Is plotting colour jpegs a possibilty?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Cannot seem to PLOT colour 3d images from ArchiCAD in jpeg format.
I can PRINT in colour but this messes up fills on line drawings on the same plotmaker layout.

Using HP DesignJet 500 with HPGL2 card and 160mb memory.

Please can anybody help.

Martin Richards

[Anonymous]

Cannot seem to PLOT colour 3d images from ArchiCAD in jpeg format.
Using HP DesignJet 500 with HPGL2 card and 160mb memory.

I think that plotters in general has a limit to what type of fill format/input info they can read. Check with your local dealer to get a hint as of what the problem might be.

[Haneef Tayob]

Hello
You definitely can plot colour images.

In case it is a plotter problem, you may want to try images of different resolutions. Images larger than 600dpi (or even 300dpi for some plotters) may be lowered without loss of quality. Try converting the image to tiff or some other formats to see if there is any difference.

Although not related to your problem, I know when I was using plotmaker 3.0, I had problems placing images in the layout books.

regards
Haneef

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply Haneef,

Have tried all the other file formats avialable from the archiCAD photo rendering window with no success. Have tried resolutions from 600 to 50 dpi; not worked either I'm afraid.
The plotter seems to be fine when asked to print and can plot colour fills in archicad views or pmks but it's just this pesky problem with plotting other image formats.
Don't suppose you have anything else I can try?

Cheers

Martin Richards

[Anonymous]

Plotting images with HPGL2 to a relatively new plotter should not be a problem. It sounds as if there may be a problem specifically related to HP.

If you are using Macs, I know that HP's support has been less than stellar lately.

The other problem may be that plotting is becoming a thing of the past - HP now calls their machines large format printers and their own HPGL format is now an extra cost option. Perhaps their heart is no longer in it.

I have found that it is possible to get acceptable line quality when printing by adjusting the pens to finer line weights. You'll have to twiddle with it and test a bit, but I have found that dropping the weight (particularly of finer pens) about 15% to 20% can be a big help.

Eventually we are all going to have to make our peace with printing. With HP losing interest in HPGL, plotting won't even be an option some day.

[Haneef Tayob]

Are you plotting across a network?
Even if your are not, you may want to try plotting/printing to a file. You can then use Plotflow (which is bundled with archicad) to send the plot file to the plotter.
This trick/method worked when I had problems at another office which had a very busy network and we kept getting printer timeouts, etc.

good luck
Haneef

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the advice.

It seems that, as usual, the answer is 'you can't get thar from here'.

The plotflow option wouldn't solve the problem but abandoning plotting for printing from now on seems to be the way forward.

The problem with that was that I thought I couldn't PRINT vector fills, only bitmaps. I have just found from a previous discussion that you were involved in Matthew that the way fills display in Plotmaker affects the printed output and can be easily changed, bingo!

So it's goodbye to plotting and a lesson learned to ask the right questions if I want the right answers.

Thanks to all

Martin

[Anonymous]

Martin,

I have the HP Designjet 500 also. It used tp print JPEGS until AC8. Now I find I have to save my 3D views in Photoshop format, ie PSD suffix.

These print well when placed in Plotmaker or straight from ArchiCAD.

A bit annoying hen one wants to email the 3D image as well. Then it has to be saved twice, both in JPEG and PSD formats.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply,

Why is it that nothing is ever straightforward despite the constant updates and improvements?

I'll give that a go as well and hope for the best

Cheers

Martin Richards