D4 plan format

[Paul H]

For the life of me I can't open Merten's D4 plans. I can download them, but no dice trying to display them.

Does anyone know if these plans are available in a more user friendly format, ie pdf or something else?

Thanks

[Thorne]

What is the file type? Try changing the extension from .xxx (or whatever) to .pdf and see what happens...

[Paul H]

They are .pcx files. I've tried every application on my machine to open them and no dice. I don't think changing the extension will make them into a format that can be read. On the readme file it says they can be opened in Paint, but that didn't work on my machine.

[Figment]

Link, please.

[Paul H]

http://www.bateau.com/freeplans.php

click on the d4 files

[paladin]

worked fine for me...

[Thorne]

Gosh -- **everyone** has DOS running on their computer, right?

;0 )

(Was able to open them in Photoshop and Acrobat Pro on the Mac)

From the readme file -

There are 12 drawings in this file, all in pcx format. You can view

these files as a slide show by typing <show> at the Dos prompt. You

can also view the files with any program that reads .pcx files, for

example Paintbrush for Windows. An excellent viewer for Dos is

Neopaint, available as shareware on most BBS's. All these viewers

allow you to print the files.

[Bruce Hooke]

First the bad news, I did a little digging and I think when the Readme file refers to Paintbrush it is referring to the software made by a company called Z-Soft in the early 90's, not to the common Microsoft Paint application still installed with Windows. The Z-Soft version of Paintbrush that was designed to work with PCX files was outdated when Windows 98 came out and apparently has not been available for many years. So, suggesting that someone use Paintbrush to open the plans appears to be fairly useless advice. It should be noted that the file dates on the plans are largely from 1995, when Paintbrush would have been a viable solution, so the problem here is simply that the plans and directions have not been updated since 1995! For more on the old version of Paintbrush see this website: http://www.zisman.ca/Articles/1994/Paintbrush.html

Now the good news. The plans do open in Photoshop. They are pretty low resolution but they are readable. If you need someone to convert them into GIF's (a standard image format you can read using a browser), drop me a private message with your email address and I'll convert them and send them along.

There is some sort of a DOS based viewer included with the plans, but did not try to mess around with it.

[boatbear]

A really good image viewer / organiser with some editing capabilities is ACD See. It will handle pretty well any image type including PCX. There are a few versions available including some shareware. I paid $40 for ACD See 9 recently. Google 'ACD See'
Charlie

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

I built a D4 and love it madly and the fact that my machine wouldn't display the file didn't interfere with the construction one bit.
Now that you have mentioned it I'm going to see if I have a program that will display it.

[Lewisboats]

http://www.irfanview.com/

Free viewer that can view just about anything...or google Free Picture Viewer like I did. If you get irfanview...don't forget the plug-ins!

Steve

[Paul H]

Thanks so much for the comments and help. Bruce kindly converted the files to .gif format and I just printed them out.

I got my son a control line plane kit for his b-day, so the D4 construction will be put off for a tad. I figure it'll be perfect for dual purpose as a dinghy for my Tolman skiff, and as a perfect salining trainer for the kids.