Don Seidel, AIA ([email protected])

12 Mar 2002

 

Architosh guest editor, Don Seidel, AIA, has contributed an important article this month pertaining to the all important ability for CAD users to be able to print effectively in Mac OS X in order to adopt the operating system and the upgraded software applications which now run on it.

Special Report: Plotting in OS X - Report on upcoming software

"... if there was no way to plot from X, there was no need to use X."

In the daily professional practice of architecture, my opinion is that most firms use CAD for 85 percent or more of their computer time. Sure, there's Word Processing, Databases, 3D, email, etc. But the workhorse program is CAD. The same is true of many Engineers, Designers and related professions who must create technical drawings.

We've been Mac "Gurus" for several years, with many colleagues calling on us for help with hardware or software. So when OS X came out, we were both excited and intimated. We loved all the potential of OS X, but this was new territory. We were going to have to learn a good deal to get to a comfort level with the new system. Like many of you, we want to move our office to all OS X machines. But the obvious questions were, "What software is ready for X? What conflicts might we have?"

But Does It Print?

We are also longtime Vectorworks (http://www.nemetschek.net ) users, going back to MiniCad 3. It was great to hear Nemetschek was quickly adopting OS X. But here was the core of the problem: if there was no way to plot from X, there was no need to use X. Any workaround solution was not worth the trouble.

Enter Microspot X-RIP®, (OS X - Raster Image Processor) a new plotting software to replace MacPlot® from MacroEnter (www.macroenter.com) the US distributor for Microspot Limited, UK (http://www.microspot.co.uk ) Macplot has been around for many years, and with fairly good functionality allows Mac users to print on a plotter from most any program, though the vast majority use it for CAD. I think a lack of competition kept the program from achieving it's potential. Yes, some of us can print postscript to the plotter using Apple's LaserWriter driver. But the file sizes are huge, and not everybody can wait 30 minutes or more for each page to plot!

Microspot X-RIP on OS X promises to fulfill what we're waiting for, and far beyond. It has been written from the ground up taking advantage of nearly two decades of printing experience with a definite and expansive development schedule ahead. I've been beta-testing the software for a few weeks now. My firm, Seidel + Hammons, Inc. (www.sh2design.com) plots black, grayscale and color drawings almost every day. VectorWork's near-graphic-program abilities allow us to create rich, colorful presentation drawings. So our plotter, the HP500, is our most valuable piece of equipment.

Is That Music?

Page setup in OS X allows you to designate a printer on the fly, and then presents page sizes appropriate to that printer. You can select page rotation via buttons, so you don't have to "fool" the plotter if you want rotation. At the moment Microspot X-RIP cannot use Ethernet, so you must use a USB connection. But before you write them, write Apple. A software engineer at Microspot told me that they are waiting for Apple to ship a bug fix, before or within, the next major operating system update. He also mentioned that they already have Ethernet working in-house, and have been plotting successfully for months, but due to a cosmetic problem with an Apple module, the first release will only support direct connection printing. They're expecting a fix very shortly. Remember also that this report is based on beta software.

Microspot X-RIP offers some 40 page sizes up to 39" x 55", but of course, missing the exact size you want. Macplot allowed you to define and save custom page sizes. Again, Apple is apparently the choke point as we wait for this feature. My contact has said:

�We have a utility in development that allows access for setting custom paper sizes, accessing configurations of settings and more. Due to Apple's restrictions we expect that changes in paper sizes will not take affect until either the printer is removed and then re-added to the Print Center....Microspot X-RIP will support custom paper sizes very shortly. We are working around this issue...�

Time To Dance

Entering the proverbial Command-P, you are presented with OS X's print dialog box. With Microspot X-RIP there are, - count 'em - 9 dialog boxes to navigate. Here you can again switch printers on the fly, but not adjust your page setup. There is a pop-up for "Presets", but you can only have standard and one custom setup. If you need to change your custom setup, it will write over the previous setting.

1-You can define the usual page range & number of pages, and you can specify collation.

2-Next dialog is layout, which controls the number of pages printed per sheet, the order they're printed in, and an option to create a border between those pages.

