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Message started by Godfrey on Sep 8^th, 2005, 2:24pm

Title: Plotting from Virtuoso
Post by Godfrey on Sep 8^th, 2005, 2:24pm

Hi,

Im really struggling to get decent layout plots. ???

Im trying to plot to an HP DesignJet 500 but the results are really poor. The plots generated have very bad definition, the lines are dashed and poorly defined, the colors are weak and speckly. I know the plotter is fine since it gives great results from other applications.

Ive tried all kinds of things with the cdsplotinit file, but if anything things get even worse. This is what I have ended up with at present;

pplot|Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 500PS: \
:spool=lpr -Ppplot: \
:query=lpq -Ppplot: \
:remove=lprm -Ppplot $3: \
:manufacturer=Hewlett-Packard: \
:type=postscript2: \
:maximumPages#4: \
:resolution#600: \
:paperSize="A3" 6846 9720 90 90:

I also tried using HPGL as the output format but the plotter didnt take it (no result).

In the manual it mentions being careful about stipple patterns and so on, but I dont see how I can influence the plot result. Is there some other file that I should be working with that holds this type of information?

I noticed from my DTP app that the plotter is setup for PS raster, so I think it may be something to do with that.

Can I produce PS raster format? I see there is an out type option which I guess would just be to add to the file above outtype=raster

Any help appreciated.

Title: Re: Plotting from Virtuoso
Post by Andrew Beckett on Sep 8^th, 2005, 3:10pm

Read the documentation on plotting, in particular the information about "raptor". This does the rasterization on the workstation, and produces superior plots than postscript or HPGL (which does the rasterization on the plotter, with its limited memory).

You can find this in the installation at:

<instdir>/doc/plot/plot.pdf

Regards,

Andrew.

Title: Re: Plotting from Virtuoso
Post by Godfrey on Sep 9^th, 2005, 4:04am

Andrew,

I worked through the documentation and have gotten better results, but still not quite as good as I would like.

Solid colours are much better defined now, but even with a solid fill/stipple some colours (blue in particular) appear to have a mesh of black dots over them, rather than just being a solid rectangle of one colour.

Guess I just need to keep trying out different setups until I find the best combination.

Title: Re: Plotting from Virtuoso
Post by jmurdoch on Sep 15^th, 2005, 6:14am

How did you set up your hp500 plotter for rasterizing? I have the same plotter, but cannot figure out how to set it all up.
I find the documentation extremely confusing and not particularly relevant to to this particular plotter.
The entry you have in your .cdsplotinit file would be very useful.

Title: Re: Plotting from Virtuoso
Post by Godfrey on Sep 19^th, 2005, 4:19am

jmurdoch,

This is my cdsplotinit file. I use the postscript2 format.

pplot|Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 500: \
:manufacturer=Hewlett-Packard: \
:type=postscript2: \
:spool=lpr -Ppplot: \
:query=lpq -Ppplot: \
:remove=cancel $1 pplot: \
:maximumPages#4: \
:resolution#1016:\
:paperSize="A portrait" 8226 9806 100 100: \
:paperSize="A landscape" 10766 7266 100 100: \
:paperSize="B portrait" 10766 15902 100 100: \
:paperSize="B landscape" 16862 9806 100 100: \
:paperSize="C portrait" 16862 20982 100 100: \
:paperSize="C landscape" 21942 15902 100 100: \
:paperSize="D portrait" 21942 33174 100 100: \
:paperSize="D landscape" 34134 20982 100 100: \
:paperSize="A0 portrait" 33230 46190 100 100: \
:paperSize="A1 portrait" 23350 32270 100 100: \
:paperSize="A1 landscape" 33230 22390 100 100: \
:paperSize="A2 portrait" 16390 22390 100 100: \
:paperSize="A2 landscape" 23350 15430 100 100: \
:paperSize="A3 portrait" 11470 15430 100 100: \
:paperSize="A3 landscape" 16390 10510 100 100: \
:paperSize="A4 portrait" 7990 10510 100 100: \
:paperSize="A4 landscape" 11470 7030 100 100: \
:paperSize="24 inches wide" 23984 0 100 100: \
:paperSize="36 inches wide" 36176 0 100 100: \
:paperSize="42 inches wide" 40640 0 100 100:

The plot will look like the screen display except that it will have a white background. But using this with Cadence as is, will produce awful plots since the default layer mapping uses lots of different shading and stipple patterns. If you create your own layer definitions using solid colors/stipples the results are much better.

