gEDA gschem: "Write image" resolution

Hello,

Just kicked the tires on gschem, to see if I should switch. Since it doesn't look like there will ever be a Windows version I am running it in VirtualBox on an XP machine. Looks pretty good so far. Anyhow, a question:

People like me must include schematic excerpts in documents a lot. When I use the "Write image" export utility it does produce a file I could then import but the resolution isn't adequate for a decent quality document. At large width and height settings it's actually so chopped up that parts values cannot be deciphered anymore. In Eagle I could set a resolution instead of width and height and when set to 300 that produces a pristine PNG image.

Is that possible in gschem somehow? Or if not are there any plans to improve the "Write image" routine? Alternatively, is there a trick to store the whole sheet in a somewhat popular format (preferably not PDF, PS or EPS) and then use another graphics program to pick out the wanted piece?

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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Joerg
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says, that

# Postscript printing of the schematic is supported # PNG image writing of the schematic is supported

I would try to create a .PS or .PNG-file, import it into IrfanView and save it from there in a format I could work on with.

Regards, H.

Reply to
Heinz Schmitz

Well, that's what I tried, image writing to PNG. The result was rather ugly and at some write sizes plain not readable. EPS was refused by IrfanView with something like "file contains errors".

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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Reply to
Joerg

A quick check of their website leads to this question... Do you have ghostscript installed? IrfanView "supports" eps by having ghostscript convert it to a raster, which will make it ugly again.

What I recommend is exporting EPS and converting it to PDF, then use acroread to view/print it.

Or I use ghostscript convert the EPS to an anti-aliased PNG, which results in better quality than gschem's default PNG exporter.

Reply to
DJ Delorie

I think it's GSView what I'd really need.

Well, I don't need to read/print but folks like me must often include snippets and complete pages of schematics in Word documents, usually as figures with captions. Mostly to explain circuitry to folks who won't understand it by just looking at the schematic.

Some friends in a German NG convinced me to give Linux a shot and coached me a bit through the maze of VirtualBox and Ubuntu, then gschem. So I poked around a bit after evince didn't work and, tada, found that Gimp (which comes with the distro as default) does the job nicely. So it'll go like this:

gschem write image to EPS format. EPS into Gimp (takes a while), set to

300dpi, cut unwanted areas, store as PNG file. Import PNG file into Word document. A bit cumbersome but that produces an acceptable quality, quite comparable to Eagle schematic exports :-)

I don't know squat about programming but if you guys ever think of improving this export feature maybe a lot of the work can be reduced by using code parts from Gimp so that gschem can do a straight write as a

300dpi (or even selectable resolution) PNG file.
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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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Reply to
Joerg

(At points in the past) I have seen evidence that there were at least 2 "Windoze versions" of the suite.

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(As mentioned in previous threads, the result is a lot of grousing and bug reports on things that are user errors.)

There _are_ currently Windows versions out there running. What there _isn't_ is a "Windoze installer". Each Windoze user has to *compile* executables for himself. As that weeds out a lot of the folks who have low software skills, it minimizes the occurances of Clueless Windoze User Syndrome.

As the elements of the gEDA suite are written as Unix apps, there will always need to be an intermediate layer at *some* point in the process

--even if what you want to end up with are **native** Windoze-compatible executables.

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So, how is the speed with your level of horsepower?

Reply to
JeffM

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That pretty much excludes me as well. I am most certainly not a programmer but know CAD quite well.

Well, it's so so. It's ok but not quite as snappy as Cadsoft Eagle. But Eagle doesn't have a hierarchical sheet structures so what can ya do?

Right now Ubuntu forgets the links to the LAN server every time I power it down. Hopefully I'll figure that out one of these days but it's only a minute to re-install that in the morning.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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Reply to
Joerg

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