Project 37 is a digital single-pass UV-cure ink-jet printer with variable-image capability that outputs a disk every three seconds.

It gives the optical-disk industry the quality of digital printing on a commercial scale, which has long been in demand, said Sun Chemical Screen corporate vice president Richard Martin.

The ability to print every disk uniquely was a boon for security and brand protection, promotions and novelty applications, he added.

His firm worked with Copytrax Technologies in Cambridge. The kit costs around 300,000 and has 24 Xaar OmniDot 318 piezoelectric drop-on-demand greyscale print heads.

Copytrax Technologies managing director Steve Woods said users could handle short runs more effectively and economically and the gear offered the benefits of variable-image capability disk to disk. It thereby frees up their existing printers to do what they were designed for fast long runs.