Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU!LEICHTER
From: LEICHTER@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU ("Jerry Leichter ", LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Sixel to Postscript Converter Wanted
Message-ID: <8805241221.AA08850@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 22 May 88 23:28:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 58


	> We need some way to convert Print Screen output from Vax Stations
	> into something that can be printed on a Postscript laser printer.

	I think DEC provides a program called "render" converting to some
	printers and plotters. There is a switch to produce postscript-files
	too. It works for output-files from the demo-program "[vwsdemo]sight",
	and was running on mVMS 4.3 (I think) with pixel-files too.

Not likely!  RENDER is essentially a user interface and central distributor
for a set of translators; the arguments you give it let it determine what
translator to use, and what detailed data to give that translator.  Trans-
lators live in SYS$LIBRARY, and have names of the form

	TRN$from-syntax_to-syntax

where from- and to-syntax define the data representation syntaxes to read
and write.  The only translators I've ever seen have a from-syntax of UIS;
they use the HCUIS$ routines to read UIS metafiles, which are essentially
stored representations of UIS display lists.  The SIGHT program produces such
files.  Thus, TRN$UIS_PS will translate a SIGHT UIS output to Postscript.

To read sixel files, you would need a TRN$SIXEL_something translator.  I've
never seen one.

								     Now on
	mVMS 4.5 it stops with an errormessage.

WHAT stops?  What error message?

					        DEC said it should be working
	... (anybody from DEC reading this ???)

If you've paid for DEC support, why don't you ask through the channels you
have paid to get access to?  If you HAVEN'T paid, why do you think someone
from DEC should answer you here?

					        It would be interesting, if
	newer versions do the same mismatch.

What "same mismatch"?  Is this a reference to the mysterious "error message"
you mentioned earlier?  Is it perhaps a shared image mismatch?  When you
updated your system did you update UIS?  Did you also update HCUIS?  It's a
separate kit; RENDER comes as part of HCUIS.

					      Here are the commands to test:

	  -  create a pixel-file in any directory
	  -  type 
		$ render pixel_file			-
			/device_type=laserwriter/output=postscript_file

This hasn't a prayer of working unless "pixel_file" is anything but - the
default input data representation is "UIS metafile".  At the very least,
you would need a /SOURCE_DATA_TYPE=<something> qualifier to specify a non-
default input data type - but, as I said, I've yet to see any translators
FROM anything but UIS metafile.
							-- Jerry