thickness of the base layer of the plateĪn example of such an implementation can be installed on your Automation Engine by importing the following ticket using the Automation Engine Pilot: ImagingEngine_with_FlexoDistortion.zip.

The SmartName needs to have access to the following parameters to do its work: Now that we know the exact formula it is easy to define a SmartName that calculates the flexo plate distortion and plugs that value into the right UI control of the Imaging Engine ticket. Automating Flexo plate Distortion Calculation in Automation Engine Don't have blind trust in these formulas.Į.g the formula found in is wrong. When searching for flexo distortion formulas on google, all kinds of results are found. This calculator uses the gear pitch, number of teeth and plate thickness as parameters and returns the flexo distortion factor. There is also an on-line flexo plate distortion calculator available at But it doesn't answer the question for plate types that are not listed. This gives you the values that need to be used. The tool is typically a Microsoft Excel or a Windows application. Since these calculators are endorsed by the plate vendor, you can assume that these calculators give reliable results. The tool will give you the flexo distortion value. In these plate distortion calculators, plate type and the intended print repeat length has to be specified.

There are flexo plate distortion calculators provided by flexo plate vendors like DuPont and Asahi. Since there is a built-in assumption in Imaging Engine and other Esko prepress tools that the vertical direction is the direction along the printing cylinder and the horizontal direction is the direction across the printing cylinder, a value smaller than 100% has to be specified in the Vertical distortion control.īut what values should be used? Can these values be calculated automatically in Automation Engine? Plate Vendor Calculators In the Imaging Engine 'Image to Screened Separations' ticket and in the Automation Engine Pilot this is called ' flexo distortion'. This is sometimes referred to as flexo distortion or dispro.

To have a correct size of the printing image a shrink factor has to be applied in the direction along the printing cylinder.

Flexo plates become slightly larger when they are wrapped around a printing cylinder because of the soft photo-polymer stretches.

Esko studio tool kit for flexo