DivergeNT


DivergeNT was a high-end commercial printing system based on a Canon color copier as the rendering engine. The heart of the system is a configurable print job workflow system consisting of multiple processing engines (such as page rendering with Adobe Configuabe PostScript Interpreter - CPSI), and input and output queues for each processing engine with rule-driven routing. As an example, a workflow might preflight a print job (render at low resolution to quickly check for errors) as soon as it is submitted, perform high-resolution rendering at low priority, and schedule for printing on the third shift.

From the bottom up, the project required the following development.

  • A kernel-mode memory management driver to allocate 8 rendering buffers (1 read & 1 write for CMYK) of 67MB each
  • A second kernel-mode driver to transfer page pixels to copier at 12MB/sec sustained
  • A user-mode printer driver
  • A Windows Service to manage print job workflow
  • A Printer Management Tool to configure job workflow and monitor printing

Our Role in the Project

At the time of this project, CRB Consulting was operating as The Software Studio, Inc. The team designed and implemented a library of reusable components that were integrated and customized for each unique camera's requirements.

Project Status

The completed product was delivered to Colorbus, but the company was soon acquired and the product never released.

Technologies Used

★ C++ ★ Windows NT SDK & DDK ★ Windows Services ★ Adobe CPSI ★ Viewsoft Internet Edition