Smart Print Controller v4.3, Copyright (c) 2023 Global Graphics Software. All rights reserved.

Overview

Smart Print Controller provides a user with two conceptual methods of operations:

1. Engineer - Installation and setup.
2. Operator - Manage job submission and review progress.

This 'operator' level of operation can be driven from external clients using an industry-standard interface.

When the Open Platform Communications (OPC) server in Smart Print Controller is enabled an OPC node tree is published. The top-level nodes in this tree represent grouped areas of state and functionality. For example, the Servers section allows:

• the RIP Server list to be enumerated.
• the server connection status to be examined.
• all servers to be restarted.
• ...and more.

Certificates

Communication between OPC UA clients and servers require both parties to possess their own application certificate. To enable further communication each party must trust the opposing certificate. This trust can be established automatically, programmatically or manually depending on the application's configuration or implementation. The certificate for SPC can be found in %programdata%\Global Graphics Software Ltd\Smart Print Controller\App Certificates\certs should you need to copy it to the Trusted Peer Certificate folder. In this release it is a Self Signed Certificate issued by and for Smart Print Controller.

OPC Nodes

The OPC node mechanism will report when any state changes, allowing clients to react accordingly.

While most exposed values can be read by a client, write-access (or calling a method to request a state change in Smart Print Controller) requires External Control to be granted (See App.IsExternalControlActive). This is an action explicitly performed by the Smart Print Controller operator, resulting in control of the application to be given to the OPC client.

Server Mode

If Smart Print Controller is launched with a /ServerMode command-line argument the application will be launched minimized, with OPC automatically enabled and External Control granted.

Setting App.ServerModeLocked will ensure the application window stays minimized, with no option to be restored to the screen.

OPC Methods

Many published OPC method nodes return a String value indicating their success or error state:

Any methods listed in this documentation include details about their required parameters (if any), and return value.

In the event of an error, please see the Smart Print Controller log file for more information.

OPC Client Library

There are several OPC libraries available, but the one used internally by Smart Print Controller is from Traeger Industry Components GmbH.

NOTE The default maximum message sizes used by OPC clients to communicate to the server are sufficient for most use cases. However, to ensure transfer of larger data packets (such as retrieving some job thumbnail images) it may be necessary to configure the OPC client with custom values. For example:

	Client = new OpcClient();
	Client.Transport.MaxArrayLength = 1024 * 1024 * 50;
	Client.Transport.MaxBufferSize = 1024 * 1024 * 50;
	Client.Transport.MaxMessageSize = 1024 * 1024 * 50;
	Client.Transport.MaxStringLength = 1024 * 1024 * 50;

See here for more information.

SPCSet

SPCSet is the top-level set containing all available OPC nodes. Immediately underneath this root-level node are a categorized collection of sub-nodes, each encapsulating a different area of behavior.

ActiveJob

State relating to the currently active job.

Properties

ActiveMedia

State relating to the currently active media.

Details

The active media is the one actually being used to print.
The selected media (See AllMedia.SelectedName) is the one highlighted in the application UI.

Properties

AllJobs

State relating to all jobs in the Waiting/Print/Completed queues. This tree dynamically includes children named from the GUID of each known job.

Details

These OPC nodes are fully populated to a consistent state when the OPC server starts, apart from job GUIDs - These nodes are dynamically added and removed as jobs are added and removed to/from the workflow.
(If there are already jobs in the workflow, these GUIDs will exist when the OPC server starts.)

When a job is added to the Waiting queue a GUID node is created containing the job information (containing the same tag names as the ActiveJob node) and that GUID is added to the WaitingQueue array.
The job keeps the same GUID as is travels through the system, moving between the WaitingQueue, PrintingQueue, and CompletedQueue arrays.

The GUID node is removed when the job is removed from the workflow.

See the SingleJob section for a description of all available job-level nodes.

Properties

Methods

AllMedia

State relating to all available media.

Properties

Methods

Files

NOTE OPC File nodes contain functions which allow access to file content:

• Open(int fileAccess) - Open the file with the specified fileAccess (1:read, 2:write), returning an integer file handle.
• Read(int fileHandle, int length) - Read data from an open file handle, returning an array of bytes.
• Write(int fileHandle, byte[] buffer) - Write/append data to an open file handle.
• Close(int fileHandle) - Close the file handle after use.

For more information see the OPC documentation.

AllMedia.SelectedMedia

State relating to the selected media (See AllMedia.SelectedName).

Details

Note that when setting new media properties the changes are set in the Smart Media immediately, but changes must be applied using App.ApplySettings() before they take effect on the server(s).

Properties

Methods

App

State relating to the entire application.

Properties

Methods

Files

NOTE OPC File nodes contain functions which allow access to file content:

• Open(int fileAccess) - Open the file with the specified fileAccess (1:read, 2:write), returning an integer file handle.
• Read(int fileHandle, int length) - Read data from an open file handle, returning an array of bytes.
• Write(int fileHandle, byte[] buffer) - Write/append data to an open file handle.
• Close(int fileHandle) - Close the file handle after use.

For more information see the OPC documentation.

PrintBarGroups

State relating to the active print bars.

Details

Note that each print bar 'group' corresponds to a collection of print bars which use the same settings (BPP, resolution, etc).

Properties

Methods

PrinterProfile

State relating to the active printer profile.

Properties

Methods

PrintRun

State relating to the print run.

Properties

Methods

PrintRunConfig

State relating to the print configuration (Applies to both media sides).

Properties

PrintRunConfig.ConfigSideA

The print configuration specific to media side 'A'.

Properties

PrintRunConfig.ConfigSideB

The print configuration specific to media side 'B'.

Properties

Servers

State relating to the collection of RIP Servers.

Properties

Methods

Files

NOTE OPC File nodes contain functions which allow access to file content:

• Open(int fileAccess) - Open the file with the specified fileAccess (1:read, 2:write), returning an integer file handle.
• Read(int fileHandle, int length) - Read data from an open file handle, returning an array of bytes.
• Write(int fileHandle, byte[] buffer) - Write/append data to an open file handle.
• Close(int fileHandle) - Close the file handle after use.

For more information see the OPC documentation.

SingleJob

Describes the collection of nodes representing a single job, positioned as a child of the WaitingQueue, PrintQueue, or CompletedQueue nodes.

Properties

StreamlineDirect

State relating to Streamline Direct technology.

Properties

Methods

WaitingQueueOptions

State relating to the behavior of the Waiting queue.

Properties