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 Intelligent gerber input scaling imported designs
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markpsu

USA
67 Posts

Posted - 10 Jan 2017 :  19:10:04  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Hello, I have a design sent to me in gerbers that I'm trying to import into Easy-pc. The scale is off in the gerbers and I don't see any way to scale the design when importing it into easy-pc using the intelligent gerber import feature. Am I missing something? I know you can scale designs when importing DXF's.

DavidM

United Kingdom
458 Posts

Posted - 11 Jan 2017 :  08:50:07  Show Profile  Visit DavidM's Homepage  Reply with Quote
The only way to 'scale' incoming Gerber data is to alter the coordinate format to change the number of decimal places. The format is usually defined in the header portion of the file, which specifies the number of places for coordinates (e.g. 2.3 format), but you can override this on the import dialog if you need to.

David.
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edrees

United Kingdom
768 Posts

Posted - 11 Jan 2017 :  09:12:12  Show Profile  Visit edrees's Homepage  Reply with Quote
I wonder if a 3rd party Gerber importer/viewer can re-scale and then re-generate the Gerbers for you? Can you help Iain?
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Iain Wilkie

United Kingdom
1011 Posts

Posted - 11 Jan 2017 :  19:35:50  Show Profile  Visit Iain Wilkie's Homepage  Reply with Quote
Ed,
Cannot see any scaling options for gerbers at all. I will have a deeper dig into FAB3000 to see if there is anything hidden in there that might be able to acheive this.

Iain
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Peter Johnson

United Kingdom
493 Posts

Posted - 27 Jan 2017 :  13:13:27  Show Profile  Visit Peter Johnson's Homepage  Reply with Quote
Gerber and Excellon files are text files. Assuming that they're 274X format, there will be an embedded header like the one below:

%FSLAX25Y25*%
%MOIN*%

The first line describes two integers and five decimal places in each axis. The second describes the units as inches, with %MOMM% being the common one for metric in millimetres.

As you import each file, you can adjust the import parameters in the 'Format' section, but Easy-PC understands the header and will normally adjust them correctly. Unfortunately, Excellon files do not typically have a similar header, so you need to know the correct parameters. The easiest way of doing this is by using a third-party viewer. When the import parameters for the drill file(s) are such that the holes align with the Gerber plots, that's the correct parameters to use.

If you add the drill file first, Easy-PC will use it to interpret subsequent Gerber files as they're added, so the choices offered become more manageable.
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Iain Wilkie

United Kingdom
1011 Posts

Posted - 19 Feb 2017 :  09:46:09  Show Profile  Visit Iain Wilkie's Homepage  Reply with Quote
I have discovered that you can scale gerbers in FAB3000 and then re-export by selecting all the layers and applying the "scale" command and entering a scaling factor.

Iain
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markpsu

USA
67 Posts

Posted - 27 Feb 2017 :  21:16:12  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Ian,
Thanks, I was able to use FAB3000 to scale the Gerber files and everything came in as it should!
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