The event interface for HVD defines how external and internal Harlequin VariData are driven by the Harlequin RIP PDF interpreter. More...

Files
file	rrevents.h
	This file defines the Event interface for HVD (aka Retained Raster).

Data Structures
struct	SWMSG_RR_CONNECT
	Message for SWEVT_RR_CONNECT: establishes a connection to an HVD cache instance. More...

struct	SWMSG_RR_DISCONNECT
	Message for SWEVT_RR_DISCONNECT: disconnects from a HVD cache instance. More...

struct	RR_PAGE_DEFINE_ELEMENT
	An element on a page in the External HVD interface Page Define message. More...

struct	RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE
	A page or tile in the External HVD interface Page Define message. More...

struct	SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE
	An External HVD interface Page Define message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE event. More...

struct	SWMSG_RR_PAGE_REF
	External HVD interface Page reference: passed during SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY and SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE events. More...

struct	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE
	HVD interface Page Element Define message. More...

struct	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF
	This is a message which identifies a particular raster element, and is used by two events: More...

struct	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK
	HVD element query message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK event. More...

struct	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER
	Internal HVD element update message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER event. More...

struct	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS
	HVD element hit count message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS event. More...

Macros
#define	RR_CACHE_ID_LENGTH 256
	Length of the string (including terminating zero byte) for External HVD cache IDs.

#define	RR_SETUP_ID_LENGTH 256
	Length of the string (including terminating zero byte) for External HVD setup IDs.

#define	RR_ELEMENT_ID_LENGTH 16
	Length of the id strings in External HVD elements.

Typedefs
typedef struct SWMSG_RR_CONNECT	SWMSG_RR_CONNECT
	Message for SWEVT_RR_CONNECT: establishes a connection to an HVD cache instance.

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_DISCONNECT	SWMSG_RR_DISCONNECT
	Message for SWEVT_RR_DISCONNECT: disconnects from a HVD cache instance.

typedef struct RR_PAGE_DEFINE_ELEMENT	RR_PAGE_DEFINE_ELEMENT
	An element on a page in the External HVD interface Page Define message.

typedef struct RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE	RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE
	A page or tile in the External HVD interface Page Define message. More...

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE	SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE
	An External HVD interface Page Define message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE event. More...

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_PAGE_REF	SWMSG_RR_PAGE_REF
	External HVD interface Page reference: passed during SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY and SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE events.

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE
	HVD interface Page Element Define message. More...

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF
	This is a message which identifies a particular raster element, and is used by two events: More...

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK
	HVD element query message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK event. More...

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER
	Internal HVD element update message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER event. More...

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS	SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS
	HVD element hit count message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS event. More...

Detailed Description

The event interface for HVD defines how external and internal Harlequin VariData are driven by the Harlequin RIP PDF interpreter.

Harlequin VariData automatically detects re-used objects, forms and elements in variable data PDF jobs, and can significantly improve performance by optimizing rendering of these jobs. The Harlequin VariData API defines an interface where the RIP can render the repeated parts and the non-repeated parts of the job separately, and a post-rendering application compositing process can re-combine the parts into a raster for output.

The HVD API is an event-driven asynchronous API, where the core library issues events to notify the application of the page structure and re-used elements, and the application responds with events to request raster data for the elements as it needs them. The application will usually cache rasters produced for elements, reducing the amount of rendering required for the job significantly. For details of the event API and how to discover RIP APIs in RDR (including the event API) see Events system and RIP Data Resource (RDR) System.

