NX 1892 - PDF Export with thinnest possible line width

[jmarkus]

For some reason, one of my customers is creating model views with 0.025mm character sizes for text. The result is that when I export the model view to a PDF file, the linewidth is thicker than the character size and all I get are a bunch of blobs. The customer won't change their model view settings and the view itself is set up in a way that I can't just scale up the entities in the view in NX to have reasonable text sizes.

So now I am trying to figure out how I can essentially get a "close-to-zero" line width in my PDF file. I know I can turn of the viewing of line widths in Acrobat Reader, but if I go to print the PDF file, it reverts to the blob-sized line widths.

I'm looking for solutions either through a journal or NX settings.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[cowski]

0.025mm character sizes for text

Are they lawyers by chance? Talk about fine print...

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[Toost]

There must be some decimal error here, a human hair is said to be ~0.05 mm
having the character size half that will not be readable no matter the line thickness.

Do they add notes to the model and display these in the drawing views ?
Is this customer a Autocad user ? - Autocad has a slightly different perspective on how to handle drawing scale.
Instead of having a scale in the respective view, the views are 1:1 and the drawing is scaled to fit the paper.
( at least this is what i have heard, never used Acad myself)

Regards,
Tomas

Never try discuss with a fanatic, it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

 

[jmarkus]

You would think it was an error, but no. Interestingly, we sometimes work with HPGL/2 language instead of PDF format and the HPGL/2 was not able to render the characters at that size. It came out looking like an alien language.

As a work around I managed to bring the PDF file into Inkscape and scale it back up and save as a new PDF.

Jeff

 

[3DDave]

Only if you are curious: HPGL/2 is a language, not a renderer, but it's been too long to recall if it's a fixed decimal representation. It may be a flaw in whatever you expected to create a graphical display from it rather than a fundamental flaw, or the software that generated it is in error. HPGL/2 is readable, so one could plot a single character to see if the coordinates were as expected and, if not, alter them to see if the renderer functioned correctly.

One way to handle this is to output to PostScript where it is far easier to manipulate the line width and then run it through Adobe Distiller or your favorite. If the text is changed to a custom color it will make locating the text much easier.

 

[Toost]

can you describe the workflow on this :
"one of my customers is creating model views with 0.025mm character sizes for text."

is this NX data you receive ?
in NX part file format or IGES or Step or ?
Is the mentioned text in a view on a drawing or is it in the model 3d Space ?
if , on a drawing , did you place that view or did the customer
if the text is that small, how do you at know it's there / should be there?
Is this dimension line text or freestanding notes ?
why can't you select the text and change the character sizes ?

Many questions,
Regards,
Tomas


Never try discuss with a fanatic, it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

 

[jmarkus]

We receive NX data.
The text is PMI, so we save the model views as PDF files for others to be able to review the GD&T.
When looking at the view, it is zoomed/fit to window - everything is at that scale.
The view consists of the 'title page' of the PMI with charts and such.
The manner in which the charts were created is not a typical chart and any attempts to scale the entities in the view shifts the origins of the text relative to the chart lines and border, as well as the other text on the model view.

J