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topic: 2229PDF Export origin
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posted: 4 Jun 2013 15:08

from:

LSWRArt
 
Antibes - France

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Hello Martin,
Is there any way to change the origin when you do a PDF export?  If necessary I can fiddle the output by shortening some of the approach tracks which do not matter if they are cut off, but it would be easier to just fix the origin for the first page.
Thanks, Arthur

posted: 4 Jun 2013 16:21

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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LSWRArt wrote:
Is there any way to change the origin when you do a PDF export?
Hi Arthur,

trackpad > page outlines for PDF export menu item, so that you can see them.

Then SHIFT+CTRL-F10 mouse action to move the page origin to wherever you want it.

Or output > page origin > set page origin... menu item to set it directly. Choose the mm option.

Before doing any of that, set the PDF page size on the output > export a file... dialog. Then hide that dialog while you make the origin adjustments, until you are ready to create the PDF file.

:)

regards,

Martin.

posted: 4 Jun 2013 19:35

from:

LSWRArt
 
Antibes - France

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Thanks Martin
That works fine, but I cannot get the Sketchboard to export to PDF.  I keep getting the message <An image is too large for your graphics system>.  I have a fairly modern Toshiba i5 laptop running Windows 7, 64 bit with an ATI Radeon premium graphics card.   None of the images in Sketchboard are set to transparent.  This message came up 6 times.
I set the Sketchboard shapes to outline only, instead of outline and fill, but that produced exactly the same results.
Most of the graphics are omitted from all the PDF pages, but even more seriously, page 6 is completely blank - perhaps because it has more sketchboard images on it?  I chose to omit pages C1 and C6, but D6 has not exported - it is just a blank page, although the track show correctly on pages D1 to D5.
Any suggestions please, or do I just need to buy a new computer?
I will enclose the box file, the sketchboard file and the pdf file.
Thanks, Arthur
Attachment: attach_1607_2229_Garage_5_x_4.35_continuous_v5_using_existing_point.box     358

posted: 4 Jun 2013 19:37

from:

LSWRArt
 
Antibes - France

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Here is the Sketchboard file
Arthur
Attachment: attach_1608_2229_garage_v5__outline_only_1june.sk9     368

posted: 4 Jun 2013 19:40

from:

LSWRArt
 
Antibes - France

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and finally here is the PDF file.

N.B.  If I untick the sketchboard entirely, the track plan does print across all 6 pages.
Thanks, Arthur
Attachment: attach_1609_2229_test_3_no_infill_v5.pdf     383

posted: 5 Jun 2013 13:02

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Hi Arthur,

Thanks for uploading the files. :)

This is a complex issue. As you know I have not yet written the Sketchboard docs, because there are so many ifs and buts, I hardly know where to start. Printing full-size templates for 7mm scale with sketchboard items several yards long, as you are doing, is obviously very different from preparing a small half-page diagram for a magazine article about a shunting layout in 2mm scale. The sketchboard can do both, but may require several settings to be changed. Finding default settings which would be appropriate in all circumstances has been a headache.

I doubt very much that buying a new computer will make much difference. I am seeing the same effects here. It would make some difference, assuming increased memory, but maybe not enough to make a significant change.

You can probably get everything in the PDF correctly by reducing the DPI (dots per inch) setting. I found that it worked fine at 100 DPI, but not at higher settings:  

2_050720_070000000.png2_050720_070000000.png


100 DPI means everything is rounded to the nearest 10 thou. That's probably fine for the sketchboard items, but not good for the track templates. I usually recommend at least 300 DPI for those, and 600 DPI looks neater.

Here is a close up from your plan at 100 DPI. You can see that the rounding effects at 100 DPI produce wonky rail lines and varying rail width:

2_050716_120000000.png2_050716_120000000.png

That's probably acceptable in 7mm scale, but discrepancies of this magnitude would obviously be unacceptable in 2mm scale.

So ideally you need to make some changes on the sketchboard so that your plan will output at 300 DPI without errors. I will write more about that when I have done some more testing.

Attached below is your plan as a 2-page PDF at 100 DPI (3MB), zoom out to about 10% to see it properly.

regards,

Martin.
Attachment: attach_1610_2229_arthur_pdf_100dpi_2pages.pdf     389

posted: 6 Jun 2013 01:49

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Hi Arthur,

Hmm.

I think I have boxed myself into a corner on this and then opened a can of worms when I got there. :(

I was aware when I introduced recently the option to include sketchboard items in the output that there would be some size limits on each item, and I did a lot of testing. But I didn't properly allow for the effect of that in the larger scales.

The reason that your PDF is failing is that some of your sketchboard items are over the size limit -- the road features, for example. At 600 DPI any item much over 1000mm* in width or depth is likely to fail. That can be increased by reducing the DPI, but it is still unacceptably restrictive in 7mm scale.

