GBRVU Gerber View/Plot Utility

GBRVU enables designers to graphically display any Gerber photoplotter file in true WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) fashion on a PC or workstation graphics screen. Once loaded, the data is available for viewing, verifying, and measuring. Data cannot be modified in any way. The menu driven program is easy to learn and to use.

GBRVU is an integral part of Artwork's translation packages but can also stand alone. The special composite viewing feature makes it useful even to those that have other Gerber viewing programs or have written their own Gerber output modules.

Designers often need to make checkplots directly from Gerber data generated by their board design software. Such a checkplot more accurately reflects the final phototool than plots made directly from within the application. GBRVU supports most industry standard plotters and printers; support is also available for higher and electrostatic plotters. YOu will find that for many types of laser and inkjet plotters, GBRVI is an extremely fast plotting solution.

GBRVU supports both the FIRE 9000 Autoplot header with embedded apertures and Gerber's RS274X format including custom apertures, polygons and merged dark and clear layers.

Features

Runs on Sun, HP, and SGI Workstations
Displays RS274D, RS274X and MDA Autoplot
Preview Paint and Scratch Composite Plots
Commands can be executed from a menu or immediately from the keyboard
Includes aperture list translators for Allegro, Mentor, PADs, Protel and others...
Create Excellon Drill from Gerber flash data
Fast, high resolution plots to laser printers, inkjets and optionally to electrostatic plotters
Batch Plotting Option - plot from scripts or other programs

Support for different Gerber Flavors and Apertures Types

Upon starting GBRVU you will be prompted for the type of Gerber file to load. In order to avoid manual entry of aperture definitions, we've written aperture translators for several popular applications. By identifying the source of Gerber file the appropriate translations activated.

Layer Display

GBRVU's layer menu enables the designer to load up to 32 Gerber files quickly. Layers can be individually turned on or off. Each layer's display mode can be set to: Paint, dark data or clear background; Negative, clear data on a dark background; or Scratch, data subjects from previous layers. Each layer can be assigned a color and fill pattern.

Aperture Setup

Apertures are entered via an easy-to-use spreadsheet style table. You can see at a glance which apertures are used as they are highlighted.

Hardcopy Output

You can get very high resolution hard copy from GBRVU. Output formats include: HPGL and HPGL2: for Hewlett Packard and compatible pen plotters; PCL4: for Hewlett Packard Laserjet s and compatibles; RTL: for Hewlett Packard Deskjet and DesignJet family as well as many other plotters that read RTL and TIFF: for many document imaging and management systems. We also offer as add-on option drivers for Zerox Versatec line of electrostatic plotters, Calcompelectrostatic, thermal and laser plotters and Raster Graphic's electrostatic plotters.

Speed

If you are looking for a very fast plotting solution consider GBRVU. It's internal rasterizer is often 10x faster than a plotter's CPU - by sending a native raster to a plotter instead of HPGL or Postscript, you can get large format plots out for an entire workgroup.

Batch Plotting

It is not necessary to view Gerber files you wish to plot. GBRVU can be run in batch plotting mode so that a specified list of files are plotted. A simple script file does the job.

Polygon Support for FIRE 9000 and RS274X

GBRVU supports both Rs274X polygons (G36/37) and the FIRE 9000's POEX/POIN commands

This enables the designer to preview and to plot data that matches the film produced by the photoplotter.

In polygon mode the Gerber data contains only the boundary - the plotter fills the interior of each region. Many other Gerber viewers cannot emulate this behavior so the designer cannot correctly preview the final results.

GBRVU Command Set


Command	   Sub Commands/Definition                 Command   Sub Commands/Definition

ZOOM	   Default, Window, Last, In, Out          IMPORT    Used to import either RS274X, MDA
                                                             or foreign aperture lists.

PAINT	   Paints data from this Gerber file       REPORT    Displays or writes a file containing
           to screen.                                        layer and aperture information.

SCRATCH	   Scratches this Gerber file from         FILL      Toggle ON/OFF. Displays lines with width
           the display                                       or as centerlines.

NEGATIVE   Displays negative of this layer         EXCELLON  Creates an Excellon drill file
                                                             from flashes.  

DISTANCE   Measures distance between two points    TABLE     Creates an X,Y table from flash centers.

VERTEX     Jumps cursor form vertex to vertex      HELP      On-line help. Help screen changes with
           of a draw or polygon.                             command and menu.

Revision History

Artwork Conversion Software, Inc. [Company Profile]
417 Ingalls St., Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Tel (831) 426-6163
email: webmaster@artwork.com

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