Three-dimensional printing: broad market and bright future

Everyone must have seen the cute little cards in the food packaging? Tilt the card or move it back and forth to see all kinds of wonderful effects. These plastic cards are the raster prints we are familiar with. Today, printing companies are using the grating lens printing process to obtain more complex products, ranging from labels and posters to packaging products, and even plastic cups. Although what we see is not a stereoscopic visual effect in the true sense, but only visual deception, raster printing is not just a small game for children, and has very broad development prospects.

Mike Chadwick, production manager of KBA's Karat 74 direct imaging press, said raster printing is no longer as complicated as it used to be. Previously, people regarded raster printing as a mysterious technology. With the development of new software and the development of printing machines and other process technologies, raster printing has gradually become the mainstream of the printing industry.

Chadwick also reminded everyone that despite technical and software support, raster printing is still a very demanding technology. If the printing staff does not understand the principle of raster printing, then we are like playing on a rowing boat, letting the rowing boat pull, unable to grasp the direction. Compared with plastic printing, the cost of raster printing is higher, the technology is more complex and more sensitive, and the requirements of pre-press technology are more sophisticated.

The strange visual effects presented by raster prints are obtained by combining digitally integrated images with ribbed plastic gratings. The key steps of production include the processing of images by the interlaced scanning software, which requires the computer to have sufficient processing power to process the scanned image files. The data volume of such files is generally relatively large), the molding technology of plastic grating plates, and pre-press and printing The accuracy of the device.

What makes gratings special

If you study the grating material carefully, you will find that printing grating products will face more challenges. According to the Lenstar organization (an organization that provides online resources for designers, agents, and printers), one side of the extruded plastic grating is wrinkled with small waves, which is called a small grating; the other side is smooth. For printed surfaces.

Cylindrical gratings of the same size are evenly distributed over the entire surface, with a resolution of 10-200 lines / inch, which is related to the specific application. The grating thickness is between 0.008 and 0.385 inches.

Printing on grating materials also faces a problem as plastic printing: grating printing is more expensive than printing on paper. If the environment is not controlled, the plastic will deform such as shrinkage or expansion. Moreover, plastic is a non-porous material, the ink printed on it is difficult to penetrate, and only stays on the surface. Therefore, unless UV printing or other drying methods are used, the production process will be longer.

Although we can use traditional printing methods to print grating products, many experts agree that UV printing will be easier to implement. John Santie, head of production at the Mitsubishi offset offset press in the US, said: "We believe that UV printing has a stronger advantage both in terms of drying and substrate absorption." Companies investing in the production of raster prints should have UV Printing experience, otherwise it is asking for trouble.

What customers want

Santie also added that the real challenge facing raster printing is color separation and plate making. Printing staff should receive training to understand what kind of products are high-quality products and learn how to figure out the real needs of customers. He explained that the final result of the printed matter determines what printing method the printer should use. In other words, how to choose the number of screen lines or the resolution on the raster board to finally achieve the desired image quality.

Raster printing requires more precise registration than plastic prints-otherwise, it will not show special effects. In a recent issue of Heidelberg News, an article pointed out that the stereoscopic effect of the grating is obtained by separating and reorganizing the image into a small grating. Therefore, if the paper overprint is not accurate, even a very small deviation, the product will become waste. Even the smallest gap will affect the effect of the entire layout.

Because the operation of the printing cylinder will be different due to different printing machines and different printing units on the same printing machine, all these differences will not affect the traditional printing work and can be ignored, but this is not true for raster printing. is very important. If some pixels on the raster board deviate, this error will be clearly exposed. For example, imagine that if a magenta version of a print containing a person ’s face is not registered, even if the magenta version is slightly more prominent than other color versions, when the pattern changes, you will see it first than other colors In magenta, this picture becomes a waste product. Therefore, the production of raster prints requires very high accuracy.

Klenke uses Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 52 to print grating jobs. The company's head Klenke said that the continuous improvement of small format printing machines has reached a satisfactory "precision requirement". Small format printing machines are cleaner and have higher precision, and can produce high-quality products.

National Graphics (Brookfield, WI) is a raster printing company with multiple patents for raster and lithography. The company ’s manager, Mr. Don Krause, emphasized the importance of properly aligning the raster with the lens. There must not be any deviation-the image should have the appropriate resolution, corresponding to the resolution of the grating, and also consistent with the visual distance of the human eye. Whether it's making small hand-held cards, promotional posters or making curved materials to wrap other products, it will involve many aspects of technology, not just the simple matter of spreading ink on plastic.

Direct imaging (DI) printers are also a viable solution for raster printing. At the drupa 2004 exhibition, Presstek launched ProFire Excel image processing technology, enabling DI printers to complete the task of printing up to 300 lpi printed matter. The higher registration accuracy combined with the short press preparation time of the DI printer makes the DI printer the best choice for raster prints with hundreds to thousands of copies.

