The following paper presents an evaluation of the future prospects of Print-on-Demand (PoD) technology and, correlated with it, of Direct Digital Print (DDP) systems for high production volumes. After a general introduction to the conditions of PoD production different parameters of the utility features, which are necessary for PoD documents, are discussed. Also a comparison of influences to the cost structure is given.

Halftoning is used to create the illusion of new colors when only a limited number of colors is available for rendering. Many techniques for color halftoning are based on techniques taken from monochrome halftoning, but modified so that the algorithm is applied to each color component separately. These techniques work well if the palette is separable, but for the case of arbitrary palettes, only error diffusion has been widely used or studied, especially in the context of rendering true-color images on color indexed display systems. We present an alternative algorithm for color halftoning whether the color palette is arbitrary or image dependent. A systematic way of developing suitable filters for this multiresolution halftoning technique is described.

Innovations can be described by an innovation cycle, which characterizes the balance companies place between growth of new businesses and efficiency, cost, and quality in support of established businesses. Inventors are faced with the dilemma between improving product performance or devoting resources to high-risk disruptive technologies. Disruptive technologies can completely change the marketplace within which large firms compete. There are barriers for large companies making investments in potentially disruptive technologies. Customers don't value the investment. The initial small markets available don't meet the growth needs of the company. The ultimate uses of the technology are not known in advance. Failure is an intrinsic step toward advance. Large corporations can take a systematic approach to identify, to support and to develop, emerging market opportunities.

When the JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) compression algorithm compresses image with high compression rate, the false contour and mosquito noise that do not exist in an original image appear in a compression restoration image. It is well known that this trend is remarkable in artificial images (e.g. computer graphics) by comparison with natural images. A human being feels false contour to an eyesore. Also, false contour is influenced by the accuracy of the devices that outputs an image. False contour is conspicuous in the case that it used the high accuracy output devices, although it is not conspicuous in the case that it used the low accuracy noisy output devices.In this research, we studied it from both sides of compression rate and the accuracy of output devices about the condition that false contour becomes eyesore.

Rapidly progressing digital color hardcopy output technologies are challenging to enter into the photo-finishing market. Some special features of the photo-finishing market are mentioned together with the psychological unconscious attitude of print viewing people.Trends of color hardcopy output technologies in Japan are then described with a stress on photo-finishing applications.For further improvements of image quality, some advances in dot gain analysis in area modulation type print are discussed.

Recent progresses of digital camera system are very rapid and the image quality of the system is improved very much. On the other hand, conventional silver halides photography is one of important color image recording system. We extract the characteristics of the conventional photography and simulate the characteristics in the digital camera system. Simulation method is formulated and is applied to the photography tone transformation. It is confirmed that photography tone image is printed in the digital camera system.

We present results in a constraint solving approach for automatic generation of Inkjet print masks. Print masks are used to control the firing of the nozzles, that is, to determine which nozzles on an Inkjet printer cartridge are to spit an ink droplet at each particular instant in a multiple-pass print mode. Many design rules for print masks can be modeled in terms of constraints and cost functions. For example, if adjacent nozzles are fired simultaneously, printing artifacts often result. Therefore, spatial adjacency constraints with respect to horizontal, vertical and diagonal neighbors are modeled with various cost functions; print masks are then generated by minimizing the associated, total costs. Initial solutions are found by a greedy algorithm with some randomization; then neighborhood search techniques are applied to find local near-optima. Our approach can generate masks for Inkjet printers in multiple-pass print modes for multiple-level, multiple-drop technologies. It has been used to design the print masks for Hewlett Packard's wide format printers (DeskJet 2500C and 2500CM). This approach can shorten the turn-around time for print mask design in a systematic and methodical way.

Information on VDT (Visual Display Terminal) is tend to be often printed as hardcopy only for the purpose of getting more comfortable reading conditions. Electric mail with large volume of texts, for instance, is frequently printed wastefully. The concept of Digital Paper, which has combined merits of softcopy and hardcopy, is recently proposed to solve these problems including ecological items. This study aims at comparison of operation efficiency between hardcopy work and softcopy work. Our goal is to clarify the reason why hardcopy work is generally comfortable for human, and to know human-interface requirements for the Digital Paper.

The analytical study of the ink-jet head(IJH) may be applied to design IJH efficiently and optimally. This study presents the theoretical approach to design IJH. The mechanical system of IJH is simply designed to electric circuit with inertance, resistance and compliance, IJH that is composed of actuator, chamber, reservoir, restrictor, and nozzle including ink. The voltage and current in the circuit represent the pressure and velocity in the mechanical system, and therefore the size and velocity of the droplet can be calculated easily to design the structure of IJH, the shape of the driving signal and so on. Since there are many kinds of variables such as the material properties of ink and actuator and geometric values of the IJH, the material properties of ink are primarily defined to the values of the commercial ink of the ink-jet printer. The performance of IJH depends on the various factors, but this study concentrates not only on the resistance ratio and inertance ratio between restrictor and nozzle, but also the width of the PZT actuator. These variables have a great influence on the performance. To realize the theoretical approach more accurately, this study shows new methods.

We have examined how influence in brain action to thinking and understanding by seeing hardcopy and softcopy with use of IQ test method. In general, the sense of fatigue in softcopy working may be deeper than in hardcopy working. The hardcopy working in paper and oral answer methods indicates higher IQ than that of softcopy. It can be clarified by using IQ test problems that the difference to human interaction between hardcopy and softcopy as information carrier perception and thinking exists generally.