Note: A support library for Harlequin VariData (LibHVD) is built into the core library. When outputting variable data jobs, this library simplifies handling of the HVD API events, tracking of HVD page definitions and elements, and caching of HVD elements. This library is documented in eHVD support library. This API may be used without a running RIP, so the core library can be dynamically linked just to use LibHVD in another process if required.; The Harlequin RIP SDK also contains support functions to simplify enabling eHVD in raster backends.; The same API events are used for internal HVD (iHVD, implemented within the core library) and external HVD (eHVD, implemented by client application, possibly with help from the SDK). It is essential that clients of the HVD event API filter these events, and only respond to HVD API events when the client is selected. Clients are selected using a cache id, which is a unique identifier for the client. This documentation will focus on the use of the API events for eHVD.

eHVD elements and backgrounds

The re-used parts of the page for eHVD are referred to as elements. There are two types of eHVD output, they differ in how elements are sized and placed:

Position-independent eHVD allows re-use of raster elements wherever they appear on a page. To use this mode, the compositing process has to be capable of moving and clipping the rasters as it combines them. Global Graphics recommends using position-independent eHVD, because it improves re-use, and the rasters produced are much smaller than the other mode. There is a specialisation of the eHVD element used in position-independent eHVD that is referred to as a background. This is an element with a uniform color, covering the entire page, behind all other elements. A special-case representation is used for backgrounds which contains just one pixel's worth of raster data. The compositing code is required to expand this data to cover the entire page.
Non position-independent eHVD only allows re-use of raster elements if the variable data appears at the same position on each page. If using this mode, rasters are rendered at the full size for each page, but with a transparency mask for all the parts of the page that are not rendered. This makes them easy to composite with very simple code, but the rasters are a lot larger and so take more time to render and composite.

If the RIP is configured to produce separations, there will be more than one raster produced for each element.

HVD event API clients

The Harlequin core library issues HVD events while it is processing PDF jobs. The events inform a client about the structure of the PDF pages in the job, and how what elements each page is composed of. The client is expected to issue events in response, to indicate which elements the RIP should render. The RIP will render elements requested, delivering the rendered elements them through the normal raster output method. The client is sometimes referred to as the "HVD cache" in this documentation, because it is expected to cache raster elements and only request rasters for elements that it does not have cached. The client is responsible for composing the element rasters together to produce a complete raster for each PDF page.

The LibHVD library and Harlequin SDK support functions can simplify enabling eHVD in raster backends. However, if you have custom hardware that can support composition of raster elements, you may want to work directly with this API, or pick and choose the components of LibHVD that you use.

Because this API uses the event API, the client of the API must be in the same process as the RIP. When using a Scalable RIP, performance would be improved by sharing the cache across all Farm RIPs. The Harlequin RIP SDK does provide some support for caching element rasters in shared memory framebuffers, however this still uses cache structures local to each Farm RIP process. To share the cache across all Farm RIPs in a Scalable RIP, the HVD event handlers need to act as proxies, sending inter-process messages to the shared cache. Global Graphics intends to provide support for sharing an HVD cache across multiple Farm RIPs in a future release. Without a shared cache implementation, the use of eHVD with the Scalable RIP requires careful tuning of the memory allowed for each Farm RIP's cache, and the memory allocated to each Farm RIP, to ensure that performance is actually improved.

API events for connecting and disconnecting

There may be multiple HVD-capable raster backends built into a RIP, including the internal HVD handlers. It is essential that clients of the HVD event API only respond to HVD API events when the client is selected.

The initial connection between the RIP and client code is established via the connect event SWEVT_RR_CONNECT. This event is issued with an associated SWMSG_RR_CONNECT message. The SWMSG_RR_CONNECT::cache_id field contains a string that each client should use to determine when it is selected. Each client is normally associated with a particular raster backend, which the RIP will deliver the element rasters to. When a connection is requested, the client should verify that the correct raster backend is selected, or it will not receive the raster elements that it expects. If using the libHVD library to simplify eHVD support, an HVD_connect_verify_fn verification function should be supplied to the event monitor to verify that the correct raster output backend is selected.

If the SWMSG_RR_CONNECT::cache_id field matches your client's name, and the correct raster backend is selected, the client's SWEVT_RR_CONNECT event handler is expected to set SWMSG_RR_CONNECT::connection to an opaque handle uniquely identifying this connection, and return SW_EVENT_HANDLED. Every subsequent eHVD event has a message whose first two fields are this opaque connection reference and the job timeline reference. They are omitted from the descriptions below for brevity. All subsequent handlers whose connection handle doesn't match the one created for SWEVT_RR_CONNECT should immediately return SW_EVENT_CONTINUE.

