US 11,755,863 B1
Ink estimation model updates for production printers
Colin Reims, Boulder, CO (US); Marquis G. Waller, Beverly, OH (US); Kenneth Stuart Shouldice, Firestone, CO (US); Kelly Harr, Boulder, CO (US); and John Barker Condon, Corvallis, OR (US)
Assigned to Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo (JP)
Filed by Colin Reims, Boulder, CO (US); Marquis G. Waller, Beverly, OH (US); Kenneth Stuart Shouldice, Firestone, CO (US); Kelly Harr, Boulder, CO (US); and John Barker Condon, Corvallis, OR (US)
Filed on Mar. 2, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/684,651.
Int. Cl. G06F 3/12 (2006.01); G06N 3/08 (2023.01); G06K 15/02 (2006.01)
CPC G06K 15/1823 (2013.01) [G06F 3/1203 (2013.01); G06F 3/1229 (2013.01); G06F 3/1287 (2013.01); G06K 15/1805 (2013.01); G06N 3/08 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A system for dynamically revising ink estimation models, comprising:
a processor and a memory implementing a virtual machine for instantiating virtual printers that estimate amounts of ink used by a printer for print jobs based on an ink estimation model; and
a controller operable on the processor configured, for each print job, to:
identify estimated amounts of ink determined by the virtual printers according to each of multiple configurations for the printer, wherein each virtual printer determines the estimated amounts of ink by emulating operation of the printer processing the print job for each of the multiple configurations of the printer, and
identify a chosen configuration used to print the print job on the printer and a corresponding actual amount of ink used by the printer to print the print job, the controller further configured to:
select a configuration,
determine that estimated amounts of ink for the selected configuration have less than a threshold difference from actual amounts of ink for each of multiple print jobs, and
update the ink estimation model at the virtual machine based on the estimated amounts of ink and corresponding print job data for the selected configuration in response to the determination.