This document summarizes enhancements and fixes to the ASM 3500 DXF to GDSII Bidirectional translation program. Please consult this page on a regular basis to determine what changes have been made to our programs.

v6.52     (09-25-2008)

A 0 width closed pline which is touching and twisting on itself was created incorrectly, generating a folded polygon.

v6.51     (06-25-2008)

A new output option for the de-embedding was added. The new output option is in the configuration menu and the drop down option is: Using Datatype. This output option uses the GDSII datatype to inidicate a boundary's "position" in the polarity hierarchy. Any boundary with datatype 0 has no parents - datatype 1 has 1 parent, datatype 2 has two parents and so on.

This option can be invoked from the command line as -emblevel

Added for client Physware.

v6.48     (1-2-2008)

This version reports and if possible fixes "folded" polygons. If the polygon can not be repaired it is placed on the "error layer" as before.
This version was tested against the latest bug reports from ARC T098, T103, T104,T105,T106,T107, and T109.

The DXF engine didn't report as an error a polygon that had a 0.01 micron segment folded on itself within a close pline. The problem was reported by Advance Reproduction and was fixed (T104).

The DXF in question crashed due to long cell names. The problem was reported by Advance Reproduction and was fixed (T103).

The DXF in question had a problem with a mirrored array. The problem was reported by Advance Reproduction and was fixed (T106).

The DXF engine didn't report as an error a polygon that had a small first segment folded on itself within a close pline. The problem was reported by Advance Reproduction and was fixed

The DXF engine didn't report as an error a polygon that had a 0.01 micron segment folded on itself within a close pline. The problem was reported by Advance Reproduction and was fixed

The DXF engine didn't support ellipse entities in some cases. Problem reported by CTS Corp and was fixed.

A re-entrant polygon (0 width closed pline) which was constructed incorrectly, didn't flag an error in the DXF2GDS conversion. Now it will report an error when the validation option is on.

A path with width wasn't converted correctly to a closed outline. Problem reported by Advanced Reproduction and was fixed.

ASM3500 can now support USB keyes on Windows.

All versions are FLEXLM v11.3 compliant.

The LINUX version works on all the "usual platforms", including Fedora.

DXF2GDS is now LARGEFILE compliant, i.e. DXF files greater than 2GB are supported.

DXF2GDS now support layer names with spaces.

A problem was detected in De-embedding mode where the max vertex setting was ignore. Problem was fixed.

A problem was detected in the De-embedding module when a polygon had too many points in the "no-cutline" mode. Problem was fixed.

A problem was detected with plines that have a bulge of less than 0.00505 (arcs with large radius and minimum angle change). The "fix" involved relaxing the checking of very shallow POLYLINE arcs. Before POLYLINE arcs with bulge values of less than 0.00505 were converted to straight line segments. This value was changed to 0.00101.

A problem was detected when a block was inserted with scale that is close to an integer. For example, blocks that was inserted with scale 1.001 , got translated to GDSII with scale of 1.000

A problem was detected when the file name had "-k" in it. This has been fixed.

A problem was detected when translating a GDSII path that had duplicate vertices (i.e. two vertex points on the same coordinate) at a point in the path where it was changing direction. The resulting path outline was incorrect. The routine to find duplicate vertices has been updated to find and correct such a condition. [reported by Optimal Technologies]

Two fixes were made to the new feature added. One has to do with the output top cell name selected and one with files that have more than one main block.

DXF2GDS De-Embedding

Previous versions of GDS2DXF may create circle radius of 24.999 microns. This new version has new parameter you can define in the config file:
SNAP_CIRCLE
0.01
GDS2DXF will snap the radius of the circle to the nearest 0.01 GDSII user unit.

Previous versions of ASM3500 didn't handle correctly certain conditions of mirrored arrays. This has been fixed.

This version fixes a problem in the DXF to GDSII direction. A pline arc with 360 degrees (looks like a circle) was not processed correctly. This is now fixed.

The Linux version comes with a GUI just like the Solaris and HPUX. Before, it was command line only.

Program crashed with signal 11 when opening the text menu in the Configuration. It has been fixed.

Updated all UNIX releases to the latest Windows release.
New Linux version is now available! All 4 platforms now support Flexlm license manager.

The installation for 6.10 terminated unexpectedly if the user selected hardware key (Sentinel) Licensing. This has been fixed.

DXF2GDS

Text centered justified
Previous DXF to GDSII will convert centered justified text to lower left justified. Per customer request, DXF to GDSII now preserves the Text justification.

Arc Sag
DXF to GDSII didn't fully support the Arc Sag value under some pline with arcs conditions.

DXF2GDS

New Polygon "Chopping" Function
DXF drawings with complex boundaries often exceed the GDSII limit of 200 vertices per boundary/path. In the past, when this limit was exceeded, DXF2GDS would convert it to an open path with 0 width, and the user had to redraw the boundary in AutoCAD manually.

Version 6.04 can now handle such complex boundaries automatically. It breaks down these large complex boundaries into smaller ones that do not exceed the max vertex limit.

