Chiplotle

Chiplotle is an HPGL plotter driver that implements and extends the HPGL (Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language) plotter control language. It provides direct control of your HPGL-aware hardware via a standard usb<->serial port interface. Chiplotle is also a general purpose vector drawing library with functions for creating and transforming shapes, which can then be sent directly to your HPGL plotter for printing.

Chiplotle is written and maintained by Víctor Adán and Douglas Repetto.

• Main web page: http://sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/chiplotle/
• Documentation: https://chiplotle.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
• More documentation: http://sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/chiplotle/manual/chapters/tutorial/intro.html

Use

Connect to plotter to computer with usb.

Start the plotter.

Wait! until the plotter is fully running.

Activate the venv you made.

In Linux:

$ source FOLDERNAME/bin/activate

In Windows (using Powershell):

$ FOLDERNAME\Scripts\Activate.ps1

Now you can start chiplotle:

$ chiplotle3

And send hpgl file to plotter:

plotter.write_file('FILENAME.hpgl')

When you're done, close chiplotle:

exit()

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Install

Install pip, venv

First install pip and the virtual environment python module, if you don't have them yet.

On Linux:

$ sudo apt install python3-pip
$ sudo apt install python3-venv

On Mac and Windows:

follow the instructions at https://www.python.org/.

Make a virtual environment

On Linux and Mac:

$ python3 -m venv FOLDERNAME

For example:

$ python3 -m venv plotter-venv

On Windows:

$ py -m venv FOLDERNAME

For example:

$ py -m venv plotter-venv

Activate the virtual environment

On Linux and Mac:

$ source FOLDERNAME/bin/activate

On Windows (using Powershell):

plotter-venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

You can exit again by writing deactivate.

Install Chiplotle

Install Chiplotle inside this virtual environment (the Python library to speak HPGL to the plotter):

$ pip install Chiplotle3

Run Chiplotle

$ chiplotle3

It should find the plotter automatically. You can check if it did so:

> plotter

Send a HPGL file to the plotter

> plotter.write_file('FILENAME.hpgl')

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Errors

Windows: Script Execution Policy

See: https://www.makeuseof.com/enable-script-execution-policy-windows-powershell/

Mac: ImportError: module not found "imp"

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Windows: "port" not found (?)

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Raspberry Pi

Numpy error:

libopenblas.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Install the missing library:

$ sudo apt install libopenblas-dev

See also

• Pen plotters