Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV!blbates
From: blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV (Bates TAD/HRNAB ms294 x2601)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re:  Hardcopy printing...
Message-ID: <8812211612.AA02896@aero4.larc.nasa.gov>
Date: 21 Dec 88 13:12:58 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 21


     It isn't that difficult to write a filter to dump graphics to a printer.
I have written several.  One to dump graphics to our Printronix dot matrix
line printer, one for our HP Thinkjet (very very slow printer), one for our
Seiko CH-5201 8 color hardcopy unit, a Postscript one, and I am finishing up
one for our new Tektronix 4693D color hardcopy unit.  All I do, basically,
is save the entire screen of points and the color map into a file.  Then I
have a second program read that file in and convert it to the apropriate
control sequences for the destination printer.  Next I use the standard UNIX
line printer software to route the file to the printer.  Our Printronix
and Postscript printers are connected to our Gould computer, so the IRIS's
printer deamon sends those type of files to our Gould.  The other printers
I plug into the IRIS's serial ports, some times I need a serial to parallel
converter; and in the case of the Seiko, a special cable and switch I made.
     Recently I have been combining the screen capture program into the
printer converter, thus eliminating the intermediat file and speeding things
up a little, but that also prevents me from sending the same image to
different printers.  If you would like copies of what I have let me know.
     They are very simple, no effort was made to make the intermedate file
smaller by compression techniques, I wanted speed, so I sacrificed file
size.