdf file> <output folder> [/markup] [/report <report text file>]
      Processes the input pdf/ijpds file, writing the output with the same filename (with a PDF extension) to an output folder, where:
          /markup: Adds the processed content to a new layer.

Configuration file

The configuration file describes how Streamline Direct runs. It determines:

• The features used for processing.
• The configuration of the target printer.
• The configuration of Mako.

An example configuration follows:

{
    "configuration" : {
        "enableFontSubsetting" : false,
        "maxAccumulatedPages" : 0
    },

    "printer" : {     
        "dpi" : 900
    },    

    "features" : {    
        "image-downsampler" : true,
        "image-vectorizer" : true,
		"transparency-flattener" : true
    },
	
	"flattener" : {
        "usethreads"          	  : false,
        "resolution"          	  : 600,
        "vectormodeenabled"       : true,
		"vectorandtextresolution" : 1200,
		"rasterfallbackthreshold" : 100,
		"targetspace"             : "USWebCoatedSWOP.icc",
		"monochromemode"          : false,
		"hasthresholdhalftone"    : false,
		"trigger"                 : 1
    },
	
	"ijpds" : {
        "ripsetup" : "cmyk",
		"riporder" : "0,1,3,2",
		"riprotate" : "180",
		"resourcedirectory" : ""
    }
}

Configuration

The configuration section contains settings that affect how Mako processes the document. 

Printer

The printer section contains settings that describe the target printer.

Features

The features section is a list of features to be used, with a boolean to determine whether the feature is active or not.

"features" : {
	"image-downsampler" : true,
	"image-vectorizer" : true,
	"image-scan-direction-corrector" : true,
	"color-converter" : true,
	"transparency-flattener" : true
}

The order of the features determines the order in which they are applied to the target document.

Use the /features flag to find a full list of features supported by Streamline:

Transparency flattening

For a RIP to produce output in the form of a raster, it must calculate the color of every pixel. For objects subject to transparency (that is, those with an opacity of less than 100%) the pixels that make up that object will interact with others that it overlaps, meaning the RIP must perform calculations to determine what the effective color will be. This can be a time-consuming process, and could slow the effective throughput and in direct-to-print scenarios, hold up the press.

Flattening is the process of reducing this complexity by rendering those page regions affected by transparency, replacing them with a pre-rendered raster. Streamline Direct makes use of a Mako custom transform that is designed for this purpose (IRendererTransform), and offers controls over how it it is applied. The table below lists the options. Add a section to the JSON configuration in this format:

"flattener" : {
    "usethreads"          	  : false,
    "resolution"          	  : 600,
    "vectormodeenabled"       : true,
    "vectorandtextresolution" : 1200,
    "rasterfallbackthreshold" : 100,
    "targetspace"             : "DeviceRGB",
    "targetprofile"           : "USWebCoatedSWOP.icc",
    "monochromemode"          : false,
    "hasthresholdhalftone"    : false,
    "trigger"                 : 1
}

IJPDS

Several input parameters are available to control how Inkjet Printer Data Stream (IJPDS) job content is assembled into the PDF. These collation options are needed because IJPDS job files are input to KODAK VERSAMARK printing systems, and therefore essentially a sequence of bitmap pages, the order of which is arbitrary and determined at file creation. For example, each may be separate monochrome pages or a color separation for a page. Although pages are assigned to a logical RIP (raster image processor) for physical printing, IJPDS doesn't directly specify how the different RIPs are to be interpreted. During testing, we encountered:

• A job with eight RIPs, which should be interpreted as CMYK separations for the front and back of a (duplex) page
• A job with eight RIPs that are all individual mono pages

The collator works by treating all pages assigned the same logical RIP in the same way. The table below lists the options. Add a section to the JSON configuration in this format:

 "ijpds" : {
      "ripsetup" : "cmyk",
      "riporder" : "ordinal",
      "collation" : "bypage",
      "resourcedirectory" : ""
}