The boolw32f Boolean Engine

The bool32w program is designed to manipulate polygon data in GDSII files. It can perform the basic boolean commands: union, and, or, XOR and minus. It also can size data up or down by a user specified amount.

Unlike some boolean tools, boolw32f supports all angle data and extremely large and complex polygons and files.

All input and output is stream format. Input files may be hierarchical but output files are always flat.

boolw32f is the engine behind Artwork's QckBool program, but as it is a stand alone executable, it can be called from any other application or framework. When combined with Artwork's GDSFILT engine which can be used to combine and extract stream file data, a user can write a custom application that performs all sorts of advanced tasks on large mask files.

This note explains the correct syntax for using boolw32f.

The boolw32f Command Line Syntax

boolw32f inputfile outputfile structure target(s) opcode [optional arguments]

boolw32f	name of the executable. Generally you would use the full path unless you know that the location is in the PATH environment statement or you know that the executable is in the current directory.
inputfile	name of the input GDSII stream file. Use the full path as needed i.e. "C:\My Files\gdsii\test_case.gds" in Windows or something like /home/steve/gdsii_files/test_case.gds on UNIX. Windows is not case sensitive but UNIX is.
outputfile	name of the file that boolw32f will create. Use the full path as needed. If the file already exists it will be overwritten without prompting.
structure	name of the structure to process in the input file. GDSII file are generally hierarchical. All data in that structure and on any referenced structures or arrays (SREF and AREF) belonging to your specified structure will be selected. Structure names are case sensitive so that if the internal GDSII structure name is TESTMOSTST then you must use the same case on the command line. If you want to process the top cell in the file and you don't know its name, you can just put the = sign instead of the cell name.
target	the target layer or layers. For some operations this is a single layer. For other operations this may be a list of semicolon delimited layers. GDSII uses layer numbers from 0-63. boolw32f supports layer numbers from 0-1024.
opcode	Opcode describes which operation to preform and describes the source layer(s). If multiple jobs are required the opcode/layer arguments are delimited by semicolons.
[optional_arguments]	The optional arguments are independent of each other and their order of appearance in the command line is interchangeable as long as they all appear after the required arguments.

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