🚀 go-pugleaf

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From the personal e-mail I've received lately (ask Chris Siebenmann
<cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu>, Cliff Tuel <ctuel@nike.calpoly.edu>,
The Wolfe of the Den <news@wolves.durham.nc.us>, for starters), I guess
that I posted to the wrong group (alt.sources, NOT alt.source.d or
alt.sources.wanted) to find out the Subject information.

I appreciate the responses I got, which I'm going to summarize here. I
hope this posting helps others find what they want.

(1) Just use Canvas 3.x on a Mac, which is able to read and write both
PICT and DXF formats. I never tried to work with DXF files, but you
can "Save As ..." a AutoCad file.

MLD --> I've checked this out, and Canvas 3.x DOES read and write DXF
and a number of other file types.

(2) I made a search for a tool to do this.  I found two solutions
neither of them were public domain.

first was Adobe Streamline.  It performs a trace operation on a bitmap
the bitmap needs to be in high resolution tiff or pict for the traceing
to be of any quality.  Output is in dxf or vector postscript.  I have
used dxf's created this way in autocad and Accugraph mtn top.

second is claris graphics translator.  We are using this tool to
translate lots of casual design drawings into base versions for our
network drawing database.  The tool is well thought out and implemented.
It is capable of translating between lots of vector formats including
clarisapplication formats, pict dxf and iges

Neither tool is cheap; about US$500 or so.

Another interesting product also from claris is ploter driver.  This
allows any macintosh application to print to a plotter.

Something to keep in mind in the public domain though is the Portable
bit map library.  this is about 60 tools to translate between lots of
different bitmap or raster formats.

	MLD