57-523: A plotter is a computer printer for printing vector graphics. Plotter may also refer to: Plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen , or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather . In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting plotter . In the past, plotters were used in applications such as computer-aided design , as they were able to produce line drawings much faster and of
114-400: A cutting plotter ) is used to create posters, billboards, signs, T-shirt logos, and other weather-resistant graphical designs. The vinyl can also be applied to car bodies and windows for large, bright company advertising and to sailboat transoms . A similar process is used to cut tinted vinyl for automotive windows. Colors are limited by the collection of vinyl on hand. To prevent creasing of
171-449: A heat press . The vinyl knife is usually shaped like a plotter pen and is also mounted on a swivel head so that the knife edge self-rotates to face the correct direction as the plotter head moves. Vinyl cutters are primarily used to produce single-color line art and lettering. Multiple color designs require cutting separate sheets of vinyl, then overlaying them during application; but this process quickly becomes cumbersome for more than
228-509: A vulnerability . Software patches are often released to fix identified vulnerabilities, but those that remain unknown ( zero days ) as well as those that have not been patched are still liable for exploitation. Vulnerabilities vary in their ability to be exploited by malicious actors, and the actual risk is dependent on the nature of the vulnerability as well as the value of the surrounding system. Although some vulnerabilities can only be used for denial of service attacks that compromise
285-520: A web application —had become the primary method that companies deliver applications. Software companies aim to deliver a high-quality product on time and under budget. A challenge is that software development effort estimation is often inaccurate. Software development begins by conceiving the project, evaluating its feasibility, analyzing the business requirements, and making a software design . Most software projects speed up their development by reusing or incorporating existing software, either in
342-417: A cellulose fiber rod inserted through a circular foam tube saturated with ink, with the end of the rod sharpened into a conical tip. As the pen moves across the paper surface, capillary wicking draws the ink from the foam, down the rod, and onto the paper. As the ink supply in the foam is depleted, the migration of ink to the tip begins to slow down, resulting in faint lines. Slowing the plotting speed will allow
399-457: A change request. Frequently, software is released in an incomplete state when the development team runs out of time or funding. Despite testing and quality assurance , virtually all software contains bugs where the system does not work as intended. Post-release software maintenance is necessary to remediate these bugs when they are found and keep the software working as the environment changes over time. New features are often added after
456-486: A code's correct and efficient behavior, its reusability and portability , or the ease of modification. It is usually more cost-effective to build quality into the product from the beginning rather than try to add it later in the development process. Higher quality code will reduce lifetime cost to both suppliers and customers as it is more reliable and easier to maintain . Software failures in safety-critical systems can be very serious including death. By some estimates,
513-523: A couple of hues. Sign cutting plotters are in decline in applications such as general billboard design, where wide-format inkjet printers that use solvent-based inks are employed to print directly onto a variety of materials. Cutting plotters are still relied upon for precision contour-cutting of graphics produced by wide-format inkjet printers – for example to produce window or car graphics, or shaped stickers. Large-format inkjet printers are increasingly used to print onto heat-shrink plastic sheeting, which
570-507: A higher quality than contemporary conventional printers. Smaller desktop plotters were often used for business graphics. Printers with graphics capabilities took away some of the market by the early 1980s, and the introduction of laser printers in the mid-1980s largely eliminated the use of plotters from most roles. Plotters retained a niche for producing very large drawings for many years, but have now largely been replaced by wide-format conventional printers . Cutting plotters remain in use in
627-443: A legal regime where liability for software products is significantly curtailed compared to other products. Source code is protected by copyright law that vests the owner with the exclusive right to copy the code. The underlying ideas or algorithms are not protected by copyright law, but are often treated as a trade secret and concealed by such methods as non-disclosure agreements . Software copyright has been recognized since
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#1732844138749684-407: A line from here to here". Three common ASCII -based plotter control languages are Hewlett-Packard 's HP-GL , its successor HP-GL/2, and Houston Instruments DMPL . Here is a simple HP-GL script drawing a line: This program instructs the plotter, in order, to take the first pen (SP1 = Select Pen 1), to go to coordinates X=500, Y=500 on the paper sheet (PA = Plot Absolute), to lower the pen against