The remaining fields in the SWMSG_RR_CONNECT message are informational:

SWMSG_RR_CONNECT::timeline is the timeline of the job being processed. This can be used to retrieve the job number or any other context information you have attached to the timeline, cancel the job, or monitor its progress.
SWMSG_RR_CONNECT::setup_id is the setup associated with this connection to the client. The contract between provider and user of this interface is that this setup ID uniquely describes a configuration of the RIP in every respect that affects the raster output. Element rasters produced using a particular setup ID must not be matched by a connection using a different setup ID. If the setup ID is empty, then the rasters should be considered usable only by this job, and should not be retained or re-used for other jobs or connections with differing setup IDs.
If the client can handle position independent eHVD (that is, where the element x and y offsets can be non-zero), it should set SWMSG_RR_CONNECT::position_independent_compatible to TRUE. It is recommended that clients support position-independent eHVD, it reduces the size of element rasters considerably.
If the client can handle having zero elements in a page or tile, it should set SWMSG_RR_CONNECT::allow_zero_elements to TRUE.

The SWEVT_RR_CONNECT event is the only event handler that you need to register before processing HVD jobs. It is good practice to register the remaining HVD API event handlers after you have verified that your client is selected and that the correct raster backend is also selected to output elements. All HVD API event handlers registered in the SWEVT_RR_CONNECT handler should be de-registered upon receiving the SWEVT_RR_DISCONNECT message.

The connection between RIP and client code is destroyed on receipt of a matching SWEVT_RR_DISCONNECT event. The RIP does not issue such an event until the client code has indicated it is done with all pages in flight (see SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE and SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE). The SWEVT_RR_DISCONNECT event has an associated SWMSG_RR_DISCONNECT message, containing just the job timeline and the opaque connection handle. The client's handler for this event should de-register all HVD API events except for SWEVT_RR_CONNECT, free any memory or resources allocated for the opaque handle, and return SW_EVENT_HANDLED.

HVD API event sequence

The HVD API uses events to track and synchronize the sub-page raster elements cached by the OEM code, and to inform the OEM output code how pages are to be built up from sub-page raster elements.

The sequence of events and raster deliveries in HVD external mode is deliberately not fully defined to leave open the possibility of changing the order to improve performance. You are therefore strongly recommended not to rely on any specific undocumented ordering in their code. However, some generalities can be described that may help in understanding the intended use of the various events.

The SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE and SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE events are issued during the scanning process, as commonality in raster elements is identified. Currently, the whole of the page range requested is scanned before the first page define event is issued, although that situation is not guaranteed to continue in future versions and should not be assumed in OEM code. Client code can make a decision as to whether it has everything it needs to print a page by reviewing the page definitions in the SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE message (associated with the SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE event) and checking whether it holds raster data for all of the sub-raster elements required by that page. All of the remaining processing of HVD is defined by the response of the client to these events. At the least, the client must indicate that all pages in the SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE message are complete, by issuing a SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE event for each page.

In general, event handlers should assume that any memory referenced by the messages, including the messages themselves, belongs to the module originating the event (i.e., the RIP, for messages sent to the client). No assumptions about the lifetime of such memory should be made beyond the scope of the event handler itself: if client code needs to reference such data, it must make a copy.

In order to make a real page from the pagebuffers it gets sent via the HVD external mode interface, a cache implementation (the client code), should play back each raster element in turn that is included for each page in the SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE message. The order is essential: the page should be initialized to zeros, or to the value of the pixel(s) in the RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::background_id element, and then the element pointed to by the zeroth entry in the RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::elements array of pointers should be played back first, followed by the element pointed to by the first array entry, and so on.

