very long plotting delay

May 27, 2004 2 Replies

Question about extremely long wait for a large format plot. E.g. 1+ hour. This "format" isn't our norm e.g. large format, but for say a design review, I need to spit out a plot but currently I need to do this hours, days before hand?


Goal:



I want a 1:1 plot of an assy from the assy window in HLR wireframe, color. "D size plot size"


Specifics:


- Plotter model is a HP Designjet 1050C.


- Network is 100MB switched


- Workstations are all top of the line with XP pro


- All cad data is on Win2k servers


- Using SW 03 sp5.1 (same results on 2004 sp2.1)



- Plotting to a laser jet 8000 is "instant", basically no delay? Plotter is a different story


- I am plotting from a SW assy window and not a drawing. I am in a top view, hidden line displaying color (want the print in HLR color. E.g. use component color in HLR/HLV option is selected from the View pull down)


- Assy is fairly large - about 2000 parts


Any thoughts, comments suggestions?


Thanks.


When I need something like this I first print to a PDF file, then open the PDF in Adobe and send that image to the plotter, seems like less overhead on the systems that way.

2¢ Whit

Alternately, plot to a file and then from CMD or COMMAND line

type filename.plt > LPT1 (or the appropriate plot port).

One might also want to assign a virtual LPT port to a network plotter

PDF could also be nice as noted, but creates an intermediate file & sometimes things get funky in pdf (at least for me OLE objects get a bit degraded sometimes - jaggy)

SMA

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