Color Printing Procedure.

The GVU/SciVis Lab has two color postscript printers that are available for use: The NEC/DEC Colormate Printer is located in the SciVis Lab next to DEC1 and is known to the network as scivis-cps. It's a fully PostScript thermal transfer printer that produces brilliant color on paper or transparencies. It has 300 dots per inch (dpi) resolution and a four-color ribbon (yellow, magenta, cyan, and black). Off-colors are produced by dithering over a 6x6 superpixel (36 pixels); thus resolution is reduced. The print speed is about 1 page per minute for color. However, the bottleneck for large files (like full-screen rgb files converted to color ps) is in the speed of the network connection. The fastest baud rate with the RS-232 interface is 38.4Kb; thus large file will take at least 3 1/2 minutes per MB just to transfer (assuming full bandwidth is available). Keep this in mind.

The HP 1200C/PS is located in the Medinfo area of the GVU Lab and is known to the network as valencia. It's has a color resolution of 300 dpi and a black and white resolution of 600x300 dpi. It has four print cartridges, one each of black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. The print speed is up to 7ppm for black and white and up to 1-2ppm for color. The printer is connected to an SGI Indigo (santiago) in the Medinfo area over a parallel link, so the speed is dependent upon this link as well.

The materials for the color printers are expensive. The cost PER PAGE is: 

	paper			$0.80
	transparency		$1.75
We thus must be quite careful in our color printing and MUST RECOVER THE COST OF SUPPLIES from users. You will be charged at the above per page rates for any color printing that you do.

Follow the procedure below to obtain color printouts:

  1. Only GVU/SciVis Lab Assistants are able to send print requests, so you will need to contact one of them to obtain your printouts. See the lab asssistant schedule in the GVU/SciVis Lab to see who is on duty.
  2. If you need only one or two paper copies, we will print them at no charge!
    However, if you break your multiple page print into several trips to the printer, your printing privilege could be revoked.
  3. For multiple copies, or transparencies, you will need to fill out an authorization form prior to printing. This form can be obtained from the GVU office. Before your color prints can be made, this form will need to have the following information filled in:
    1. The Project number and MSA number to which the costs will be charged. We are not able to accept cash due to sales tax complicatons.
    2. The signature of the Project Principal Investigator.
    3. The name of the user (and e-mail address).
    4. The number of paper copies and/or transparencies which have been authorized.
    5. The date and an authorization from one of the following people: Bill Ribarsky (CoC 209), John Stasko (CoC 253), Randy Carpenter (CoC 209), Joan Morton (CoC 242), Chrissy Hendricks (CoC 244), Andy Pounds (CoC 209).
  4. A log sheet is kept beside the color printer that contains a running account of the prints produced and by whom. EVERY COPY produced on the printer must be logged and paid for--there are no trials, no WHOOPS.
  5. Once the prints are finished, the GVU/SciVis Lab Assistant fills in the actual number of copies/transparencies printed, initial it, and keep the form. The Lab Assistant then brings completed forms to the GVU office and give them to Chrissy or Joan at the end of his shift.
  6. Finally, Chrissy fills in the "transfer to" information, get the proper authorization, and pass the request on to Jennifer in the College of Computing Financial Services office for processing. Tips for printing images from the SGI machines:
    1. Images on screen are far too dark for the printer. They must be brightened significantly before they are printed, and they still come out somewhat dark. Use "gammawarp FileIn.rgb FileOut.rgb X" to brighten them, with "X" being a printer gamma value from about .4 to .6.

    2. The printer clips off a full 1" from the ends due to its paper grabbing design, but the "tocolorps" converter assumes the images will have only a 1/2" border. (Most PS printers can print up to .5 inches of the edge of the page.) Use "addframe FileIn.rgb FileOut.rgb X R G B" to add an extra border around the images, where "X" should range from about 25 to 50, and R G B being the color of the border you want around the image. (255 255 255 is fine for a white border.)

    3. Set the "Print Density" dial on the printer to about 2 or 3. Any less and the print starts to flake off, any more just gets it darker (Bad.)

    4. As with any PS images, the printer prints the image as big as it can on the page. Thus, the image should be oriented as to take advantage of the most area of the page. Use "iflip FileIn.rgb FileOut.rgb 90" to flip the image from Portrait to Landscape, or vice-versa.

    5. Use "tocolorps FileIn.rgb > FileOut.cps" located in ~ccoprrm/bin to convert the final .rgb image file into the PostScript form necessary to print.

    6. The printer name is "scivis-cps". Use "lpr -Pscivis-cps File.cps" to print, and "lpq -Pscivis-cps" as usual to check on printing -- "prnt" did not seem to respond properly to print requests.
    For PowerPoint users, just print PowerPoint to a color PostScript file, upload to gvu, and print. The Print menu has a Postscript File option; just select this and the Color/Greyscale option. You will be prompted for the name of the postscript file you wish to create.

    On the DEC systems, /usr/bin/dxpsview will bring up an interactive postscript viewer. You can optionally choose "Postscript Preview" from the "Applications" menu of the "Session Manager" that appears when you log on. However, there is one problem with dxpsview: once you've loaded the Postscript Previewer choose "Watch Progress" under the "Options" menu. Otherwise, the program will just quit when you load a file !?