The HVD event sequence is as follows:

The RIP scans the requested page range of the PDF file. As it decides that collections of graphic objects can be re-used or are unique and should be grouped together, it issues SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE events with associated SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE messages. The element define message includes a bounding box for the element, in the SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE::x1, SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE::y1, SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE::x2 and SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE::y2 fields.

There may be elements which legitimately have degenerate bounding boxes (x1 >= x2 or y1 >= y2). These represent marking operators in the content stream which for some reason did not lead to a mark on the page. They may be clipped out, off the page, or otherwise empty. Caching an empty raster for these elements is still worthwhile because it means that the RIP can avoid interpreting the marking operators each time the page is played back.
When the RIP has finished scanning the requested page range of the PDF file, it issues a SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE event with an associated SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE message. The SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::pages array contains an array of pointers to RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE structures defining each page.

When tiling output, each tile appears as a separate RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE entry in the pages array. Note that throughout the HVD external mode interface, SWMSG_RR_PAGE_REF::page_index values represent an ordinal within the page range (and, where appropriate, the tile range) requested by pdfexecid. They should not be assumed to bear any relation to PDF page labels or page numbers (one logical page usually is made up of several pagebuffers given that it is split into raster elements). The original PDF page number of a page is available in the RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::pdf_page_number field of the page entry.
For each page in turn, for each raster element on the page, the RIP issues a SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK event with an associated SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK message. This message contains the element ID in SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK::id, and an element handle field. If the element rasters are cached for the connection's setup, the client's event handler should set the SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK::handle field, and should ensure the element is not purged from its cache before it has received the corresponding SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UNLOCK event. The event handler should return SW_EVENT_HANDLED if the element's rasters are cached, or SW_EVENT_CONTINUE if the element's rasters are not cached.

If the element's rasters are not cached, the RIP will issue a SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_PENDING event with an associated SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF message, which instructs the client code to remember the fact that the RIP has promised to render the element (but it may not yet have done so). Subsequent queries for this element should by answered by indicating that the element is in the cache.

The RIP will render the element at some point (but not necessarily immediately). When the rasters for the element are output, the RIP sets the OptimizedPDFId and OptimizedPDFUsageCount parameters for the raster backend. The raster output backend must detect that OptimizedPDFId is not empty, and must capture the element's raster(s) into its cache. The same mechanism is used for elements intended to be cached and re-used multiple times as for those which are variable data and appear only once: the only difference is the usage count. After rendering all of the element's rasters, the RIP will re-issue the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK event.

At this point, the cache has acknowledged that it has all of the rasters for an element, and they are all locked against purging.

Note
The OptimizedPDFId element ID presented to the raster backend is represented as a hexadecimal string. The event messages in this API represent element IDs as a fixed length string of 16 binary bytes (RR_ELEMENT_ID_LENGTH). The raster output backend should convert the hexadecimal string to binary before comparing the element ID with IDs observed in HVD events.
When all of the rasters for all elements of a page or tile have been locked or are pending, the RIP issues a SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY event with an associated SWMSG_RR_PAGE_REF message. This indicates that the cache implementation can go ahead and compose the rasters together to complete the page or tile. Note that the SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY event may be received before the final pending rasters for an element are output, so the client must be prepared to wait for any pending rasters before completing the page raster.

It is possible that element rasters for a page may become available before the SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY event is issued for the page. For example, if a page happens to use the same elements as a previous page or pages in the job and these elements are cached, the client may choose to compose and store or output the page immediately. In this case, the client should remember that it has done this, so that it can respond appropriately when the SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY event eventually does arrive for the page.
When the raster composition is finished, the cache implementation must send a SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE event with an associated SWMSG_RR_PAGE_REF message to signal that to the RIP that it can tidy up after the page or tile. Tidying up after the page or tile involves the RIP sending SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UNLOCK events with associated SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF messages to indicate that the element rasters may be purgeable if there no other locks, and eventually sending a SWEVT_RR_DISCONNECT disconnect event if SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE events for all of the pages or tiles have been received.

Throughout this process, the RIP may issue SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS events, with an associated SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS message. This message indicates whether to increase or decrease a hit count of the element. The hit count indicates how many times the element is referenced, and provides a useful hint when deciding whether an element should be purged from the cache.