I'm going to have a rethink on this function. At present the sketchboard items are being rendered at the same DPI as the track templates. I don't think that is necessary. They can be rendered at a much lower resolution without significantly affecting their usefulness on the printed output -- as are picture shapes for example -- allowing much larger images to be output.

In the meantime I suggest a workaround of splitting any large sketchboard items over 1000mm into two or more smaller sections.

I will get this fixed as soon as possible and hopefully in the next program update.

*it is actually rather more complex than that. The limit is different in each case for vector, metafile and bitmap items, and also depends on the system graphics resources. Furthermore, vector and metafile items are rendered as bitmaps if they have been rotated, or contain any transparency effects. The limits are inversely modified pro rata by changes to the DPI resolution, and by any output scaling. It's all a bit of a minefield, but I will sort it out.

regards,

Martin.

posted: 6 Jun 2013 16:23

from:

LSWRArt
 
Antibes - France

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Hi Martin,
Thanks for looking into this, but I am not sure that reducing the resolution is a major problem?
I want the large scale printout so that I can visualise the whole station, try some locos and stock on the paper track, put on the station building (which I have already built) and generally get a feel of whether the whole thing is going to look right before building any more track.
For this wonky lines do not matter at all.
So, as suggested I tried PDF output at 100 dpi and it works fine, but it will output at any higher resolution.
One I get down to track building I will only print out a turnout, or a small group of templates and I do not need to see the Sketchboard.
For me, the resolution and quality needed for layout planning and for track construction are quite different.
If it was easy for you to have an option to down-res the sketchboard images in the future, then it might help others, but I do not think I will have problems with using the two different settings for resolution. Perhaps it just needs a warning notice on the output dialog box.
Hope that helps. Best wishes, Arthur

posted: 7 Jun 2013 16:49

from:

LSWRArt
 
Antibes - France

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Sorry - let me try that again:
So, as suggested I tried PDF output at 100 dpi and it works fine but, as with your system, it will NOT output at any higher resolution.
Regards, Arthur

posted: 7 Jun 2013 17:21

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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LSWRArt wrote:
Sorry - let me try that again:
So, as suggested I tried PDF output at 100 dpi and it works fine but, as with your system, it will NOT output at any higher resolution.
Yes, I knew what you meant. :)

I don't want to set 100 dpi as the default output as it degrades the track templates too much.

I'm currently working on this, and I think I have it working ok. It means yet more options on the sketchboard, but hopefully the default will work fine on most layout plans:

2_071211_500000000.png2_071211_500000000.png

This option keeps the full resolution for the track templates, but allows the sketchboard items to be output at a lower resolution.

regards,

Martin.

posted: 8 Jun 2013 12:01

from:

LSWRArt
 
Antibes - France

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Thanks Martin
That looks good.
Best wishes
Arthur

posted: 8 Jun 2013 22:47

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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 Hi Arthur,

A few screenshots for comparison.

I replaced your signal box outline with Brian's bitmap image:

2_080722_330000000.png2_080722_330000000.png


This is the current version 207a output at 600 DPI, with sketchboard items included:

2_080722_350000004.png2_080722_350000004.png

This corresponds to the new full output resolution option in the dialog. It produces very good quality output, but as you found it is very slow on large track plans. Any items larger than about 1200 mm (at 600 DPI) will not appear, and several error messages are possible. A well-specified computer system is needed.



This is the alternative option with the page-width set to 5200 dots:

2_080722_330000001.png2_080722_330000001.png

This is much faster and outputs your entire page without errors. The downside is the obvious lower resolution for the sketchboard items, but probably acceptable on full-size construction templates. The track template remains at 600 DPI precision.



This is the same again, but with the bitmap rendering changed to display-quality instead of design-quality. This is quite a bit slower, for not much improvement in appearance:

2_080722_340000003.png2_080722_340000003.png



This is with the page-width reduced to 3900 dots:

2_080722_340000002.png2_080722_340000002.png



All the above outputs have the track templates at 600 DPI, created from the output menu on the trackpad and intended for track construction. The inclusion of sketchboard items is optional.

When the intention is to produce a layout diagram for use in a magazine article or similar, it is better to create it directly from the sketchboard using the file menu options on the sketchboard:

2_081532_290000000.png2_081532_290000000.png

This can be in diagram mode or detail mode as above. Detail mode is not suitable for track construction -- the templates are unlikely to print to correct gauge or with sufficient resolution:

2_081532_290000001.png2_081532_290000001.png



Hopefully all this isn't getting too complicated? :?  All the options are useful and serve a purpose, but explaining it all to beginners is going to be a challenge.

regards,

Martin.

posted: 9 Jun 2013 15:47

from:

LSWRArt
 
Antibes - France

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Thanks Martin,
That is clear to me and I can see which option I would want to use for each circumstance.
As you say, the problem is how to include this in a tutorial without making it too long and unwieldy. Regardsm Arthur



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