[Magic-dev] Postscript plotting larger than A size

[Mika Nystrom]

Well I don't remember where I got P3 from... I think it might have been
on a USGS site, way back when.  I put a copy at

http://www.async.caltech.edu/~mika/p3.tgz

but I'm afraid I can't guarantee that that will be a permanent link.

     Mika

Bertrand Irissou writes:
>
> Hi Mika, John, Tim,
>
> Mika,
>
> I agree with you that Postscript plotting is not the most efficient of 
>plotting for large size plotter as all the rendering is left to the 
>plotter...
> 
> I do have RTL plotting routines for magic (derived from the versatec) 
>that were originally written by Brian Richard at UCB back in 1995 (I was 
>a student there... :) ).  I don't think they're part of the Magic 
>distribution and I never made them public because I don't know the legal 
>status (there is a UCB copyright on them)... Since it's been so long, I 
>don't think it would be a problem BUT .. these routines do not support 
>non-Manhattan geometries, so someone would have to go fix it - I don't 
>know how to.
> Also, I think support for Versatec like plotter was being dropped so I 
>never followed up with it.
> So.....
>
>1. Is there any interest in publishing these routines, adding 
>non-Manhattan support and making them part of the magic distribution ? 
>It does make printing simple as you can directly send to any RTL 
>compatible (hp) printer w/o any external filter. It is also very fast 
>and the plots look great on an E-size printer.
>
>2. The PNM approach looks great too. Mika I look for the P3 software on 
>Google but could not find any reference to it. It must be old too - 
>perhaps it could be made part of the magic distribution ? Or at least 
>make a reference to it in the Wiki so that people could grab it. 
>
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Bertrand.
>
>Mika Nystrom wrote:
>> 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-se
>p2003_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 ful
>l
>>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------------
>
>
>-- 
>Bertrand Irissou, V.P. Business Development  ASIC Advantage, Inc.
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