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Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 22:15:43 -0400
From: Dan McMahill <dan AT mcmahill DOT net>
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To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: [geda-user] why there is no HPGL export from gEDA PCB?
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Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com

On 3/23/2015 1:43 PM, John Coppens wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Mar 2015 05:59:16 +0000 (UTC)
> John <john_char AT operamail DOT com> wrote:
>
>> Is there  any way to get HPGL from a raster file such as PS?
>
> PS (if that means Postscript) is a vector format, not raster.
>
> 'pstoedit' (http://www.pstoedit.net/) converts from postscript (and PDF)
> to HPGL (and many other vector formats).
>
> I've used it several times for other (not PC board) conversions, and
> it works very nicely.

I've been somewhat surprised myself when pstoedit actually did a not too 
bad of a job.  You may have reasonable results.  The postscript that PCB 
produces is fairly straightforward.

If you were so motivated, I'm guessing that it may not be all that bad 
to write an HPGL export HID for PCB.  src/hid/ps/ps.{c,h} would be a 
good starting point.  copy to src/hid/hpgl/hpgl.{c,h} and go from there.

The tough part may be when it comes to polygons.  For traces, those map 
very nicely to pen drawing.  HPGL does have polygon commands but if you 
are driving an actual physical pen plotter, I don't know how those work 
or don't work.  You could try the polygon mode example from
http://www.isoplotec.co.jp/HPGL/eHPGL.htm#-PM%28Polygon%20Mode%29

-Dan