kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Maciej Sumiński <maciej.suminski@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Seth,

Thank you for your feedback, there are some answers below.

On 10/17/2017 10:03 PM, Seth Hillbrand wrote:
> Hi Orson-
> 
> First, thank you for digging into this.  Let me know if you would like a
> copy of the GenCAD specification doc.

Thank you for the offer, I am looking at GenCAD 1.4 specification when
trying to fix the exporter.

> Using Unisoft's ViewMarkup 5.17, I notice a couple issues.
> 
> - The courtyard doesn't seem to map to the output shape in GenCAD like it
> should.

I tried ViewMarkup too, but I have an impression there are some bugs in
the software. As far as I understand the standard - the courtyard in
GenCAD is defined as a SHAPE entry and should be affected by ROTATION
field specified in a COMPONENT. It is correctly interpreted by CAM350,
though I have heard about some problems with its GenCAD importer as well.

> - Rotations that are not 0, 90, 180, 270 don't seem to be reflected in the
> silkscreen.

True, unfortunately it might be again a problem with ViewMarkup. Each
COMPONENT entry has a rotation angle specified which should affect
component's corresponding SHAPE.

> - Components are also not rotated.
> - Silkscreen is missing reference designators

Reference designators, values and component rotation are emitted in the
COMPONENT section, but apparently it is ignored by ViewMarkup.

> - Board cutout is not generated correctly.

For the boards I exported it was fine, so it might be a problem with a
specific shape.

> Digging into the generated file, it appears that the $DEVICES section
> generates device names based on the reference like "DEVICE C1" but the
> $COMPONENTS section references the device as "DEVICE C1_10pF".

This is a valid point, now fixed in my branch.

I am afraid I may not have more time in the nearest future to adjust the
GenCAD exporter to ViewMarkup interpretation. I am going to merge the
fixes I have done for CAM350, as they allow the user to pick export
options, which increases the probability of getting output compatible
with desired application. The fixes were also suggested by other users,
so I believe it might be perceived as an improvement, though apparently
there is still some work to do.

Regards,
Orson

> I'm attaching two images that show this.  Kicad.png is what I see in
> pcbnew.  ViewMarkup is what Unisoft's program shows.  I can send along the
> board files if you would like a copy.
> 
> -S
> 
> ____
> Seth Hillbrand
> 
> *Electronics EngineerUC Davis Physics*
> o: 530.752.8286
> c: 212.603.9372
> 
> On Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 2:15 AM, Maciej Suminski <maciej.suminski@xxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have noticed there are bug reports related to the GenCAD exporter. I
>> did my best to fix them, but it seems that the GenCAD standard is
>> loosely interpreted by software developers, so the output files may need
>> different workarounds to render them usable, depending on the used CAM
>> software.
>>
>> If you have access to software capable of reading GenCAD format, I would
>> be grateful for a short message saying whether my fixes [1] work for
>> you. Please include the name and version of the software used.
>>
>> Thank you in advance,
>> Orson
>>
>> 1. https://code.launchpad.net/~orsonmmz/kicad/+git/kicad/+ref/gencad-fixes
>>
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>