741-413: A more efficient alternative to raster data. An X–Y plotter is a plotter that operates in two axes of motion ("X" and "Y") in order to draw continuous vector graphics. The term was used to differentiate it from standard plotters which had control only of the "y" axis, the "x" axis being continuously fed to provide a plot of some variable with time. Plotters differ from inkjet and laser printers in that
798-472: A number of industries. Digitally controlled plotters evolved from earlier fully analog XY-writers used as output devices for measurement instruments and analog computers . Pen plotters print by moving a pen or other instrument across the surface of a piece of paper. This means that plotters are vector graphics devices, rather than raster graphics as with other printers . Pen plotters can draw complex line art, including text, but do so slowly because of
855-485: A plotter draws a continuous line, much like a pen on paper, while inkjet and laser printers use a very fine matrix of dots to form images, such that while a line may appear continuous to the naked eye, it in fact is a discrete set of points. Electrostatic plotters used a dry toner transfer process similar to that in many photocopiers . They were faster than pen plotters and were available in large formats, suitable for reproducing engineering drawings. The quality of image
912-495: A significant role in the distribution of software products. The first use of the word software is credited to mathematician John Wilder Tukey in 1958. The first programmable computers, which appeared at the end of the 1940s, were programmed in machine language . Machine language is difficult to debug and not portable across different computers. Initially, hardware resources were more expensive than human resources . As programs became complex, programmer productivity became
969-509: A specific version of the software, downloaded, and run on hardware belonging to the purchaser. The rise of the Internet and cloud computing enabled a new model, software as a service (SaaS), in which the provider hosts the software (usually built on top of rented infrastructure or platforms ) and provides the use of the software to customers, often in exchange for a subscription fee . By 2023, SaaS products—which are usually delivered via
1026-415: A system's availability, others allow the attacker to inject and run their own code (called malware ), without the user being aware of it. To thwart cyberattacks, all software in the system must be designed to withstand and recover from external attack. Despite efforts to ensure security, a significant fraction of computers are infected with malware. Programming languages are the format in which software
1083-501: A transparency. This was the forerunner of the modern Powerpoint chart. With the widespread availability of high-resolution inkjet and laser printers , inexpensive memory and computers fast enough to rasterize color images, pen plotters have all but disappeared. However, the grit wheel mechanism is still found in inkjet-based, large format engineering plotters. Plotters were also used in the Create-A-Card kiosks that were available for
1140-462: A typical roll-fed or sheet-fed plotter is capable of handling. The surface of the table has a series of small pinholes drilled in it. Material is placed on the table, and a coversheet of plastic or paper is overlaid onto the material to be cut. A vacuum pump is turned on, and air pressure pushes down on the coversheet to hold the material in place. The table then operates like a normal vector plotter, using various cutting tools to cut holes or slits into
1197-458: A while in the greeting card area of supermarkets that used the HP 7475 six-pen plotter. Plotters are used primarily in technical drawing and CAD applications, where they have the advantage of working on very large paper sizes while maintaining high resolution. Another use has been found by replacing the pen with a cutter, and in this form plotters can be found in many garment and sign shops. Changing
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#17328441387491254-676: Is measured by pen speed and acceleration rate, instead of by page printing speed. A pen plotter's speed is primarily limited by the type of pen used, so the choice of pen is a key factor in pen plotter output speed. Indeed, most modern pen plotters have commands to control slewing speed, depending on the type of pen currently in use. There are many types of plotter pen, some of which are no longer mass-produced. Technical pen tips are often used, many of which can be renewed using parts and supplies for manual drafting pens. Early HP flatbed and grit wheel plotters used small, proprietary fiber-tipped or plastic nib disposable pens. One type of plotter pen uses
1311-421: Is then applied to cover a vehicle surface and shrunk to fit using a heat gun, known as a vehicle wrap . A static cutting table is a type of cutting plotter used a large flat vacuum table . It is used for cutting non-rigid and porous material such as textiles, foam, or leather, that may be too difficult or impossible to cut with roll-fed plotters. Static cutters can also cut much thicker and heavier materials than
