Tiff Images come out to lite 2

[BBJT]

When a SW file is issued here, a tiff image gets magically (API) created for viewing and printing purposes. The same goes for our AutoCAD drawings.

The problem lies in the line weight in the SW Tiff. I hate to say it but the AutoCAD tiffs come out fine. I have tried manually saving out a file as a tiff in SW, messing with all the options and received the same results. Very lite lines.

The only way that I am able to get a half way descent tiff is to change the line weight in the document settings to Thick2 which now makes the drawing look pretty ugly.

I talk to our API guru and asked if he could switch the line thickness before the tiff is generated and he said yes. Now I am thinking that I am going to have to test out all border sizes and scales before I can tell him what to set the thicknesses to.
Has anybody run into this? Any suggestions?

I know there is E-drawings and a free SW viewer. I think creating a E-drawing of a 3000 component assembly would probably bring E-drawings to its knees. Any way they are not an option, at this time, for us.
BBJT CSWP

 

[MadMango]

I haven't messed with TIFF options too much, but have you considered JPEG output? "Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."

 

[BBJT]

Our home grown PDM system for SolidWorks, which was design initially for AutoCAD, has generated hundreds of thousands of tiffs over the years. We use the free windows Wang imager to view the files an their history. I am not saying that we will not go to a different format in the future but as of right now the mind set is tiff.

Thanks
BBJT CSWP

 

[dsi]

Our plotter prints hidden lines real light, so we had to increase the line thicknesses as well. We changed Visible Edges to Thick and Hidden Edges to Normal. That does the trick for our plotter but I have not messed with tiff images enough to know. DimensionalSolutions@Core.com
While I welcome e-mail messages, please post all thread activity in these forums for the benefit of all members.

 

[APPENG]

Sounds like an AWESOME candidate for an enhancement request Regards,
Jon
jgbena@yahoo.com

 

[KWC]

We have the same process and had the same problem. When a SolidWorks drawing is released we have a program that generates a TIFF file and an AutoCAD file. The tiffs came out extremely lite. This program was written for us by our VAR. To solve the problem he had to change some code in a dll file. Now our tiffs come out nice without changing anything in SolidWorks. That's about all I know

Regards,
Kevin

 

[BBJT]

Kevin,

Would your VAR be willing to talk to me? I would like to know what they added to fix the problem. They may be doing what we are going to try. That is changing the lineweight behind the scenes through the API. If this is the way thay are doing it, it would be helpful to know what settings they chose.

Thanks for replying. It helps to know that we are not "the only ones" that are doing this with SolidWorks. It also gives me hope that there may be an easier way, of correcting this problem, than what I drummed up.

BBJT CSWP

 

I use TIFF drawing output all the time. BTW this is the desireble graphical output for line drawings. They are much better quality than JPG's.

What settings are you using in your TIFF output? I've used these for years with excellent results

Image Type: Black & White (bilevel)
Compression Scheme: Group 4 Fax
Print Capture
DPI:600
Paper Size: A-Landscape

I use these images for inserting into Word documents for manuals and such and they work wonderfully. The files are small (100k or less), have good resolution and look great when printed.

 

[BBJT]

We are using the same settings that you are using with one exception. We are creating tiffs that are B, C, D, E, and J(custome) size. BBJT CSWP

 

[KWC]

BBJT,

I spoke with our VAR. They have no problem in talking with you on this topic.

How do we hook up in this forum?

Kevin

 

[BBJT]

My company does not want me to post my phone number or email publicly. I do however have a hotmail address.
My hotmail account is BBJT_7@hotmail.com. If you or your VAR could send me an email with your VARS number it would be greatly appreciated. If they prefer to contact me I will reply with my phone number.

I will post back here to let everyone know if this was a successful fix. If for some reason it is not Keven still gets a star for the effort.

Thanks Keven!
BBJT CSWP

 

[BBJT]

Just wanted to update everybody on the lite Tiff images that we were experiencing.

When we issue a SW file a Tiff gets created behind the scenes. The service that we wrote pulls up the DRW and saves it as a TIFF useing the print capture option. After digging into this, and almost giving up, I stumbled across the answer. In 2001Plus when you go to File, Print there is a button in the dialog box called Line Weights. This is where you can set the specific value for the Thin, Normal, Thick, Thick1, etc. This not only affects printing to printer/plotters but it also affects saving as tiffs using the Print Capture option.

I would also like to thank you, Kevin, for hooking me up with your VAR. Your effort was greatly appreciated. However the VAR seemed a little reluctant to help me with out a work order. Who knows, maybe they were not aware of the above. You might want to share it with them.
BBJT CSWP

 

[odmullen]

It would be a lot nicer if the line weights on screen, print and .tif matched right out of the box. To get decent line weights in a .tif of a drawing of a large part, one must set the visible line to a fairly heavy line weight either in the Tools/Options/document properties or in the Print options, which looks clunky in the SW drawing on screen and printed. Having to tinker with these settings every time one wants to make a .tif (and restore them) is a pain. If I didn't have to cater to a few Mac slaves I'd stick with e-drawings, although they are dreadfully slow unless you have a pretty zippy box.

 

[BBJT]

Once you set the Print options they will stick until you change them. This will allow you to display the lines in the drw the way you wish and print them at your preferred line weights. It is defiantly not very intuitive. BBJT CSWP

 

[SBaugh]

Hello all,

I just got this in my email because I belong to the topica newsgroup concerning Solidworks.

http://www.topica.com

This group is well worth your time to check out. There are a lot of helpful folks out there. You guys should check it out and

http://www.solidmag.com

and get there newsletter...very helpful as well.

Anyways, I thought this may help those of you dealing with Tiff files


I subscride SolidMag's Solid Digital Digest and with permission have reprinted a SW tip below. It is a nice feature SW has when creating tif files for sending drawings to customers without any CAD software or CAD viewers:

SolidMag Q & A:

Q.: We have a customer with no CAD software and what we do is take a .tif-formatted SolidWorks model and convert it to a .pdf file or .jpg with good results. That may help with better documents than straight .tifs, which are very poor and lose a lot of tolerance and dimensional info. -- Wayne
Utz, Flowdesine, Atlanta, Ga.

A.:
When saving your SolidWorks drawing as a .tif file, check to be sure you have the following settings:

Black & White
Group 4 fax
Print capture
600 DPI

These settings will create a small file that has excellent resolution and will work well when inserted into another document. -- M. T. (Merry) Owen, MAKO Engineering (WA) Pty Ltd

As featured in SOLID Digital Digest. Subscribe to this free, email newsletter at:

http://www.D-Digest.com

and received weekly SolidWorks tips, tricks and user news.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I tried it and it works great. The tif file is very small and can be opened & printed by Windows default imaging programs very well.

I hope this helps,

Dan Bovinich

~~~~~~~~Working with Solids~~~~~~~~

Owner of list: Dan Bovinich dan@bovinich.net
SolidWorks links:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/swuser/links.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Best Regards, Scott Baugh, CSWP
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com

http://www.3dmca.com

http://home.insightbb.com/~scott.baugh/

*When in doubt always check the help first*