Invite testing of hershey-text.ulp

On 28/03/2014 11:56 a.m., Neil Allison wrote:

hershey-text.ulp meets my current needs.  However, I have some ideas to

improve the ULP for others and will do my best to support the ULP as my

commitments allow.   I have also made ULP my first attempt at using

GitHub for a project.  Initially I envisage some incremental

improvements will be available on the GitHub site and only major

advances would be submitted to the Cadsoft ULP downloads area.

 

Comments and suggestions welcome.

 

Kind regards,

Neil

Nice work Neil

I do notice that you use 10000 in the line

  "int MM_TO_UNITS = 10000;"

That was correct for V5 and earlier but v6 uses 1/320000mm (0.003125µ)

I used 320000 with v6.5 and the result is a better height /position

match to the original text.

You may care to test for the version and use the appropriate units.

HTH

Warren

On 03/29/2014 01:05 AM, warrenbrayshaw wrote:

On 28/03/2014 11:56 a.m., Neil Allison wrote:

 

hershey-text.ulp meets my current needs.  However, I have some ideas to

improve the ULP for others and will do my best to support the ULP as my

commitments allow.   I have also made ULP my first attempt at using

GitHub for a project.  Initially I envisage some incremental

improvements will be available on the GitHub site and only major

advances would be submitted to the Cadsoft ULP downloads area.

 

Comments and suggestions welcome.

 

Kind regards,

Neil

 

Nice work Neil

 

I do notice that you use 10000 in the line

"int MM_TO_UNITS = 10000;"

 

 

That was correct for V5 and earlier but v6 uses 1/320000mm (0.003125µ)

I used 320000 with v6.5 and the result is a better height /position

match to the original text.

 

You may care to test for the version and use the appropriate units.

Or one could use the built-in functions u2mm() and mm2u() to convert

from/to internal units.  They're documented in the ULP manual - just

search for "Unit Conversions".

    - Chuck

Quote:

Nice work Neil

 

I do notice that you use 10000 in the line

"int MM_TO_UNITS = 10000;"

 

 

That was correct for V5 and earlier but v6 uses 1/320000mm

(0.003125µ)

I used 320000 with v6.5 and the result is a better height

/position

match to the original text.

 

You may care to test for the version and use the appropriate

units.

 

Or one could use the built-in functions u2mm() and mm2u() to convert

from/to internal units.  They're documented in the ULP manual - just

search for "Unit Conversions".

 

    - Chuck

Neil is working in units so he needs to go from mm to units. New functions

for that arrived with v6 but they were not in v5 which is what the ULP was

written for.

Warren

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Neil Allison schrieb:

TL;DR: I invite you to help me improve a ULP to render Hershey fonts for

PCBs in EAGLE.  See the ULP downloads section of the Cadsoft website or:

http://www.avon-tech-solutions.co.nz/hershey.html or

https://github.com/nallison/hershey-text-eagle

GROUP the text to render then RUN hershey-text.ulp

Many thanks, this is a great idea to finally let us see some better text

on our boards!

However, the ULP obviously ignores text rotation, currently. Maybe that

can be fixed.

Another suggestion: instead of using a fixed stroke width, it might be

better to use a percentual width (just as we are used with EAGLEs vector

font). In my test case, I had a board with several very differently

sized texts, and in the result part of them were much too fat while

others were much too thin.

MANY thanks,

Tilmann

I do notice that you use 10000 in the line

  "int MM_TO_UNITS = 10000;"

 

You may care to test for the version and use the appropriate

units.

Thank you for the helpful suggestion.  Fixed, available from the github

site: https://github.com/nallison/hershey-text-eagle

(I'd rather not clutter the Cadsoft ULP download area with multiple

revisions of the ULP while its going through multiple changes suggested

by the community.)

 

Or one could use the built-in functions u2mm() and mm2u() to convert

from/to internal units.  They're documented in the ULP manual - just

search for "Unit Conversions".

 

     - Chuck

Thanks for reporting these functions.  You've prompted me to review the

v6 release notes to see what I'm missing by remaining on v5.

New functions for that arrived with v6 but they were not in v5 which is

> what the ULP was written for.

Agreed, v5 suits most of my design needs at present.  Is anyone still

using v4 - it doesn't have ingroup() ULP function.

Regards,

--

Neil

https://github.com/nallison/hershey-text-eagle

On 01/04/2014 03:06, Tilmann Reh wrote:

However, the ULP obviously ignores text rotation, currently. Maybe that

can be fixed.

