CN1648925B - Configuration and operation method of prepress workflow - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a configuration and operation method of a pre-press workflow, which belongs to the pre-press technology. In the prior art, the configuration and running mode of the workflow are relatively fixed. If you want to add new functions or change the sequence of the process, you can only write a new workflow scheduler to replace the existing program; A technique in which configuration information (such as a configuration file) changes the way a process is run, usually limited to a tree-like workflow model. The method of the present invention constructs an iterative, multi-input and output, and highly concurrent workflow model through the correspondence between resources and processing and the designation of processing priority. By adopting the method of the present invention, the processor is no longer limited to a single input of the tree-like workflow, and the new resources generated by processing are no longer limited to only being processed by the subsequent branches of the tree-like flow, so that the workflow is configured and The flexibility at runtime has been significantly enhanced, and the processing efficiency has been improved.

Description

Configuration and operation method of prepress workflow

technical field

The invention belongs to the technical field of prepress (Prepress), and in particular relates to a configuration and operation method of a prepress workflow.

Background technique

In the prior art, the main workflow in the field of prepress technology is a tree-like workflow model, that is, a series of pre-specified processes are arranged into a tree-like hierarchical structure, and the node at the root of the tree receives the initial input resource and initiates the process. Generate its own output resources and submit them to the processing nodes below it for further execution. All processing nodes follow this processing mode.

The construction process of processing nodes in the tree flow is either fixed, or stored in configuration information and dynamically constructed at runtime.

All processing modules in the tree-like process finally form a tree-like hierarchical structure. The output of any module can only be used as the input of the module just below it, and the input of any module can only be the module just above it. output, which in some cases can be inconvenient for workflow planning. For example: when a module located in the lower layer outputs resources that are expected to be processed by the upper layer module, the process cannot be built; another example: when two processing modules output the same resource, these resources should have received the same follow-up processing, if using For tree-like process planning, it is necessary to place a hierarchy of processing modules with exactly the same structure under the two modules, which is inconvenient and error-prone, and will cause a lot of trouble when adding processing modules to the process.

The tree-like hierarchical structure limits the input and output of processing modules. A single processing module can only have a unique input resource type and a unique output resource type, and it cannot do anything about the processing process that produces multiple output resources at the same time.

Contents of the invention

Aiming at the defects existing in the prior art, the purpose of the present invention is to propose a method for configuring and running a prepress workflow, which can improve the limitation caused by the tree hierarchy to the workflow planning, and the processing module can realize multi-input and Multi-output resource processing makes it easy to add new processing modules and resource types.

In order to achieve the above object, the technical solution adopted in the present invention is: a method for configuring and operating a pre-press workflow, comprising the following steps:

(1) Customize the pre-press workflow and determine the pre-press processing that needs to be performed, but there is no need to specify the dependencies between these processes. The dependencies are completely determined by the types of input resources that can be accepted by each process and the types of output resources that can be generated;

(2) Storage of prepress workflow configuration information, which includes relevant configuration information required for the operation of all processing modules, and these configuration information can be edited to affect the behavior of the workflow;

(3) Start the process scheduling module, read the workflow configuration information, configure the processing modules, organize the processing modules into a set and store them;

(4) When a resource to be processed enters the process scheduling module, the process scheduling module judges which processing modules want to process the resource, and sends the resource to the corresponding processing module for processing based on this;

(5) If the processing module constructs new resources to be processed during the process of processing, these new resources to be processed will be resubmitted to the process scheduling module for further processing, that is, the processing process of step (4) will be repeated;

(6) When the process scheduling module processes resources, the tracking module maintains the corresponding resources;

(7) If the resource submitted to the process scheduling module does not need to perform any processing, it is considered that it has completed all processing in this case.

Furthermore, in order to make the present invention have a better effect, the pre-press workflow configuration information in step (2) can establish a priority order between modules processing similar resources, and the workflow configuration information can specify one for each processing module. Priority, when multiple processing modules need to process a certain resource, the module with lower priority must wait for the module with higher priority to finish processing the resource first, and modules with the same priority can process the same pending resource processing at the same time.

The pre-press processing described in step (1) includes: mutual conversion between various page description file formats, folding or imposition processing, various color correction processing, rasterization processing, various laser phototypesetting or direct plate-making processes.

In step (4), when the process scheduling module determines which processing a resource needs to perform, it inquires each processing module through an interface that all processing modules must implement, and the processing module decides whether to process the resource.

When the corresponding resources are maintained by the tracking module in step (6), each tracking module maintains a list of sub-resources for each resource, and the tracking module is combined by the process scheduling module. The resource object of , when a resource and all its sub-resources have completed the processing that needs to be performed, the tracking module will mark that the processing of this resource is completed.

The effect of the present invention is that: by adopting the method described in the present invention, the workflow planning can be freed from the restriction of the tree-like hierarchical structure, the construction and configuration flexibility of the workflow is significantly enhanced, and it is convenient to add new processing modules and resource types. Input and multiple output processing modules provide full support.