A job can call pdfexec or pdfexecid multiple times while HVD is active, possibly with different PageRange parameters. The entire sequence of events above will be repeated for each chunk of pages processed. HVD connections to a cache may remain open over multiple invocations of pdfexecid in a job.

The SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER event is only used in HVD internal mode and is not documented.

eHVD raster element handling

Raster elements are made known to the client code via the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE event and SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE message. On receipt of this event, the client code should add an entry into its cache table or other structure, keyed on the unique ID. The bounds described by x1, y1, x2, and y2 are relative to the page raster containing the element when the RIP rasterizes the element.

When position independence is off, this page raster will be the same size as the page on which it appears, and typically all four coordinate values will be non-zero (that is, the salient part of the page raster is somewhere in the middle of the pagebuffer, surrounded by whitespace). The area outside of the bounds may be omitted when compositing output to create a full page raster.

When position independence is on, x1 and y1 bounds will be zero and x2 and y2 effectively become width and height of the element. The element rasters are sized to just contain the element and there is little or no surrounding whitespace.

The SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS event is used by the RIP to inform the client code about changes to the usage count of a particular element. An increment happens each time the HVD scanner finds another use of the element, and a decrement occurs when a page containing the element is completed. What the OEM code does with the hit count is private to the cache implementation, but the default might be to delete the raster straight away when the hit count reaches zero for a cache intended for single jobs. An OEM implementation may choose to ignore the hit count in the raster metadata maintained by the RIP.

A simple OEM implementation may choose to read the OptimizedPDFUsageCount parameter when element rasters are output and treat those rasters with a value of 1 in that field as being variable and suitable for early purging.

eHVD pages in flight

The SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE event and SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE message give client code the information it needs to construct pages from their constituent raster elements. The SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE message includes an array of pointers to structures representing pages or tiles, and is generated by the RIP during the scanning process; this event informs the client code of the pages and their contents, in terms of raster element IDs.

The page definition provided by the RIP must be stored by the OEM code until it has been used, as it will not be re-sent by the RIP. There may be more than one SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE event for a page range. That means that the client code should append to its tables rather than overwrite them when a SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE event arrives. The page define structure defined by each SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE may need some explanation:

SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::page_offset is the zero-based page number offset of the first page in this page define. This offset should be added to RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::relative_page_number, and adjusted by 1 to get the 1-based page index in the total sequence of pages output by the job. Note that this refers to the actual page number, not counting tiles as separate pages.

The page offset is adjusted to get page numbering correct when tiling, or running a job using multiple pdfexecid chunks with /PageRange to divide the job into chunks, or when using Harlequin Scalable RIP.
SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::page_count is the number of pages or tiles being defined in this page define. This is the length of the SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::pages array. Multiple page defines may be used for a pdfexecid page range, so you must keep track of how many pages have been defined previously.
SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::page_index_offset is the page index offset of first page/tile in this define. This is the value of the SWMSG_RR_PAGE_REF::page_index used with SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY and SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE events that corresponds to the page or tile pointed to by SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::pages[0]. The offset for each page define is set to the number of pages defined in previous SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE events, i.e., the sum of SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::page_count for all previous event message. This means that the page indices used for SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY and SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE are a total sequence over all page define events.
SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::pages is an array of pointers to page structures, of length SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::page_count. When tiling, each tile appears as a separate entry in this array, sharing its RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::relative_page_number with other tiles from the same page.

The RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE structure describes each page or tile. If tiling, the RIP guarantees that all tiles of a page that are being output will appear in the same SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE message, with adjacent entries in the SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::pages array. A couple of fields in this structure may need some extra explanation:

RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::relative_page_number is the page number of this page or tile, relative the SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::page_offset. It should be used to compute the output page number for this page or tile. When tiling, multiple adjacent tile entries in the SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::pages array will share the same relative_page_number.
RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::background_id is an element ID of length RR_ELEMENT_ID_LENGTH, or NULL. This is used to identify an element used to initialize the background of the page or tile when the erase color is not white. The page or tile background should be initialized to the color value of the pixel or pixels of the corresponding raster element(s). If the raster contains more than 1 pixel, all the pixels will have the same color value. A NULL entry indicates that the page or tile background should be initialized to white.

