[Magic-dev] Postscript plotting larger than A size

[Mika Nystrom]

What we always did was to generate the files as PNMs and pass them
through a program called p3.  This program generates HPR (HP Raster)
files that drive HP DesignJets far more efficiently than PostScript,
which by its very nature requires the plotter to render the entire
image in its internal memory, because unlike a real pen plotter,
these inkjet "plotters" can't back up...

The P3 README has the following to say:

----

P3 was last updated on Jan 4, 1995

...

P3 has been tested on an HP9000s800 and Sun3 (SunOS 4.1.1).  If you
    a) find it to work on another architecture
    b) make any changes (to support other formats or output devices)
        or
    c) fix any bugs

I would like a copy of the changes.

Noel (ngorelic at speclab.cr.usgs.gov)

----

It works just fine on FreeBSD and OSF/1.

The following command did the trick for us with a plotter with a
36-inch carriage.  (E size.)

p3 -DJET -render 4 -width 34i poster-situs-sep2003_150.ppm > poster-situs-sep2003_150.hpr

lpr -Pplotter poster-situs-sep2003_150.hpr

The results are of noticeably higher quality than those which come
out of using PostScript files.  I don't remember how much RAM the
plotter had (but it was a lot).

     Mika

P.S. If anyone needs P3 and can't find it let me know.  Also let
me know if you'd like a standalone plotting program for Magic that
unfortunately doesn't handle triangles, isn't very efficient, but
is capable of producing very pretty plots of quite large chips (we
tried it on 100M+ transistors---that takes days).

John Nestor writes:
>Hi, Bertrand
>
>I encountered this problem when trying to plot large size plots on our HP
>DesignJet 800PS. My suspicion is that when magic creates the PS file at full
>size, an overflow occurs in the plotter's PS interpreter.
>
>My workaround was to do something like this:
>
>1) set PS_width and PS_height to HALF the desired size
>
>2) On the plotter, use the settings menu to 200% magnification
>
>Hope this helps,
>
>John Nestor
>
>On 10/30/07 4:08 PM, "Bertrand Irissou" <bertrand at asicadvantage.com> wrote:
>
>> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> My question regarding Postscript plotting is actually 2 fold.
>> 
>> First, has anyone had success plotting on anything larger than an A
>> size paper ? I have tried B, C, D and E size, but to no avail...
>> By using the PS_width and PS_height values in plot param, I have
>> changed the paper size. Magic creates a postscript file but the printer
>> crashes on the file. Similarly, ghostscript  chokes on the file and
>> returns an error. Any idea ?
>> 
>> Secondly, is there a way to specify a scale when plotting to postscript
>> ? Ideally a lambda->real size would be create (15X , 100X, etc..). It
>> looks like this was done for PNM plotting.
>> 
>> Sincerely
>> 
>> Bertrand.
>> 
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>-- 
>John Nestor, Associate Professor
>ECE Department
>Lafayette College
>Easton, PA 18042
>nestorj at lafayette.edu
>http://foghorn.cadlab.lafayette.edu/~nestorj
>
>
>
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