Transparent Object Overlap Detection for Printing Efficiency
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The existing techniques for printing transparent objects using printers require significant memory and time for alpha blending, especially when multiple transparent objects are involved, as they need to consider the background colors, leading to inefficient processing.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus that includes an overlap determination unit to identify non-overlapping transparent objects and converts their drawing data into formats without alpha channels, reducing memory usage and processing time by performing white blending processing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If alpha blending processing is performed for all transparent objects in the printer, then accurate transparency rendering is achieved, but memory usage and processing time increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The overlap determination unit performs preliminary analysis before printing to identify transparent objects that do not overlap with other objects. These non-overlapping objects are converted to opaque format in advance, so that during actual printing, alpha blending is only required for overlapping objects, significantly reducing processing time and memory usage while maintaining rendering accuracy where needed
2Reliability
If alpha blending processing is performed for all transparent objects in the printer, then accurate transparency rendering is achieved, but the amount of memory used increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of uniformly applying alpha blending to all transparent objects, the invention applies different processing methods to different objects based on their spatial relationships. Non-overlapping transparent objects are converted to opaque format, while overlapping objects retain transparency. This localized differentiation reduces memory usage by eliminating the need to store and process alpha channel data for objects where it is not needed
3Adaptability or versatility
If the number of transparent objects is large, then document complexity increases, but processing time increases even with existing optimization techniques
Solution Approach 1:
The overlap determination unit performs preliminary classification of transparent objects before the main printing process. By identifying and converting non-overlapping objects to opaque format in advance, the system reduces the number of objects requiring time-consuming alpha blending operations, thereby scaling efficiently even when handling documents with large numbers of transparent objects
Data Source
AI summary
A processor of an information processing apparatus determines, if a drawing object making up page data of a print job is a transparent object having an alpha channel as color information, whether the transparent object overlaps another drawing object. If the transparent object does not overlap the other drawing object, the processor converts drawing data of the transparent object into drawing data of a drawing object not having an alpha channel as color information. If the transparent object overlaps the other drawing object, the processor does not convert the drawing data of the transparent object into the drawing data of the drawing object not having the alpha channel as color information. Based on the converted drawing data and on the non-converted drawing data, the processor creates PDL data to be output to an image forming apparatus.