STL2GDS Command Line Syntax

Those who wish to call the stl2gds engine from another program or script should use the following syntax:

Syntax

The command line uses the following syntax:

stl2x64.exe  input_file  output_file  gds_layer -z:z_value -gds [options]

where

stl2x64.exe    name (and path) of the executable

input_file     name (and path) of the input STL file.

output_file    name (and path) of the output GDSII file.

gds_layer      layer on which to produce the GDSII data 
              (also a comma delimited list i.e. 0,1,2,3)

-z:z_value     the z_value for the "slice" 
               (also a comma delimited list i.e. 0.56,0.62,0.75,0.98)

-gds           tells the engine to output GDSII stream format.


[options]


-incr          the -incr (increment) parameter is used when the designer 
               wants a series of equally spaced slices commencing at a given 
               Z value and rising by the increment amount.

-stop:value    this is used when you want to start slicing at a certain elevation and stop at a defined value.
				
-lincr         the layer increment controls the stepping of the gerber layer 
               name and is used together with the -incr command line if the 
               layer increment is to be a value other than 1.


-info          instead of actually performing the slicing and conversion, 
               the -info command instructs the stl2gds engine to calculate 
               the X,Y,Z extents and to count the number of facets in the 
               database.

-scale:X       instructs stl2gds to scale up (or down) the data by the scale
               value X. Default = 1.

-units:UNIT    units of the output GDSII file: UM, MM, CM, INCH, MIL, NM
               (default = MM)

-grid:XXX      grid resolution of the output GDSII file.
               typical grid values would be 0.001 for UM, 0.000001 for MM

Examples

The following examples should help clarify the function of the command line arguments.

Example 1    Getting Info

stl2x64.exe stlinput.stl out.gds -info

This command line executes stl2gds on the input file stlinput.stl. It does not produce an output file (even though one should be listed on the command line) but because of the -info argument it scans the STL file and outputs a file called out.log to disk that contains the X,Y,Z extents and the number of facets in the file.

Example 2    Slice at Z=0.1

 stl2x64.exe c:\test_files\input.stl c:\test_files\results\output.gds 1 -z:0.1

in this example stl2gds will process a file called input.stl, slice it at Z=0.1 and output the results to a file called output.gds (note that input.stl and output.gds are not in the same directory). Since the user failed to supply a unit argument the GDSII file will be in units of MM and the output grid is determined by the "extents" of the STL file. This is not a recommended command line - the designer should always specify the units and grid values.

Example 3    Multiple Slices, Comma Delimited

stl2x64.exe input.stl output.gds 1,7,19 -z:1.5,3.2,0.8 -units:MM -grid:0.000001

In this example stl2gds will produce data on multiple layers:

elevation    gdsii layer number
  1.5              1
  3.2              7
  0.8              9

by using a comma delimited list for the gdsii layer numbers and the z values for the slices.

Example 4    Multiple Slices, Incremented

stl2x64.exe input.stl output.gds 1 -z:0.1 -incr:0.02 -units:MM -grid:0.000001

In this example stl2gds will produce data on multiple layers starting at z=0.1 and incrementing by Z=0.02 until it reaches the "top" of the data extents. Assuming the Z values top out at 2.1 the following layers would be produced.

elevation    gdsii layer number
  0.10 MM            1
  0.12               2
  0.14               3
  0.16               4
  0.18               5
  0.20               6

Example 5    Multiple Slices, Incremented II

stl2x64.exe in.stl out.gds 0 -z:0.1 -incr:0.02 -lincr:5 -units:MM -grid:0.000001

In this example stl2gds will produce data on multiple layers starting at z=0.1 and incrementing by Z=0.02 until it reaches the "top" of the data extents. Assuming the Z values top out at 2.1 the following layers would be produced. The GDSII layers corresponding to these slices begin at 0 and are incremented by 5.

elevation    gdsii layer number
  0.10 MM            0
  0.12               5
  0.14               10
  0.16               15
  0.18               20
  0.20               25

Example 6    Scaling & Units

stl2x64.exe input.stl output.gds 1  -z:0.1 -scale:1000 -units:UM -grid:0.001

In this example the STL file was produced in units of millmeters but the GDSII file should be output in microns. This requires that the data be scaled up by 1000; however the slice height is specified prior to scaling.

elevation    gdsii layer number
  0.1               1
  




Example 7     Scaling & Units

stl2x64.exe input.stl output.gds 1 0 -y:63.74345 -stop:66.699417 -incr:0.003 -lincr:1 -gds -topstr:TouchPanel_v2_-_DI_STL -scale:1000 -units:UM -grid:1e-03 -maxpts:4000 

In this example the STL file was produced in units of millmeters but the GDSII file should be output in microns. This requires that the data be scaled up by 1000; however the slice height is specified prior to scaling.

The slicing along the Y axis starts at 63.74345 and stops at 66.699417 with increments of 0.003mm so it produces a GDSII file with 985 layers.