Trouble printing on the OCE TDS400 with Revit

[mail1774]

Hello to all, I have a problem with printing with our OCE TDS400 Large format printer.

Our office setup are the following:
Workstations are running Windows 2000 professional
Servers are running Windows 2000 server 5.0 build (2195 s.p.)
We have an HP 700 and 750C plotter along with our new OCE TDS400
We printing only on 24"x36" and 30"x42" size paper.
We are running AutoCad 2002 and now testing out the new Revit program.

Current configuration that is working properly with AutoCad but not for Revit:
The OCE TDS400 is on a 'printer controller' as OCE calls it (basically its a print server for their own printer). AutoCad is configured to use .pc3 files installed separately through a LPR port running a generic/text print driver and not through a 'Windows printer driver.' There is also an HDI printer driver installed alongside AutoCad to allow for printing.

From what I understand is that Revit uses windows printer driver which is a different setup from AutoCad.

Currently, our setup with AutoCad 2002 printing on the TDS400 works flawlessly (once you get it configured correctly and all...); in fact it works so well with the 'Print EXEC LT' (A batch plotting software by OCE) we rarely use our HP plotters anymore.

Now on the other hand, we recently acquired Revit 5.1 and I am running tests prints and configuring the software so Revit can print correctly. Now after many many times of trial and errors (and many sheets of wasted paper), I'm getting close to running out of options. I tried contacting OCE but they said they do not support Revit at this time... I tried printing to plot files and pdfs but the plots are either coming out with the wrong orientations or they can be either too big or cut off. :cry:

So if anyone can lend me some pointers on how I can make this to work, please Notify me, you can send a reply here or call us at our office @ 858 578 2950. My name is Pete.

[LRaiz]

Have you tried to press buttons Printing Tips and Help in Revit Print dialog? They lead to some useful information.

Could you describe the nature of problems that you are experiencing?

[Wes Macaulay]

I've written a white paper on using Revit with Oce machines... this document was made primarily with Reprodesk in mind, but to my understanding, Oce devices like uncompressed vanilla HP-GL/2, so this may help you anyway.

[mail1774]

:D Thank You-Thank You, after some more configuring and some pointers from your 'white papers,' The layout is coming out correctly. Now, the only thing is like you said... the lineweight is quite light so I am still trying to configure that out... so hopefully I should get it just right!

Now I do want to ask, if this all work out. Revit is printing to the OCE indirectly - through a plot file or something similar rather... (Which is fine!) But my Q is why can't Revit print directly to the OCE through their own drivers??? (thus, eliminating the middle-man) I've tried it through two printer drivers provided by OCE (one is the WRD 'windows raster driver' and the WPD) both do not work... so i dunno.

But, anyways thanks for the help! Keep up the good work! :wink:

[Wes Macaulay]

If you want to print to your Oce plotter directly, have the HP plotter driver you set up in my document point to the Oce plotter across the network, and uncheck the "Print to File" box in Revit (and in the printer's control panel, if applicable).

If the Oce plotter is not hosted by a computer and is directly connected to the network, this could be more of a challenge if you can't see the plotter listed under Network Neighborhood (or My Network Places - whatever Microsoft calls your local area network in your version of Windows). You may be able to have one computer on your network "share" the computer with the network, and then you could map LPT1 on each computer to \\computer_name\plotter_name...

If the plotter is not connected directly to the network but is connected to a computer that shares the plotter to the network, than as above map the HP 750C driver to LPT1 or LPT2 or whatever... you might be able to point the driver to the plotter itself without using an LPT port. Note that LPT ports can be virtual, so you could create an LPT3 which Windows would understand as having nothing to do with a port on the back of a computer and everything to do with providing a means to map a driver to a plotter across a network.

As to why this works and not the real Oce driver... good question! Oce has done a lot of work making their plotters work with AutoCAD - and even then it's often no picnic - and I don't get why things have to be so complicated... there's a lot of hardware on their plotters. The Oce plotter drivers probably pump out something different than vanilla HP-GL/2, but it's a good thing we can send them HP-GL/2 and get good results!

FWIW, HTH, etc.

[christopher.zoog51272]

good topic, thanks for the white paper, Wes.

Moving this to hardware.... :D

[Gerd Bremer]

I am printing / plotting direct to the OCE here but had to set up the printer with the network to default to AO print size.

Gerd :?

[mail1774]

Upon configuring my plots, lineweights, and such and such, I encountered something better!

For those of you who are running the OCE TDS 400, TDS 600, and TDS 800

There is a Windows Raster Driver (WRD) release 3.1 available for download on their website.

This driver allows for printing direct to the OCE using an I.P. address on the 'OCE controller' within your office network.

This driver also allows for printing to plot file.

Quality-wise - from my test prints, the 'OCE WRDr3.1 driver' prints came out more 'solid' than the HP/GL-2 drivers especially when printing 3-D renderings. The HP/GL-2's plot files to print came out grainy with the 3-D. Other than that, 2-D drawings like plans, sections, and elevations were basically the same.

Once you downloaded the driver, run setup and follow the setup instructions - then restart the computer once setup is completed.

When printing with Revit, the OCE print settings needs to be configured.
For our office we use two kinds of prints:
One is the 30"x42" paper on a 30" wide roll, the other is the 24"x36" paper on a 36" wide roll.

Here are the print settings for the 30"x42" print.

Select "print" from pull down menu in revit.
Name/Type: Select printer
Under 'Settings' area Click (SETUP)
The name of printer should be the same.
Paper size: Oce 30" 30x42 in
Source: Auto or Roll where your 30" paper is installed.
Paper placement: Center
Orientation: Landscape
Select 'Vector Processing'
Raster Dpi: 600
# Color: Printer Setting
Zoom: 100%

Then goto (Properties)
Under 'Basic' TAB
Page size: Oce 30" 30x42 in
Select Landscape
Media Source: Auto or Roll
Media Type: Your type of paper

Under 'Transformation' TAB
Alignment: Printer Default
Shift remains same
Transform Rotation = 0 Degress
No Mirror

Under 'Delivery' TAB
Cutting Method: Standard

Under 'Image' TAB
Color: Grayscale
600 dpi
Print Opt.: Standard

(I am still working on the 24"x36" paper, I'll post that up once everything prints correctly)

[Wes Macaulay]

For those of you using Oce Reprodesk, you may want to confirm which device your reprographics company uses. The document I wrote was sort of a lowest common denominator approach which is likely to work with any repro shop.

If you're using an in-house Oce device AND Reprodesk for sending out big jobs, you may want to see if print files created using the Oce WRD as Pete described immediately above work with your repro shop's Oce devices... if so, your life just got a little simpler!

[mail1774]

After some more trial and errors testing, I found that the previous drivers that I mentioned (the OCE TDS WRD3.1) has limitations. For instance (quoted from OCEUSA's technical documents for this driver), "Under All OS: A plot is always printed short-edge first (like WRD1 and WRD2). One can print landscape but the plot will come out short-edge first." This can cause orientation problems when printing.

So after calling REVIT support and talking to the staff there, I was able to finally get the correct drivers and settings this time!

So the current CORRECT drivers is the WPD 1.4.3 (Windows Printer Driver) for the TDS 400 on Windows 2000/XP.

I've typed up a guideline for those of you who use a similar setup like our office.

Goodluck with your setup. :D

[bclarch]

We use an HP plotter so this issue does not affect us. I am replying just to say that this kind of cooperative problem solving and willingness to share solutions is what makes this bulletin board such a great resource.