Systems and methods for display list management

Abstract

Systems and methods consistent with some embodiments of the present invention provide data structures and methods for the automatic storing, manipulating and processing of a intermediate printable data generated from a first printable data are presented. In some embodiments, the first printable data may take the form of a PDL description of a document and the intermediate printable data may take the form of a display list of objects generated from the PDL description.In some embodiments, a data structure for storing a intermediate printable data generated from a first printable data may comprise at least one memory pool, which may further comprise a plurality of uniformly sized segments to store the intermediate printable data; at least one global structure for storing information related to the one or more memory pools; and buffers for performing operations on the first printable data and the intermediate printable data.

Description

BACKGROUND[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to the field of printing and in particular, to systems and methods to manage display lists.[0003]2. Description of Related Art[0004]Document processing software allows users to view, edit, process, and store documents conveniently. Pages in a document may be displayed on screen exactly as they would appear in print. However, before the document can be printed, pages in the document are often described in a page description language (“PDL”). As used in this application PDL's may include PostScript, Adobe PDF, HP PCL, Microsoft XPS, and variants thereof as well as any other languages used to describe pages in a document. A PDL description of a document provides a high-level description of each page in a document. This PDL description is often translated to a series of lower-level printer-specific commands when the document is being printed.[0005]The translation process from PDL to lower-level printer-specific...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007]In some embodiments, a computer memory comprising a data structure for storing an intermediate printable data generated from a first printable data may comprise at least one memory pool, which may further comprise a plurality of uniformly sized segments to store the intermediate printable data; at least one global structure for storing information related to the one or more memory pools; and buffers for performing operations on the first printable data and the intermediate printable data. In some embodiments, the uniformly sized segments may occupy contiguous memory locations. In some embodiments, the uniformly sized segments may have a predetermined size. In some embodiments, uniformly sized segments may comprise of either control data structures, or a block to store objects present in the intermediate printable data.

[0008]In some embodiments, the control data structure may comprise one or more of virtual pages, bands, and nodes. In some embodiments, the vpage data structure may comprise a linked list of geometric band data structures representing geometric bands associated with the virtual page, wherein the geometric band data structure may further comprise a linked list of node data structures, wherein the node data structure may include references to any associated blocks. In some embodiments, the data managed by the geometric band may contain offsets to objects stored in a reference band. In some embodiments, the reference band may be configured to hold to data or

Problems solved by technology

The translation process from PDL to lower-level printer-specific commands may be complex and depend on the features and capabilities offered by a particular printer.

Because the eventual trade-offs are model specific, the introduction of new printers or upgrades to existing printers often require revisiting the optimization decisions and may even result in a major overhaul of translation algorithms.

Consequently, the introduction of new printer models, or upgrades to existing printers, may be more expensive, sub-optimal, and needlessly delayed.

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