In general, you can use File > Print to print your viewport view. But you can also print your view to a file or with high-resolution settings.
In this section:
• Printing the contents of a viewport to a file
• High-resolution (HR) printing of viewports
◦ HR print
◦ Persistent HR dump settings
◦ Dumping a viewport
To print the contents of a viewport to a file
1. Right-click the viewport and select Viewport Properties. The Vport dialog box opens. Be sure the viewport is raised to the top of all windows, so that another window is not overlapping it.
2. Click Dump. Creo Elements/Direct 3D Access displays the Dump Viewport dialog box.
3. In the Output box, select a file format (Starbase, Bitmap, or Portable Pixelmap (PPM)). Creo Elements/Direct 3D Access displays the file browser.
4. Specify the name for the file and click . Creo Elements/Direct 3D Access closes the file browser and displays the name of the print file.
5. To complete the operation, click . Creo Elements/Direct 3D Access prints the contents of the viewport in the specified format to the named file.
For the best-quality screen dumps, maximize the viewport before printing.
High-Resolution Printing of Viewports
In addition to the normal viewport dump, you can print the contents of a viewport with a high resolution. The advantages of the High Resolution Print method are:
• Select from a range of print quality levels.
• Size of the printout (or file) is not restricted to the viewport size, but can be specified precisely.
High Resolution Print
Select printers in the standard printer selection dialog (extended by several additional options described below).
• To retain a high print resolution, a dumped viewport is first divided into "tiles" that are captured separately and then glued together to produce the final printout.
• After you have specified the print parameters and started the printing process, the viewport is enlarged to the screen size and raised to be the top window. The view of the viewport then pans over the calculated tiles, generating screen dumps of each that are written to temporary files.
• When all tiles have been captured, the viewport is restored to its original size and view. The individual dump files are then processed to create a single image which is then sent to the printer or saved as a file.
When the print process is complete, Creo Elements/Direct 3D Access issues a notice to inform you of this. This notice indicates that the print job has been spooled to the printer; it does not imply that the printer has finished actually printing the image.
Persistent HR Dump Settings: Following a successful high-resolution dump, the settings of that dump, including the selected printer (size, quality, and so on), are stored automatically to a file (hr_dump_settings_win.dat) in your personal customization directory. This means that you get the same HR dump settings the next time you make a HR dump (this also applies to new sessions). This file can also be used for company-wide customization purposes.
Dumping a Viewport
High-resolution printing is done through the standard Print Setup dialog box. Here you select the printer, the output size, and the output format. Also, the dialog has been extended with the following additional options:
• Print to TIFF file Specifies that the print operation should generate a TIFF file instead of sending the file directly to the printer. When this option is checked on, a Save As dialog box appears (after you click OK) in which you enter a name for the TIFF file.
Switch off edges and wires in the Show menu before starting a print job.
Print to print your viewport view. But you can also print your view to a file or with high-resolution settings.
. Creo Elements/Direct 3D Access closes the file browser and displays the name of the print file.