Normally the page or tile rasters should be initialized to white, before composing in each of the raster elements in turn. However, if any of the pages or tiles need a non-white background, a non-NULL RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::background_id will be supplied. In this case the raster element corresponding to the ID will be a very small raster if position independence is enabled, either 1 by 1 pixel or OptimizedPDFGridX by OptimizedPDFGridY (whichever is larger), and all of its pixels will be the required background color. If position independence is not enabled, the raster will be the full page size as usual, but only a very small bounding box will be indicated.

Each page or tile raster should be initialized to the required erase color by copying the value from one of the pixels in the background raster. After this, each of the element rasters corresponding to the RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::elements should be composed on the page raster as usual.

For more information on EraseColor see the Harlequin Extensions Manual.
RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::pdf_page_number is the PDF page number corresponding the this page or tile, as selected by the PageRange in the original pdfexec or pdfexecid.
RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE::elements are structures defining all of the elements to compose on the page, after the background element (if present). Each structure contains an x,y offset that should be applied to the page raster bounds. If position-independent HVD is not enabled, these x,y offsets will be zero.

eHVD element cache management

The SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK event is used by the RIP to ask the client code whether it already has a copy of the rasters for the element with the given ID. The client's event handler should return SW_EVENT_CONTINUE if it does not yet have, and is not expecting, a rasters for the element in question. The event handler should return SW_EVENT_HANDLED if it does have, or is expecting, rasters for the element.

The RIP may query the same element ID multiple times before the raster arrives in the cache. In part this is because the rasterization and delivery of the element by the RIP are asynchronous, but also the client code may impose further constraints. If the RIP receives sees that the event is unhandled, it will issue a SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_PENDING event to signal that the element will be rendered and passed to the client. Once it has done so the client code should mark the element in its cache as "pending". That way the second and subsequent queries can return SW_EVENT_HANDLED to avoid having the RIP render the element repeatedly and redundantly.

Note that it is valid for the returned element handle to be NULL: this either means that it exists in the cache but is degenerate, or it is pending as previously described. Also note that the value of the handle the client sets in the SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK message is not used by the RIP in external HVD mode, only in internal HVD.

The SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_PENDING event uses the SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF message to identify which element it concerns. This just contains the ID of the element that is now pending.

Once the cache implementation has responded to a SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK event with SW_EVENT_HANDLED, the element must not be purged before the corresponding SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UNLOCK event. This event uses the same SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF message as SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_PENDING above. Only one page's worth of elements (or in the case of tiling, one tile's worth of elements) will be locked at any given time by the RIP, and if the cache cannot contain all the necessary elements at once then this is an unrecoverable error. If implementing a shared cache across multiple processes, locking and unlocking should be treated as a lock count, and the element should not be purged from the cache unless the lock count is zero.

The SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY event is a signal from the RIP to the client code that every element for the given page or tile is either present in the cache or will be supplied by the RIP soon (see SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_PENDING). The RIP will then expect a SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE event from the client code when, and only when, output is fully completed for the page or tile assembled by the client code from the constituent raster elements. At that point, the RIP will issue SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UNLOCK and SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS as appropriate. The message for both SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY and SWEVT_RR_PAGE_COMPLETE is SWMSG_RR_PAGE_REF, which just contains a page index. This page index is cumulating over all page definitions for the HVD connection, it should be reduced by the page define's SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::page_index_offset if you want to extract a page definition directly SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::pages.

When using HVD external mode it is the responsibility of the client code to manage whatever caching of sub-page rasters is required. The cache implementation may choose to make use of the OptimizedPDFUsageCount value from each raster delivered and/or the hit count managed through the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS event. Alternatively, it may choose to follow some other strategy.

