Re: gEDA-user: Gerbv-2.0.1 for Windows released, but not working!

[Arius - Rick Collins <erudite999@xxxxxxxxx>]

At 06:48 PM 9/3/2008, you wrote:
> Arius - Rick Collins wrote:
> > At 01:02 PM 9/3/2008, you wrote:
> >> Notice that they specify 0 degrees as pin one in the SW
> quadrant.  
> >> Although they don't say which direction the rotation is, looking
> at an 
> >> illustration, it seems to show that the rotation is CCW.  I
> want to 
> >> say I read this somewhere else, but I can't say where.  It
> is not easy 
> >> to find this info on the web. 
> > 
> > I did some more searching and found another document on XYRS
> formats.  I 
> > should have stopped at one, because now I have two that
> conflict...
>
>
> The one "officially" supported by gerbv is the one generated by
> pcb. 
> The format of that one is documented in the pcb manual which can be 
> found at the pcb web site pcb.sf.net
>
> There appears to be no standard but since the files are typically ascii
> I think it is largely up to users to convert to the pcb format if they
> want to view them in gerbv.


Yes, I found that doc.  It tells you that the file is comma
separated ascii and the column order.  But the data interpretion
does not match the examples.  Looking at the LED example, pin 1 in
the lower left corner for 0 degree rotation (U5) and CW rotations are
positive.  The one constant factor in the sources I have found is
that rotations are always CCW.  The manual says that pin #1 being in
the upper left quadrant is 0 degree rotation and the direction of
rotation is CCW!  Finally, all of the markers added from the XYRS
file are 180 degrees out from the silkscreen.  What's going on with
that?  Is there something wrong with the example file I used?

I think I may not need Gerbv to view my XYRS files.  I found a
program called SMT-Maestro that not only lets you verify your XYRS file,
you can combine it with the BOM and verify that they match.  Not bad
at all.  However, it may be free, but it is not open source. I would
really like something that I can add to so that it will not just put
little boxes on the screen, but rather show me the components as they
will be placed on the Gerber plots. 

I will say that a viewer requiring files to be in an unique format when
there is ***NO*** spec is not a good idea.  Then the viewer becomes
a special purpose tool it becomes part of the problem rather than part of
the solution.  SMT-Maestro does it in a flexible manner that allows
the user to specify what data is in what columns and what the field
separator is.  IMHO, by requiring the user to manually change the
file formats, errors can be introduced which defeats the reason for using
the viewer in the first place, to catch errors!

To see how XYRS and BOM imports should be done, check out SMT-Maestro.

Rick


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