Software - RIP Software

Caldera announces that its print software suite now includes full support for HP's PageWide range. Its signature RIP, Caldera V10, will demonstrate this as it drives the HP PageWide XL8000 at Viscom Italia, the premier European event which opens today in Milan.

The native speed of Caldera enables it to become amongst the first non-HP RIPs to support the throughput capabilities of the whole range of PageWide models – a combination that visitors to Viscom Italia will be able to see in action for the first time at the HP stand. This is particularly important for users wishing to extend beyond PageWide's natural ability for CAD applications into reproducing high resolution graphics applications, such as posters, point-of-sale work and other indoor signage that represents high-margin output for the machines.

V10's global architecture and consistent adoption of the latest version of the Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE) already provide it with the data transfer power required to take total advantage of HP PageWide, which can output at a rate of 30 A1 prints per minute. This relies not only on its natural ability to harness, easily, the 67MB/s transfer rate necessary to drive these machines but also the in-built automation of job submission, color and media control, ensuring efficiency in delivery and production.

The addition of HP PageWide to Caldera's vast library of supported printers reflects the software manufacturer's extensive heritage in both the CAD and graphics markets, which it has served for almost 25 years – an anniversary the company will celebrate in 2016. During this time it has made sure to move in step not only with technology advances – such as the emergence of Pantone and other color management standards, media optimization and JDF – but also changes in the market to guarantee commercial reliability for its client-base.

"Stability is essential to drive a machine like HP PageWide and is one of the major reasons why customers choose Caldera," explains Joseph Mergui, Chief Executive Officer at Caldera. "It's important that we provide them with the ability to adopt exciting new platforms without having to change the way they print.

"Ensuring that our customers can incorporate the latest solutions and develop their business as they choose to is central to the Caldera promise," he continues. "We look forward to making sure Caldera users continue to be on the forefront of innovation in this way."

Borah Teamwear opened its doors for business in 1996 and has grown steadily since. It started by offering mountain bike attire and saw a demand for custom designed jerseys. The business soon expanded to custom ski, running, and triathlon sportswear. All apparel sold by Borah Teamwear is designed and created within the company's facility. Plus, its apparel is guaranteed for life.

The employees enjoy connecting with their customers and like to know how the apparel is being worn. Employees are even encouraged to “test” the apparel themselves. Located in Wisconsin, Borah Teamwear is currently the top custom sports apparel company in North America.

Using Wasatch SoftRIP in their dye sublimation production, Borah Teamwear has grown their USA based business into a roaring success. "Wasatch is a workhorse. The software is dependable, functional, and consistent,” says Raven Stevenson, Production Manager. “There are never problems with it crashing or being buggy. In fact, the best part of Wasatch is that I don't have to think about it. I know every time I print I will get the results I expect."

Chris Jackson started with a simple passion- designing comfortable high-performance mountain bike shorts. It didn’t take long for his passion to become a growing business selling bike jerseys to go along with their increasingly popular shorts. To keep up with demand, Chris decided to incorporate dye sublimation into his production. You can say the rest is history.

Dye Sublimation Production
The dye sublimation process gave Borah Teamwear flexibility to create orders on-demand while Wasatch SoftRIP controlled their color output and provided a solution to manage their workflow. They tested many RIP’s and found most were bloated with features they didn't necessarily need, but appreciated Wasatch's color controls and intuitive features. Ultimately Wasatch became their RIP of choice.

Custom Apparel
Borah Teamwear is proud to say all their products are made in the USA, but Raven stresses that what is more important is that no shortcuts are taken when creating the custom apparel. They are able to quickly adjust to the market while offering high-quality custom cycling, ski and running sportswear with low minimum quantities. "Businesses that send their operations to other countries aren't able to do what we can do,” comments Raven. "We are able to control the creative and production workflow and when we find a way to improve on these, our business is able to adapt quickly. All of us at Borah Teamwear strive for continuous improvement."

When custom sportswear is your specialty, Variable Data Printing becomes a large part of the production process. Raven relies on Wasatch's VDP Option to personalise prints with varying text, images, and numbers. When using Wasatch’s VDP, it’s simple to import data and assign different logos or graphics to the sportswear design. This saves a significant amount of design time and eliminates errors.

Colour Matters
Raven understands the quality of their product depends on consistent colour reproduction and appreciates that the colour controls in Wasatch are straightforward. Raven creates his own profiles and also uses spot colours when an exact colour match is needed. To help standardise colour choices, they use the Colour Atlas Generator to produce colour swatch books on their different fabrics for the production and graphic design teams to reference. Once the perfect spot colour is chosen for an incoming job, it is easily replaced with Wasatch’s Spot Colour Replacement tool.