Stephen Sanker, Presstek's sales manager for DI presses in North America, said the advantages of DI presses are the registration of a single platen and fast drying speed.

High-quality and beautiful mouse pad made by Digispec

H & H Enterprises (Las Vegas) is one of the largest manufacturers of mouse pads in the United States. In 2003, the company installed the Speedmaster CD-74 printing machine, which is known as North America ’s first Heidelberg equipped UV device. In the past, the company's products were printed on paper and then processed with three laminators that worked 16 hours a day for post-processing. Since owning the CD-74 printing press, they have reduced the drying time of the ink, thus achieving the task of printing directly on plastic.

Now the company changed its name to Digispec. Recently, the company won the PPAI Achievement Gold Award for applying the 3D flip effect to the printing of mouse pads.

Digispec initially used Heidelberg's CD-74 UV printer to print plastic products. Two years ago, the company expanded its business to raster printing, which can print more than 125 copies. At the same time they also use their own software to print Pacur and VPI raster.

The sales department manager Monique Favreau said that the fineness of the products they printed was higher than any products he had ever seen. The secret is to pay more attention to the selected picture itself rather than blindly increase the depth of field, otherwise it will ruin the effect of the entire print.

Lithographix: Seven years of raster printing

Lithographix uses a 40-inch Mitsubishi printer to print raster business for nearly seven years. The company has two production plants in Los Angeles and Carlsbad, engaged in film, car retail, apparel agency and raster printing business, mainly printing Dodge baseball cards, signs and NFL (National Football League) orders. The product size is 20 x 28 inches, the resolution is 300 lpi, the printing plate length is from 1000 sheets to 20,000 sheets, and even 50,000 sheets.

Mr. George Wolden, the company's production manager, told us that raster printing requires very accurate registration and the image files are large. During the printing process, the color and split files must be controlled and managed, and the image and the raster plate should be accurately attached together.

Wolden also told us that raster printing has brought us the test throughout the printing workshop. Many salespersons and printing staff brag about their products but do not understand the technical parameters and how the grating is extruded. Raster printing also requires procedures such as proofing and complicated printing inspection.

Universal Lithographers: precise feed and paper registration

Universal Lithographers (Sheboygan, WI) 's statement is: Anything you can imagine, we can print it for you. The company relies on two six-color Manroland 706 presses with online coating equipment for production. Universal Lithographers has a 42-year history. Mr. Jerry Keller, deputy general manager said: "Although our company does not use UV technology, but we use infrared to dry, this method is also very good."

Through professional multi-color printing production, Universal's sales climbed to $ 6 million. The applications of raster printing include POP point-of-sale advertising and POS point-of-sale services and other promotional materials. At present, the company uses Photoshop as an interlacing software, which is very laborious, so the company is currently evaluating and testing professional software for raster printing.

Roland 700's vacuum paper feed table and pneumatic side gauges are ideal for raster printing. When the speed of the printing press reaches 12,000 sph, the speed of the grating plate will be reduced by 65% ​​when it hits the front rail.

Unlike other brands of printing presses that use rollers to calibrate the positioning of the paper, the Roland 700 is equipped with a suction pad under the paper, which can straighten the grating plate without leaving any traces. For raster printing, the registration of the feed device is very important. Keller told us that the Roland 700's raster plate feed processing capability and conveying device are excellent for this work.

Blanks Printing: DI shows its skills

In September 2004, Blanks Printing & Imaging (Dallas) in Texas, USA introduced the first KBA 74 Karat printing press. Blanks was previously a prepress company with a 90,000 square foot plant area and two Heidelberg presses in full format. The 29-inch Karat direct imaging printer can do the job of plastic printing, and by virtue of its short work preparation time, the company has helped the company occupy a place in the 40-inch format printing market.

Before trying raster printing, the company did some plastic printing business. Their first raster print, the calendar, was produced smoothly.

Kevin Schrader, Blank ’s vice president, exclaimed: “The KBA 74 Karat press was running very smoothly. Our first raster print was two pictures, one light and one dark. However, after printing on the machine, the two pictures are very well compensated. "

Schrader believes that 74 Karat is ideal for raster printing. He explained: "The printing machine's bite grips the substrate and does not release until after completing the four-color printing and coating processes, so it can ensure accurate registration "In addition, this type of printing press has a short preparation time and saves more money than a 40-inch printing press."

More information

Some companies we have contacted are reluctant to disclose their business secrets-they have tried to explore how to make grating products more perfect, hoping to keep their secrets of experience secret. If you want to see products with real effects like the real world, please log in to Lenstar.org. In addition, the site also provides services for designers, advertising agencies and brand marketing personnel. Among them, online enterprise organizations include major printing services / suppliers such as Sun Chemical, Flint Ink and INX, etc .; developers of image processing software such as Flipsigns, Photo Illusion and HumanEyes, and professional manufacturers of plastic prints Eastman Chemical and Pacur .

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