Re: gEDA-user: Adding Auto-thermals Was:Re: Thanks a million, and few small questions for a new user

[Ben Jackson <ben@xxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 01:06:21PM -0400, DJ Delorie wrote:
> 
> In addition, apparently, each rat line has a flag that says if it can
> be implemented as a thermal to a polygon on some layer.

Every object has flags from a common set.  Pins and vias are the same
kind of object (hole in the board with copper) and the distinction is
that vias have VIAFLAG set.  I reused that flag for rats.  A rat is always
a line between the exact XY coordinates of two objects.  My change had two
parts:  First, I prefer to connect to a plane under the pin/pad rather than
another nearby ground.  Second, if that connection is available the rat
has VIAFLAG set which causes it to be drawn as a donut instead of a line.
Internally the rats still work as lines (which you can see if you load
the board on a pre-via-donut version of PCB).  The change is forward/
backward compatible.

Also keep in mind that if you have a pad on the surface and an inner
plane you can't just 'turn on a via' to connect it.  You have to put a
via somewhere and connect it with a line.  That's why I never got around
to making the enhancement you propose:  I made my mod to reduce visual
clutter and give me an indication of which nets were wires and which were
plane connections.  I only had about half a dozen through holes on my
entire board that weren't connectors.

-- 
Ben Jackson AD7GD
<ben@xxxxxxx>
http://www.ben.com/


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