July 2021 TAGA Presents Review
TAGA kicked off the summer in full force with another successful webinar series feature of TAGA Presents. The feedback from our initial showing in March was overwhelmingly positive, and the Advisory Committee was quick to react in arranging another actioned-packed online session.
Staying true to our promise of delivering education on pressing industry topics and spreading TAGA awareness, the two-day session in July attracted an impressive turnout. The audience was spread around the globe and featured a diverse mix of printing companies, equipment vendors, and education institutions.
July 13 started off with an anticipated presentation on The Evolution of Digital Textile Printing from Michael Sanders, President, Digital Bias Consulting. He provided a comprehensive overview on the accelerants of growth and steps needed to take advantage of new business opportunities. Industry consultants Sean Smyth and David Zwang closed out the afternoon with a dynamic session on How the Pandemic Changed the Industry. Their perspectives spread across both North America and Europe and highlighted critical changes throughout the industry that were a result of the pandemic.
The final event on July 27 began with an engaging presentation from Scott Evans, President and CEO, Kenmore Envelope. He provided a behind the scenes case study about how combining technology and company culture together can transform both internal performance and external market share. Our final speaker was Dr. Robert Joseph, President, Team MindShift. His presentation on The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Printing Industry was a strong finish that examined fundamentals of the technology provided and a roadmap of how it will increasingly change process efficiency as we know it.
We are grateful for the participation of an amazing group of speakers and our audience members from across the industry who tuned in. Also, a big thank you to our event sponsors, who made this event available to everyone at no cost.
2022 Call for Papers
The Technical Association of the Graphic Arts is pleased to announce the call for Scientific and Technical Innovation Papers for the 2022 Conference and Proceedings. This provides authors and companies one of the premier platforms for communication, publication, and outreach in the graphic communications industry. Since 1949 the annual TAGA Proceedings have been the most influential collection of scientific papers in our industry, referred to by industry leaders, innovators, researchers, scientists, and end users.
Benefits of having your submission accepted for presentation
- Gain worldwide recognition for your scientific and technical innovation research
- Receive feedback on your industry-leading research and innovation
- Showcase your innovative technology to position yourself at the vanguard of the graphic communications industry
- Have your paper published in the internationally recognized and accepted TAGA Proceedings book
Scientific and Technical Innovation Paper details
Scientific Papers are based on emerging science, technology, and the application of all forms of graphic technology, including printing processes, materials, workflow, digitization, industry 4.0, packaging, and sustainability.
Technical Innovation Papers will cover topics where a broad technology perspective needs to be provided. They will focus on issues that are current to the industry and critical to its development and will additionally include ideas and solutions relevant to the wider range of the graphic arts industry, including technical reviews.
Areas of interest
Papers cover the full range of topics impacting the industry. An emphasis for the 2022 Proceedings is on papers related to sustainability, packaging, and industrial printing. Papers can also cover such topics as automation, printed electronics, equipment, ink, substrates, color, visualization, textiles and apparel displays, materials, curing, process control, data management, workflow, security, nanotechnology, 3D printing, novel applications, fundamental science, and software and computer developments related to all types of printing processes.
Selection Process
Papers will be selected on the basis of submitted abstracts of 500–1,500 words and may include figures. Prospective authors should indicate Scientific Paper or Technical Innovation Paper.
Papers accepted for presentation will be published in the 2022 TAGA Proceedings. TAGA is recognized worldwide as the most prestigious and comprehensive literature resource for graphic arts sciences and technologies.
- All submissions can be sent to TAGA@printing.org.
- The deadline for abstracts is October 18, 2021.
- Authors will be notified of the status of their abstract by late December or early January.
- For the abstracts that have been accepted, the papers are due by May 6, 2022.
TAGA 2021 Video Presentations
In place of the conference for this year, we continued to host pre-recorded video presentations. You can find the videos by going to www.taga.org/2021-presentations/. There will also be a 2021 Proceedings that will be available towards the end of the year.
TAGA 2022 Annual Technical Conference
After a hiatus due to the pandemic, TAGA will be holding its Annual Technical Conference on March 13–16, 2022. The location will be the Sheraton Hotel downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Details on the event will be added to www.taga.org this fall.
Student Chapter Journal Competition 2021 – Virtual and Non-Print
One year after the start of the global pandemic, TAGA student chapters successfully pivoted to present an electronic journal with high quality and creativity.
As you may know, The Kipphan cup is a legacy of TAGA. As the grand prize for the winning student chapter in the annual journal competition, it is very print-specific. It was decided last year by the TAGA education committee that the Kipphan cup will not be awarded this year. Based on the modified judging criteria, a grand prize was awarded to the winning team, and three categorized awards were awarded accordingly.
Schools competing for the Chapter Journal Grand Prize included California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo), Clemson University, Grenoble Institute of Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and Ryerson University, with the Cal Poly “California Calling” team winning the coveted Grand Prize. The Ryerson “Rye TAGA” team received the award for technical writing, publication design, and ingenuity. The competition this year was especially fierce, with innovative journals comprised of quality research submitted by all competing schools.
The judges are so inspired by the excellence and persistence displayed by all students from each chapter. It is a year full of challenges, but every team did such an excellent job adapting to the e-journal and so many new technologies.
Looking ahead, TAGA will be working on generating more school participation for the 2022 conference. It is hoped that the University of Wisconsin-Stout, Appalachian State University, Ball State University, and Western Michigan University, among other schools, will be encouraged to join the 2022 competing institutions to vie for the Kipphan Cup. In addition, entries for the Levenson and Rhodes awards will be encouraged from all schools in a more structured format.
Featured TAGA Paper: “Optimizing Stability: Software Density Compensation for Improved Printing Stability”
Authored by Dr. Danny Hall of Global Graphics, “Optimizing Stability: Software Density Compensation for Improved Printing Stability” investigates the use of software density compensation to increase uniformity and eliminate banding artifacts in inkjet digital printing. Compared with tuning physical parameters, Dr. Hall theorizes and then sets out to demonstrate that software compensation is more efficient and produces a more uniform result. Additionally, he asserts that software density compensation allows physical parameters to be optimized for stability (i.e., stable jetting, fewer dropped nozzles, and less printhead variability).
The fundamental challenge for inkjet is the physics of the micron-scale domain in which picoliter drops operate. At this scale, nanoscale molecular interactions, such as dynamic viscosity and surface tension, become increasingly important. However, macro scale forces of bulk mass and thermal inertia are still strong.
To test the theory of software compensation, a small inkjet development rig was set up with two side-by-side industrial printheads (of a type in widespread use in a range of industrial inkjet applications). Both printheads used the same ink and were independently controlled with printhead driver voltage. However, one was new and the other was more than six months old and exhibited greater variability. A test print pattern was chosen, printed simultaneously by each printhead in different driver voltage (17V–26V), and then analyzed for density variation.
The results demonstrate that printheads have greater intra-head stability at specific printing densities, and that there is an opportunity to reduce intra-head variance by setting variance-minimizing voltages. The significance of the results still needs to be replicated and further testing is required to confirm that lower intra-head variance is correlated with printhead stability. Different printheads and press configurations will determine the extent and effectiveness of this technique for improving print stability. The potential exists for this process—automatically printing and scanning test images to determine optimal process parameters—to be automated.
Members can read the ten-page paper in the 2020 TAGA Proceedings or access it now via the online abstract search (must log in to download the full paper).