Gerber viewer/handler

*-right-combination+gcprevue-*-8+gerbv+But-not+zzz+easier.to.use+patterns+mix-colors+Viewmate+*-*-*-view-*-the-layers-in-different-styles

What's a "handler"? I've honestly never heard this term in relationship to a program before... Is Notepad a text handler?

CAM 350 , Good package.

For the free stuff I use the popular one GC-Preview.

Cheers

Mart>CAM 350 , Good package.

*-*-toggles-transparency-mode+*-*-see-through-to-*-*-one-layer-down+zz-zz+qq+semi-transparent.layer.representation+*.*.*.*.*.*.hide/unhide.*+license.to.try.*+sans-editing-*+*.stripped.down.*.versionnews:YdKZh.3343$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr19.news.prodigy.net

Stuart recently noted a new release of Gerbv.

*-*-*-XYRS-*-*-files+gEDA+Gerber.file+only+*-*-new-*-*-*-*-libraries+export+open.source+*-*-*-*-PNG+layer.control+*-*-also-*-Excellon-*-files+Complete-implementation-of-*-Gerber-*+an.end-to-end.tool.chain.*.*.*+viewer+qq-qq+uu+Linuxnews: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com and Ken Smith mentioned a minor gotcha. *-*-*-XYRS-*-*-files+gEDA+Gerber.file+only+*-*-new-*-*-*-*-libraries+export+open.source+*-*-*-*-PNG+layer.control+*-*-also-*-Excellon-*-files+Complete-implementation-of-*-Gerber-*+an.end-to-end.tool.chain.*.*.*+viewer+qq-qq+uu+Linuxnews: snipped-for-privacy@i7g2000prf.googlegroups.com

A bit later, Stuart announced a Windows port (installer). news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com

No, a text wrestler ;-)

Anyway, personally I like GC-PreView but it has the same shortcoming as most (all?) Gerber viewers. It does not offer see-through planes so on RF boards you have to constantly hide/unhide layers. Does anyone know a Gerber viewer that offers transparent or at least grid-style color settings?

A long time ago I had bought a DOS-based viewer from France but I can't find the disk anymore. It had transparent coloring but the menu was all en francaise. Didn't bother me much but it drove visitors crazy.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

The latest (v2.0+) gerbv does translucent layers, if you set the rendering to normal or high quality. It also has an XOR mode.

--

    Boris Mohar

From Pentalogix? Thanks, Anton. Will download now, they just sent me the password.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

is good for finding such passwords if you don't want to go through the whole registration procedure.

[Snipped]

Viewmate can do transparent as well as grif-style colour layers.

Regards Anton Erasmus

I don't mind giving my address to a reputable company. After all, it is nice of them to provide the community with a free viewer. I have tried Viewmate before and it didn't work well for my stuff but will try the new version.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Hey thanks! Viewmate does do some colors in transparent. Not all but some. This will be much easier on the wrist. Zoom is not as good as in GC-Preview so there will be times when one viewer is better and times where the other is better.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

If your mouse has a scroll wheel, the CTRL - scroll for zoom

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    Boris Mohar

If you don't like Viewmate, try GCpreview. It does transparent colors and has the ever so nice zoom by scroll wheel. I use FreePCB for layout and the author took the scroll wheel one step further. Once you have moved the mouse, the first click of the scroll wheel does not zoom, but just pans to put the cursor at center. So you can more easily move as well as zoom using just the mouse and wheel.

The issue you see with just "some colors" working in transparency is because of the way they implement it. They are just "adding" the values of the three primary colors (or maybe taking a max). So if the result is not different from one of the two colors being "mixed" it will look like it is opaque. All you need to do is to change the colors. It is hard to make a lot of planes different enough to be useful, but you can easily get some 6 or 8 planes to contrast two at a time.

I think this is due to the ancient roots of layout software. In DOS days the graphics hardware was much more limited. Today the way to do this is to implement true "transparency" with a more complex mixing algorithm making one layer transparent with the other showing through. If you check out a photo/art program you can see the difference this makes. I don't know how practical this is. Two layers is one thing, but displaying a dozen layers transparently may be a real chore.

Actually, their older version works great for me - BUT - the newer version cannot work for the lack of some kind of missing module that the installer complains about.

You mean Viewmate? I just tried the latest and it works. The one thing it doesn't seem to do but GC-PreView does is copy the layout window without the menus to the clipboard. That way you can import it into MS-Paint, spritz some graffiti on areas to be improved and email it off.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Aha! Thanks. I guess those are the tricks one has to find out by chance.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Sorry, couldn't read your post in s.e.d. because I had to block the whole gmail domain. Google lets spammers have free reign and they don't seem to do anything about it. But I still had it open in the s.e.cad group. Google used to be a good company, but ...

Hmm, got to give it another shot. I really like GC-PreView but could not make it transparent.

What they did in the DOS days was turn a layer into mesh, like a screen door. That let you see the layers below.

But in the DOS days stuff like this just plain worked ;-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

You can also try this free online gerber viewer:

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