Re: gEDA-user: A couple o' questions

[sdb@xxxxxxxxxx (Stuart Brorson)]

> > If somebody were to write an open-source equivalent of Genesys 2000
> > (Valor), which is a CAM/DFM tool used by PCB fabs, they'd find
> > themselves the object of a lot of adoration from happy users!
> 
> Specs?

Gerbv is partially there, along with some portions of PCB.  Genesis
2000 is what is used at the front end of PCB production.  The fab
houses use it to clean up the designs they get from customers, and
make the designs conform to their manufacturability requirements.

It reads your Gerbers, shows you your design (like a Gerber viewer),
looks for design rule violations based upon a configurable tech file,
alllows you to zoom on on the DRCs and perform measurements on them.
It allows you to edit your Gerbers:  You can increase/decrease pad
sizes, line widths, hole dias, etc.  It can create a netlist from your
Gerbers, adn then do a netlist compare of old vs. new after you've
edited your stuff.  Once you're done, you can write out your new 
Gerbers.  

Here's the product website:

http://www.frontline-pcb.com/products/genesis.html

It's a nice tool!

Stuart