Artwork's men2dxf and dxf2men translators between BoardStation and AutoCAD can now be directly launched from within the Mentor design environment.

Once the Ample interface is installed the designer merely clicks on the File | Export pulldown and selects to DXF... A dialog box pops open enabling the designer to select the translation options and output file destination.

The Ample routine automatically creates the geom_asc file, any required component and trace files and launches the men2dxf translator in the background. When complete, a log file appears in an edit window enabling the designer to review the results and note if any warnings were issued.

Works?       Version
 No                  8.0
 No                  8.1
 No                  8.2
 Yes                 8.4 (A1)
 Yes                 A2
 Yes                 A4
 Yes                 B1
 Yes                 B2

A path to dxf2men and men2dxf must be set. Otherwise when the Ample GUI calls the translators nothing will happen. Some customers who reported problems had only set the path in one window and the path was not recognized in another window.

The environment variable AMPLE_PATH must be set correctly and should be valid for all windows.

If you wish to assign specific layers in the DXF file to specific layers in Mentor, you must use the Assign Layers... option to do so.
You can't map layers through the mentor.cfg file when running through the Ample interface.