To avoid stalling the RIP, the client code should copy element raster data from the raster output buffers to the cache as rapidly as possible. You may choose to use a band or framebuffer allocation strategy that lets the raster backend code allocate memory for the raster data directly from the cache, in which case copying may not be needed.

If the cache implementation deletes a cached raster before the next time the RIP queries for it, the RIP will regenerate the raster.

The client code should check its tables and deliver output upon receipt of a SWEVT_RR_PAGE_READY event. It is not generally safe to rely solely on checking for pages ready to be output on receipt of an element raster because if all element rasters for all pages in the current range are already cached, no such raster delivery will take place.

Element rasters must be replayed in turn by the client code in order to compose together the final page or tile. If the client code knows that all raster elements are already to hand, it can begin page output immediately.

eHVD raster dimensions

When position independence is turned off, all rasters delivered will have nominally the full dimensions of the page, but a bounding box is supplied for each in the element SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE message. The size of this bounding box will match the size of the bounding box of the actual raster delivered to the back end when position independence is turned on; all rasters delivered when position independence is turned off are as large as the page and the bounding box in the event message tells you where to extract the relevant part from that raster from. Empty bands above and below the area actually marked in each raster may be suppressed with TrimPage as usual. White space to the left and right of that marked area can be easily skipped in the cache implementation using the bounding box.

Typedef Documentation

◆ RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE

typedef struct RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE

A page or tile in the External HVD interface Page Define message.

The bounding box of the raster data can be used to determine if a whole page or a tile is represented. The relative page number can be used to determine if more than one tile of the same page is present. If tiling, the RIP guarantees that all tiles of a page that are being output will appear in the same SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE event, with adjacent entries in the SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE::pages array.

◆ SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE

HVD interface Page Element Define message.

This message is sent with a SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_DEFINE event.

◆ SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK

HVD element query message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_QUERY_LOCK event.

Looks for a raster element with the given id, and locks it against purging if found.

Returns SW_EVENT_CONTINUE if nothing found, in which case handle is undefined. Note that NULL is a valid value for handle which means that the element is defined, but is degenerate.

If the element is found, it should not be purged from the cache instance until it receives a corresponding unlock event, or the connection ends. This controls the low water mark level of the cache such that the current page can be guaranteed to complete. Of course the cache implementation is free to store raster elements even after the unlock, and should be encouraged to do so. This locking mechanism simply defines the minimum requirement for successful output.

An element may be queried and locked multiple times in the same connection before receiving any unlock messages. This is a common case when Harlequin Parallel Pages is active. If there are no errors in processing a job, there will be an equal number of unlock messages to successful query/lock messages. All locks made during a connection should be removed when the connection is disconnected.

◆ SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_REF

This is a message which identifies a particular raster element, and is used by two events:

SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_PENDING: Lets the cache instance know that a raster for the given id is on its way. This allows the cache to respond to queries which arrive before the raster data as if it was already there, thus preventing the redundant work of creating the raster twice.
SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UNLOCK: Unlock a raster element. If no other locks apply, it is eligible for purging at the discretion of the cache implementation.

◆ SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS

HVD element hit count message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_HITS event.

Increment or decrement the hit count for the element identified by id by the amount given in hits_delta - whether to add or subtract to the hit count is determined by the raise flag.

◆ SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER SWMSG_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER

Internal HVD element update message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_ELEMENT_UPDATE_RASTER event.

Update the raster element with the given values for raster and size. Only used in Internal HVD: not relevant for External HVD.

◆ SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE

typedef struct SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE SWMSG_RR_PAGE_DEFINE

An External HVD interface Page Define message, sent with the SWEVT_RR_PAGE_DEFINE event.

Note that the memory referred to in this structure should be treated as transient: if the code associated with a handler wishes to use any data contained in this event after the handler has returned, it should make a copy. When tiling output, each tile appears as a separate RR_PAGE_DEFINE_PAGE in the pages array.

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Typedefs