3-Output options allows you to save as a file in PDF or Postscript (if the printer selected is Postscript). There is no option to save as a "plot" file yet. But printing to file will be supported in a future release.

4-Print quality controls the options for dither, resolution, print quality and a new feature called "Resolution Enhancement".

5-The familiar Media choices; paper type, margins, print area and an option to turn the roll-cutting on your plotter on or off (worked fine for me).

6-Color management to control adjustment, a wide range of brightness, color space, and rendering intent.

7-"Advanced Options"? - Print on the fly, data compression, and memory usage (min., std or max.)

8-A dialog box specific to the program you're printing from. In the case of VectorWorks, some Postscript options and the option to turn off text rotation.

9-The summary box, which shows all your choices.

Below that is "Save custom setting" which tempts you to think you can save and name several custom settings, but as mentioned, only allows one custom setting at a time.

Having successfully navigated all 9 dialog boxes, you are now worthy to print. You can print a Preview in any of these dialog boxes which will create a temporary PDF file opened in the Preview Program as part of OS X.

Allow me to digress briefly and say, that for all the human interface excellence of OS X, something has gone terribly wrong here. Nine dialog boxes would be silly if it weren't such a chore. Certainly these could be combined into, dare I say, ONE dialog box with a matrix of intelligent checkboxes. (Select one feature, and unrelated options would gray out).

The Bottom Line

What I really wanted to know is: Does it print? Yes.

And the speed? As good as OS 9 over Ethernet (remember I'm using OS X with a USB cable). This gives me hope that OS X Ethernet printing will be a big speed bump.

Can you network? Not yet. As I said, you can only create Postscript or PDF files, not plot files. As a crude workaround you could make PDF's and print those from another machine or send them to a Service Bureau, but the page size limitations will frustrate some. Network printing will be added very shortly.

And the quality? Outstanding. Yes, that good. Line quality and text are razor sharp. Where Microspot X-RIP really shines is color. Our plotter is the HP500, Non-postscript model [Editor's note, the HPDesignJet 500ps is the Postscript model]. Filled color areas or patterns are dithered so fine it looks like the print from a premium desktop printer. We�ve not done extensive color-matching tests, but at first glance the color was exactly what we expected. We opened hi-res JPEG color photos in Preview App, and the prints were excellent. It won't replace your 6-color Epson inkjet, but the quality is a huge leap from OS 9 and Macplot on the same machine. Even if you trade speed for the lower quality settings, the output is much better than MacPlot.

If you are wondering about printing from applications other than CAD, I performed limited testing with Freehand 10 and Illustrator 10, printing the same jpeg image and gradient fill. Microspot X-RIP plotted both pages so identical there was no way to tell them apart. The photo-jpegs looked very good (on plain paper ) and the gradient fills on each page were virtually stepless.

What about stability? I experienced no crashes or odd behavior with the beta software. My contact reports:

"With regard to the stability of the Microspot X-RIP, you may like to know that we have successfully printed simultaneously to three different large format printers each with a different large format document!"

So it looks like Microspot has done an excellent job so far at writing a stable, useful plotting program. Their aggressive development program could make them the premier plotting solution for Mac OS X users. The soon to be released product is worth serious consideration for anyone wanting to use large-format plotters in OS X.

As this article went to press Microspot released version 1 of X-RIP.

Editor's note. Folks, just wanted to point out that Don wrote this article on his own initiative and asked if we could publish it. We did and we sincerely thank him for taking the time to document this important feature in this excellent article. If you care to drop him a thank you note please do. We want your feedback. Did you like this article? Would you like to read more articles by contributing editors? Let us know. Thanks. -- AFR, Ed.

Don Seidel, AIA, is a registered Architect and President of Seidel + Hammons, Inc., an Architecture & Design firm in San Antonio. He has been an owner of firms for the past eight years. He is a CEO member of the local Chamber of Commerce, frequent guest-lecturer on technology at San Antonio College Dept. of Architecture, a longtime VectorWorks user and Registered Trainer.