Hamillroad Software

Hamillroad Software Ltd. is a small company based in Cambridge, England. Hamillroad's principal activity is the research and design of computer software for the printing industry.
History
Hamillroad was born out of the work done by Robert Miller in developing a number of productivity and performance enhancement concepts for the Harlequin RIP, in 1999.
Hamillroad Software Limited was then incorporated in the UK in 2002. It is led by CEO Andy Cave, the Original Creator and Chief Designer of the Harlequin RIP and former founder member of Harlequin Limited (now Global Graphics Software).
On the 29th July 2002 the company launched its first product, FirstPROOF, a pre-press soft-proofing product designed for integration with any TIFF-producing RIP. The company's second product, Lightning TIFF, was released on the 27th March 2008. Lightning TIFF replaces the standard TIFF plug-in, providing faster performance speeds. On the 7th October 2009, Hamillroad's third product, Auraia DM Screening, was announced.
Products
FirstPROOF 5
FirstPROOF is a pre-press soft-proofing product that is designed to work in an integrated way with the Harlequin RIP, Esko Flex (LEN) RIP, Presstek DI RIP or any RIP that produces TIFF files. Its tools allow the operator to verify that what has been RIPped and is to be printed is correct and has no errors.
FirstPROOF Professional contains a [http://www.hamillroad.com/products/firstproofpro/features.html#scroll2 colour management solution] that allows for colour-accurate pre-press and press-side viewing of jobs under different lighting conditions.
Lightning TIFF
Lightning TIFF is a TIFF output plug-in for the Harlequin RIP that is designed to replace the standard TIFF plug-in. Its main benefit is its fast performance, providing up to a 4x overall improvement in performance and throughput when it is used.
According to Hamillroad Software, "the high performance that the Lightning TIFF output plug-in achieves is obtained through a unique method for implementing CCITT compression, along with a significant number of code optimisation techniques that have been applied to all the various compression modes."
Auraia II Screening
Auraia Second Generation Screening is Hamillroad's second generation “Digitally Modulated” or DM screening. Auraia II Screening enhances stochastic screening, achieving a high level of image detail long associated with FM stochastic screening and also ultra-smooth flat tints that are as smooth as or smoother than AM conventional screening.
DM screening is so named because it digitally modulates every pixel it produces, controlling not only the dots in each separation, but also between the separations so as to eliminate noise. It does this through the use of a "stochastic rosette", which interleaves the screens in all the separations. The "stochastic rosette" also maximises the amount of ink-on-paper and minimises the amount of ink-on-ink, which expands the available colour gamut whilst eliminating colour shifts on mis-registration.
Pixels are modulated based on an awareness of laser optics, plate technology, printing press behaviour and ink flow to ensure that dot gain is eliminated, resulting in a reduction of graininess.
RepliPlate
According to Hamillroad's website, the company is set to release a fourth product in 2014, named RepliPlate.

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