Hello.
There is a problem with Gerbview. At the attachment are two files:
"ESD-Schutz.zip" and "GerberMuell.zip".
Both are containing some gerber files an a board file, produced by
GerbView/PCBnew from this Gerber files.
"ESD-Schutz.zip" was posted by a KiCad user in a German newsgroup, who
hat some problems tu export into PCBnew by
GerbView. Especial he wonders about getting vias at PCBnew instead of
pads in gerbView. You can read this original discussion at:
if you can understand
german.
I looked at his problem, tried with his files (which are produced by an
unknown other program), and experimented also with some Gerber files of
my own, which were created by KiCad istself.
Both sets of Gerber Files seems to be ok...i used Gerbv from the gEDA
Projekt, for getting an independent gerber viewer.
First about the files at ESD-Schutz.zip. I interpreted the files
KWS-ESD.GBL as backside
KWS-ESD.GKO as board edges
KWS-ESD.GTL as frontside (with smd pads)
KWS-ESD.GTP as paste stencil frontside
and imported them one by one starting with .GTP, .GTL, .GBL and at
last .GKO . (I renamed them also with the scheme "KWS-ESD-xxx.gbr and
imported them in this way, but this does not work better)
First: GerbView showed them correct. But sometimes i had to switch the
first imported layer off and on again to get it displayed.
When i export them to PCBnew, i have to sitch to two (copper) layers,
first, and than i have to rearrange the layer destination, despite i had
it importet by special suffixes like .GBL for backlyer.
However, the result is the same as i imported the files all together as
*.gbr files.
If i look now at the generated board with PCBnew, i have no pads, they
are all converted to vias (what i understand), but i lost the outline
and the paste stencil. But both would be helful. The outline, because
now i would have to draw the outline new, and the stencil as measurement
when i look for fitting footprints.
If i switch now back to GerbView, i can only see the first imported
layer. i cannot switch this layer of, and i cannot switch the other
layers on. I have to close and restart GerbView now, for dooing useful
things with him again.
If i accept the recommendet four copper layers at Gerber export, the
chaos will be ever bigger.
I suspected the German translation as wrong, because i noticed, that
GerbView suggested *.GBP as "L?tpaste oben" which means "Top paste" and
*GTP as "L?tpaste unten" which means "Bottom paste". Both is wrong......
So i switcht to English language. The results at PCBnew are different,
but not better.
I also droped *.GKO, because i suspected that creating a keep out area
instead of a board outline would be the culprit....but this had no
effect.
So i think, the problem partial has to do with layer naming and
counting, and i experimented with some old files i created by PCBnew
itsself. They are contained in "GerberMuell.zip" I imported this files
as bundle into GerbView (but without the drillfile). The result is, with
the exeption of getting vias instead of pads, much better.
But i have also to put the number of copper layers back to two and i
have to rearrange the fileuse to filename relation.
However, if i try to zoom or scroll at GerbView after the export to
PCBnew, the gerber files vanishes from the screen.....
I think, the problem of converting blinks to vias has no simple
solution. without the exeption of shape and position, the Gerberfiles do
not contain any information about the pads. Is it smd or is there a hole
in ec....?
So GerbView/PCBnew has to guess, and the easiest way is to say its a
via, because PCBnew either has to show it as copper track (which would
not useful) or as a general via. But the original via values cannot
extracted from gerber, because they are context-dependent. You would
need information from other layers and the drillfile.
At this point, you would need much more artificial intelligence or you
will do it by hand, so i do not expect a solution.
But what is with the wrong translation and some other problems i
noticed?
With best regards: Bernd Wiebus alias dl1eic
