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PLOTTING FILLS


Kurt Ofer

Question

We are using VW 10.5.1/Panther and plotting to our old HP 230. The only fills that will plot are the dot screens; the ones in the top row of the pattern pallate. I have tried a bunch of plotter settings...line art or solid colors or photo or grayscale or black and white, and I only get the dot screens plotted...none of the others do.

A workaround is to make a PDF of the file and then to plot from that, but that adds extra time. Plus plotting from a PDF makes the drawing a bit smaller so it's not 100% to scale (anybody know how to fix that?)

Is there a combination of settings that you know of which will let me plot directly from VW and get all of the fills? Is Gimp-Print part of the problem?

Thanks.

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Hi Curt,

I have been plotting to my 230 for about three years, currently with GIMP PRINT, OS 10.3.2, VW's 10.5.1

There are a number of settings that you could tinker with that may help.

1) In FILE>PREFERENCES>DOCUMENT PREFERENCES under the "RASTER RENDER" pane, check your RESOLUTION SETTINGS. The are set to 72 dpi by default, but should be reset to 300 dpi for good printing results.

2) In FILE>PRINT there is a pulldown. Scroll down to PRINTER FEATURES where you will also see your dpi settings.

Also make sure you have the correct MEDIA selected, and also I suggest selecting "LINE ART" for image type and "ADAPTIVE HYBRID" for dither algorithm.

Additionally, if you click on the "BASIC SETTINGS" tab you can scroll to the "ADVANCED SETTINGS". In here are a number of things you can adjust which will change your output. All of them are explained in the GIMP PRINT users guide, which you can find on the web. One setting I use is "GAMMA". The lower the number, the darker the print will be. I have found that a GAMMA setting of 0.65 gives me more or less what I see on screen.

Have fun & experiment.

Peter Cipes PBD

Ashland, Oregon

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Hey Kurt

You're absolutely right: fills don't show up when I plot! Strange. This is new in the most recent OS & VW version. Not sure whether it is VW or OS related. It should be reported as a bug.

WORKAROUND: Oddly enough I hadn't noticed that fills weren't printing because I hardly ever use them, mainly because they are not scaleable (ie: brick is only to scale when you draw in 1/8") and are limited to what the OS provides (well not exactly, but...). I almost always use COLORS (mostly various gray shades) for shading and HATCHES for patterns. They print perfectly on the 230. Hatches are very cool because they ARE scaleable, and with the nearly limitless variety both supplied with VW and that you can make by simple modification, the results are great.

I will report the "bug". Let me know if you like working with hatches & grays...

Peter

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Peter. Li'll 'ole VW user me part of the "team" that reports a VW bug? Wow, I guess I'm moving up in the world (or down, depending on your relative sense of things.) Anyway, we'll look into hatches for our 1/4" wall cavities and for things like insulation in 3/4" wall sections rather than fills. Thanks. K.

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Peter. Thanks for your reply. I was still having trouble so I downloaded the latest GimPrint driver, 4.2.6, and I still can't get the fills to plot on the 230. If you could be so kind as to tell me exactly the settings you use to plot, say the fill of a rectangle that is the third down in the first column of fills (or what is listed in the box as a "pattern") that would be really helpful. If you don't mind. Kurt

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I can't remember if it's on PC only or on the mac too, but if it's there it might be in the Page Setup dialog under the VectorWorks section of the drop down box.

It might be in the print dialog under VW in the drop down box.

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