The reason why the present invention has the above effects is that the method described in the present invention constructs an iterative, multi-input and output, highly concurrent workflow model through the correspondence between resources and processing and the designation of processing priority. With the method of the present invention, the processor is no longer limited to the single input of the tree-like workflow, and the new resources generated by processing are no longer limited to be processed by the subsequent branches of the tree-like flow, so that the workflow is configured and The flexibility at runtime has been significantly enhanced, and the processing efficiency has been improved.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the flowchart of the configuration and operation method of a kind of prepress workflow described in the present invention;

Figure 2 is a flow chart of a digital printing job employing the method of the present invention.

Detailed ways

Below in conjunction with accompanying drawing and embodiment the present invention will be further described:

As shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, a digital printing operation (PS file) needs to carry out rasterization, preview image generation sequentially, dot matrix modification, folding hand and printing process, if adopt the method described in the present invention, will follow the steps deal with:

(1) Customize the pre-press workflow, determine the pre-press processing that needs to be performed, and store configuration files. The storage configuration file can be manual, or it can be a special program. Arbitrary sequence codes are assigned to rasterization and printing processing, and the same sequence codes are used to generate folding hands and preview images. Fold hands and preview image generation height;

(2) The process scheduling module generates a resource representing the PS file, and asks all processing modules whether the resource can be processed;

(3) The rasterization processing module indicates that the resource can be processed, so the resource is delivered to rasterization processing to generate a 1-bit lattice resource;

(4) The 1-bit lattice resource is submitted to the scheduling module, and the scheduling module inquires all processing modules again;

(5) Folding hands, preview image generation, and dot matrix modification processing modules all indicate that they can process 1-bit dot matrix, but because the sequence code of dot matrix decoration is high, it processes this resource first, and after processing, the 1-bit dot matrix is passed Go to the processing module with a lower sequence code, generate folded hands and preview images;

(6) Since the folded hand and preview image generation have the same sequence code, they will process 1-bit dot matrix resources at the same time, and generate the folded hand large version resource after the folded hand is processed;

(7) The large-format resource of folded hands is submitted to the scheduling module, and the scheduling module inquires all the processing modules again;

(8) The print processing module indicates that it can process the folded hand format, so it prints the folded hand format on the medium, and all processing of this job is completed.

The execution of the processing depends entirely on what kind of resources enter the process, and there is no need to explicitly specify the dependencies of the processing modules (the characteristics of the tree process), but only need to specify what processing is included in the process, and the execution process of the processing is completely It depends on what kind of resources enter the process and what kind of resources are generated during the processing. It is precisely under this matching of resources and processing that the workflow dynamically determines the execution sequence and runs automatically and efficiently.

The sequence code specified for a module is only meaningful to modules that process the same resource. For example, in the above implementation, the sequence code of rasterization is not necessarily higher than the sequence code of folding hand, because the output of rasterization will become the input of folding hand .

Claims (5)

1. the configuration of a work flow before printing and operation method may further comprise the steps:

(1) the customization work flow before printing need to determine the seal pre-treatment of execution;

Required relevant configuration information when (2) storage of work flow before printing configuration information, work flow before printing configuration information comprise the operation of all processing modules is by editing the behavior that influences workflow to configuration information;

(3) start the flow scheduling module, read the workflow configuration information, the configuration process module is organized into a set to processing module and stores;

When (4) resource of handling when needs entered the flow scheduling module, the flow scheduling module judged which processing module wishes to handle this resource, and on this basis resource was sent to corresponding processing module and handle;

(5) if processing module is constructed the pending resource that makes new advances in carrying out the process of handling, these new pending resources can resubmit to the flow scheduling module further to be handled, i.e. the processing procedure of repeating step (4);

(6) in the process of flow scheduling resume module resource, be responsible for the process state information of maintenance resources by a tracing module;

(7) do not need to carry out any processing if submit to the resource of flow scheduling module, think that in this case it has finished all processing.

2. the configuration of a kind of work flow before printing as claimed in claim 1 and operation method, it is characterized in that: the work flow before printing configuration information in the step (2) is set up priority between the module of handling similar resource, the workflow configuration information is specified a priority for each processing module, when a plurality of processing modules all need to handle certain resource, the module that priority is lower must wait for that the higher module of priority finishes the processing to this resource earlier, and the module that priority is identical can be handled simultaneously to same pending resource.

3. the configuration of a kind of work flow before printing as claimed in claim 1 and operation method, it is characterized in that: the seal pre-treatment described in the step (1) comprises: the mutual conversion between the various page description file forms, folding hand or layout processing, various colour correction processing, rasterization process, various laser photo-typesettings or the process of directly making a plate.

4. the configuration of a kind of work flow before printing as claimed in claim 1 or 2 and operation method, it is characterized in that: the flow scheduling module judges which a resource need carry out when handling in the step (4), inquire each processing module respectively by the interface that all processing modules all must realize, whether processing module handles this resource according to the type of resource and the various information decisions of carrying thereof.

5. the configuration of a kind of work flow before printing as claimed in claim 1 or 2 and operation method, it is characterized in that: in the step (6) during by the state of tracing module maintenance resources, tracing module is sub-the Resources list of each conservation of resources, tracing module is merged by the flow scheduling module to be served as, child resource is meant the new resource object that resource object generates in processing procedure, all having finished when a resource and all child resources thereof needs the processing carried out separately, and tracing module will identify finishing dealing with of this resource.

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