kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo_bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----

> From: Henner Zeller <h.zeller@xxxxxxx>
> To: KiCad Developers <kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 6:10 PM
> Subject: [Kicad-developers] Documentation footprint postscript/pdfs in kicad-library are HUGE bitmap images.
> 
> Hi,
> The documentation files in
>   https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-library/tree/master/modules/footprints_doc
> 
> Are very huge. In fact, this directory alone contributes to 502M out
> of 580M of the whole kicad-library. Yes, almost 90% of the data
> downloaded for the kicad-library is pixelated PostScript files. Which
> means it takes forever to download on a slow link.
> 
> They seem to be generated from bitmaps, which makes them so huge (and
> pretty low quality on print; even on a low-resolution screen they are
> already pixellated). Since they are generated from the PCB printouts
> of KiCad, this indicates that at the time they were generated, the



> version of printing was broken - shouldn't it always generate vector
> graphics ?
> 

Unfortunately, no. MSWin has never implemented PostScript in a sensible way.
They use their existing printer DC structure to create a bitmap (up to 1200dpi)
and wrap that in PostScript.

> Since I am right now working my way through the code of KiCad on other
> parts, I have not entered the printing realm yet - what is the
> commandline way to generate a postscript file from a *.sch or *.brd
> file ? That way, these things can be automated in a Makefile.
> Does KiCad generate/export PostScript directly without going through
> some generic wxWidgets way of printing ? If not, I could have a stab
> at it (I usually write PostScript by hand for fun).
> 


Use the 'plot' function rather than 'print' - it will generate a
PostScript file. I think the PostScript file can be made neater,
but there is nothing technically wrong with it.

> If this would be vector graphics, the output would be 1/100 the size
> and extremely high quality. Compare the original
>    pcbnew 
> library-repos/kicad-library/modules/TO-92_Housings_06Jun2013_Part3.kicad_pcb
> with the generated PostScript result:
>    okular 
> library-repos/kicad-library/modules/footprints_doc/TO-92_Housings_06Jun2013_Part3.ps
> The postscript file is a 4.6MB and a pixelmess that is not worth printing.
> 
> I'd like to write a Makefile that generates new, higher quality
> postscripts, easy-updatable. What would be a commandline-call to
> pcbnew to do that ?
> 
> (I just tried printing, and it didn't work on my machine; but I
> remember to have seen on the list that I need to install some gtk tool
> to make it work).
> 
> -h