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  #21  
Old 09-21-2016, 04:57 PM
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Kugelfang Kugelfang is offline
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I've been out of town for a week with no computer access. But I've been thinking about this project a lot. So many ideas and no time to explore them as I go in for retina surgery tomorrow morning. In the couple hours I've been home, though, I explored a new way of saving multi-page designs from Inkscape. I had put each page on a separate layer and stacked them on top of one another. To print, hide all except the one you want to print to pdf. I wasn't happy with this solution because you could only see one page at a time. I want to see them all at the same time--makes it a lot easier for me to work on the design and layout.

Here's a solution that seems to work. Though, I've not tested it by printing since I'm still inkless. Margins may be an issue but I think you can override any margin issues by ensuring that you print at 100%.

I wanted to document this and share it with anyone else who finds it useful.

See you in a couple more weeks.

--jeff

Using a grid and a 'print focus' object to print individual pdf pages from Inkscape:

1. Create a grid with x=8.5in and y=11in; each grid section will be a page. Layout your pages within the grid sections. Generally from left to right. The lower left corner of page 1 should probably be at the 0,0 point.

2. Create a rectangle with W=8.5in and H=11in; Use the value boxes to ensure accurate size and name this rectangle object "print focus" or something similar. Ensure the object's x origin = 0 and the y origin = 0. (it should cover the first page of your gridded layout, e.g., over the first page.)

3. Use cntl+f to find and select the 'print focus'. Ensure it is selected because you now:

4. Use File | Document Properties | Page 'Resize page to drawing or selection' This will move the printable page borders to the location and size of the selected 'print focus' object.

5. Use File | Print to print (to pdf) the selected page.

6. Place the 'print focus' over the next grid/page you wish to print by selecting the print focus object (using the 'find' command) and moving the x coordinate by 8.5 inches using the coordinate boxes in the top tool bar (this ensures exact placement). Print the second page.

7. Repeat for each additional page. The key is to move the focus over the page you want to print and resize the page to drawing or selection to print what is in focus.

Keep an eye on the unit of measure. Inkscape defaults to pixels but you probably want to work in inches or millimeters depending on your paper size. Note also that the x and y origins are reset each time you move the document properties. So you only move the page focus by 8.5 inches each time, not 8.5 then 17 then 25.5, etc.

See attached screen shot for preparing to print page 2.
Attached Thumbnails
Wings3d => ??? => *.svg -- a software/project log-print_page_2.jpg  
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  #22  
Old 09-21-2016, 05:14 PM
elliott elliott is offline
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Hope your surgery goes well and that your recovery is quick and complete.
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  #23  
Old 09-21-2016, 05:38 PM
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ViperPilot ViperPilot is offline
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May you have a successful Procedure, and a Recovery that's both speedy and comfortable.

Cheers!

Alan
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  #24  
Old 09-21-2016, 08:50 PM
RyanShort1 RyanShort1 is offline
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I think you are overthinking this. I'd make each page have a bounding box - like 0.5" away from the edge, then you fill everything in for a page. Select everything on that page and make it a group, move it off. Repeat for each page. When it is time to print, a single click on that page, align to center of page, and it's ready to print. Drag it off, select the next page you want, align to center of page... and repeat.

Ryan
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  #25  
Old 09-21-2016, 09:33 PM
Hazooka Hazooka is offline
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Both ways are good ones. But I support Ryan, having everything on one layer is more flexible solution. I'm doing the sam way with my projects for laser cutting.
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  #26  
Old 10-14-2016, 01:31 PM
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Kugelfang Kugelfang is offline
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Thanks for the well wishes. Surgery went fine, recovery was smooth, vision... well as well as to be expected (which, since I'm functionally blind in that eye anyway, isn't all that good but we were able to preserve some peripheral vision).

Yeah... I was waaaaay over thinking the Inkscape printing thing. The easiest thing so far is to group by page, cntl+c (to copy), esc (to deselect the page), center my cursor on print area, cntl+v (to paste), cntl+f (to print to file type *.pdf). Delete the copied page (preserving the original) and go on to the next. Takes about 10 seconds per page. Combining all the individual *.pdf pages into a single document in a separate program is easy. I get away from 'print layers' and maintain my view of all the pages. See attached screen shot. 'Much ado about nothing.'

I'm closing in on this project. I think I've achieved what I set out to do but using Wings3d for the UV mapping/faux unfolding is a tedious, tedious process. Rather error prone, too, and I think it will take some Wings developer involvement to make it reliable. As much as I love modeling in Wings, 'unfolding' in it is definitely the weak link in my work flow.

I'm extremely happy with my UV to SVG conversion script. I even gave it a web interface so I can extract UVs from models using my web browser. My initial thoughts were that I'd release the script for other modelers but now that I've brought myself up to speed on the current state of Ruby as programming language I'm not so sure that's a viable option. The script requires the installation of the Ruby language on the user's computer and that has evolved into a fairly complex process depending on the operating system. Probably out of the skill set of typical users.

Writing the script did lead me to reading up on WebGL, though. That's a technology that allows the use of 3d environments in web browsers. I'm pretty certain that combining my script with one of the WebGL frameworks would allow me to write an actual unfolding program. I even found a programming language, not too dissimilar to Ruby, which would alleviate many of the installation issues. (Isn't it silly how far I'll go, how much time I'll spend, just to avoid using Blender--which will do everything I want!)

And in my own style, here I go putting the cart before the horse: I've pretty much completed the instruction pages of my upcoming model.

I'd appreciate any feedback regarding the instructions.

Thanks,

--jeff

OK, maybe a link to the *.pdf hosted on my google drive:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9j...ew?usp=sharing
Attached Thumbnails
Wings3d => ??? => *.svg -- a software/project log-screenshot.jpg  

Last edited by Kugelfang; 10-14-2016 at 02:28 PM. Reason: added link to LZ-17 Assembly pdf
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