finn@sunshine.cad.mcc.com (Chris Finn) (08/24/89)
Does anyone know of a way to convert PostScript to Versaplot
Random format? The idea is to get PostScript files to plot on
our Versatec plotter. Is this easy, difficult, impossible, a waste
of time? Is there public domain or comercially available software
to do this?
Any help that can be offered would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris Finn
MCC CAD Program, P.O. Box 200195, Austin, TX 78720 [512] 343-0978
ARPA: finn@mcc.com
UUCP: {uunet,harvard,gatech,pyramid}!cs.utexas.edu!milano!cadillac!finntnt@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu (doug shearer) (08/31/89)
In article <2521@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM>, finn@sunshine.cad.mcc.com (Chris Finn) writes: > > The idea is to get PostScript files to plot on our Versatec plotter. I'm not familiar with Versaplot, since we set up a plotting system of our own, but I have been working on and off for some time to get PostScript to plot on our Versatec. I've tried 2 methods, both of which should work, but in practice have too many problems to be useful (for us): 1- Use NeWS (a windowing system which runs on Suns), with its start up files munged to give a Sun raster file instead of a window. Then copy the raster file to the Versatec. Someone went to a lot of bother to try and make NeWS fast using short ints and a special fixed point floating package that limits reals to the range -32768. to 32768. (approx). Our Versatec is 7040 nibs wide and we'd like to do 7040 x 7040 rasters at least. This is much bigger than your standard 1152 x 900 screen or even the hi-res screens that Sun offers. Things worked well in my tests which started out with small rasters, but when I went to full size, things failed pretty badly (core dumps and such). I changed a few shorts to longs in the NeWS code and it's better. But area fills still work intermittently. NeWS has raster fonts which don't scale or rotate very well, so I made a simple outline font. Again this fixed some problems but not all. I've given up on this until the new NeWS/X merge comes out this winter. This approach would probably work for someone with a *small* Versatec, the source to NeWS, and a machine that can run NeWS. 2- Use Ghostscript (from GNU, the Free Software foundation) which plots PostScript in an X window. I munged up version 1.2 (1.3 is out now) to write a Sun raster file instead of an X window and again copied it to the Versatec. I can't remember much now but there were bugs. Fonts were in worse shape than NeWS. Version 1.3 was supposed to have support for variable size rasters, so I waited for it, but alas, this feature got the axe because of time constraints. I'll play with this again some time. It has the advantage (for us) that it uses X and would therefore run on more machines here. If anyone has more information, or wants to talk about this further, please let me in on it. Thanks in advance. Hope this helps and all that. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BIT/ARPA: tnt%lamont@columbia.edu Doug Shearer 914-359-2900 UUCP: columbia.edu!lamont!tnt Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~