SHULL@WHARTON-10.ARPA (Christopher Shull) (11/14/85)
Thanks to all of you who responded to my query on the relative merits
of "color printer/plotters -- ink jets vs. pen plotters". Your comments
have been most helpful. Below you will find 1) a repeat of the question,
2) the responses received, and 3) the conclusion we arrived at.
{------ 1. Text of Request ----------}
From: SHULL (Christopher Shull)
Date: 4 Nov 1985 (Monday) 1255-EDT
Subject: Question on color printer/plotters -- ink jets vs. pen plotters
I have a mapping application that requires the production of
24" x 36" color maps. Does anyone out there in Laser Land have any
experience with or insight on the relative advantages of color ink
jet printers as compared to pen plotters.
It occurs to me that the pen plotter would have higher resolution
and reasonable speed for line oriented maps. On the other hand, the
ink jet printer would be much faster for applications requiring area
fills and the curvy lines frequently found in character labels.
Does anyone have experience to support or reject these thoughts?
Can anyone offer other distinctions (or similarities) that can be
drawn between the two technologies? Are there other technologies
that preferred?
Please respond directly to me. I will summarize any significant
news and views to the list.
Thanks in advance,
Chris
{------ 2. Text of Responses --------}
{- 1 -}
From: RSanders@USGS2-MULTICS.ARPA
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 85 21:43 MST
Please don`t take these comments as anything official from the USGS; the
people that make the maps are in another branch. Still, I have a few
opinions.
1 - My experience with color ink jet printers is uniformly bad so far.
They require lots of maintenance and patience, and the resolution is not
spectacular for most.
2 - I`ve had lots of experience with pen plotters; they are reliable,
easy to use, fast for most things, and can be fast in area fill with the
correct software/firmware. Go with the best CalComp models, or
comparable.
3 - Have you considered the color Versatec printer/plotters? They have
released some lower cost models ($50k-$150k range). Versatecs can be
cranky and slow, but I would rather use them than ink-jet printers.
Several people in the USGS have produced some impressive, area-filled
maps with a color Versatec.
Finally, I am not aware of any ink-jet plotters still on the market
capable of producing 24x36 plots, unless you tape together many separate
plots. If you know of some, could you let me know? Thanks.
-- Rex Sanders, USGS Pacific Marine Geology
{- 2 -}
From: baskett@decwrl.DEC.COM (Forest Baskett)
Date: 4 Nov 1985 1530-PST (Monday)
We have a 44 inch wide color Versatec plotter. It is expensive
(~$100K) and the tone control isn`t good but it is wonderful for our
plots of integrated circuit layouts. I imagine it would be equally
good at color maps. May be overkill for you, however.
Forest
{- 3 -}
From: bollman.Wbst@Xerox.ARPA
Date: 5 Nov 85 09:51:00 EST (Tuesday)
Chris,
You may want to look into Versatec color plotters they now come in 42",
36" and 24". These are 200/inch 4 color electrostatic printers. The
speed that they run at is not data dependent.
Jim...
{- 4 -}
From: starkweather.pa@Xerox.ARPA
Date: 5 Nov 85 08:00:38 PST
The answer is complex since the pen plotters are fine if the number of
lines is reasonable and there are no tints (halftone patches) etc. Maps
usually have lots of both. The image generation for pen plotters is much
easier since HP has its HPGL for plotters etc. The colors, however, are
much better on an ink jet printer. Reliability of the pen plotter is
substantially better in most current implementations. The plots are
cheaper on the pen plotter. The speed of the pen plotter clearly favors
that technology if the map is simple. If you have a complex map with
contour lines, tints, blue patches for lakes etc. The ink jet might end
up being much faster. Reproducing a map like one buys at a gas station
or a military map with lots of shading clearly favors the ink jet versus
the pen plotter.
This is brief, but I would choose ink jet over the pen plotter since its
ability to handle complex images is much better as well as having a more
desireable color gamut.
Gary Starkweather
{- 5 -}
From: Pier.pa@Xerox.ARPA
Date: 5 Nov 85 09:14:36 PST
You should consider a color Versatec electrostatic plotter. They come in
various widths up to 40", have a 200 spot per inch resolution, four
colors, and make very satisfactory images. There is no distinction
between "line" drawing and "area" drawing as far as this technology is
concerned. They are more expensive than pen plotters et. al. We use ours
for large VLSI checkplots and for large halftoned images. The technical
documentation that comes with it is sufficient for you to bypass the
Versatec network/tape interfaces and connect the plotter directly to a
driving host if you want to. Contact your local Versatec or Xerox sales
office for information.