Nordic Skiers sporting their team's suits, manufactured by Borah Teamwear and produced with the aid of Wasatch SoftRIP.

KL Druck in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany has been using ONYX RIPs and Thrive workflow solutions for many years and is one of the first companies in the world to upgrade to ONYX 12, launched earlier this month. This large company is a wide format printing showcase. It offers the full prepress - printing - finishing - installation service to customers worldwide and produces a wide variety of outdoor, transport, POS and event graphics on its extensive line up of UV, dye-sublimation, latex, water-based and solvent digital printers printing to flexible/rigid materials including textiles.

"We want to be using the most up to date printers delivering the best quality and productivity so we tend to invest in a new printer every few months," says Gunther Fells, Head of Digital Printing at KL Druck. The company invested in Germany's first HP FP10000 - now upgraded to an FB11000 - which complements 13 other wide format printers, including a HP Latex 3000, a HP Latex 3500, a Vutek GS5000r, a Durst Rhotex322, a new Durst RhotexHS, an HP TJ8600, HP TJ8350, Durst Rho312 and several Epson solvent and HP Latex printers.

The new ONYX 12 software delivers faster RIP performance, a simplified user interface and advanced finishing tools to do more in less time. "Our ONYX Thrive drives 99% of our equipment and upgrading to the new ONYX 12 has had an immediate impact on our productivity and opened up new business opportunities for us," says Gunther. "It processes 64-bit files 2-3 times faster than before so we can get jobs into production really quickly. This is really important to maximise the power of our high-speed printers such as our new Durst RhotexHS which prints at 300-900 sqm/hr. There is no bottleneck at the RIP. Plus, while we tend to focus on handling print runs of 100+ we can now happily accept print runs of as little as one because we can process files at speed, queue them and print them extremely quickly. This has opened up new markets for us and meets the growing trend for ultra-customisation."

ONYX 12 features a redesigned user interface which displays a visual, interactive job list enabling operators to easily find jobs, view printer information, and quickly make edits. Complete job information – including thumbnails – is displayed and can be customized to suit each operation’s needs. Live, colour-managed previews display job edits as they happen: users can see exactly where grommets, marks, tiling, crops, cut paths, spot colours and mirroring are placed before processing. This intuitive feature saves time and reduces waste by eliminating guesswork and proof reprints.

The new GUI features have impressed Gunther. "This is much more user friendly and even our new, untrained, operators have found it easy to learn and use," he says. "It's very logical and more visual. Instead of file names, we see print previews of the jobs in the queue which makes everything much easier when it comes to fast identification and changing priorities."

Following consecutive successes at France's premier visual communications show, Viscom Paris, Caldera will return with a stylish selection of solutions for trade professionals at stand D054. Along with a dedicated digital signage learning area, the software manufacturer will demonstrate the latest version of its powerful wide-format RIP suite, as well as on-trend solutions for workflow and bespoke integration.

Caldera's visionary digital signage product, Variable Display, will lead the parade with its upgrade to version 3.40. As always, user feedback has initiated changes such as new file formats, video transcoding and playback options, and advanced support for HTML5 and CS3. Crucially, quick-view remaining media volume and playlist status indicators have been added, as have integrations to replace proprietary playback software with open-source alternatives to enhance ongoing product development.

Last year Caldera led on the Print + Digital concept and it will repeat this formula at Paris's Porte de Versailles between 29th September and October 1st 2015. The company invites experienced printers and first-time digital display users alike to learn about how to create high-margin, attention-grabbing applications by combining quality printed graphics with dynamic content. It will also be on hand to explain to Viscom Paris's audience from the creative and advertising worlds how to make the most of these new opportunities, and how to work with visual communications professionals to create stunning projects that return rapidly on investment.

In keeping with its customers' ambitions, Caldera is launching a slender version of its Dynamic Totem product, a simple but highly effective combination of print and digital signage. The VariableDisplay DigitalTotem (Slim version), which is fabricated entirely in France in collaboration with MBS Manufacturing, reduces the depth of the all-in-one unit to 69 x 180cm, making it simpler to install within higher-traffic areas. Combining Caldera Variable Display with a popular screen and a robust aluminium frame, DigitalTotem Slim, like its larger variant, enables the speedy changeover of printed panels to accommodate seasonal and time-limited advertising transitions.

