HPGL2CAD Produces Blank Pages

[metebelis_3]

I am outputting a ".plt" file (approx. 50k) from a 10-year old program called "Cad-Pack 7.05".

So far it just produces a blank page.

Do you know what the problem might be?

I am very keen to demo this product as it might be the answer to all my company's problems.

Thank You!!

[GuthCAD Software Support]

Hi,

Can you email one of your plot files so that we can check it out?

thanks,
Software Support

[GuthCAD Software Support]

Hi everyone,

Summary followup for this thread:

1. The member (metebelis_3) did send the plot file that was resulting in a blank DXF. Upon examination it was found to be in an unrecogized format (i.e. not HPGL plotter format.)

2. Subsequently the member was able to get CADPack to plot to an HPGL plot file. This allowed HPGL2CAD to give a 100% visually correct conversion to DXF. vis.

By printing-to-file within CadPack 7.05 I have created a PLT file capable of being read/converted by HPGL2CAD.

This file is 100% visually accurate, and I am very pleased with the result, except for one thing: the text is not true text. It is straight and curved lines composed to look like text.

Now, this may be an anomaly in the way CadPack displayed text in the first place (it is very old software) but I am including a PLT file for your review in case you can offer any advice.

If HPGL2CAD would recognize text as text, it would do everything I need it to do.

Follow answer to the text conern:

Glad to hear that you made some progress.

It is quite common for CAD programs (even current ones) to output text as lines and arcs rather than use HPGL's built in text output commands. If the HPGL file contains actual text then HPGL2CAD will convert it to actual DXF text. But if there are only lines and arcs in the plot file, then the resultant DXF file will also simply contain lines and arcs.

So the answer is that since there are only lines and arcs in the CADPack plot file, it is not possible to finish up with actual DXF Text. (Actually it is probably theoretically possible if we could implement some type of Optical Character Recognition to recognise the lines and form them back into actual text, but it is currently beyond the scope of the software.)

[cfiorica]

I am trying to convert .plt files for an HP plotter. The files were created in AutoCAD and I am attempting to get them back in to AutoCAD. It translates (or says it does) and the .dwg file has nothing in it. I am so far quite unimpressed.

[GuthCAD Software Support]

Hi,

Are you able to email a sample plot, so that we can investigate? (You can send it via 'Private Message' - click on 'GuthCAD Software Support').

Thanks,
Software Support

[GuthCAD Software Support]

Hi,

Thanks for sending the example plot files. We have checked them out. Actually although the plot starts off in HPGL2 plotter language mode, the HPGL2 commands are only used to set the page size, and then the language switches to HP-RTL mode (Hewlett Packard Raster Transfer Language). The current version of HPGL2CAD unfortunately does not support HP-RTL. We are working on supporting HP-RTL in the next major version of HPGL2CAD. As you may know raster format does not lend itself very well to conversion back to CAD vectors, so it is not a simple task. If you just need a visual on the drawing then there are a couple of Viewers that will view HP-RTL. Maybe try View Companion.
best regards,
Software Support