Ken Pier. Xerox PARC/Computer Science Lab
{- 6 -}
From: Christopher Schmidt <SCHMIDT@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Date: Tue 5 Nov 85 11:49:43-PST
If you have a whole heap of money (i.e. > $50,000) to spend,
there are also color electrostatic printer made by Xerox that do beautiful
solid color and are quite fast given that they can do 240 or 480 dpi on
40" x 80" sheets. They take several minutes to do what would take hours
if you could get an ink jet printer that large. The downside is that that
division of Xerox has never heard of Interpress or Ethernet. You basically
download a bitmap from a VAX/780 or IBM 370 class machine.
--Christopher
{- 7 -}
From: ulysses!gamma!mb2c!eed092!root@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 85 10:53:50 est
>
> I have a mapping application that requires the production of
> 24" x 36" color maps. Does anyone out there in Laser Land have any
> experience with or insight on the relative advantages of color ink
> jet printers as compared to pen plotters.
I would say that your decision is really based on the question
of resolution not on plotting speed. I have found that you end up
paying something for speed no matter which way you go.
I also have a need for multicolor plots but in my case some
of these will go up to 20 feet in the case of strip maps. Having
produced similar drawings on both raster and pen devices I have
decided that speed is definitly not a problem for me and have
elected to stick with the old fashioned pen plotters. for your
application it seems to me that a Hewlett-Packard 7580A plotter
would work very well.
Look them up and see what you think
ron tribble
ucbvax!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!mb2c!eed092!ron
{- 8 -}
From: Lee Moore <lee@rochester.arpa>
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 85 19:06:43 est
You might consider using a color Versatec. It is only 200spi but it
is four color and will print up to 40 inches.
lee
{- 9 -}
From: kahrs%alice.btl.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Date: Wed, 6 Nov EST 1985 10:59
Given the fact you`re not ready to plunk down $50K for a Versatec electrostatic
then all of your opinions make sense. The differences between a pen plotter and
a ink jet are just what you say: speed and area fill. I would think that for
cartography you would want an ink jet. We have all 3 (well, the Versatec is
on order...). We have a Tektronix 4691 ink jet plotter. It`s kinda tempermental
but if you use it often, it works well. It`s 154 spots per inch and quite fast
(I`d say about a minute for an A sized sheet). Give it a try. For your ref,
we also have an HP pen plotter, but we use that for PC card stuff; the ink
jet for VLSI output.
Hope this helps.
Mark.
{------ 3. Our Conclusion -----------}
As some people guessed, we are not in the market for a $50,000 plus
machine, so Versatec`s four-color electrostatic printer/plotter is not an
option for us. We seem to have another case of the classic unsolvable
triangle of high speed, low price, and wonderful quality.
We want the speed of the electrostatic and ink-jet printers, the vivid
colors of the ink-jets, the many colors of ink-jets and pens, the precise
lines of pens, and the solid and half-tone area fills of ink-jets.
Our conclusion is that we need 1) low price and reliability; 2) more
than four colors; and 3) precise, clean, smooth lines more than excellent
area fills. We therefore conclude that we want a pen plotter.
We also thought that a combined ink-jet & pen printer/plotter would be
pretty nice, but laugh at the thought of trying to build a controller to divide
the raster instructions from the vector ones, and all the associated problems...
Thanks once again to all you nice folks in Laser Land.
-Chris
Shull@Wharton-10.ARPA
215/898-5930
Decision Sciences Department
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6366laser-lovers@ucbvax.UUCP (11/18/85)
If you can wait, Versatec is developing an 11" color plotter -- similar in form factor to their V80. <enter rumor mode> Supposedly it will be available early 1st quarter 1986, with a price in the $20k-$25k range (lower than you'd expect because it's the first Versatec to be assembled using a highly-automated production line). <exit rumor mode> They are NOT taking orders yet. Here at HIG we're deferring getting a regular V80 and/or a separate ink-jet device until the 1st of the year on the chance that the rumors are correct.