The Azon Matrix Leather will debut at the Simac Tanning Tech expo in Italy later this month. It is a 2.1x1.6m flatbed system that can print onto both real and artificial leather directly for individual pieces and large production runs.

It handles substrates up to 200mm in height and is configured with CMYK plus light cyan, light magenta, orange and green to achieve a wide variety of colours at high vibrancy. The machine will also be on show at Drupa in Düsseldorf in June.

An Azonprinter spokesperson said: “With live demonstrations, visitors will have a chance to see and test innovative printing solutions for a broad range of leather and artificial leather substrates with exceptional output quality for wide industrial areas like home decor, interior design, fashion, and promotional markets.”

The Azon Matrix Leather uses Ricoh Gen5 printheads and Azon RIP software to maximise performance and calculate ink cost from its eight 440ml cartridges.

It uses automatic substrate detection to print onto any cut pieces or shapes of leather at any position on the print table.