[Gimp-print-devel] libgutenprint and testpattern generator

[Rick W. <ric...@ho...>]

Hi all,

A while ago Robert recommended using libgutenprint to dispense single droplets (of any color) at any location on the print medium.
This way I can use the xmls with all the properties of the printers to print single droplets with any printer, and don't have to figure out print head offsets if different directions etc. for each printer myself.

What I basically want, is to provide some n-by-m-by-c matrix (sparse, with n and m size of the raster, c number of colors the printer can dispense), which will tell for each location (fulfilling the printer resolution 'raster') how many droplets of a certain color channel will be dispensed.

As an alternative to using libgutenprint, Robert proposed using the testpattern generator, and gave a short example:

#================================================================
# Printer model
printer escp2-l120;
# Input mode (extended -- raw input, aka DeviceN), 7 channels, 8 bits/pixel)
mode extended 6 8;
# Input is already dot-by-dot correct
parameter DitherAlgorithm Predithered;
# Desired printing resolution
parameter Resolution 720sw;
# ...other input and placement parameters as needed
# no output parameters
# Specify the input image (in this case a 3x1" microscope slide, say)
image 2160 720
...data...

This seems very promising, and is something I'd like to try next, however, how do I create the appropriate 'data'?
Could you give an explanation, or point me to some documentation (if existing)  in how to compose this data? I suppose that with some general information, I should be able to make some program that can transform my matrix, into some data that can be used for the data in the testpattern.

The next step would be to print this testpattern, or to translate it into ESC codes. How is this done? Is it possible to obtain a file with all the ESC commands, that I can send to a printer using e.g. lp -d Epson_P600 -oraw file.prn? I would like to obtain this raw file, to check what will be send to the printer, and perhaps make some minor modifications.

Thank you in advance,

Kind regards,
Rick