I-Trap

$2,250.00

Automatic & interactive raster-based trapping
Trap on the fly preview
Trap PS, PDF and EPS jobs
Compatible with virtually any RIP

Category: Trapping Software

OVERVIEW

What does the I in I-Trap stand for?

Intelligent

I-Trap™ has one of the most sophisticated sets of trapping rules of any trapping program on the market. I-Trap™ knows how trapping should be done and is able to carefully analyze your important print job and determine where and how traps should be applied.

Interactive

I-Trap™ inspires confidence by showing you what it will do! I-Trap™ doesn’t waste your time or money by producing bad plates or film. The Interactive feedback you get from I-Trap™ will quickly teach you how to become the expert!

Interface

I-Trap™ has the best designed and easiest to learn “User Interface” in the industry, and the Interface doesn’t stop there. I-Trap™ is able to Interfaces with some of the most widely used workflows on the market.

How does this Intelligent, Interactive, Interface to trapping really work?
The intelligence of I-Trap™ is contained in the smallest brain possible. This may sound strange but here’s why. I-Trap™ is a raster based trapping program because raster trapping provides the best flexibility and best quality. Raster trapping is the real workhorse of trapping because it can plow through any size and complexity of job.
The interaction of I-Trap™ is the result of years of involvement in the printing industry. I-Trap™ then takes interaction to the next level by providing tools to give you control.
I-Trap™ supports current page layout application controls for setting trapping parameters such as trap zones. Using existing tools such as plugins for Acrobat, Pagemaker and InDesign or extensions for Quark, I-Trap™ reads and understands these settings from within the Rip environment and is able to translate those settings into intelligent results within I-Trap™.
I-Trap™ provides easy to use settings within the Rip to interact within your existing workflow. I-Trap™ is easy to configure as a part of your print queues to provide both interactive and automated processing options.
I-Trap™ gives the ultimate in interactivity with the Interactive Viewer Application (IV). The Interactive Viewer, offers a complete new set of tools to handle even the toughest trapping jobs.

FEATURES AND BENEFITS

Raster-Based
Traps PS, PDF & EPS jobs
I-Link Plug-ins enabled
Miter trapping
Special Image trapping
Spot Color Support
Trap Color Reduction
Special Black Handling
Trap On Fly preview
User Trapping parameter sets
Client-Server model on PC & Mac
Ink Remapping tool
Graphical Configuration Tool

Zone Trapping

Trap zones may be created using various existing tools for generating trap zones in different desktop page layout and viewing applications such as Adobe Acrobat. I-Trap™ Zone tool allows to create overlapping rectangle zones, edit them and set different trapping parameters in zones. Polygonal and elliptic zone shapes will be offered in a future release.

Miter Trapping

Miter trapping is the art of detecting various corner conditions and adjusting the trap brush to produce better corner results – that’s what I-Trap does.

Image Trapping
Image trapping is one of the most important features of I-Trap™. The ability to properly trap image data is one of the features that define high-end high quality trapping. I-Trap™ provides an extensive set of tools for image trapping providing the needed support for just about any type of image trapping.
Spot to Image Special Case
Spot colors can be set as a special case to selectively trap image to spot colors while not trapping images to process colors.
Vignette to Image Trapping
As artwork increases in complexity and new transparency options are used I-Trap has developed a sophisticated mechanism to handle trapping of images to vignettes.

QUICK START

Introduction

This document describes the setup of the Luicd Trapping plugin to the Harlequin ScriptWorks Rip and the I-Trap Interactive Trapper and Viewer, the rules and parameters that are used by the Lucid Dream Trapping Engine.
It is assumed that the user is familiar with the basic concept of trapping, trapping terminology, as well as the ScriptWorks Rip configuration issues.
The TaskForce I-Trap™ trapping engine processes the raster job data supplied by the Rip after interpretation and rasterization and outputs the trapped data as a set of two binary files that need to be returned to the Rip for producing the final output by the desired device plugin.

Benefits of I-Trap
I-Trap™ can be configured to trap jobs automatically or interactively and can be easily set up to accommodate different kinds of jobs. Users will usually start trapping everything interactively to learn the system. Once trapping parameters are fully understood and have been configured, these settings can be saved in a Page Setup that would be later used to print automatically trapped jobs.
TaskForce I-Trap™ can be included in a queue with any available output Rip plugin transferring data through a spool folder mechanism.

