Inkjet Print and Workflow Innovations from EFI Drive Digital Success in High-End Signage and Textile Production

The advanced digital signage, graphics and industrial textile products Electronics For Imaging, Inc. (EFI) (Booth 301) is presenting reflect the ongoing new opportunities possible for customers to develop more profitable business as they drive the ongoing analog-to-digital transformation in print. New products include the EFI VUTEk h series — EFI’s next-generation high-end hybrid flatbed/roll LED printer platform.

EFI’s Fiery version 7 for wide- and superwide-format production printing.

Plus, attendees can see launches in the company’s end-to-end industrial textile ecosystem for apparel and décor with the new version of EFI Optitex 2D and 3D design software offering improved avatar features, a deeper fabric library and other key enhancements. Also making their debut are new EFI Fiery DesignPro prep tools for color separations, colorways and recoloring.

The next generation of signage and graphics printer innovation

The EFI VUTEk h series making its North American debut at the SGIA Expo is a 126-inch wide printer series built from the ground up to offer higher quality. The series’ new, high-velocity 7-picoliter UltraDrop Technology grayscale printhead imaging delivers precision dot placement and consistency from print to print at high production speeds. The printers offer eight- and optional four-color printing modes plus white, as well as five-layer print capability in a single pass.

The new VUTEk h3 model on display — SGIA’s 2018 Product of The Year award honoree in the UV Hybrid/Flatbed High Volume Production Class category — offers maximum throughput of up to 74 boards per hour. The h5 model, which is available directly from EFI or as field upgrade to the h3 model, can produce up to 109 boards per hour.

EFI’s ultra-high-speed LED inkjet corrugated packaging press, the EFI Nozomi C18000, has received a 2018 SGIA Product of the Year award as well, in the single-pass printer category. At EFI’s booth, SGIA Expo attendees can participate in an immersive VR demo of this corrugated production device that is ideal for direct-to-board digital production of high-quality shelf-ready packaging and corrugated displays. The EFI Nozomi press is already making an impact in the market, with leading corrugated packaging producers using the 71-inch wide, ultra-high-speed press to move digital print beyond sampling and prototypes and into full scale production.

EFI VUTEk FabriVU 340i

SGIA Expo attendees can also see a full range of innovative products to drive successful, profitable growth in signage and graphics production, including the EFI VUTEk FabriVU 340i, a new aqueous soft signage printer making its North American debut that combines superior-quality imaging with efficient, in-line fixation for fast, all-in-one fabric soft signage production. EFI’s advanced inkjet printer portfolio also includes the 65-inch wide EFI Pro 16h LED hybrid wide-format printer, which is available from EFI and from distribution channel partners such as Nazdar SourceOne (Booth 2941), Reece Supply (Booth 2074) and Ricoh USA (Booth 3601). Another printer on display, the EFI VUTEk 3r LED roll-to-roll printer, is the most technically advanced three-meter LED high-volume roll-to-roll printer in its class.

Show attendees can also witness the next generation in digital print job management with version 7 of EFI’s Fiery wide- and superwide-format production digital front ends (DFEs) and updated Fiery Command WorkStation software. Together, these two products help unify production operations by giving users the ability to manage cut-sheet, continuous-feed, wide-format and superwide-format digital print devices from a single user interface.

End-to-end industrial textile innovation

EFI has launched several new EFI Reggiani industrial textile printer innovations over the past year. The 71-inch wide EFI Reggiani FLEXY printer that made its North American debut at last year’s SGIA Expo is running at the show with a groundbreaking new EFI Reggiani Terra pigment ink technology for direct-to-textile production. The ink gives users a faster, environmentally friendly production process with in-line polymerization that requires less water, less energy and less processing time, with no washing or steaming needed.

The new EFI Optitex/18 software at the show delivers a faster, more customizable, user-friendly experience, saving time and resources with a faster time to market. This new launch includes a number of 3D innovations, including an avatar editor that allows users to easily create sizes, define poses and otherwise customize avatars with either a scanned avatar or one from the Optitex library. The software’s dynamic features support multiple avatar animations, improving the process for users to easily and accurately review final draped results and test fit and pattern placement.

The software also features an enriched fabric library with more than 100 fabric types — double the number of previous releases. The software also closes the gap between patternmaking and production by aligning all shaders and textures according to the baseline of each piece rather than the piece position in 2D.

A new EFI Optitex marker creation wizard simplifies the process to create and define multiple markers within a single, user-friendly interface. Users can also distribute style sets; define materials, sizes and bundles for a number of market files in one operation; and define global properties such as shrinkage. And, a new and more dynamic report generator in the software makes it easy to create and define report templates without using third-party programs.

Virtual product patterns completed in Optitex software can enter print preparation through EFI’s Fiery DesignPro software suite — a series of plug-in applications for Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop — and the Fiery proServer DFE, which delivers professional color management and high-quality RIP output for EFI Reggiani digital printers. The Fiery DesignPro suite gives stakeholders throughout a design team the power to quickly and easily create professional designs, seamless repeat patterns, different colorways, color libraries and palettes.

The latest version of EFI’s Fiery DesignPro software suite includes Fiery DesignPro RSe — a plug-in product that significantly reduces the time and effort needed to create multi-channel separations, colorways and repeat patterns directly within Photoshop, all with the added convenience of a streamlined “print to Fiery” function to send designs directly into production through an EFI Fiery proServer DFE.

Additional technologies in EFI’s SGIA Expo exhibit include the latest version of the EFI Midmarket Print Suite, a comprehensive workflow featuring Pace ERP software, for end-to-end signage and graphics production printing management, and MarketDirect, EFI’s advanced multi-channel customer communication platform software.