Message-ID: <54F0C694.6080203@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 11:33:40 -0800
From: Girvin Herr <girvin DOT herr AT sbcglobal DOT net>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:17.0) Gecko/20131204 Thunderbird/17.0.11
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: gEDA User List <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] Ellipses in gschem?
References: <54EB4593 DOT 7020801 AT envinsci DOT co DOT uk> <20150227122246 DOT GA4091 AT localhost DOT localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <20150227122246.GA4091@localhost.localdomain>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com


On 02/27/2015 04:22 AM, Vladimir Zhbanov wrote:
> Matt,
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 03:21:55PM +0000, Matt Rhys-Roberts wrote:
>> Is it possible to create ellipses in gschem for use in symbols? Circles and
>> arcs are no problem...
> I've remembered one else way I used some time ago:
>    - make a figure you want in your favorite vector graphics editor
>      (e.g.  inkscape)
>    - export it to pdf or postscript
>    - convert it to gschem format with:
>      pstoedit -f gschem figure.pdf figure.sch
>
> You'll get the figure approximated by lines. pstoedit has some
> options you may want to set in order to make the figure look more
> smoothly.
>
> You can scale your figure either before (in inkscape) or after
> exporting to pdf (there is at least one script on gedasymbols.org
> for that purpose).
>
> Cheers,
>    Vladimir
>
Vladimir,
These are good ideas.  I hadn't thought of them.  Thanks.

One thing I discovered is that gschem's rotation does not work well with 
inserted drawings.  I tried rotating a PCB assembly after inserting it 
into a gschem drawing and the board outline rotated, but the silkscreen 
did not.  Therefore, I recommend to do all rotation outside of gschem, 
before inserting the drawing.

Another problem is rescaling.  gschem will not rescale (drag a corner 
"tag".) an inserted drawing once it is instantiated.  It can be scaled 
during the insertion, but once that last insert click is done, that is 
what you get.  Don't expect to edit the drawing later, other than moving.

Also, I use arrows and lines to point to components in an assembly 
drawing.  If the arrows and lines are placed before the drawing is 
inserted, the arrows and lines are under the drawing and hidden by the 
inserted drawing.  I cannot see any way to "Bring to front" or "Move to 
back", etc., any gschem objects, as in LibreOffice Draw for example, in 
order to push the drawing back behind the arrows and lines.  But then 
this is not a requirement of gschem.  I just remember to insert the 
drawing first and then create the arrows and lines over the drawing.  
That seems to work well.

Keep in mind that gschem slows down noticeably after a drawing is 
inserted.  Past versions were worse than the later version I am using 
(1.8.1).  The older version I tried this on years ago slowed down so bad 
that it was unusable.  The more insertions, the slower it gets.  Be 
patient when printing.  I experimented with different file formats (jpg, 
eps, etc.) and did not notice any difference in the speed change.  So, 
no one format is preferable, but some format file sizes are smaller.

Hope this helps.
Girvin Herr