Development and Debugging
Development and debugging of interfaces is usually done with our
"General File Out" driver for output to Tiff files. Tests
can be done with output to files that can be viewed with a paint
program, to avoid the need for development to involve expensive
production equipment.
Timed demo units for this purpose are generally available free of
charge for customers who are keeping their production RIP's under
continuous Wasatch service, and who have been qualified as active
software developers.
This document may not make much sense if you are not familiar with the
user interface of Wasatch SoftRIP. As background, we suggest viewing
a couple of the user training videos at the Wasatch web site. In particular,
we suggest the first two, "Straight to easy", and "Wasatch Queues". This
document makes many references to "RIP Queues" and "Print Queues". That
will make more sense after seeing how they look on the user interface.
Wasatch SoftRIP will need to be able to open files on the paths
that you provide to it. Network permissions may need be be worked
out with your local network administrator. It is often a good idea
to minimize this problem, and conserve bandwidth, by moving files into
storage that is local to the system where Wasatch SoftRIP is running.
Service Data Uploader is a tool commonly used by Wasatch's help desk, but
it can also be a powerful aid to debugging automation solutions. Run it and make
the selections that will simply save the information in a ".zip" file. Inside
that archive will be a number of text files and logs that have been designed
for easy reading by help desk personnel. Look for informative error
messages in "hotxml.log", and for computer specifications in "generalInformation.txt".
Examine the "...ThroughputLog.txt" files for clues to issues with data transmission
and "print head pausing". Wasatch's regular help desk personnel can help with
interpretation, because they look at this information every day.
Site Management
Updates, Backups, and RIP Farms
Managers of scalable manufacturing facilities have particular concerns about stability and reliability.
Wasatch SoftRIP and all its settings are stored in its installation
folder. Simply copying that folder to a new location will normally
back up everything. If you keep your own customized scripts in the
'scripts' subfolder, they'll be copied with everything else.
The contents of the sub-folders named 'prtqueue.*' can be quite large,
because this is where the rendered Print Queue data is stored. It
may be a good idea to clear those queues prior to making a backup, if
size is an issue.
On some systems, the Print Queues may be configured to be outside
of the installation folder. That is the only case where a backup
of the installation folder is not a backup of everything.
Because everything is normally in the installation folder, it is
possible to have two different Versions of SoftRIP installed on
the same computer at the same time. They cannot run at the same
time, but by keeping them in two separate folders, a copy of
an older Version can be kept "ready to run" while a new Version
or build is being tested. This can provide an extra margin of
safety when updating production systems.
In a RIP farm, simple copying of folders and files can quickly
duplicate configurations on every machine where the "dongle" driver
has been installed.
Everything specific to a Wasatch serial number
is contained a small text file named 'register', in the root of the
installation folder. In order to duplicate a configuration across
multple machines (or virtual machines) in a RIP farm, it is only
necessary to copy the installation folder, and upate the 'register'
file for the target Wasatch serial number.
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Development and Site Management