It's time to get jiggy with HPGL!

[scott_humphrey]

...but I'm wondering what software to buy. I currently use Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Fireworks for graphics, but neither will export the files in HPGL format.

The Frontdesigner software (not to be confused with the Frontpanel Designer freeware used by Front Panel Express) looks like it might provide an inexpensive way to design panels and export them in the hpgl format:

http://www.abacom-online.de/UK/html/frontdesigner.html

Have any of you used it? Thoughts? Comments?

I've read that others are using CorelDRAW (which is more expensive). I'd like recommendations. What is the best way to do this cheaply!?

Thanks in advance,
Scott

 

[mcs]

You could save the Illustrator files in EPS format and use pstoedit to convert to HPGL. I use pstoedit for the "Scale-o-matic".

Best regards,

Mikkel C. Simonsen

 

[scott_humphrey]

I use pstoedit for the "Scale-o-matic".

Thanks, for making that, by the way! Very cool! :thumb:

I was wondering if there might be some advantage to using AutoCad shx fonts (which you can do, apparently, with Frontdesigner). From what I understand, these are single stroke fonts, so that an engraver should be able to reproduce these easily. I'm hoping to avoid fussing around with switching to outline mode, offsetting lines, etc. in order to make the text come out right.

I'm just starting to learn the HPGL language here, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[henk]

Just use HPGL 1 , whene use HPGL 2 ,lots of commands are not used in plotters , in normal plotters only use about 6 commands.

Look for the driver for the Roland plotters on the net.
They will give you the translation to HPGL from windows.