New York, NY -- Recently we got together with Emre Ozguc, worldwide marketing director, Designjet Large Format Printing, HP, to discuss the history of HP’s wide-format printers and how the technology has evolved to what businesses have access to today.
CI: How long has HP been making wide-format printers and how did it begin? HPWF:HP first entered into the large-format market in 1978 with the Drafting Plotter and HP Graphics Plotter series, which used a carousel of pens to plot line drawings and maps. HP continued developing this pen technology throughout the 1980s and early 1990s with its HP DraftMaster Series until the introduction of its first inkjet large-format printer in 1992, the HP Designjet 600 Printer. This device was a monochrome inkjet printer that printed up to 600 dpi. Since this time, HP has continued to develop and expand its HP Designjet portfolio into the best-in-class line-up of large-format printers you see today, spanning from high-quality photo printers such as the HP Designjet Z3200 and Z6200 Printers to devices for graphics professionals and sign shops like the HP Designjet L26500 and L28500 Printers to our web-connected printers for the architecture, engineering and design community, like the HP Designjet T2300 eMFP and HP Designjet T790 ePrinter.
CI:When was the first wide-format specific ink developed and how is it different? HPWF:The first wide-format format specific ink developed by HP was HP Designjet 26 Ink, used in the HP Designjet 600 Printer.
CI: What industries are your current set of Designjet printers optimized for? Are there other industries where you could see the technology being used that have not adopted it yet? HPWF:We have a broad portfolio of HP Designjet printers targeted at various market segments, including architecture, engineering and construction (AEC), geographic information systems (GIS) professionals, reprographic houses, corporate reprographics departments, graphic design studios, professional photographers, copy shops, print service providers and more.
CI: Where do you see wide-format printing going in the next 5-10 years? HPWF:Mobility and cloud computing is a significant trend for all customer segments, but especially for AEC and GIS professionals. More and more printable content will be stored in the cloud and architects, designers and engineers will want and need to be able to access their drawings, designs and maps anytime, anywhere. Printing will be done less from one central location, and more after having been distributed electronically to several sources and then printed locally by those viewers.
Additionally, wide-format printed output will continue to be important in the workflows of design professionals, even as screens get bigger and lighter – we will not see printed designs just go away – so there will be an increased need for these large files to easily transition between paper and digital. Seamless digitization of and instant access to hand-annotated drawings or manual edits will be expected as well, so printers and MFPs will need to be connected directly to the web and cloud-based storage to give users the ability to print, access view or share their designs wherever the job takes them.
CI: What are the advantages a company gets using a printer with ePrint capabilities as opposed to a standard wide-format option? HPWF:The web-connected HP Designjet ePrinters and eMFPs give users the ability to seamlessly take their plans and designs from a digital format to printed output and back again, while allowing for these plans to be quickly and easily shared with all of the partners and collaborators involved in the design process. With a web-connected eMFP, users can scan drawings or images directly to their HP ePrint & Share library from the device for sharing with team members, printing at the job site or later access via the HP ePrint & Share mobile application. The touchscreen panel on an eMFP or ePrinter can also be used to print content stored in the cloud on the HP ePrint & Share web service without ever accessing a computer. These ePrinters and eMFPs are also driverless, so that users can walk up to them and immediately plug in a laptop or USB stick and begin printing and they have the option to automatically install firmware upgrades.
With HP ePrint & Share, a free printing and sharing tool available to all Designjet customers, even those without a web-connected printer, users can access their large format content via their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch mobile device and initiate a print to any web-connected printer remotely from wherever they are. For example, an architect who is stuck in traffic and forgot to bring one of his drawings can send the print job to the customer site and have it printed and waiting there while his taxi sits at a red light. Or, a team of architects and contractors working on a building plan can make changes, re-scan the drawing directly to the cloud through the HP Designjet T2300 eMFP and make those updates available to everyone on their team instantly, including the architect stuck in traffic so that he can share the latest plan with the client.
