Different Kind of Batch Plotting

[Anonymous]

I work for a company that used MegaCAD back before it switch over to the Autodesk family. When we switched, it wasn't a full-on, get rid of MegaCAD kind of switch. So there were a few things we still used the old software for. One of which is to print what we call overlays, that we use on a visual comparator to compare a product to. As we design the product, a library of these overlays get stored on the server for us to pull and print as needed when an order comes through.

Our current method of doing this is by using MegaCAD's plog program. It's essentially empty paper space that we've set to work with our plotter. We open whatever overlays we need at the time, which could be one or twenty different overlays. The cool part about this program is that you just load the overlay drawing into the paper space of the plot program on at a time, puzzle-piecing them together until you have all the ones on there that you need. Then you can plot them all out on one sheet. They vary in size, so being able to put them together and arrange them efficiently while printing multiple overlays is what we're trying to achieve, just with another program so that we can get rid of MegaCAD all together. I've attached a image of the plot program with a few drawings in it.

I know that I could just use AutoCAD to draw a box appropriately sized for our paper width on the plotter and INSERT these files onto that and print. That is our first option. However, these are plotted from a machine specifically meant to plot overlays and nothing more. So buying an entire seat of AutoCAD just to print seems excessive. I've done some internet research and haven't had any luck. Whenever you type in "batch plotting" into Google, it's something different.

My questions are: does Autodesk make any sort of software that does this same thing as MegaCAD's plot program? If not, are you aware of anything else (open source or not) that would do this?

Thank you in advance for your help!

[clandrew89]

When I think batch plot I think multiple pages on 1 doc.  Like a pdf with multiple layouts.

What you are doing sounds like having a bunch of blocks saved to insert when applicable. Maybe something along the lines of a model space drawing with your overlays inserted in the layout in paper space.  I am probably misunderstanding the situation. What is it exactly that you do with those shapes in your reference..