Exporting PROKON’s 2D graphics
Engineers are often asked to present their design work in front of an audience or in a publication, printed or digital. In these cases, you might want to export the graphics generated within PROKON and use it as part of a presentation.
The 2D graphics in PROKON’s design modules can be exported in various formats:
- Padds file (.Pad)
- 2D DXF file (.Dxf)
- Prokon Picture file (.Pic)
- Enhanced meta file (.Emf)
- Windows meta file (.Wmf)
The last two formats will be focussed on within this article.
Background:
EMF and WMF were developed by Microsoft in the 1990s. EMF is essentially an updated version of WMF. Upon EMF’s release, it was updated to 32 bit, which also addressed some functionality issues experienced with WMF. Unlike most other image formats, EMF is a vector file format. While it can contain bitmap data, it mainly consists of shapes, lines, and other vector shapes. Therefore, the output can be scaled to different devices such as printers, which can draw the contents of an image in much higher definition. In many ways, it is similar to PostScript, which was the predecessor to the PDF File Format. EMF and WMF formats are extensively supported by Microsoft, and it is the native vector format for Microsoft Office applications.
EMF and WMF file formats are similar to SVG files, which is widely supported by web browsers because it forms part of HTML5.
To save 2D graphics:
- Right click anywhere on the canvas.
- Press Save As.
- Choose the file format, e.g., EMF.
- Press Save.
The images can then be manipulated in an open-source program like Inkscape, or it can be used within Microsoft Office. These images will perform much better than bitmap formats like JPEG or PNG, which are not scalable and will look pixelated when you enlarge them. If you intend to display the graphic in a web browser, it will be best to covert the EMF to SVG, using a program like Inkscape.