Polylines with Width
POLYLINE support is much more robust, and specifically addresses a situation where a POLYLINE folds back on itself. This version now supports closed POLYLINES with constant and changing width that would previously have generated self-intersecting boundaries.

New Manual
New PDF manual is now available on the download page for both Windows and UNIX.

Application Note for MEMS/Optical Designs.


Describes CAD related problems and solutions when designing optical components (or other complex curved designs), and converting to GDSII and MEBES. You can access it at:
Design Rules for Optical Components

DXF2GDS

Text Stroke Weight
Older versions might ignore the specified text stroke weight. This has been fixed.

Program Starts Up Hidden
Under Windows 2000, program would startup hidden behind other programs. This has been fixed.

New HostInfo Node Locking
The method of getting the hostid from the PC has been improved to eliminate cases where the machine had a network card but the hostid returned was null.

Demo Mode is Gone
If no valid license was obtained the old program would go into demo mode. This was confusing customers who weren't sure why they were running in demo mode. This mode has been deleted and only the license error message will appear.

GDS2DXF

DXF Output Block Names
Added control to generate DXF output in AutoCAD 2000 format or not. This will limit the length of the block names to 31 for non AutoCAD 2000 output, and 256 for AutoCAD 2000 output.

Structure Names Fixes
Maximum structure name length is raised from 34 to 256. Parentheses and spaces are now allowed in the structure names.

Structure Information
Older versions might report incorrect structure boundary, path, text and structure references information. This has been fixed.

Program Starts Up Hidden
Under Windows 2000, program would startup hidden behind other programs. This has been fixed.

New HostInfo Node Locking
The method of getting the hostid from the PC has been improved to eliminate cases where the machine had a network card but the hostid returned was null.

Demo Mode is Gone
If no valid license was obtained the old program would go into demo mode. This was confusing customers who weren't sure why they were running in demo mode. This mode has been deleted and only the license error message will appear.

Extra Structures Translated
Older versions would translate unreferenced structure if the selected structure for translation is not the top structure. This has been fixed.

SREF name is wrong
5.61 would generate an INSERT to a undefined BLOCK name. The name would come from the associated property value (PROPVAL) rather than the SREF SNAME. This has been fixed.

Maximum Number of Points per Polygon
Maximum number of points for polygon is 262144. User can configure the "Max Points" setting so that polygons with over "Max Points" will be chopped into multiple polygons each with a maximum of "Max Points" number of points. The limit in gds2dxf direction is 65536.

Suppress Hatch/Dimension
It has been verified that control over hatch and dimension translation is working.

DXF2GDS

Suppress Hatch and Dimension
Older versions had these 2 modes reversed, when checked, they were not suppressed. These have been fixed.

DXF2GDS

Translation Status
This version distinguishes translation error, warning, success and cancel state and report accordingly, instead of just translation failed.

Polylines to Polygons Problem
There was a problem with converting polylines to polygons on the TI files. This has been fixed.

GDS2DXF

No changes except revision number to track dxf2gds.

GDS2DXF

Selecting Structure Bug Fix
5.50 introduced a bug when a different structure is selected Gds2dxf would crash. This has been fixed.

Log File Searching
Added keyword searching in the log window.

DXF2GDS

Explode Text to Paths
Added explode text using DXF SHX font selection. This mode will translate text to paths using the embedded shx font information in the DXF file. Users can specify text stroke weight for the paths and the directory to locate the shx files. Txt.shx must exist in the specified shx font directory.

Text Scale
Text scale was not working and this has been fixed.

Log File Searching
Added keyword searching function for the log window.

New Installation
Asm3500 5.50 has the new Install Shield installation. In addition, it has the web package installation for internet download.

Improved Demo Mode
Now has both gds and dxf files for demo use. Before, only gds files were included.

Improved Gds2dxf Structure Dialog Box
This version of Gds2dxf has the new structure dialog box which provides information about the various elements counts and dependence tree for each structure. A report can also be generated.

BOTH DIRECTIONS

License Manager updated
The new LSERV 4.0 license manager has been included that is Y2K compliant.

DXF Extract Module Added
The ability to extract DXF data is now included in the Motif version. (Requested by Ansoft)

AIX Platform Support Added
The ability to extract DXF data is now available on the AIX platform. (Requested by Ansoft)

DXF2GDS

Arcs not Translated
Previous versions would drop any arcs with angle less than 0.01 degree. At the time this seemed like a reasonable small number. The minimum angle has been reduced even further to 0.00001 degree.
Requested by Rodger Ackinclose of PowerX

Fixed Report Count of Total Number of Closed Polygons
Older versions did report the total number of polygons output correctly; failing to count polygons generated from a polyline that included lines and arcs. Fixed.

GDS2DXF

DXF Output Layer Color
This version forces (or adjusts) DXF layer color number to a range of 0-8 which is controllable in the Layers dialog box.

DXF2GDS

Network License not Working
5.42 would not release a network license and therefore failed. This has been fixed.

Scanning Error Fixed
Occasionally under NT 4.0 a "Scanning Error" message would be generated immediately after the DXF file is selected and the program would lock up. Fixed.

