Printers to gang up with Australian invention

Rohan Holt, the Australian inventor of SuperImpose, the product that was adapted and renamed UpFront when it was acquired by ScenicSoft in 1999, is back with a new company, LithoTechnics, and a new product, Metrix.

Metrix employs a print industry specific, patent pending algorithm to automatically calculate optimum press sheet layouts, facilitating such cost reduction strategies as gang printing.

“Gang printing is a real opportunity for commercial printers to increase profits,” said Holt, “because every ganged job saves one or more press makereadies, as well as plates. Until now many companies have passed up this opportunity, because the layouts for such work are so complex.”

Printers who only print standard sized magazines and books, can have layouts so standardized they become memorized. General commercial printers however, are always printing different sized jobs, as every job can be unique. This kind of work requires the undivided attention of a skilled planner, but even the most experienced planner cannot be sure they have found the most efficient layout every time.

Any attempt to minimize wastage by considering individual product bleeds, butting together non-bleeding edges and/or gripping into non-image areas, can result in spending a whole day on a trial-and-error exercise in frustration. The average commercial printer brushes off the potential benefits of ganging because of the overwhelming complexities.

Metrix, on the other hand, enables even the least skilled planner to confidently create instant layouts. From one product to ten, different sizes and quantities, mixtures of flat and folded work, each with different bleeds and grain direction requirements –it calculates the layout at the click of a button.

It minimizes stock wastage, placing as much product onto a press sheet as possible, considering the press’s capabilities and product specifications such as grain direction. Metrix will rotate products to share common bleed gutters or to butt non-bleeding edges together. This also reduces the number of postpress cuts required, and therefore execution time downstream in the finishing department.

Metrix can integrate with MIS systems by importing JDF (Job Definition Format) product intent data. The Metrix Production Edition also exports JDF, CIP3, and Preps template files to eliminate the manual creation of Preps templates in prepress, and to automate the setup of cutters and folding machines in the finishing department.

LithoTechnics was one of seven Australia companies that exhibited at the recent drupa show in Düselldorf.

more information: rohan.holt@lithotechnics.com