Printing a lighting plot

[LD/SDintraining]

So I made a lighting plot on capture atlas and the scaling on that was confusing to me so I made the grid width 6" and did 1'0" per square hoping to make it half inch scale. How would you print the plot off and keep it half inch scale? Also what is a good paper size to use? I can go as big as 24x36.

 

[JD]

If I'm reading your post correctly, the output page would be huge. If you went that route, you would have to port the image into a publishing program like Microsoft Publisher, which would allow you to scale the image and would take care of creating the tiles needed to assemble the full page out of smaller pages. Still, I would go to a smaller scale so that everything would fit on a more reasonable page size. If I read that you have a wide printer capable of printing a 24 x 36 sheet, I would work on scaling it to fit on that page.
If, on the other hand you are saying that each 1/2" = 1' a 45' of front width stage would be able to fit on a single page with 24" of width, a 60' width would fit the 36" page.

 

[JimOC_1]

A bit old school. I haven't tried what you are doing, but I print most of my stuff out of Excel. I import as a high res image of some sort, then scale as needed. You may find the ruler option useful.

 

[Dionysus]

You can always import the image into CAD software like Draftsight (Free AutoCAD) 1:1, then in the Sheet use viewport(s) that are scaled to easily get exactly what you want on a piece of paper. Easy peasy. Exact scaling with no fuss or muss.

 

[Malabaristo]

So I made a lighting plot on capture atlas and the scaling on that was confusing to me so I made the grid width 6" and did 1'0" per square hoping to make it half inch scale. How would you print the plot off and keep it half inch scale? Also what is a good paper size to use? I can go as big as 24x36.

You should probably run this past Capture, as it sounds like you just need to figure out how to get the settings right in that program. Among other things, they have a support forum here: https://www.capturesweden.com/Support/Forum I don't think you should have to use another program to adjust the size.

To answer your paper size question with another question: how good are your eyes (or those of your electricians)? It just needs to be big enough that you can fit all of the necessary information on it while still being legible. This will vary greatly depending on the size of the space, number of fixtures, and so forth.

 

[danTt]

Plot size depends as well on what you want to do with it. If you are using it to hang lights directly, sometimes it's better to make multiple smaller 11x17 or even 8.5x11 pages, so it fits better. If you have a huge space with lots of instruments, you may find that 36x48 is a better choice.. though I hate 36x48, I'd much rather multiple 24x36 pages than one 36x48. It's hard to find anywhere to put a 36x48 plot, Arch D is perfect roadcase size.