GDS2DXF

Network License not Working
5.42 would not release a network license and therefore failed. This has been fixed.

DXF2GDS

Version Number Jump
The version jumped from 5.38 in order to maintain synchronization with UNIX.

ACAD 14 Lt Plines
This version supports the AutoCAD 14 lightweight polyline so it is no longer necessary to saveas R12 or R13. A very nice feature since the lightweight polylines result in very small DXF files.

Long File Names
This version has support for long file names on Windows 95/NT. This includes all paths and filenames.

Help Page Link to WEB
This version can launch your default web browser and go to Asm3500 web page automatically. Available from the Help | Artwork Web Page. This is a 95/NT function only.

Bug Fix - Donut processing
Donuts were not correctly translated. Where the two polylines that form the "donut" meet, the meeting point was not square resulting in a small wedge shaped hole in the GDSII data. This has been fixed so that the two polyline now meet perpendicularly.
Reported by James Peal of TI.

GDS2DXF

Version Number Jump
The version jumped from 5.39 in order to maintain synchronization with UNIX.

GDS2DXF

Bug Fix - Undefined Block Problem When AutoCAD imported a DXF file created by GDS2DXF it might report "Undefined block XXX" under certain conditions. This condition was traced to certain GDSII files with '_' in the structure names. This has been fixed.

GDS2DXF

Bug fix:
When importing a DXF file generated by GDS2DXF (5.37) a customer received the AutoCAD Error Message:

"undefined block ...".

The GDSII file under consideration was found to use structure names where part of one name was embedded in another, e.g. HB7312_A and TYP200_HB7312_A. GDS2DXF had difficulty resolving the difference between the desired top level structure. Problem is fixed in 5.38.

Reported by Travis Kerby; Bosch.

DXF2GDS

Dxf2gds has no changes, only version changed to 5.38.

DXF2GDS

Bug fix:
When the DXF file contained a layer whose name begins with "Layer", the translator got confused (since it uses LAYER as a keyword) and did not assign the desired GDS Layer Number. This has been corrected.
Example

DXF Layer Name   GDSII Layer
poly                 10                         
metal                12
layer1               13

GDS2DXF

Multiline GDSII Text End-of-line Terminator
GDSII files can contain strings of text.They can also contain multi-line strings of text. Each line is normally terminated by a CR/LF. However some CAD systems are using only a CR or only a LF to terminate the text line. We've updated GDS2DXF to support any combination: CR/LF,CR or LF.
Example:

My name is Joe Blow CR/LF
Your name is John Smith CR/LF.

or

My name is Joe Blow CR
Your name is John Smith CR

or

My name is Joe Blow LF
Your name is John Smith LF

Network Licensing on WindowsNT
This version supports network licensing under WinNT using LicenseServ.

Maximum Number of Structures
Boosted the maximum number of structures to 8192. This has an impact on the call to execute gscan, see the -max:N option.

Context Sensitive Help
This version has an updated help file with context sensitive help from the various dialog boxes and pull down menu items.

Error message - "Error Occurred in Communicating with module g2d."
This message might pop up unexpectedly when starting a translation even when things are actually ok. This has been fixed.

DXF2GDS

Preferences
The preference settings for the Control Dialog Box, Tool Bar and Status Bar controls have been moved to File-Preferences pulldown menu. The View menu has been removed.

A new preference item has been added called:GDS Viewer Directory.... The user can now specify the location and filename of the GDSVU program. This will enable users to locate a copy of GDSVU anywhere on their drive.

Link On/Off
The line/arc linking routine was always set to on regardless of the user's setting in the configuration file.This has been fixed.

GDS2DXF

Preferences
Control Dialog Box, Tool Bar and Status Bar controls have been moved to the File-Preferences menu. The View pulldown has been removed and replaced with a button called View GDS.

Viewing GDS File
A nasty interaction between GDS2DXF and GDSVU has been fixed. Viewing the same GDSII file in GDSVU would cause GDS2DXF to erase the file (after quitting GDSVU). The GDS2DXF program would then have to rescan the GDSII file prior to translating it.

GDSVU and GDS2DXF now use 2 separate scan files so this is no longer a problem.

Invalid Block in the DXF Output
When translating structures other than the top structure, the DXF output could not be imported to AutoCAD due to an invalid block error. This error in the translation engine has been fixed.

Translation Reports Wrong Text Files
After translation, text files were incorrectly reported as c:\users\textdirtxt.shx, which should have been c:\users\textdir\txt.shx. This has been fixed.

Path and filename too long in Windows 3.1
If the GDSII path/filename was too long, the program truncated it internally and generated an error. Only workaround is to shorten the complete path or filename to the GDSII file. This is due to a 256 character limit in the DOS command line. No fix is planned since this problem does not affect Windows 95/NT.

Font Mapping to DXF Style/Font
GDSII font2 did not map to the specified DXF text style/font. The program reported an error: "At least 1 text is not found. No text translated." even when a correct DXF font was specified. This bug has been fixed.

Sharing Violation in Win 3.1
Under Win 3.1, a "Sharing Violation" error message might appear even though the translation runs to completion. This was due to a bug in the translator which has been fixed.