roll paper: automatic ganging & cutting?

[horstenj]

Dear all,

I'm preparing to set up a small high-end photo print studio. I will print on 44" roll paper on a large-format inkjet printer. I'm trying to get my head around if this workflow is feasible:

I envision to combine/impose/gang jobs of small images together onto the 44" roll, print them and then cut the images with a cutting plotter. The imposition/ganging should:

1. start and execute automatically and unattended (I envision a hot folder, drop in the images and the imposition just rolls out)
2. allow for mixed sizes of images within a job
3. be as economic wrt media usage as possible
4. take into account that I'm printing on rolls (so length can be easily varied to use media optimally) and not on sheets (of fixed dimension)
5. generate contour information for cutting plotters (FYI, I'm currectly looking at Mimaki, open for other suggestions)

I've looked to several ganging/imposition solutions that are advocated here, including Metrix that seems to be top of the bill(?). Requirement 2 and 3 seems to be fairly standard. I'm not sure about 1. But I've not seen any examples for sultions for requirements 4 (rolls) and 5 (cutting).

Is there a solution? Or am I unrealistic in my expectations? Or do I miss something?

Thanks

Joost

[TerryWyse]

I was completely with you until #5! I'm assuming you mean something that will pick up the cutting information from the auto-ganged/imposed job. Can't help you on that.

As for the rest of your points, there are many RIPs out there that will do that for you without extra ganging/imposition software. Points #1 and #2, virtually any RIP that has a ganging/nesting feature will do that. Point #3, some RIPs will auto-rotate for best media usage, others will not rotate when they nest. Point #4, again, some RIPs will gang/nest based on roll width only (good), others will base it on a "sheet" even if you're using rolls (not so good). The better RIPs will allow you to define the nesting/ganging using either method. GMG Colorproof and EFI Colorproof XF are RIPs that meet your needs for points 1-4 and there are other RIPs I'm sure that will do that as well.

As far as software, I'd take a look at ImageNest by BlueCubit (Software RIP : ImageNest for Mac OSX). Very slick software. Combine this with a ColorBurst RIP and you've got a pretty cost effective solution. You can also use ImageNest as a "RIP" as long as you don't mind using RGB profiles via the printer driver and forgoing a lot of the more advanced features in CMYK RIPs such as ink limiting and linearization.

Regards,
Terry

[horstenj]

Thanks for your reply Terry.

I checked out ImageNest. Seems like a good imposition option indeed. As I'm not on Mac I can't try the demo right now but buying a Mac would not be too big a burden.

But wrt to my requirement on contour information: is this such an uncommon question indeed? How else is one suppose to cut the images from such a nested/ganged/imposed print job? In some volume, manual cutting is not feasible.

Mimaki cutting plotters (being the only ones I currently have some info on) come with plugins for CorelDraw and Illustrator supporting fancy contour plots but that's manual imposition only. The Studioprint RIP I checked DOES support cutters as well but again provide manual imposition only. So currently I seem to be stuck between automatic nesting on one hand and automatic cutting on the other.

I hope I miss something....

Joost