1368-453: Is written. Since the 1950s, thousands of different programming languages have been invented; some have been in use for decades, while others have fallen into disuse. Some definitions classify machine code —the exact instructions directly implemented by the hardware—and assembly language —a more human-readable alternative to machine code whose statements can be translated one-to-one into machine code—as programming languages. Programs written in
1425-438: The high-level programming languages used to create software share a few main characteristics: knowledge of machine code is not necessary to write them, they can be ported to other computer systems, and they are more concise and human-readable than machine code. They must be both human-readable and capable of being translated into unambiguous instructions for computer hardware. The invention of high-level programming languages
1482-421: The large-format printers that have largely replaced them have sometimes come to be called "plotters" as well. Software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the execution of a computer . Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital computers in the mid-20th century. Early programs were written in
1539-605: The machine language specific to the hardware. The introduction of high-level programming languages in 1958 allowed for more human-readable instructions, making software development easier and more portable across different computer architectures . Software in a programming language is run through a compiler or interpreter to execute on the architecture's hardware. Over time, software has become complex, owing to developments in networking , operating systems , and databases . Software can generally be categorized into two main types: The rise of cloud computing has introduced
1596-399: The bottleneck. The introduction of high-level programming languages in 1958 hid the details of the hardware and expressed the underlying algorithms into the code . Early languages include Fortran , Lisp , and COBOL . There are two main types of software: Software can also be categorized by how it is deployed . Traditional applications are purchased with a perpetual license for
1653-403: The color or width of a line required the plotter to change pens. This was either done manually on small plotters, but more typically the plotter would have a magazine of four or more pens which could be automatically mounted. A niche application of plotters is in creating tactile images for people with visual impairment on special thermal cell paper. Unlike other printer types, pen plotter speed
1710-404: The correctness of code, while user acceptance testing helps to ensure that the product meets customer expectations. There are a variety of software development methodologies , which vary from completing all steps in order to concurrent and iterative models. Software development is driven by requirements taken from prospective users, as opposed to maintenance, which is driven by events such as
1767-400: The cost of poor quality software can be as high as 20 to 40 percent of sales. Despite developers' goal of delivering a product that works entirely as intended, virtually all software contains bugs. The rise of the Internet also greatly increased the need for computer security as it enabled malicious actors to conduct cyberattacks remotely. If a bug creates a security risk, it is called
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1824-419: The cost of products. Unlike copyrights, patents generally only apply in the jurisdiction where they were issued. Engineer Capers Jones writes that "computers and software are making profound changes to every aspect of human life: education, work, warfare, entertainment, medicine, law, and everything else". It has become ubiquitous in everyday life in developed countries . In many cases, software augments
1881-506: The cutting knife to produce the correct project cutting needs. In recent years the use of cutting plotters (generally called die-cut machines ) has become popular with home enthusiasts of paper crafts such as cardmaking and scrapbooking . Such tools allow desired card and decal shapes to be cut out very precisely, and repeatably. A number of printer control languages were created to operate pen plotters, and transmit commands like "lift pen from paper", "place pen on paper", or "draw
1938-795: The fabric. The coversheet is also cut, which may lead to a slight loss of vacuum around the edges of the coversheet, but this loss is not significant. In the mid-to-late 2000s artists and hackers began to rediscover pen plotters as quirky, customizable output devices. The quality of the lines produced by pens on paper is quite different from other digital output techniques. Even 30-year-old pen plotters typically still function reliably, and many were available for less than $ 100 on auction and resale websites. While support for driving pen plotters directly or saving files as HP-GL has disappeared from most commercial graphics applications, several contemporary software packages make working with HP-GL on modern operating systems possible. As use of pen plotters has waned,
1995-438: The form of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or open-source software . Software quality assurance is typically a combination of manual code review by other engineers and automated software testing . Due to time constraints, testing cannot cover all aspects of the software's intended functionality, so developers often focus on the most critical functionality. Formal methods are used in some safety-critical systems to prove
