daveb@oresoft.uu.net (David Barnes) (12/15/88)
Can anyone suggest a method for printing bit maps on an Imagen ImageStation printer? The bitmaps in question are Sun screendump raster files. I can convert them to imPRESS using Imagen's imScreen filter or the public-domain rastoimp program; both produce correctly-formatted imPRESS files. The problem is that the printer configuration requires an end-of-file character to be defined, in the range 0..255. Unfortunately, the bitmaps I'm printing can contain ANY value in this range, including the EOF marker. When the printer sees the EOF character in the bitmap, it issues an "unexpected end-of-file" error and produces incomplete or garbled output. If, as the Imagen support rep suggested, I modify imScreen to eliminate or substitute something else for the EOF character within the bitmap, the result is garbled output. THERE MUST BE A WAY to print these bitmaps on my Imagen (mustn't there?). [ Until this problem cropped up I've been happy with my Imagen, but I should note that a local office was able to print a bitmap for me with no problem on their PostScript printer. Help me out, imPRESS hackers! ] David Barnes Oregon Software ...!uunet!oresoft!daveb
cdl@mplvax.nosc.MIL (Carl Lowenstein) (12/16/88)
In article <531@oresoft.uu.net> daveb@oresoft.UUCP (David Barnes) writes: >Can anyone suggest a method for printing bit maps on an Imagen ImageStation >printer? The bitmaps in question are Sun screendump raster files. I can >convert them to imPRESS using Imagen's imScreen filter or the public-domain >rastoimp program; both produce correctly-formatted imPRESS files. > >The problem is that the printer configuration requires an end-of-file >character to be defined, in the range 0..255. Unfortunately, the bitmaps >I'm printing can contain ANY value in this range, including the EOF marker. >When the printer sees the EOF character in the bitmap, it issues an "unexpected >end-of-file" error and produces incomplete or garbled output. I infer that you have a serial link betwen the Sun and the Imagen. The serial byte-stream protocol can be set up to have two special purpose characters: EOF and Quote. Recommended values are 0x04 and 0x02, respectively. The trick is to get the sending program on the Sun and the receiving program on the Imagen to agree on these values. Then the sending program can be set up to intercept any bit-map value which happens to be equal to EOF or Quote, and send it as Quote EOF or Quote Quote. That would be (hex) 02 30 34 or (hex) 02 30 32, respectively. Note that the quoted character is 'spelled out' in hex ascii. In this way, you never get a raw EOF character except at the real end of the file. Read all about this in ImageServer XP Programmer's Guide, Part IV: Communications. This is the way it has worked in the past on other Imagen printers, and I hope that you can convince your ImageStation to do the same, going through its setup procedure. -- carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego {decvax|ucbvax} !ucsd!mplvax!cdl cdl@mplvax.ucsd.edu cdl@mplvax.nosc.mil
daveb@oresoft.uu.net (David Barnes) (12/20/88)
In article <792@mplvax.nosc.MIL> cdl@mplvax.ucsd.edu.UUCP (Carl Lowenstein) writes: >The serial byte-stream protocol can be set up to have two special >purpose characters: EOF and Quote... >The trick is to get the sending program on the Sun and the receiving >program on the Imagen to agree on these values... >... I hope that you can convince your ImageStation >to do the same, going through its setup procedure. Thanks, Carl, for a good suggestion. It's true that by manipulating the EOF and Quote values I can obtain some improvements in my output, but it's still garbled. It seems that the quote characters serve their purpose well as far as transmitting the bitmap to the printer, but they're stripped out before the actual imPRESS image processor gets hold of the file. There's something peculiar about the ImageStation in particular; I can print the files just fine on our Imagen 3320.