"The Viscom Paris audience knows that the Caldera stand will always show them something inspiring but practical, and this year is no different," says Sébastien Hanssens, Vice President Marketing for Caldera. "Digital signage is becoming very fashionable for retailers, interior designers and visual communicators of all kinds, and our clients in the printing industry are recognising this. We're here to provide both technical solutions and stimulation to stakeholders of all kinds, and Viscom Paris is always the right place to do so."

Onyx Graphics, Inc., has launched ONYX 12 software, the next generation of the company’s wide format workflow and RIP products.  Built on the proven platform of ONYX 11 RIP software and ONYX Thrive workflow software, ONYX 12 software delivers faster RIP performance, a simplified user interface and advanced finishing tools to do more in less time.

Specifically developed to make printing more predictable, ONYX 12 software enables print operators to print jobs right the first time. ONYX 12 software will be available for the full ONYX software product line including ONYX Thrive workflow software, and ONYX ProductionHouse, ONYX PosterShop and ONYX RIPCenter RIP software.

“With ONYX 12 software, the increase in RIP speed is incredible! We went from a file taking almost a minute to RIP to now only taking nine to 15 seconds,” said Corey Nicolaisen, Print Technology Support Specialist for West Canadian Digital Imaging Inc. (Calgary, AB). “In addition the more graphical interface has Onyx Graphics’ meeting the expectations that users have of their software platforms in today’s market.”

ONYX 12 software delivers better utilisation of memory and hardware when running the latest Windows OS to maximise the system investment with a modern, proven platform. It utilises the complete 64-bit platform throughout – in the RIP as well as modules – to harness full processing capabilities, delivering not just faster speeds but greater responsiveness as well. ONYX 12 software delivers RIP speeds twice as fast as ONYX 11 software and a more responsive user interface.

Updated RIP engines, including the latest Adobe PDF Print Engine 3.6 in ONYX Thrive software, boosts performance and delivers optimised end-to-end PDF workflows.

A redesigned user interface displays a visual, interactive job list enabling operators to easily find jobs, view printer information, and quickly make edits. Complete job information – including thumbnails – is displayed and can be customised to suit each operation’s needs.

Live, colour-managed previews display job edits as they happen: users can see exactly where grommets, marks, tiling, crops, cut paths, spot colours and mirroring are placed before processing. This intuitive feature saves time and reduces waste by eliminating guesswork and proof reprints.

Quick Sets – production templates that streamline routine tasks – have been redesigned so they’re easier to build, navigate and save. Users can ensure consistency throughout the production floor by sharing Quick Sets between printers, and easily change Quick Sets for an existing job without the need to re-open it.

Print service providers can easily produce a variety of new applications, and improve the workflow for existing applications, with the new Bleed function. For example within ONYX 12, users can add borders for wrapped canvas prints, pole pocket trim for banners or top/bottom extensions for pop-up stands without the need to redesign the original artwork. Users can combine the Bleed function with Automatic Cut Path Generation to eliminate white space in print-and-cut jobs for perfectly finished pieces without artwork adjustments.

New finishing tools enable automatic grommet and mark placement for creating prints that are ready for finishing. Grommet marks are accurately placed without manual measurement. Grommet mark size, style and spacing can also be customised.

New page and offset controls assist with placement of images for a variety of roll-to-roll and flatbed applications. The new offset functions enable full-roll finishing when using roll cutters such as those from Fotoba and Zünd, and provide added control in rigid flatbed applications. These features eliminate manual positioning calculation, speed throughput and reduce waste.

You can view the ONYX 12 promotional video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDbSohBllr4 or see all videos available on the ONYX TV channel on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/OnyxGraphics.

Availability

ONYX 12 software will be available for order beginning August 31, 2015. To purchase an ONYX 12 software license or to upgrade through the ONYX Advantage software maintenance program, customers should contact their authorised ONYX reseller or visit www.onyxgfx.com for more information.

The CADlink development team has released the following information regarding Windows® 10 support:

•    Only the latest version and build of all CADlink commercially available software products provide support of Windows™ 10.
•    No previous versions or builds of any CADlink software products have been tested using, or "officially" support Windows™ 10.

The following is a detailed list of CADlink software builds and revisions that support Windows™ 10
•    SignLab - v9.1 Build 8
•    EngaveLab - v9.1 Build 8
•    Digital Factory/ Digital Factory Apparel- v3 Build 5.22.00
•    FilmMaker - v4 Build 5.22.00
•    ProfileLab - v9.1 Build 8

CADlink strongly encourages that any existing customers who are presently considering an upgrade to Windows® 10 ensure that they have the version and build numbers listed above prior to upgrading their operating system.

Please visit http://www.cadlink.com for additional information or call +44 (0) 1462 420 222 (UK office) or email sales@cadlink.co.uk.