: How do I control the line weights for geometry, dimns, etc. when using a
: laser printer?
:
Plotters and printgers used to be worlds apart and there were special settings
in
programs that used plotters, like Pro/e, to deal with pen line weights. Plotters
were pen plotters and had actual pens of certain colors and weights. Line
thickness is still being controlled in Pro/e, not with modern GUI designations
like bold or extra bold or fine, but by pens and weights.
Internal to Pro/e, it has 8 'pens' available, with line weights in a range from
1to 16. I don't know what the actual measured thickness of 1 or 16 is (the
range,
that is). But, if you set pen1_line_weight through pen8_line_weight to some
number, 3 for example, to test and vary, systematically, you should be able to
figure it out.
Additionally, there is a feature available for controlling line weight, style
(solid, dashed, dot), angle and color, called a pen.tbl which is a simple ASCII
file with values in a format that will tell the interpreter, that for a certain
type of line style in the model, print with a certain pattern of lines. The
pen.tbl file contains the line pattern definition, including weights, etc. and
passes this to the post script interpreter. If you don't need to vary line
styles,
colors, etc, you may never need a pen.tbl file. Check the Help filles for pen or
line weights.
David Janes
Hmm. Maybe PTC thought that since the target market for Pro/E
is engineers, pen numbers and line weights would be received
better than Family Size ! Jumbo ! Bigger than Jumbo ! Super-
Extra Double-Jumbo ! or the all-time favorite, WouldYouLiketo
UpgradeThattoSuperSize ?
But hey now ! a little work with a hex editor and I'm sure you
could add a little marketing pizzazz to that boring old-fashioned
PTC interface :-)
:
: > Line
: > thickness is still being controlled in Pro/e, not with modern GUI
: > designations
: > like bold or extra bold or fine, but by pens and weights.
:
: Hmm. Maybe PTC thought that since the target market for Pro/E
: is engineers, pen numbers and line weights would be received
: better than Family Size ! Jumbo ! Bigger than Jumbo ! Super-
: Extra Double-Jumbo ! or the all-time favorite, WouldYouLiketo
: UpgradeThattoSuperSize ?
:
: But hey now ! a little work with a hex editor and I'm sure you
: could add a little marketing pizzazz to that boring old-fashioned
: PTC interface :-)
Ummm, I think the point was that pens and pen weights is ancient technology of
pen
plotters. This has absolutly no relevance to post script printing on ps enabled
laser printers. The control language is outdated, leaving Pro/e in the AutoCAD
2D
'plotting' era. I know you got past ACAD plotting a couple years ago; surprised
to
see you apologizing for Pro/e's adherence to this decript, ancient, obsolete
technology as some kind of "standard" when, in fact, it bases its printing
technology on Postscript.
David Janes
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