The Scalable RIP is a feature available in the Harlequin Core v12 and later. It provides a framework for supporting multiple RIPs on a single computer in a safe, clean, and thread-safe manner, to get as much performance out of the underlying hardware as possible. It makes use of many of the newer features in the Harlequin Core including the union file system, input queues, and persistent input sources.

The Scalable RIP Processes a multiple-page PDF across multiple RIPs (by RIPping page ranges in parallel); it can RIP multiple single-page PDFs in parallel.

A single-page PDF of any size is unlikely to benefit from the use of the Scalable RIP.

Running the Harlequin Core in Scalable RIP mode simply requires an additional option to clrip.exe: -nrips, and an LDK key (or a password for an LE-secured RIP); for information see “Licensing” below. For more integrated implementations see the Harlequin Core SDK Developer's Guide for programmatically requesting that the Harlequin Core runs as a Scalable RIP and specifying how many rendering RIP instances should be used.

When invoking the Scalable RIP (-nrips), you must use the -m and -f options.

The -m option specifies the memory (in MB) to use among all the farm RIP instances. For example, the use of nrips 4 -m 3000 would split 3000 MB among four farm RIPs, giving 750 MB to each. Memory requirements vary, but a good starting point for evaluation is to assign 3000 MB to each RIP (that is, two RIPs using -m 6000 and for four RIPs -m 12000 – assuming there is sufficient memory in the system).

If you don’t use -f you may get errors and you won’t get the full set of output TIFF rasters because multiple RIPs may try to rewrite to the same output file.

For example, the following produces 300 dpi CMYK output in TIFF format using four RIPs, each with 2 GB RAM:

    clrip -c CMYKComposite300dpi -m 8192 -nrips 4 -f “C:\RASTEROUTPUT\%j-%p.tiff” ..\Samples\INSECURE-Mag-54.pdf

Licensing

The Scalable RIP requires a license for each farm RIP (the value of the -nrips option), plus the Scalable RIP license option. The Harlequin Core evaluation licenses usually enable at least eight RIPs and include the Scalable RIP option. Please contact your account manager if the Scalable RIP won’t run for you with your license.