
                               HPGLVIEW

                  Viewer and converter for HP-GL files

                             Version 5.43


                       CERN, Geneva, December 2011


1. Copyright

The CERN HP-GL viewer software is copyright and sole property of CERN,
European Organization for Nuclear Research, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland.

The viewer CGM module is derived from CGM Draw software produced by NIST,
which in turn is based on gd 1.2, copyright 1994, 1995, Quest Protein
Database Center, Cold Spring Harbor Labs, USA.


2. Conditions of Use Outside CERN

The software and documentation contained herein are provided for the sole
use of the organization to which they are licensed and may not be
redistributed or reproduced without the express approval of CERN.  The
documentation gives information about authorship of the software.  Neither
the software nor any accompanying material may be sold.  CERN must be given
credit in all references, documentation, and publications based on the
software.

Documentation and other information concerning the use and licensing of the
HP-GL viewer can be obtained via the URL:

  http://cern.ch/hpglview/hpglviewer.html


3. General Information

The CERN HP-GL viewer is designed to display legal HP-GL and HP-GL/2 files
on screen and to allow printing them and converting them to other formats.
The primary design criteria have been correctness, speed, and portability
to various platforms.  Versions of the viewer run on Microsoft Windows
versions 95 and newer, Apple MacOS 8 and newer, and on various Unix variants
including IBM AIX, Compaq/Digital OSF/1, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX, SGI IRIX,
Linux, Sun Solaris, and Apple MaxOS X / Darwin.  The current version of the
viewer understands most of the old HP-GL and the current HP-GL/2 standards
and extensions with a few exceptions:

  - No support for the Dual-Context Extension, i.e., using raster commands
    belonging to HP RTL (Raster Transfer Language) or HP PCL (Printer Control
    Language) command sets, or using the Scalable or Bitmap Fonts command
    sets.  Such commands are syntactically parsed and skipped without
    interpreting them.

  - HP PJL (Printer Job Language) headers are parsed and skipped.  The only
    feature interpreted is the language mode (HPGL / HPGL2), which may,
    however, be overridden if the file is later found to contain commands
    belonging solely to the other mode.

  - Minimal support for built-in fonts.  The HP-GL/2 symbol sets supported
    are:  US ASCII, Roman Extensions, Roman8, Latin1, Latin2, Latin5, and
    HP-GL Drafting.  The only available typeface is the simple vector stick
    font.  No other font characteristics are supported.

  - No support for device output and control commands in the Technical
    Graphics Extension.

  - No support for the commands in the Digitizing Extension.

  - No support for configurable line attributes, i.e., different line ends
    and joins.

  - Minimal support for advanced merge control and pixel placement commands
    in the Advanced Drawing Extension.  The merge commands are propagated
    when saving the file in HP-GL/2 from the viewer but are not interpreted
    for screen display or for printing on non-HP-GL/2 printers.

Practice has shown that few plot files heavily utilize features outside of
the set currently supported by the viewer.  However, in the future most of
the above items are expected to be supported with the exception of device
control and digitizing commands, which make no sense in the viewer context.


4. New and Changed Features in Version 5.43
 
Version 5.43 is a bugfix version based on version 5.42 and as such contains
no new features.


5. Old Licence Files and Version 5.43

Information in this section concerns only existing licensees of the CERN
HP-GL viewer.

Version 5.43 of the viewer is compatible with the licence files of versions
5.00, 5.01, 5.20, 5.21, 5.22, 5.30, 5.40, 5.41, and 5.42.  However, since several
items present in the licence file have been updated, it is highly recommended
to convert the file to the new format.  Note also that a bug exist in licence
files created before 2000, which renders the file unusable.  In this case
a new licence file can be requested from CERN (see below for contact details).
This can be done with the small utility named licconv available for different
architectures via the URL:

  http://cern.ch/hpglview/download_index.html

Usage instructions for the converter are contained in the included ReadMe
file.


6. Old Configuration Files and Version 5.43

Version 5.43 of the viewer is able to read old configuration files of versions
earlier than 5.43 but it only saves them in the new format, which may not be
properly interpreted by older viewer versions.


7. Contact Information

Queries and comments concerning the CERN HP-GL viewer should be addressed to:

  Timo Hakulinen
  CERN / GS
  CH-1211, Geneva 23,
  Switzerland

  email: Timo.Hakulinen@cern.ch
  phone: +41 22 7679491
  fax:   +41 22 7667865
