[Openicc] Print and monitor Color Pipeline

[Hal V. Engel]

On Wednesday, January 26, 2011 02:05:56 pm Jan-Peter Homann wrote:
> Technically different ways for rendering data to the monitor and to the 
> print out does not make sense in my eyes.

There is some technical difference that needs to be kept in mind.  

1. Monitor output is happening in real time and for some applications may be 
happening at high frame rates.   In some cases like a photo editor the real 
time requirement has a major impact on usability (IE. you don't want to wait 
too long for a manipulation to the photo to be rendered by the editing 
software).  Print output never happens in real time and is never something 
that the user directly interacts with.

2. The overall software stacks are completely different and there are very few, 
if any,  shared components. 

3. For the monitor we have specialized graphics hardware that can be leveraged 
in the rendering process.  For example Kai-Uwe has been working on a compiz 
plugin that does CM transforms for monitor display in the GPU for the whole 
desktop (this was a GSoC project two summers ago I believe - I forget the name 
of the student who did the original work).  This rendering path (IE. using the 
GPU) is very different from the rendering path that would be used for print 
output.

I could probably come up with some other technical differences but I have an 
appointment and have to run.

Hal