Hardcopy UIS Release Notes for Version 3.0
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and should not be construed as a commitment by Digital Equipment
Corporation. Digital Equipment Corporation assumes no responsibility
for any errors that may appear in this document.
The software described in this document is furnished under a license
and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such
license.
No responsibility is assumed for the use or reliability of software on
equipment that is not supplied by Digital Equipment Corporation or its
affiliated companies.
Copyright c1986 by Digital Equipment Corporation
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1 OVERVIEW
Hardcopy UIS consists of the RENDER command for translating and
displaying UIS picture files; four translators -- UIS to PostScript,
UIS to sixel, UIS to HPGL, and UIS to REGIS; and the HCUIS$ routines.
HCUIS is documented in the manual entitled "MicroVMS Workstation Guide
to Printing Graphics".
The HCUIS kit is part of the workstation software kit, but is
installed separately as described in the HCUIS manual. Also in the
workstation software kit is an unsupported picture-drawing application
that can create UIS files. It is in the Demo kit and is called SIGHT.
To make one of your own applications create UIS files, see the
description of the HCUIS$WRITE_DISPLAY routine in the HCUIS manual.
2 KNOWN PROBLEMS AND RESTRICTIONS
2.1 Documentation
o The documentation for installing HCUIS should include the
following. If you have previously installed HCUIS, the file
HCUISDEVICES.COM is copied to SYS$MANAGER: with the name
HCUISDEVICES.NEW. This prevents you from accidentally having
no device setup temporarily.
o The documentation for setting up the LN03PLUS should also say
that when you RENDER a picture to the LN03PLUS, Working Set
Extent should be on the order of 2000. If it is too small,
the RENDER will generate an extremely large number of page
faults. You may need to run AUTHORIZE and set WSEXTENT in
order to set Working Set Extent to the desired value.
o The documentation for setting up the LCP01 should also say
that the LCP01 comes with a software kit that must be
installed prior to using the LCP01 on your system.
o The documentation regarding physical device setup should also
say that translating a natural image with a lot of halftones
creates a large output file, particularly for REGIS devices
and the film recorders.
o The documentation regarding PostScript picture fidelity
should also say that an unknown proportionally-spaced font
family is mapped to Helvetica for unformatted text and Times
for formatted text.
o The documentation regarding HPGL picture fidelity should also
say that the thickness of strokes in a character does not
increase with character size except for bold text.
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2.2 Restrictions
o The REGIS translator and HPGL translator will draw characters
correctly only for the DEC Multinational character set.
o The DEC Supplemental characters may not be used when drawing
a picture on a VT240 or VT241.
o The REGIS translator only supports clipping to the boundary
of the picture. If a picture tries to establish a smaller
clipping region, the command is ignored.
o If paper size is WINDOW and the output device is a REGIS
device, the WINDOW option is ignored and the device's default
paper size is used.
o If paper size is WINDOW, the HPGL translator only supports
clipping to the boundary of the picture. If a picture tries
to establish a smaller clipping region, the command is
ignored.
o It is not possible to install RENDER on a host. It can be
used only on a VMS workstation.
2.3 Other Problems
o If you power off a printer connected to CSA0:, your
workstation will crash. However you may remove the cable
from the printer and then power off the printer.
o If you created a UIS file during field test of HCUIS whose
last object is not drawn when you RENDER it to a hardcopy
device, you can correct the problem as follows. Run SIGHT on
the file and just Save it and Exit.
3 UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES
o You may specify a device type of VT240 or VT241 when you
translate a picture. You must have Version 2.1 or later of
the VT240 firmware if you want to draw filled polygons.
VT is the only paper size allowed for the VT240 and VT241.
Colors in a picture are mapped to white, red, green, or blue
on a VT241. On a VT240, they map to white, gray, gray, and
black respectively. Because of the low vertical resolution
of the VT240 and VT241, line and pattern alignment anomalies
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tend to occur.
o You may specify a paper size of WINDOW when you translate a
picture. This tells the translator to draw the picture
assuming the picture is part of a larger page. For example,
the Postscript translator does not generate a "showpage" at
the end of the picture.
If the output device is a sixel device, the size of the
picture is the size of its virtual display. If the output
device is a Postscript device, the default size of the
picture is the size of its virtual display. However you can
change the size of the picture by doing a "scale" command
prior to the commands that draw the picture. If the output
device is an HPGL device, the size of the picture is
determined by the settings of P1 and P2. If the output
device is a REGIS device, the WINDOW option is ignored and
the device's default paper size is used.
Use of this feature is unsupported, and it may be provided in
a different fashion in future versions of HCUIS.