Yes, I have put it on my list of issues.

https://github.com/nallison/hershey-text-eagle/issues/11

Text rotation is currently supported when the "Make a Package in

library" option is selected: when the package is added to the board, it

is inserted with the same "angle" and origin setting as the text.  The

"spin" setting is not (yet) supported.

But perhaps you want to rotate the text directly without creating a

package?   I think it is a worthwhile enhancement.

Another suggestion: instead of using a fixed stroke width, it might be

better to use a percentual width (just as we are used with EAGLEs vector

font). In my test case, I had a board with several very differently

sized texts, and in the result part of them were much too fat while

others were much too thin.

Yes, a very good idea thank you, I've added it to the issues list too:

https://github.com/nallison/hershey-text-eagle/issues/12

Thank you for taking the time to test and comment on this ULP.

Regards,

Neil

Neil Allison schrieb:

Thank you for the helpful suggestion.  Fixed, available from the github

site: https://github.com/nallison/hershey-text-eagle

 

(I'd rather not clutter the Cadsoft ULP download area with multiple

revisions of the ULP while its going through multiple changes suggested

by the community.)

This is the perfect way to do it.

Thanks for reporting these functions.  You've prompted me to review the

v6 release notes to see what I'm missing by remaining on v5.

 

New functions for that arrived with v6 but they were not in v5 which is

what the ULP was written for.

 

Agreed, v5 suits most of my design needs at present.  Is anyone still

using v4 - it doesn't have ingroup() ULP function.

I think V4 users are a rather small number today. But I think many

people are still using V5. I also did not update to V6 since it wouldn't

provide any benefits for my work, and additionally all my urgent issues

weren't addressed at all.

So thank you for explicitly supporting V5.

Tilmann

Neil Allison schrieb:

However, the ULP obviously ignores text rotation, currently. Maybe that

can be fixed.

 

Yes, I have put it on my list of issues.

https://github.com/nallison/hershey-text-eagle/issues/11

 

Text rotation is currently supported when the "Make a Package in

library" option is selected: when the package is added to the board, it

is inserted with the same "angle" and origin setting as the text.  The

"spin" setting is not (yet) supported.

 

But perhaps you want to rotate the text directly without creating a

package?   I think it is a worthwhile enhancement.

I did the test on a completely designed board. The text objects were

either smashed part designators, or "stand alone" text information for

the silkscreen.

I didn't want to "make a package in library", I just wanted to get

better readable text objects. So IMHO the ULP should just take the

selected (grouped) text objects "as they are" and convert them to

hershey - at the same position and rotation (and ideally also with the

same spin). Of course one could group and rotate the hershey text

afterwards, but for a "converter", this 1:1 behaviour is commonly expected.

Another suggestion: instead of using a fixed stroke width, it might be

better to use a percentual width (just as we are used with EAGLEs vector

font). In my test case, I had a board with several very differently

sized texts, and in the result part of them were much too fat while

others were much too thin.

 

Yes, a very good idea thank you, I've added it to the issues list too:

https://github.com/nallison/hershey-text-eagle/issues/12

 

Thank you for taking the time to test and comment on this ULP.

Thanks for your support, and thanks for listening!

Tilmann

Hello Tilmann,

Another suggestion: instead of using a fixed stroke width, it might be

better to use a percentual width (just as we are used with EAGLEs vector

font).

Github is updated with a fix for this issue (#12).  As a default, the

ULP now sets the hershey text stroke (wire) width separately for each

text item in the group.  It calculates the width from (size * ratio) and

so is the same as the wires that create the 'source' vector text.

Checkbox and command line options allow one to revert to a fixed width

for all text.

Kind regards,

Neil

https://github.com/nallison/hershey-text-eagle

Tilmann Reh wrote:

I didn't want to "make a package in library", I just wanted to get

better readable text objects. So IMHO the ULP should just take the

selected (grouped) text objects "as they are" and convert them to

hershey - at the same position and rotation (and ideally also with the

same spin). Of course one could group and rotate the hershey text

afterwards, but for a "converter", this 1:1 behaviour is commonly expected.

I understand, I shall work on this next.

For me, having the hershey text as a package for each vector text so all

its wires are moved, rotated and mirrored as a single entity rather than

as a group made slight position adjustments and text revisions (with

UPDATE) easy.

Regards,

Neil