Subject:
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Re: Building a Postscript printer?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Mon, 26 Jun 2000 08:47:33 GMT
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Viewed:
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833 times
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In lugnet.robotics, Manoj Plakal writes:
> > In lugnet.robotics, "Chris Osborn" <fozztexx@fozztexx.com> writes:
> > On Jun. 24 00, 11:46 PDT, "Manoj Plakal" <plakal@no-spam.cs.wisc.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Yup, that was pretty much what I was planning to do. Hack Ghostscript
> > > into something to generate a sequence of vector commands to drive
> > > the RCX.
> >
> > Hacking GhostScript is not necessary. PostScript lets you redefine
> > the standard functions.
I found a web site that provides a lot of information on the
very topic of constructing robotic plotters driven by Postscript
interpreters. Don Lancaster operates the Guru's Lair at
www.tinaja.com and he has a term "flutterwumpers" for
low-cost moving machines which "chomp or spit". Examples
include PCB drillers and plotters. He discusses at length
how to make Postscript drive a simple 2.5D plotter device
(X & Y, with up-down-Z). Sample code is provided that can
convert Postscript (with curves and fonts) into a simple
linear-step format to drive a plotter. It's done by redefining
standard Postscript functions, as Chris pointed out. Fonts
converted into paths, paths and curves flattened into vectors
and vectors converted into linear steps using Bresenham's
algorithm. Full details available at:
http://www.tinaja.com/flut01.html
Incidentally, while discussing plotter mechanics, he discourages
people from using XYZ gantries which seemed like the obvious
choice. He mentions using cylindrical coordinates instead of
cartesian. Any opinions on which one might be easier to build
or more reliable?
Manoj
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Building a Postscript printer?
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| (...) I see. Thanks for the info, I'm new to Postscript programming. I found this tool called Pstoedit (with source) that translates Postscript into HPGL (and several other vector graphics formats). I'm probably going to start with that instead. (...) (24 years ago, 25-Jun-00, to lugnet.robotics)
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