QTR-Quadtone RIP

Hi,


I have been developing a low-cost PCB screen printer for the past few months, based on the Epson R7880, with uses a camera to align each printed image to the exact rotation/stretch of the individual PCBs, and throughout the development stages I was using gutenprint/gimpprint to do all the printing. Now that the alignment works, I was looking to implement the printing part of the project directly into my software, as gutenprint requires users to click print every time (even if called as a Non-Interactive dialog in windows), and so was looking into various options that allow command line access. I came across QuadToneRip a few days ago, and it looks exactly like what I am looking for - however I cannot seem to find any documentation of command line options for windows users.


Maybe I'm being blind, but is there any documentations out there that shows how the full process (load tiff file, set page size and location, curve, printer options, etc, and print)?


Also, has anyone come across any alternative to escputil for windows? The utility allows you to make a printer run a nozzle check, etc, remotely through command line, and this would really come in handy for my software. I have been searching for quite some time, but then again, this is my first experience with a printer-based project...


I would really appreciate any help you can give, 
Kaz

Thanks for the link Steve, had never found Turbo Print in my searches before, and looks like they have a windows alternative called PrintFab.


Thanks again..
On Monday, 5 May 2014, 16:38, steve harris <dshlaw@earthlink.net> wrote:

Check out TurboPrint


see:  file:///usr/share/turboprint/doc/html/13-2.html#13.2.Printing%20from%20command%20line|outline


If the program does not explicitly do it, the developers of
      TurboPrint might be able to give you some ideas on how to achieve
      what you want.  



http://zedonet.com/en_home_main.phtml


Best of luck,


Steve Harris
NYC
www.harrisfoto.com

On 05/05/2014 11:23 AM, Kazimali Khaki wrote:


 
>Hi,
>
>
>I have been developing a low-cost PCB screen printer for the past few months, based on the Epson R7880, with uses a camera to align each printed image to the exact rotation/stretch of the individual PCBs, and throughout the development stages I was using gutenprint/gimpprint to do all the printing. Now that the alignment works, I was looking to implement the printing part of the project directly into my software, as gutenprint requires users to click print every time (even if called as a Non-Interactive dialog in windows), and so was looking into various options that allow command line access. I came across QuadToneRip a few days ago, and it looks exactly like what I am looking for - however I cannot seem to find any documentation of command line options for windows users.
>
>
>Maybe I'm being blind, but is there any documentations out there that shows how the full process (load tiff file, set page size and location, curve, printer options, etc, and print)?
>
>
>Also, has anyone come across any alternative to escputil for windows? The utility allows you to make a printer run a nozzle check, etc, remotely through command line, and this would really come in handy for my software. I have been searching for quite some time, but then again, this is my first experience with a printer-based project...
>
>
>I would really appreciate any help you can give, 
>Kaz
>

I’ve been working on a project that wraps the QTR system in a command-line toolkit (implemented with the Ruby language). However, it relies on OS X's CUPS printing system to get information about printers and to queue print jobs. As I understand it, the Windows version of QTR does not use CUPS. I don’t know whether it’s possible to specify command-line options to the Windows QTR tools.

But if it helps, you can find the source to my toolkit here:

	https://github.com/jslabovitz/qttk

No guarantees that it works. The documentation is definitely out of date. But it might be helpful to see how one approach is implemented.

If you’re wondering why I went to the trouble, my goals are to:

	- Create super-profiles containing *all* the important printer-related options (including resolution, dither type, uni/bidirectional mode, etc.); this is all set automatically when a job is printed.

	- Bypass the default (and unavoidable) color management process (Photoshop/Colorsync/etc.) by sending a grayscale image file directly to the QTR printer.

	- Allow for easier creation of new QTR profiles, by automating the characterization & linearization process. (ArgyllCMS is used for generating & measuring targets.)

—John

On 5 May 2014, at 11:23 AM, Kazimali Khaki <kimaster014@...> wrote:

> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have been developing a low-cost PCB screen printer for the past few months, based on the Epson R7880, with uses a camera to align each printed image to the exact rotation/stretch of the individual PCBs, and throughout the development stages I was using gutenprint/gimpprint to do all the printing. Now that the alignment works, I was looking to implement the printing part of the project directly into my software, as gutenprint requires users to click print every time (even if called as a Non-Interactive dialog in windows), and so was looking into various options that allow command line access. I came across QuadToneRip a few days ago, and it looks exactly like what I am looking for - however I cannot seem to find any documentation of command line options for windows users.
> 
> Maybe I'm being blind, but is there any documentations out there that shows how the full process (load tiff file, set page size and location, curve, printer options, etc, and print)?
> 
> Also, has anyone come across any alternative to escputil for windows? The utility allows you to make a printer run a nozzle check, etc, remotely through command line, and this would really come in handy for my software. I have been searching for quite some time, but then again, this is my first experience with a printer-based project...
> 
> I would really appreciate any help you can give, 
> Kaz
> 
> 
>