El lun, 05-02-2007 a las 19:33 -0800, Dave N6NZ escribió: > Very interesting thread. Taking it a little off topic... > > A question that has come up in the past is the idea of importing data > from a mechanical package to get board outline, etc. As it turns out, > I'm working on another project where I have been using dxflib, which is > a C++ dxf reading library. > > What would pcb like to see from a .dxf file? I'm thinking that > exporting board outline and mounting holes and nothing else from a dxf > file would be straightforward. How might that be injected into pcb? > > One idea: with the code I already have, I could turn out a simple widget > that: > 1) looked for a particular layer name in a .dxf file, and ignored the rest. > 2) extracted lines, arcs, and circles, and ignored all other drawing > entities and all entity attributes. Presumably, lines and arcs would > form a board outline, and circles would represent drills for mounting > screws. > 3) wrote out some cheesy well-formed XML that could be imported into pcb > via something magical, or put through a style sheet to make something > pcb wants, or some such. Alternatively, the program could write > something in a native pcb format. Or somebody that understands the pcb > format could volunteer to do a native back-end.
You may import drawings from DXF, but what about component positions, for example? will you able to get a 3D model of your PCB board? There is another open ASCII format designed for MCAD/ECAD integration: IDF. I use it everyday at work to exchange data between the mechanical CAD and the electronic CAD programs (in both directions). Here is an article about it: http://electronics-cooling.com/articles/2002/2002_november_a2.php I remember I got the specs from a company called Intermedius Design Integration, but I am unable to find the link right now. The specs are also available at: www.aertia.com/docs/priware/IDF_V20_Spec.pdf www.aertia.com/docs/priware/IDF_V30_Spec.pdf The mechanical CAD programs I have seen support versions 2.0 and 3.0 (they are quite similar). There is a 4.0 version released, but the format changes a lot, and I haven't seen any program supporting it. Best regards, Carlos _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
