Generating Plots

If you have SVG image files for your fixtures, you can create a 2D plot of your rig. You need to have given all fixtures you wish to plot in the rig, at minimum a posX and posY value. If you want them to be orientated correctly, you will also need to give them either a rotation value or focusX and focusY values.

Create a new plot and save it in memory:

Plot Create

Write the plot to disk:

Plot Write output.svg

There are many many options you can change when creating a plot. You can see what they are by running:

Plot About

This will display the options in your Dynamic Output Pane. To change any of these, for example scaling, run:

Plot Set scale 25

You can also change the defaults in the program configuration file.

Customising the Plot

The base defaults given in the configuration are optimised for the closest output to the USITT standard possible. However, you can change these to suit your particular plot better. You may find that some changes to these options require simultaneous changes to the default stylesheet in order to maintain a cohesive look.

For boolean options, any boolean equivalent is acceptable, for example true, yes, 1, and on are all acceptable in place of True.

Page Layout

paper-size

The size of paper to fit the plot to. Accepted are ISO A[0-4]. Note, changing this option should be preferred to just scaling the entire plot to a different size after it has been converted to PDF. The paper-size attribute will ensure that line weights and font sizes are kept to standard, and also dynamically resizes the title block based on the paper size. Default A3.

orientation

Specify landscape or portrait. Default landscape.

margin

Leave spacing between the edge of the paper and print area. No fixtures will be drawn outside this margin. Some other components may extend beyond the margin if they are set to do so. Measured in millimeters. Default 10.

page-border

Draw a black border around the page. This is drawn inside the margin. Default True.

Drawing Options

scale

The scale at which to produce the plot. Only metric scales are acceptable, although this number can be a decimal. Default 50.

plaster-line-padding

By default, the centre of the plot area is the intersection of the plaster line and centre line. You can however offset the centre vertically through this option. Positive numbers will increase the area visible in the positive y direction. i.e. the plaster line will be moved down in the output. Measured in unscaled metres. Default 0.

background-image

A path to an vector file which is placed on the drawing surface before anything else. This image must be in the prescribed format and centred about the plaster line / centre line intersection. Default plot_background.svg.

line-weight-light, line-weight-medium, line-weight-heavy

The plot is based on a three-weight drawing, as prescribed by the USITT standard. Refer to section 6.18 of the standard for which each weight is used for. In addition to this, line-weight-light is also used for any general components. Measured in millimeters. Defaults 0.4, 0.6, 0.8

style-source

A path to an external CSS file, which defines necessary external styling for both the SVG file itself and the foreignObject HTML injections inside it. Primarily used for text formatting. A default style file is provided with the installation, which can be freely edited by the user. Default style.css.

centre-line-dasharray, plaster-line-dasharray

An SVG dasharray specification to use for the centre and plaster lines. The default is designed to closely match the USITT specification. Defaults 4, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 3, 0.7.

centre-line-extend, plaster-line-extend

When set to True, the centre and plaster lines will printed beyond the page border into the margin, to the extent of the actual paper. Defaults False.

draw-structures

When enabled, correctly formatted and tagged structure objects in the file will be rendered onto the plot. Default True.

Fixture Icon Options

fallback-symbol

Plot will attempt to draw every fixture with position values, even if they do not have a symbol. Specify here the symbol that should be used in the event that the fixture does not have a symbol tag. Default Generic/Parcan.

colour-fixtures

If set to True, fixtures will be coloured in according to their gel tag. Any gels which can’t be converted to RGB, or any fixtures without a gel tag, will be displayed in the default of white. This colouring is applied to all parts of the fixture icon with the outer class, whilst white is applied to all parts with the inner class. Default False.

fallback-handle-north, fallback-handle-south, fallback-handle-east, fallback-handle-west

If fixture symbols are being used that do not contain correctly tagged handles, these fallback handles will be used in their place. Primarily used for latching additional data to icons and calculating icon size. Measured in unscaled millimetres. Defaults 0, -200, 0, 200, 150, 0, -150, 0

