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PLOT

Section: PD Piglet Users Manual (1P)
Updated: PD Piglet Users Manual
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NAME

PLOT - Make a plot of the current device in various formats

SYNOPSIS

PLO [:F] [:B] [:G] [:L<linewidth>][:TA|:TD|:TG|:TP|:TS|:TW] [:P<papersize>] <plotname> <EOC>

DESCRIPTION

The PLOT command creates a plot of the current window in the file "./<plotname>.<suffix>. If the <plotname> is not specified, the name of the cell will be used instead. Unless changed with the :T option, the default output is postscript and the suffix is ".ps". The postscript file will be plotted for printing on the paper size specified with the :P option, and will be printed as either landscape or portrait depending on the shape of the drawing. Piglet fits the entire displayed window to the postscript output. If the size of the printed image is too small, it may be advantagious to resize the X11 display window to fit the cell more closely.

The :P<pagesize> option will take either several common pagesize names or an explicit page size in inches. Pagesize names include: A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A, ANSIA, ANSIB, ANSIC, ANSID, ANSIE, ANSIF, ARCHA, ARCHB, ARCHC, ARCHD, ARCHE, atlas, B0, B1, B2, B3, B4, B4, B6, B7, B8, B9, B, brief, C, crown, C5envelope, comm10envelope, D, demy, delenvelope, E, elephant, executive, folio, foolscap, index, ISOA0, ISOA1, ISOA2, ISOA3, ISOA4, ISOA5, ISOA6, ISOA7, ISOA8, ISOA9, ISOB1, ISOB2, ISOB3, ISOB4, ISOB5, ISOB6, ISOB7, ISOB8, ISOB9, ledger, legal, letter, medium, post, royal, and tabloid. The page sizes are not case sensitive.

Explicit page sizes use the format :P<width>x<length>. For example, printing on legal paper could be done with either "PLO :Plegal;" or with "PLO :P8.5x14;".

If no papersize is given, the PLOt command will obey the $PIG_PAPER_SIZE environment variable which defaults at startup to "8.5x11". A line similar to 'SET PIG_PAPER_SIZE "8.5x14"' can be placed in the .pigrc file, or typed from the command interpreter to make all subsequent plots default to the new paper size. Any <papersize> format used for the :P option may be used for the $PIG_PAPER_SIZE argument.

If the ":TA" option is used, Piglet will produce a simple file using the PdPlot line drawing syntax with the suffix ".pd". The PdPlot file consists of x,y pairs, one pair per line, interspersed with "jump" and "pen <pennumber>" commands. The default is to draw lines connecting consecutive points unless an intervening jump command temporarily turns off the drawing function. PdPlot files should be easy to parse and pass to other programs for further processing.

If the ":TD" option is used, Piglet will produce a line drawing in a subset of the DXF format using the suffix ".dxf". The pen colors are adjusted to be suitable for direct importation into openoffice. The DXF format currently does line drawing only. The outlines of rectangles circles and polygons are drawn but not filled.

If the ":TG" option is used, Piglet will output a pseudo-gerber file with the suffix ".gb". The output file is subset of the Gerber RS-274X syntax with extra comment lines added to call out various layers in the drawing. Gerber files typically include only one layer per file. Piglet is distributed with an awk script called "gerbsplit". Running gerbsplit on the output plot file will create one properly formatted gerber file per layer, with the name "gerbplot.gb<layernumber>". These layers are in a format suitable for sending to a PC board vendor.

PLOT with no arguments will plot just the currently visible portion of the device. The ":F" option will fit the window to the device prior to plotting and restore the existing window settings after the plot.

For postscript blueprints and presentations it is often helpful to create black and white drawings from an original color drawing. The ":B" option will plot the figure converting all pen colors to black. The ":G" option will convert colors to various shades of grey.

Depending on the resolution of the drawing it may be helpful to change the postscript linewidth using ":L<linewidth>".

IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS

Currently, the postscript file is not hierarchical and so can be quite big. It would be a nice project to define each cell individually and then instantiate them hierarchically. The render time would go up, but the size of the plot file would shrink dramatically for hierarchical designs.

OPTIONS

:F: Fit the device before plotting the window. After the plot, the previous window settings are restored.
:TA: Plot the current device in PdPlot (Autoplot) format with a ".pd" suffix.
:TD: Plot the current device in DXF format with a ".dxf" suffix.
:TG: Plot the current device in Gerber format with automatic :F fitting with a ".pg" suffix.
:TP: Plot the current device in Postscript format without automatic fitting using a ".ps" suffix. Only the geometries visible on the display window will be plotted. This is the default plot mode if no :T<plottype> command is given.
:TS: Plot the current device in scalable vector graphics format with automatic fitting using a ".svg" suffix. The resulting file will display in a web browser and can be included in open office and powerpoint documents.
:TW: Plot the current device in scalable vector graphics format with automatic fitting using a ".html" suffix. If the file is displayed in a web browser, any top level cells will be automatically clickable to the link "http://$PIGLET_HTML_PREFIX<cellname>$PIGLET_HTML_SUFFIX". This allows piglet to be used for generating hierarchical dynamically linked graphical documentation.
:P<pagesize>: Observed for postscript output. Pagesize can be any number of common papersize names or an explicit page size given in the form of <width>x<height> in units of inches.
:G: Plot postscript in greyscale.
:B: Plot postscript in black pen.

AUTHOR

Rick Walker (walker AT omnisterra DOT com)

The PD Piglet homepage is at http://www.omnisterra.com/walker/linux/piglet/intro.htm.

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS
OPTIONS

SEE ALSO

AUTHOR

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Time: 23:02:03 GMT, May 05, 2026