2052-439: The functionality of existing technologies such as household appliances and elevators . Software also spawned entirely new technologies such as the Internet , video games , mobile phones , and GPS . New methods of communication, including email , forums , blogs , microblogging , wikis , and social media , were enabled by the Internet. Massive amounts of knowledge exceeding any paper-based library are now available with
2109-470: The length of the bar and the x-axis was represented by motion of the bar back and forth across the plotting table. Due to the mass of the bar, these plotters operated relatively slowly. In the 1980s, the small and lightweight HP 7470 introduced the " grit wheel" mechanism, eliminating the need for perforations along the edges, unlike the Calcomp plotters two decades earlier. The grit wheels at opposite edges of
2166-560: The lines drawn by a worn-out pen to remain dark, but the fading will continue until the foam is completely depleted. Also, as the fiber tip pen is used, the tip slowly wears away on the plotting medium, producing a progressively wider, smudged line. Ball-point plotter pens with refillable clear plastic ink reservoirs are available. They do not have the fading or wear effects of fiber pens, but are generally more expensive and uncommon. Also, conventional ball-point pens can be modified to work in most pen plotters. A vinyl cutter (sometimes known as
2223-511: The low level device commands. For example, to plot X*X in HP 9830 BASIC, the program would be One of the earliest plotter was Konrad Zuse 's computer-controlled and transistorized Graphomat Z64 in 1958, also shown at the Hannover Messe in 1961. Early pen plotters, e.g., the Calcomp 565 of 1959, worked by placing the paper over a roller that moved the paper back and forth for X motion, while
2280-422: The material, it is stored in rolls. Typical vinyl roll sizes are 15-inch, 24-inch, 36-inch and 48-inch widths, and have a backing material for maintaining the relative placement of all design elements. Vinyl cutter hardware is similar to a traditional plotter except that the ink pen is replaced by a very sharp knife to outline each shape, and may have a pressure control to adjust how hard the knife presses down into
2337-713: The mechanical movement of the pens. They are often incapable of efficiently creating a solid region of color, but can hatch an area by drawing a number of close, regular lines. Plotters offered the fastest way to efficiently produce very large drawings or color high-resolution vector-based artwork when computer memory was very expensive and processor power was very limited, and other types of printers had limited graphic output capabilities. Pen plotters have essentially become obsolete, and have been replaced by large-format inkjet printers and LED toner -based printers. Such devices may still understand vector languages originally designed for plotter use, because in many uses, they offer
Plotter (disambiguation) - Misplaced Pages Continue
2394-597: The mid-1970s and is vested in the company that makes the software, not the employees or contractors who wrote it. The use of most software is governed by an agreement ( software license ) between the copyright holder and the user. Proprietary software is usually sold under a restrictive license that limits copying and reuse (often enforced with tools such as digital rights management (DRM)). Open-source licenses , in contrast, allow free use and redistribution of software with few conditions. Most open-source licenses used for software require that modifications be released under
2451-627: The new software delivery model Software as a Service (SaaS). In SaaS, applications are hosted by a provider and accessed over the Internet . The process of developing software involves several stages. The stages include software design , programming , testing , release , and maintenance . Software quality assurance and security are critical aspects of software development, as bugs and security vulnerabilities can lead to system failures and security breaches. Additionally, legal issues such as software licenses and intellectual property rights play
2508-472: The operating system) can take this saved file and execute it as a process on the computer hardware. Some programming languages use an interpreter instead of a compiler. An interpreter converts the program into machine code at run time , which makes them 10 to 100 times slower than compiled programming languages. Software is often released with the knowledge that it is incomplete or contains bugs. Purchasers knowingly buy it in this state, which has led to
2565-426: The orthogonal axis. These smaller "home-use" plotters became popular for desktop business graphics and in engineering laboratories, but their low speed meant they were not useful for general printing purposes, and different conventional printer would be required for those jobs. One category, introduced by Hewlett Packard's MultiPlot for the HP 2647 , was the "word chart", which used the plotter to draw large letters on
