UF_PLOT Files

NX Plotting

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Overview
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NX provides a modern plotting system based on commercial printing software
from System Development Inc. (SDI). The NX plotting system generates a plot
file in CGM or TIFF format and delivers the file to SDI software for
printing or for conversion to another format. Details of the plotting
functionality and the administration of printers and plotters is available
in the NX Gateway Help collection. Please review the online documentation
available under File -> Plotting for a detailed description of the concepts
for using the plotting system.

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Major functional areas
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Provided in the UF_PLOT module are routines for

Using printer groups and obtaining information about available printers
and profiles.

Specifying the job options associated with a print operation.

You can control how colors and widths of the geometry should be rendered
in the output and what tolerance should be used in rendering curves. You
can ask for the default job options and ask and set the session job
options. If the program is executed as an internal user function, the
session job options are "shared" with the interactive Plotting dialogs.

Specifying the banner message string and whether or not a banner should
be added to the plot.

You can ask for the default banner options and ask and set the session
banner options. Again, the session options are shared with the
interactive dialogs.

Defining the colors for the rendering of the plot.

You can ask the default custom colors and ask and set the session custom
colors. You can save a particular custom color palette with a drawing
sheet, query whether a sheet has a custom color palette, retrieve the
custom colors for a sheet, and delete the custom colors for a sheet. You
can read and write custom color information to an external Color
Definition File (CDF).

Defining the widths for the rendering of the plot.

You can ask the default custom widths and ask and set the session custom
widths. You can save a particular custom width palette with a drawing
sheet, query whether a sheet has a custom width palette, retrieve the
custom widths for a sheet, and delete the custom widths for a sheet. You
can read and write custom width information to an external Width
Definition File (WDF).

Printing, Saving, and Converting the display or a drawing sheet

You can print the current display or a drawing sheet, print a CGM or
TIFF file previously created, and convert an existing CGM or TIFF file
to another output format, such as JPEG, PNG, or EMF. You can save the
current display or drawing sheet to a CGM file.

Adding the display or drawing sheet to the current Plot Layout

You can add the current display or a drawing sheet to the Plot Layout
which is a mechanism for gathering several plots together in a single
output file. You can then send the Plot Layout to a printer / plotter
or save the output to a CGM file.

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Usage scenarios
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Listed below are the names of sample NX Open programs that demonstrate
various usages of the NX Plotting system along with a high level
description of what the programs do.

ufd_plot_drawings.c (Internal)

Print all drawing sheets using the default settings to a known printer /
profile. This example assumes that the default Printer Group has a printer
named "Printer One" and it uses the SDI "system" profile.

ufd_plot_drawings_hpgl.c (External)

Cycle the drawing sheets of a part and print each to a queue which is
defined to generate an HPGL-2 output file.

ufd_plot_many_widths.c (Internal)

Demonstrates a strategy for performing a plotting operation that
uses more than three different line widths.