Electronic – Gerber to DXF converter

dxfgerbermechanical

What's a good utility to convert gerbers to DXF/DWG?

The reason I ask: I'd like to create gerbers to give to mechanical engineers for use in SolidWorks to look for interference due to solder fillets on pads and other interferences. I'm using PADS Layout and it has a DXF export but the output is messy and the export utility offers few options to control the DXF output.

A gerber to DXF conversion utility could provide enough flexibility and control what goes into the DXF.

I'd welcome insights or suggestions to close the EE / ME gap – methods to get realistic models of PCBs into 3D cad.

Meanwhile, I'll try a free trial of ViewMate Pro.

Best Answer

Another answer suggested an excellent solution for:

those who looking free way to convert gerber to dxf can try gerbv and pstoedit

install gerbv and pstoedit first convert your gerber to ps through gerbv and >then using pstoedit export it to dxf
gerbv -x ps mygerber.GTS  
pstoedit -f dxf output.ps mydxf.dxf  
remember pstoedit need ghostscript to work

But an important improvement to the pstoedit is to add the -mm option so that the file generated will be in mm and not in pxls. In my case I made it into a ps2dxf.BAT file that is:

pstoedit -f dxf:-mm %1.ps %1.dxf

and a name.ps file is converted with: ps2dxf name

Related Solutions

Strange Gerber Statement

The "D" indicates a decimal coordinate format rather than the integer format assumed by the alleged specification you linked to, which seems not to cover all features in the, shall we say "living language".

What your board house can support is between you and them; if there's an issue first recourse would be trying options in the output menu to get an integer format, next would be reprocessing the data with your favorite string-processing language (even sed would probably do). In either case you probably want to do some manual verification that the interpretation is as expected the first time around.

For example, here's a few lines snipped excerpted from a file I found with a google search for occurrences of your format string (source http://homecinepc.free.fr/bassm/serigraphie.ge4)

%FSDAX23Y23*%

X20.31Y34.3D02*
X22.85Y34.3D01*

For comparison, here's some lines from an "integer" gerber from an old project of mine:

%FSLAX24Y24*%

X006851Y007351D03*
X006851Y006351D03*

Electronic – Altium: Position components following Step/DXF File

You can try to do pad-over-pad but this will probably generate a Design Rule Check (DRC) error.

You should be aware of Altium's "electrical grid", if not look up in the knowledge center. I believe the shortcut is shift+e. The electrical grid causes the cursor to "snap" to electrical connections.

What I would do is delete all but one pad for each footprint. Then I would grab the part by the pad that matches the one not deleted; Altium should "snap" to grabbing the part by the center of the pad the cursor is over. Drag the component overtop of the undeleted pad and the component should "snap" into place. Let go, and you'll probably be meeted with the ugly green DRC error highlighting. Click the undeleted pad, Altium will list several things under the cursor, select the pad, and delete it.

Another way to move the component if you happen to know precisely how much distance you need to move can be found under Edit -> Move -> Move Selection by X,Y... In fact, I have set up a shortcut for this action.

BTW, you said you were new, so forgive me for asking...but do you have a schematic for your design? I've never personally went "this direction", importing step files to get component positions, it was always the other way around with me exporting my PCBs for the SolidWorks guy, and then if he needs me to move a connector I Move Selection by X,Y... to match whatever he asks for.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Strange Gerber Statement

Electronic – Altium: Position components following Step/DXF File

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