2622-574: The paper (PD = Pen Down), to move 1000 units in the Y direction (thus drawing a vertical line - PR = Plot Relative), to lift the pen (PU = Pen Up) and finally to put it back in its stall. Programmers using FORTRAN or BASIC generally did not program these directly, but used software packages, such as the Calcomp library, or device independent graphics packages, such as Hewlett-Packard's AGL libraries or BASIC extensions or high end packages such as DISSPLA . These would establish scaling factors from world coordinates to device coordinates, and translate to
2679-466: The pen moved back and forth on a track for Y motion. The paper was supplied in roll form and had perforations along both edges that were engaged by sprockets on the rollers. Another approach, e.g. Computervision 's Interact I, involved attaching ball-point pens to drafting pantographs and driving the machines with stepper motors controlled by the computer. This had the disadvantage of being somewhat slow to move, as well as requiring floor space equal to
2736-604: The physical world may also be part of the requirements for a software patent to be held valid. Software patents have been historically controversial . Before the 1998 case State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc. , software patents were generally not recognized in the United States. In that case, the Supreme Court decided that business processes could be patented. Patent applications are complex and costly, and lawsuits involving patents can drive up
2793-444: The plotter resolution. Cutting plotters use knives to cut into a piece of material (such as paper , mylar film, or vinyl film) that is lying on the flat surface area of the plotter. The cutting plotter is connected to a computer, which is equipped with cutting design or drawing computer software programs. Those computer software programs are responsible for sending the necessary cutting dimensions or designs in order to command
2850-408: The release. Over time, the level of maintenance becomes increasingly restricted before being cut off entirely when the product is withdrawn from the market. As software ages , it becomes known as legacy software and can remain in use for decades, even if there is no one left who knows how to fix it. Over the lifetime of the product, software maintenance is estimated to comprise 75 percent or more of
2907-424: The same license, which can create complications when open-source software is reused in proprietary projects. Patents give an inventor an exclusive, time-limited license for a novel product or process. Ideas about what software could accomplish are not protected by law and concrete implementations are instead covered by copyright law . In some countries, a requirement for the claimed invention to have an effect on
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#17328441387492964-410: The sheet press against resilient polyurethane -coated rollers and form tiny indentations in the sheet. As the sheet is moved back and forth, the grit wheels keep the sheet in proper registration due to the grit particles falling into the earlier indentations, much like the teeth of two gears meshing. The pen is mounted on a carriage that moves back and forth in a line between the grit wheels, representing
3021-424: The size of the paper, but could double as a digitizer . A later change was the addition of an electrically controlled clamp to hold the pens, which allowed them to be changed, and thus create multi-colored output. Hewlett Packard and Tektronix produced small, desktop-sized flatbed plotters in the late 1960s and 1970s. The pens were mounted on a traveling bar, whereby the y-axis was represented by motion up and down
3078-431: The total development cost. Completing a software project involves various forms of expertise, not just in software programmers but also testing, documentation writing, project management , graphic design , user experience , user support, marketing , and fundraising. Software quality is defined as meeting the stated requirements as well as customer expectations. Quality is an overarching term that can refer to
3135-428: The vinyl film, preventing the cuts from also penetrating the backing material. Besides losing relative placement of separate design elements, loose pieces cut out of the backing material may fall out and jam the plotter roll feed or the cutter head. After cutting, the vinyl material outside of the design is peeled away, leaving the design on the backing material which can be applied using self-adhesion, glue, lamination, or
3192-559: Was often not as good as contemporary pen plotters. Electrostatic plotters were made in both flat-bed and drum types. The electrostatic plotter uses the pixel as a drawing means, like a raster graphics display device. The plotter head consists of a large number of tiny styluses (as many as 21760) embedded in it. This head traverses over the width of the paper as it rolls past the head to make a drawing. The resolutions available may be 100 to 508 dots per inch. Electrostatic plotters are very fast with plotting speed of 6 to 32 mm/s, depending on
3249-401: Was simultaneous with the compilers needed to translate them automatically into machine code. Most programs do not contain all the resources needed to run them and rely on external libraries . Part of the compiler's function is to link these files in such a way that the program can be executed by the hardware. Once compiled, the program can be saved as an object file and the loader (part of
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