INTERACTIVE TOOL

The Interactive Viewer is possible because of the special nature of the I-Trap™ data format that is generated during the Rip processing. This data format is a compact format that supports, up to 16 inks, pixel level reference to any of up to 127 different trap zones, image vs lineart and gradients designation, random data access, and trap parameter sets.

The Interactive Viewer has a Jobs Manager tool that takes in jobs of any number of pages. You can easily see how many pages are in the job and quickly see the preview of any page with a double click to open and a simple keyboard shortcut to close. Trapping can be turned on or off for all pages in the job with a single click and can be individually set for each page.

The Interactive Viewer has an Information Manager tool that provides access to all data about the trap settings and page information. It starts with a main info window that gives the full list of inks in the job. This doubles as a densitometer tool by giving the precise color values from the cursor position over the preview. It also provides positional information of the cursor relative to the original data. The tabbed panel can then be switched to show the list of trap zones in the job. For each zone, it will show the trapping parameters for that zone. The next tab provides ink information allowing you to control the color representation, ink settings and workflow parameters.

The Interactive Viewer has the industry’s first Graphical Configuration tool for trapping. No longer do you have to try to figure out all those numbers and tables. With the Graphical Configuration tool, you are given easy to read feedback on the most important trap settings in a composite graphical window. The Interactive Viewer has a Page Preview tool that lets you quickly see the source page. It lets you zoom in to the finest detail of any place in the job. You can quickly move around while you zoom in and out on the job. You can switch from the source un-trapped view to the trapped view or split the window to view both simultaneously (in Windows only).

The Interactive Viewer has a Trap On The Fly tool that allows you to zoom into any Area of Interest in the job and with a single click it uses the actual trap engine to apply your current trap settings to only the currently zoomed data. This is one of the most useful tools in the chest, as it gives fast feedback of how your job will be trapped. Using the feature of random access in the trap data format, the Trap on the Fly option of I-Trap™ can apply traps to zoom windows of entire plate signatures in just seconds.The Interactive Viewer has the Trap Engine tool integrated so that as soon as trap settings are complete or whenever you wish to apply the final traps the Trap Engine tool is only a click away to process the job and send it for output. The Trap Engine quickly applies all traps to the entire job and sends the final trapped job through the designated workflow to its final destination.

The Interactive Viewer can be used on any machine to work with your trap jobs. Only the Trap Engine tool is linked to the Lucid license manager control. So with the purchase of one license, the Interactive Viewer can be used on any number of machines to open and view trap jobs. Trapping on the Fly is enabled and all trap settings can be configured. These preconfigured jobs can then be opened on the licensed station and final traps applied.

The powerful Ink Re-Mapping tool within Interactive Viewer lets you display all of the inks in a job and provides an easy to use interface allowing you to remap spot inks.

In closing is the Interface, this is the unseen hero of I-Trap™. By providing a wide variety of interface options I-Trap™ can become an indispensable addition to almost any prepress workflow. The I-Trap™ interface is where I-Trap™ is designed for both the present and the future. I-Trap™ uses a plugin technology that allows I-Trap™ to currently interface with industry standard workflows such as the Harlequin ScriptWorks Rip and production systems based on TIFF/IT P1 format. These are only the beginning if your system is not listed here then please check our web site to see if it has already been added by the time you read this.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

I-Trap On The PC
Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 / XP operating system;
128 Mb RAM (512 recommended);
Monitor resolution 1024*768 or higher (800*600 will provide very poor quality)
Harlequin Rip version: 5.3 Revision 4 or higher. Version 5.5 and higher is needed to work with pre-separated jobs.
Rip API version: 16.1 and higher.
Rip Page buffers version 15 and higher.
I-Trap™ software on PC is protected by a Sentinel License or by a Lucid dongle (Sentinel Super Pro)and can be run in a trial or full mode.

I-Trap On The Mac
OSX 10.3.x operating system;
128 Mb RAM; Monitor resolution 1024*768 or higher
Minimal configuration:G3, 366MHz, RAM 320Mb, Monitor resolution 800×600.
Recommended configuration:G4, 1GHz, RAM 760Mb, Monitor resolution 1400×900.
Free disk space required > 20Mb.
Harlequin Rip version 6.4 or higher.
I-Trap™ software on the Mac is protected by a Lucid USB dongle (Sentinel Super Pro) and can be run in a trial or full mode.