Additional Component Settings

show-channel-number, show-circuit-number, show-dimmer-number

These can be toggled in any combination to specify whether the fixture’s channel, circuit and dimmer numbers should be displayed next to the fixture icon in the USITT format. Refer to section 6.14.1 of the standard to see what this is. The additional information will only be displayed if it appears in the fixture in circuit or dimmer tags. The fixture reference is always assumed to be the channel number so will always be printed if this option is enabled. Default True.

channel-notation-radius

Each of the channel, circuit and dimmer numbers are printed in a box as given by the standard. Use this option to change the nominal size of the boxes. Measured in millimetres. Default 3.1.

notation-connectors

If disabled, will prevent the connector lines between the fixture body and external notation numbers (channel, circuit, dimmer) from being draw. Default True.

show-beams

If enabled, a line will be printed from the centre of the fixture to it’s focus position. A fixture must have both focusX and focusY tags for this to display. In the event that the focus point is outside of the drawing area, beam lines will extend beyond the border into the margins. Default False.

beam-dasharray

An SVG dasharray specification for the aforementioned fixture beams. Default 1, 1.

beam-source-colour

If enabled, the beam lines will be printed in the colour matching the source fixture’s gel tag. Inconvertible gel names or fixtures without gels will continue to have their beams rendered in black. Default False.

show-focus-point

Draws a circle at the focus position of each fixture. Similar to the beams option. These will only work on fixtures with focus values and will print in the margins. Default False.

focus-point-radius

Adjust the radius of the drawn focus point circle. Measured in millimeters. Default 1.

focus-point-source-colour

Similar to the beam-source-colour option, if enabled, focus points will be rendered according to the colour of the gel in the source fixture. Default False.

Title Block Format

title-block

What format of title block to use. Currently supported formats are None and sidebar. None will omit the title block entirely. sidebar will draw the title block down the full height on the right hand side of the page.

sidebar-title-width-pc, sidebar-title-min-width, sidebar-title-max-width

The width of the sidebar title is calculated as a percentage of the page width, defined by sidebar-title-width-pc. Minimum and maximum widths, in millimetres can be provided to ensure that sidebar titles remain sensible widths when changing the paper size. Defaults 0.1, 50, 100.

sidebar-title-padding

The amount of space to leave inside the title block, to prevent titles and other items rendering right against the sidebar boundaries. Measured in millimetres. Default 2.

titles

A list of metadata tags to include in the title section of the title block. These are added to an HTML foreignObject element for external styling with the included stylesheet. Only the tag values are added, headings should be added using the ::before CSS selector. Class names given to the text paragraph will be title-meta_tag_name. Format as a literal list of strings. Default ['company', 'production', 'venue', 'lighting_designer']

legend-text-margin

The space to leave between the fixture symbol in the legend and its corresponding text label. Measured as a percentage of the overall title bar width. Default 2.

Scale Rule Settings

show-scale-rule

Show a scale rule in the bottom left corner of the page when enabled. Default True.

scale-rule-major-increment, scale-rule-minor-increment

The scale rule gives you a minor scale (drawn to the left-hand-side) and a major scale (drawn to the right-hand-side). Both can have their increment defined independently. This is the unscaled length to draw each increment at. Measured in metres. Defaults 1, 0.5.

scale-rule-major-length, scale-rule-minor-length

The overall unscaled length to draw the corresponding side of the rule to. Will only draw complete increments, so any length defined over a whole number of increments will be ignored. For example an increment of 1 and a length of 3.4 will result in a rule of length 3. Measured in metres. Defaults 3, 2.

scale-rule-thickness

The height of scale rule to draw. This is the height excluding the border line (which is drawn according to line-weight-light). Measured in millimetres. Default 1.

scale-rule-padding

The distance to leave between the scale rule and the lower left hand corner of the plot area boundary. The same distance is left on both the x and y axis and this is measured to the lower left hand corner of the rule itself, not any associated text. Measured in millimetres. Default 3.

scale-rule-label-padding

The distance to leave between the top of the rule itself and the labels marking the distances on the rule. Measured in millimetres. Default 0.5.

scale-text-padding

The distance to leave between the top of the rule itself and the associated text labelling the scale of the plot (in the form SCALE 1:x). This will likely only require changing if you change the marking labels font size in the stylesheet. Measured in millimetres. Default 3.5.

scale-rule-units

The name to give to the units on the scale rule, as printed to the right of it. Default metres.