The IJL/3 is a third generation ink jet labeling system for labeling,
or imprinting, documents as they are scanned by an imaging system. It is
a very easy to use system ideal for continuous operation in a high volume
production environment.
The IJL/3 imprints each page as it enters the Panasonic scanner. The advantages of pre-scan imprinting is that the imprint is part of the image, making it easy for the imaging system to confirm what was imprinted on each page. The IJL/3 for the Panasonic scanners uses forced hot air to dry the ink prior to entering the Panasonic scanner.
The host computer is connected to the IJL/3 via a standard serial line. The typical operation sequence starts with the host computer telling the labeling system what should be printed on the document. The IJL/3 stores this information and then, under its own internal computer control, waits for the document to start out of the scanner. When the document is in the proper position, the labeling system prints the desired information on the document with no host involvement. This allows the host computer to continue to service the scanner. Since the scan and label tasks are concurrent, there is no reduction in the throughput of the whole system.
Two common requirements for imprinting are 1) a simple mark showing that each page was in fact scanned, possibly including the date and an arbitrary incrementing number, or 2) a unique document identifier under the explicit control of the imaging system software. The IJL/3 can be easily set once to accomplish the first imprinting requirement, where it will continue to label under its own control. The second requires commands from the imaging application software.
The Panasonic scanners pipeline pages, making it important for software
developers to keep track of the fact that the label is being applied when
a page is being drawn into the scanner. In full-speed mode, this is typically
two pages ahead of the image data being processed by the imaging application.
The pipeline is typically: page 1 is being processed by the imaging application,
page 2 is being scanned and page 3 is being pulled into the scanner and
getting labeled. If you want to imprint unique names or numbers on each
page, your imaging application needs to be designed to support this 3-deep
(or more) pipeline. If pipeline support is not desired, your imaging application
can tell the scanner to scan one page at a time. Then your imaging application
can tell the IJL/3 what to label, set the scanner settings and process the
image data for each page individually.