Decompress bi-files

[fobru]

Hallo everybody,

Is there a way to uncompress bi-files to mi-files without using me10??

Thanks

[Yannick Rouat]

You can use gzip to uncompress the file.

Regards

[John Scheffel]

If you are running under Windows, SolidDesigner or Modeling includes an uncompress.exe utility which might work as well. It is in the binNT folder. It works similar to the uncompress command in Unix.

[Gary Brauch]

If they have the ".bi" extension, you can use WinZip.
Start Winzip first, then just drag and drop them into winzip and then extract.
Gary.

[fobru]

Hallo,

I'm making a VB program and I want to uncompress the bi-files from this program. So I found the zlib.dll but I don't understand how to use it for bi-files:(
I also found the uncompress.exe in the SolidDesigner directory binNT.
I work with ME10, how do I use it??
Something like : uncompress.exe file.bi file.mi ??

Thanks anyway for helping

[John Scheffel]

Originally posted by fobru
I also found the uncompress.exe in the SolidDesigner directory binNT. I work with ME10, how do I use it??
Something like : uncompress.exe file.bi file.mi ??
I was wrong about uncompress. I just tried it and it says that *.bi files saved from Drafting 11.65 under Windows are not in compressed format. I thought ME10 used Unix compress to save compressed MI files, but maybe this was only older unix versions.

Here is what the current Help for the STORE command has to say:
Without the MI option, the default file format is compressed MI. The resulting file is approximately 60% of the size of an equivalent uncompressed MI file. (Subsequent decompression of the file may be achieved under your operating system using "gzip" utility.) The compressed format is recommended for short term storage and in situations where storage space is at a premium.
So it seems they are using gzip (freeware from GNU). You can download the MSDOS version of gzip from www.gzip.org which should allow command line unzip of the compressed MI files. You should be able to run DOS commands from VB. There is also a Windows version, but I don't know if it provides command line execution.

[fobru]

I found a gunzip that I can start with a command line in VB

Thanks to all helpers :)

[John Scheffel]

I was reading through the Technical Appendix (MEDIR\appendix.htm) for version 12 and came across this information which is relavent to this discussion. It seems that up to version 11, ME10 was using the UNIX type compress for compressed MI files. It changed to gzip type compression in version 11 and up.

Integrated zLib Library

In ME10 versions, previous to 11.0, a compressed MI file format was a normal MI file, compressed with the Unix utility compress (on Windows platforms the distribution includes a utility called cmprsw, which is compatible with the Unix variant). Without this tool ME10 was not able to handle compressed files.

In version 11.0 zLib library was integrated in ME10 and the compressed files are handled directly from code. The new format is compatible with gzip utility.

Compressed MI files from version 11.0 and later are not compatible with older versions. For this reason STORE_2xx command always stores drawings in uncompressed format.

If you want to exchange drawings between Designer Drafting and older versions via clipboard on Windows, you have to start Designer Drafting with command line option -lzwclip, define environment variable MELZWCLIP=1 or add MELZWCLIP=1 to section [ME10 MISC] in me10.ini file.
A comment related to the last paragraph. You also need to set MELZWCLIP=1 if you want to copy Drafting geometry to the clipboard then paste it into a Modeling workplane.