摘要:
Methods, systems, and apparatus for improved dispatching of sheetsides in a high-speed (e.g., continuous form) printing environment using multiple, clustered processors in a print controller. Features and aspects hereof generate, update, and utilize a mathematical model of multiple processors (compute nodes) each adapted to RIP (rasterize) raw sheetside data provided to it. A head node or control processor receives the raw sheetside files from an attached host or server, determines current processing capacity of each of the multiple compute nodes to RIP the next sheetside, and dispatches the sheetside to the compute node identified as providing the minimum RIP completion time. Various conditions may invalidate a compute node from further consideration in dispatch of a particular sheetside. Thus a valid compute node is selected based on the minimum RIP completion time.