J1C6844@TAMSIGMA.BITNET (Zachry VAXcluster Systems Analyst) (03/18/87)
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Does anyone out there know of a HPGL optimizer? We have a number of
packages that produce HPGL for use on HP plotters. Unfortunately these
packages make no attempt to draw all items of the same color while it has
that particular color in its grasp. Therefore the plotter spends a great
deal of time going back and forth to the pen carousel to get a pen that it
had just a few strokes ago. We have five HP plotters, four of which are
the HP7550A model (11"x17", 8 pens) and one HP7586B (36"x48", 8 pens). We
have 2000 users which literally turn out hundreds of plots a day and the
plot queues become backed up frequently. I would also like the the optimizer
to sort via X/Y posistion if possible because the large plotter can spend
a lot of time just traversing the paper from one end to the other. I have
seen the output from an ICEM/DDN CAD/CAM package optimize by pen color and pen
posistion. SDRC I-DEAS, Precision Visuals Inc. DI-3000, Picsure, Contour,
and FIDAP are some of the packages that we have that produce HPGL. We are
running these packages and others on a VAX 8650/8800 Cluster under VMS 4.5.
I am interested in either public domain, home grown, or vendor software (as
long as it is not too expensive). Thanks for any and all assistance.
Jeffrey L. Cox
Systems Analyst
Engineering Computer Services
Zachry VAXCluster
Texas A&M University
Bitnet: MANAGER@TAMSIGMA
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