Caldera has announced the commercial availability of version 9.20 of its RIP software, with updates including advanced preflighting, colour management enhancements, True Shape Nesting and a new Image Bar interface that enables quick access to documents.
The latest version of Caldera's flagship RIP engine was first unveiled at FESPA 2013, where it was shown to visitors from all sectors of the industry. Colour management is at the forefront of the new release, with v9.20 including EasyMedia as standard for the first time and giving users cloud access to the Caldera ICC profile library.
Frederic Soulier, chief technical officer Caldera said, 'When we talk to our customers about what is important in their businesses, colour management always comes up. Anything that is such an integral part of a wide-format operation should be supported by their software, and that's why we decided to make EasyMedia a standard part of the RIP solution in v9.20 – if it's not an option for our customers, it's not for Caldera.'
The new Preflight tools will help to ensure users produce perfect prints the first time, incorporating the renowned Callas technology also used in Adobe Acrobat. The Preflight option checks for compatibility against a number of standards and rules, including PDF/X, PDF/A, PDF/VT, image resolution, fonts and ICC profiles, and returns a simple red or green light report. The preflight process can be initiated either manually, and applied to one file, or automatically to all files in a specified Hot folder.
For VisualRIP+ and GrandRIP+ users, the Preflight tool will produce a web report for the operator, as well as an enriched PDF file highlighting any issues. Preflight also integrates with Flow+, sending reports to the MIS manager, and with Caldera WebShop to show a simple file status to the end user. In v9.20, Caldera is also revolutionising the print-to-cut process with the new True Shape Nesting tool, which will help print shop managers maximise their resources with more efficient placement of images on media.
As requested by Caldera's users, True Shape Nesting uses the actual contours of an image, ignoring any blank space or bounding boxes, to nest images together in a way that minimises media waste when cut.
Caldera
www.caldera.com
