Beneath the surface of ink-jet technology, as most of us know it, there lurk teams of developers who are bringing the core of what we understand into different industry sectors. Some of these we recognise, because they are linked with the printing process, but others are less obvious.

I have been itching to attend an IMI conference for many years but circumstances always managed to prevent it. Last week, however, by dint of some careful planning, I managed to get to Lisbon and spend a happy two and a half days wallowing in technology and the bits that drive it.

Konica Minolta's Akiyoshi Ohno explains to IMI Conference attendees why ink-jet textile printing is finally taking off

For someone who has largely spent her time in graphics territories, to be able to see targeted alternative directions mostly based on the common theme of ink-jet was rewarding, to say the least. Production and industrial markets joined forces with the more familiar sectors, but the whole knitted together to show a commonality in technology and intention. Thus, the results might be different but the techniques used in achieving them are similar in that they involve ink or fluids, print-heads, engines and the necessary people and expertise to get them to integrate.

One thing eminently clear across all variants of our technology is that it is growing, even if this is now more by stealth rather than giant leaps forward which are trumpeted loudly on every corner. Analysis of future trends shows that commercial production is on a steady upward path but, as expected, there are new applications in digital manufacture and 3D printing making tremendous in-roads, thanks to ink-jet. Likewise, the markets for wide- and narrow-format graphics, packaging and textiles are now being joined more strongly by niche sectors such as ceramics and, of course, labels. These latter two sectors are particularly ripe for promotion as the need increases for customised and versioned output.

Influences, such as the cloud and mobile capabilities, are changing the way we handle files and output our data which makes our lives easier but, perhaps, puts more pressure on the output devices in conversion terms. And, of course, the topics of greater green practices and reduced waste are never far from the horizon.

The case for the environment was covered first by Stephen Goddard and, although he concentrated largely on HP's Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study on book printing, these principles certainly apply elsewhere. INGEDE's Axel Fischer followed this with the criteria and efficiency of deinking, the problems incurred currently with ink-jet, and the improvements needed within formulations for this to become an efficient part of the recycling process.

Not surprisingly, topics also covered the efficiency of front-ends and workflow but, to me, the greatest interest lay in some of the new technologies now coming to the fore. We discovered more about waterless ink-jet, with Xerox's CiPress 500 as an example, and there was considerable discussion about MEMS technology, courtesy of Memjet and Fujifilm Dimatix. Memjet technology is the driver behind the remarkable Lomond Evojet high-speed colour printer which might only be a desktop unit for now but plans are for this to be joined next year first by a photo-quality option and, in Q4, with a 1.06m wide-format version which will handle rolls and sheets.

Application diversity featured strongly, with Tonejet's Daniel Mace describing his company's solution for printing direct to metal cans, and Frank Aigner of Sepiax outlining the place for water-based resin inks in industrial ink-jet printing. Marc Graindourze from Agfa looked at the packaging sector amongst other specialist areas where UV-curable ink-jet and single-pass printing is now challenging other processes for market growth.

The range of topics was broad and, not surprisingly, moves to LED curing were covered, along with the launch of the UV LED Curing Association by its founder members, Phoseon Technology, Integration Technology and Lumen Dynamics. This alliance should prove to be valuable, and here's hoping that it will be able to generate greater understanding about this methodology when working with UV-curable ink.

And, so, we moved onto textiles which were covered succinctly and efficiently by Jos Notermans of Stork Prints and Akiyoshi Ohno of Konica Minolta. But, although their messages were similar, their presentations were very different and served to answer many of those digital textile questions I've been pondering.

Call me strange, but I was like a kid in a sweet shop during the entire IMI conference. From this overview of the event, I shall certainly be covering many of the topics in greater depth in my future features on Output.