plotting to dwf with irregular viewports

Seems when i plot to DWF eplot that a drawing with an irregular shaped
viewport the plot generated just creates a maximum rectangular viewport!
What's going on? is it a bug?

Using AutocAD 2000i

 

Irregular viewports are sort of weird.

In the beginning life was simple. You had stuff on the screen. You generated
a DWF file. If something was on the screen, it was put in the file. If
something wasn't on the screen, it didn't go into the DWF file. DWF files
were generated from the R13 WHIP ADI driver.
..
Then users complained that if a layer was turned off, when they generated
the DWF file, a person using the DWF viewer with the resulting DWF file
could not turn it on. The geometry for the layer wasn't there. These users
also wanted DWF files to look like plots - using pen overloading. DWF
generation was rewritten to use the PLOT command. Life was still relatively
simple. If something belonged in the DWF file, it was put there. It may be
put there and have its visibility turned off, but if it did not belong in
the file, it didn't go into the file. Life was still relatively simple.

Then came irregular viewports. The rules changed. One way to keep life
simple would have been to take all of the geometry in a DWG and chop it into
parts that were visible in the irregular viewport and parts there were not.
Then the parts that were visible would be written to the DWF file. The parts
that were not visible would not be written to the file. Life would have
remained relatively simple; however, breaking geometric primitives into
hundreds, possibly thousands, of smaller geometric primitives would have
been memory and time exhaustive. It just wasn't possible. So what happens
instead is that ALL of the geometry that makes up the viewport is written to
the file. A clipping rectangle is then also written that identifies what
parts of the viewport to hide and what parts to show.

So the fact that you are seeing a maximum rectangular viewport is not that
far-fetched. It might mean that there is some kind of bug where the clipping
region is not being set, which is why you are seeing all of the geometry.
This only happens for irregular viewports - which is why I say they are sort
of weird.

 

Wow Scott,

I felt like i was reading genesis when reading your response!

Seems weird that someone would want to include layer information for
something that was turned off. I have never allowed DWF to toggle layer
control. To each his own i suppose.

Thanks for the history lesson!