The US developer said the new release, which is available “this summer”, introduces numerous features that are designed to “reach new heights” for all print applications, including soft signage and textiles.

Building upon Onyx 18.5, it introduces the Spark Engine, a new performance platform built for major advances in speed, performance and reliability, and DeviceLink+, a new system of colour management controls to achieve consistent colour across an entire site.

The Spark Engine introduces advanced compression algorithms that increase RIP speeds by up to 400%, a new threading pipeline that improves printer performance by up to 200%, and new rendering technology that increases Step and Repeat performance by up to 600%.

International marketing manager Jonathan Rogers said: “With Onyx 19, what we’re trying to do is take the bottleneck away from the equipment.

“One of the new features is called printer isolation technology. We know that print shops are going to have an issue at some point, that a printer will need maintenance or that an unexpected event will happen and something halts.

“But with printer isolation technology, we will not stop the rest of your printers working while you fix the other one; we don’t want Onyx to be affected by what’s happening out of the box. So with this technology we isolate that printer, you go ahead and fix it and everything else continues as normal. That makes the entire production process easier.

“So Onyx 19 is about how can we take automation to the next level and how do we create toolsets that can allow people to go after these new verticals that they’re looking at.”

Onyx 19 is compatible with iccMAX v5 and embraces the latest Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE) 5.1 with PDF 2.0 support.

Customers can purchase an Onyx 19 software licence or upgrade from a previous version through the Onyx Advantage software maintenance programme.

Onyx is exhibiting at stand B5-F40 at Fespa, which is taking place at Messe Munich, Germany until Friday (17 May).