High Quality Imaging of Electronic Documents July 21, 1987 High-Quality Imaging of Electronic Documents Richard J. Beach Imaging Area Computer Science Laboratory Xerox PARC July 21, 1987 CSL Imaging Research f Our research focus is the presentation of high-quality illustrated electronic documents (to supply the images for marking research) f The PARC Imager Architecture provides the basis for imaging electronic documents f We use the Cedar environment for rapid prototyping to facilitate more effective technology transfer f We are presently exploring a world with new types of electronic documents: integrated content, color, active, interactive Defining High-Quality Electronic Documents f Graphic arts quality standards Tradition for craftsmanship f Quality tradeoffs Proof copies: small quantity, rapid job turnaround, modest resolution Production copies: large quantity, modest job turnaround, modest resolution Master image copies: small quantity, modest job turnaround, greatest resolution f Functionality as a quality requirement Any image is possible Some images are practical Most images are convenient Imaging Electronic Documents is a Systems Problem! f Significant computation required Composing interesting documents Decomposing Interpress masters Process control computation System reprographics computation f Challenges posed by marking technologies Resolution increases beyond 300 spi Printing grey-scale pixels requires more bits Coping with variety of color production technologies f PARC Imager architecture solution Resolution independent Device independent Fully functional imaging software (Interpress 3.0 or PostScript) PARC Imager Architecture: Goals and Tenets f We need to display and print our research f ``Images by Friday, not pages per minute'' Yet, we use it everyday in production . . . f Color everywhere, even black and white! f Identical software for applications and printing: robust and reliable f Careful design of program interface (Lots of working code thrown away) Initial design 1983, initial implementation 1984 First release Cedar5.2 1985 Cedar6.0 1986, Cedar7.0 1987 f Imager architecture tenets Common imaging model (Interpress 3.0) Common application program interface Extensible, suitable for years of imaging research PARC Imager Architecture: Schematic << [Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool] >> Applications Depend on PARC Imager Architecture << [Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool] >> Print Server Configuration based on PARC Imager f Interpress Development Environment (Interpress 3.0 Professional Graphics Set) << [Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool] >> PARC Imaging with Diverse Marking Technologies = Device name Colors Resol. Pixels Marking = Workstation BW 1000 1 phosphor Workstation 3-color 1000 8 phosphor Workstation 3-color 1000 3X8 phosphor Xerox 4045 BW 300 1 xerography Xerox 4050 BW 300 1 xerography Xerox Raven BW 300 1 xerography Xerox Raven BW 384 1 xerography Platemaker BW 1200 1 laser film Versatec color 4-color 200 4X1 electrostatic Xerox 4020 4-color 240 4X1 ink jet Panasonic TT 4-color 400 4X1 thermal Platemaker 4-color 1200 4X1 laser film Dunn camera 3-color 1000 3X8 photo film Acoustic Ink 3-color 1250 3X64 acoustic ink = MasterBlaster BW 300 1 xerography MB Dot Matrix 3-color 360X180 3X1 ink jet Colorado 4-color 1600 1 xerography Optronics 3-color 2000 3X8 photo film = Samples from a Variety of Marking Devices << [Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool] >> Active Electronic Documents f A document is a repository of information for human perception f This broad definition supports the following content that we can demonstrate now  Formatted text  2D Illustration and 3D graphics  Mathematical computation  Voice annotation  Database queries  General computation f We explore these concepts by researching architectures to support the integration of these different contents PARC Imager architecture Interpress and related standards Color standards Intervoice architecture Distributed computation architectures Active Documents with Mathematical Content f Mathematical content in documents Problem of displaying notation Problem of creating/editing/proofreading notation f Notation is computable Symbolically compute new math expressions Explore applications of math notation (Mortgage and least squares demo) Document Containing Mortgage Computation << [Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool] >> Annotated Documents f Integrating audio into documents Etherphone: digital audio over Ethernet Lark telephone Voice file server RPC communications service f Annotating electronic documents with voice TiogaVoice tool for dictation, editing, replay VoiceRopes for managing voice fragments f Scripting documents . . . to play themselves . . . to demonstrate themselves (Berlitz conversational French demo) Annotated Documents: French Lesson << [Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool] >> Annotated Documents: Voice Editing Tool f Voice represented as sound and silences f Textual annotations (on the voice annotation) may be added anywhere f Dictation machine user model << [Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool] >> Active Documents with Embedded Computation f Document presents information computed upon demand f Current example of restricted computation is data-driven charts and graphics f Computation will extend the purpose and scope of electronic documents f Sampler demonstration Time of day reminder Database query Computed information Animation Document containing Reminder and Database Query f Information formatted as a document f Content computed upon presentation = << [Artwork node; type 'Artwork on' to command tool] >> Conclusions f Imaging area focusses on architectures for integrated illustrated document creation tools f Good leverage from PARC Imager and other integrated system architectures f Demonstrated active electronic documents f We do print anything we display! You now have a copy.