To avoid wasting too much paper experimenting, you can look at the plot file directly using ghostview. There may be some way to apply a custom layer map by default when plotting, or to maybe force all layers to be "solid".

Title: Re: Plotting from Virtuoso
Post by Andrew Beckett on Sep 19^th, 2005, 9:28pm

That's still getting the plotter to do the rasterisation (as it's a PostScript plot), rather than using raptor. There is a whole section on raptor in the documentation, and that's the best bet for good quality plots, I'd say.

I have something like this:

Code:

clr1|DesignJet plotter via Raptor: \
:manufacturer=Hewlett-Packard: \
:type=intCLR: \
:spool=lp -draptorjet: \
:query=lpstat -oraptorjet: \
:remove=cancel $1 raptorjet: \
:resolution#150: \
:maximumPages#10: \
:outtype=RASTER: \
:tmpdir=/usr/tmp: \
:paperSize="A4" 600 900: \
:paperSize="24 inches wide" 23984 0: \
:paperSize="36 inches wide" 0 10600:

I have (or had, I'm not sure it's still set up) a queue set up (called raptorjet) which did something like this:

Code:

raptor -p -f PCL -c rle $DATA_FILE | lp -ddesignjet

$DATA_FILE is the CPIF file being processed, and designjet was the actual printer. This takes the CPIF file (which is what DFII produces) and converts it to PCL with run-length encoding (to compress the data).

I've not checked this recently, but the principles should be the same.

Regards,

Andrew.

Title: Re: Plotting from Virtuoso
Post by jmurdoch on Oct 31^st, 2005, 5:18am

I've finally got the raster plotting to work. I was having various problems with file permissions and file formats, and the debugging info can be a bit non-existing. I needed to split the task up and get each section working first.

1. Plot to a file from DFII, this gives a plot file in cpif format
2. Rasterize this to a format for the plotter.
3. send this file to the plot queue.

My .cdsplotinit entry is below:-

Code:

HP500-rtl|Hewlett-Packard DesignJet 500: \
:manufacturer=Hewlett-Packard: \
:type=intCLR: \
:spool="lp -dhp500rtl": \
:query=lpstat -ohp500rtl: \
:remove=cancel $1 hp500rtl: \
:resolution#600: \
:maximumPages#1: \
:outtype=RASTER: \
:tmpdir=/tmp: \
:paperSize="A4 portrait" 4950 7020: \
:paperSize="36 inches wide" 0 21200:

resolution will affect the quality of the output, and the speed of the output.

The rasterizing plotter entry can be setup with the following command

Code:

lpadmin -php500rtl -i ./hp500rtl

where hp500rtl is a shell script that actually does the rasterizing, see below:-

Code:

#!/bin/sh -x

# Update the path to include the installation directory for Cadence Software
PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/lib:/cds/IC5141.500.1.20/tools/plot/bin"
export PATH
# Redirect standard error to a file.
# To debug raptor use the -v option. This sends diagnostic output to
# standard error. Look in the following file for the information.
log=/tmp/lp.log
exec 2>>$log
shift;shift;shift;shift;shift
DATA_FILE=$1
OUT_FILE=/tmp/rtl$$
#raptor -v -p -f RTL -c rle $DATA_FILE | lp -dhp500_hpgl
raptor -p -f RTL -c rle $DATA_FILE -o $OUT_FILE
lp -dhp500_hpgl $OUT_FILE

At the end of it all, I definitely get faster plots, but I'm not sure if the quality is any better. I also got the HPGL card with the plotter which enabled me to get going much quicker as the plotter could handle the native hpgl output from DFII.

Now to get remote simulation working with ssh. ::)