Digital Techniques In High Resolution Analog Scanning And Recording
Heino R. Dest Data Corporation · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1977
A flat bed laser plate-maker system is being developed for Dow Jones and Company, publishers of the Wall Street Journal, to scan paste-ups and proofs and to reproduce the scanned information remotely on film or plates. Throughput of about one minute per plate is achieved. Presently, the fastest and most advanced way for producing newspaper printing plates is by preparing paste-ups and photographing each fully assembled page. Moreover, when transmission to a remote location is needed, telefax or more simply, "fax" transmission is used. Now, a flat bed laser plate-making system can eliminate the initial photographic step, improve the operational steps and, at the same time, speed up the whole process. In the laser system, the paste-up is scanned directly (without the photographic step) by a recently demonstrated flat field scanning system. Photomultiplier tubes change the reflected laser energy to an electrical signal which is digitized and transmitted to a second laser system, much like the first, where a second laser beam exposes a sensitive sheet of film or a coated plate to form the received image with great detail and quality. Most of the data processing takes place in digital domain. Scanning, transmission and recording take place in less time than is presently needed for fax operation alone.