X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f
X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 20:21:35 GMT
From: falcon AT ivan DOT Harhan DOT ORG (Spacefalcon the Outlaw)
Message-Id: <1507282021.AA04907@ivan.Harhan.ORG>
To: geda-user <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] Converting footprints from PADS to PCB
Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com

Erich Heinzle wrote:

> From what I can see, altium can import ascii PADS data, but not binary.

Yes, when I googled it, I saw a couple of posts from people who wanted
to convert a layout from PADS into Altium, and they were told that
they needed to go back into PADS first and save their PCB in PADS
ASCII format.

I wonder, would anyone here perchance have access to a working
installation of PADS that could do this load & save operation?  I
reason that if we had the PADS layout file in ASCII format instead of
binary, I might be able to figure that format out by staring at it and
write a converter to our own beloved PCB.

The binary PADS PCB file is inside this ZIP:

ftp://ftp.freecalypso.org/pub/GSM/GTA02/GTA02-MB-A6.zip

If we could grok the original PADS layout file, we could probably get
a much better PCB import than would be possible from gerbers alone.
Recovering an editable PCB source from gerbers is somewhat like
reconstructing C source from the disassembly of a binary: while the
gerbers fully capture the copper structure of a board, they lose the
semantic information like what copper pieces belong to what element vs
what are traces or polygons connecting different elements, etc.

Note that my ambition is to port an entire board layout, complete with
elements and copper interconnects between them, from PADS to PCB, with
all geometry *and* all semantics fully preserved.  A very ambitious
goal, but I believe it may be possible if I can find someone who has a
working installation of PADS and who would be willing to load the
historical binary file into it and save it in PADS ASCII format - I
would then stare at that ASCII format and perhaps grok it enough to
write an all-preserving converter to PCB.

TIA,
SF