Screen Dump.

Mark Callow msc at ramoth.SGI.COM
Sat May 6 10:17:59 AEST 1989


In article <202 at dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, merritt at iris613.gsfc.nasa.gov (John H Merritt) writes:
> If you want something for FREE you can anonymous ftp something called
> 'topost' from my machine (iris613.gsfc.nasa.gov). It converts b/w images
> to postscript which you can send directly to the printer. Usage:
>      scrsave rgb x1 x2 y1 y2      -- user command
>      tobw rgb bw                  -- user command
>      topost bw bw.ps              -- code I wrote (16 shades)
> 
> >Be prepared, however, to wait a while for full screen dumps to print.
> >The PostScript code generated by "pprint" uses the native PS operator
> >"image" which converts grey level values in the range 0-255 into
> >dithered/scaled/translated bitmaps (0/1) **in the printer**.  This
> >compute intensive operation combined with the data transfer time
> >for a 1280x1024 image can result in print times of 20-50 minutes!
> >(on an Apple LaserWriter Plus).
> 
> I have not had times this slow (maybe 5 to 20 minutes!)

That's because you are converting the image to monochrome before you
send it to the printer.  The overriding factor in printing PostScript
images is the time taken to transmit it to the server at 9600 baud.

tops (from 4Dgifts) has an option, "-b 1", to convert to black and white.
Look at 4Dgifts; there is a lot of good stuff there.
--
	-Mark



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