NX1 to NX5 plotting via GRIP

[bdeloria]

Quick bit of background, the majority of the printing is done on the manufacturing floor on 80x25 dumb terminals that call a grip program that plots the sheet/sheets to a HP Postscript Laser printer.

With the advent of NX3 the entire printing system was revamped and SDI replaced PM or PQ or whatever I can't recall at this time. Also gone with it is the 'plot node' with NX3. I'm working with NX1 now, looking to move to NX5. I've been working on updating the GRIP programs, and within GRIP the PLOT statements have changed some but the entire 'plot node' has dissappeared.

Essentially what I need is to be able to take a part file and print it from a command line in Solaris/Unix. I realize some of you may say that NX6 is XP/OSX/SUSE only and I understand this but we need to upgrade now and the time frame I have it is unfeasable to replace the terminals on the floor.

Essentially I need to find a way to plot the sheets via a command line interface whether it be with some new way that I'm aware of.

Basically unless I'm wrong here I either need to find a way to do it via the command line, or figure out how to get the cad node name working in some fashion in NX5 so I can get my GRIP programs working again.

Please correct me where I am in error, I am quite new to Unigraphics.

Thanks,

Brian

 

[hudson888]

Don't take my word for it by any stretch, but... I know that the plotting functionality of UG was completely changed at NX-3 from what existed previously. I also know that grip is basically a dead language going forward. So I don't hold a lot of hope for reviving your grip programs. You may in that case do better re-working something in NX-Open.

All of which you probably know and maybe it doesn't help much, but we had the same problems some time back, and what we did was to plot to PDF files and save them in a released directory from where the shop floor could view or plot them.

Hope this helps somewhat

Hudson

 

[bdeloria]

Problem with the shop floor is they're 80x25 monochrome terminals. Think the DOS command prompt windows. They're on their way out.. just not fast enough.

The PDF's would work with printing the problem is though getting them printed in the first place. We don't use Teamcenter, and the vault/library system is an aging unix shell script and read only directories. So simply put if we were to plot each file to a PDF each time it is checked into the vault would require intervention on the part of the engineer.

I unfortunately cannot rely on the engineers to plot each file each time that they check a part into the vault. I'd prefer to automate this but again we're back to the age old problem of needing to execute things via the command line.

The only thing that I can think of is instead of the engineer using the save button instead use a custom one on a toolbar that is a macro that saves and plots the file to the users home directory. Then from there when the user checks the part back into the vault have it check and move the plot file to the appropriate location. This would work fine for new parts / revisions on old parts however it would still require manual intervention on existing unmodified parts.

There seems to be a command line interface for the sdi printing based on some tidbits from the Ideas section. I need to look into it more though.

Thanks,

Brian