Mail Archives: geda-user/2012/01/13/11:38:30
13.01.2012, 18:01, "Colin D Bennett" <colin AT gibibit DOT com>:
> It would be GREAT to have a free tool to run design rule checks on
> Gerbers.
>
> Has anyone used the online tool FreeDFM from Advanced Circuits?
> <https://www.my4pcb.com/net35/FreeDFMNet/FreeDFMHome.aspx>
> It looks like you can upload a zip of your RS-274X Gerbers and
> get a DRC report at no cost. Â I haven't tried it.
Good you said about this. I think used it in the past and receive
report on my board. This is quite similar to the tool I'd like to
have. It's very versatile being software-agnostic in the sense that
you use any EDA and then send universal Gerbers.
As we know today it's common for people to team up when ordering PCB's
since «per sq.»-costs are low while fixed setup costs may be too high
for an active enthusiast. There're services like BatchPCB which are
aimed to simplify panelization and batch ordering. A similar local
service I used ran into problems due to lack of online DRC: people
started sending Gerbers from different (proprietary) programs which
apparently have issues with enforcing design rules. Fabhouse slowed
the orders a lot due to this. Service owner reported SprintLayout
being the source of most problems (never used it so I don't know what
the problem really is there). Now it's very important to introduce
some online DRC checker so that the community can have the service
back up and running so that prototypes can be produced cheaply.
BatchPCB has such DRC bot online which checks submitted boards, I've
asked them about what tool they use but haven't received the answer
yet. With Sparkfun largely being a store for open hardware hackers I
hope they might share their code with the community (in case they use
some homebrew solution).
Writing a Gerber DRC tool now seems to me being very resembling to
collision testing problem, I believe implementation and optimization
techiques similar to those used in collision testing may be used here.
> Ideally.... it would be REALLY awesome if there were a way to import
> Gerbers into pcb -- this would enable both design rule checking
> using pcb's engine, and also many other options such as
>
> - panelizing boards given files from other people (non-pcb
> Â Â users ... what if I wanted to do what Laen AT DorkbotPDX does... can
> Â Â pcb support it? not now),
>
> - easily importing reference designs from manufacturers (think
> Â Â RF circuits and other complex designs with tight design
> Â Â constraints that you don't want to manually recreate or trace by
> Â Â hand,
>
> - porting a board layout from a proprietary tool into pcb.
> I know the Gerbers lack a lot of the information that a pcb layout
> file provides, but even if the elements (components), vias, etc.
> were not automatically made into pcb native entities, it would be a
> huge step forward anyway and be 90% of the way there, making a lot
> of tasks possible.
Yes, that would be nice, but I think that would be a harder task. I
think such tool could start from importing just traces, holes and
vias. Element footprint detection seems much more difficult.
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