Free Gerber Viewer that displays Drill files correctly? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Uky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2021, 03:28:03 pm
content: Dear Forum,I have for many years used Pentalogix´"View-mate" which is a free Gerber viewer.It has however never been able to display the drill file in correct scale. (I use metric)and for some time always started by invoking a web-page with advertistments.I would like to know if there is any free working viewer that does displayNC-files (coordinates/tool) correctly. NOT any on-line tool and NOT a toolthat opens my internet web browser.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2021, 03:30:51 pm
content: Quote from: Uky on January 15, 2021, 03:28:03 pmCould the issue be number of decimals rather than inch/metric - I have this issue on CAMTastic, which I alway have to set to 1,4 from its default 2,3

author: Feynman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2021, 06:31:52 pm
content: You could try KiCAD's gerber viewer. It works just fine for my drill outputs (Excellon2). Don't know about other file type, though.There is also ZofzPCB, but I never tried that myself.

author: Uky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2021, 09:37:13 am
content: It is most likely an inch/metric issue. I have seen similar comments in other forums.I am about to explore KiCAD anyway so the hint of their Gerberviewer is another reason to do it.Thanks.

author: bpiphany
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2021, 08:51:03 am
content: I like gerbv. It's simple, shows gerbers and drill files, some simple analysis, and not much else. It's also available in debian repositories.https://sourceforge.net/projects/gerbv/

author: Uky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2021, 04:03:37 pm
content: Since I am using Windows, Linux software is less interesting, apart from the fact that KiCAD is available for a multitude of O/S'sI downloaded a nightly build (coming version 6) and that one did display the drill file correctly.The current 5.something release however did not. It behaved like Viewmate and several others and expandedthe drill "graphics" to out-of-the-screen.I will however keep the KiCAD installation as the viewer does not forces the web browserto open an ad-page.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2021, 05:37:38 pm
content: You could post said drill file so we can try and figure out what could explain your issues?

author: Skashkash
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2021, 05:56:37 pm
content: I also like gerbv (for windows).It's been my goto gerber viewer for years.Simple and gets the job done. But yeah, would have to test with metric drill files.

author: gnuarm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 29, 2021, 02:14:00 am
content: I've ended up use gerbv after having used several others including both open source and proprietary "free".gerbv is not without it's quirks, but it is so simple the "issues" are few and mostly to do with the file contents not being as it expects. I won't say not standard as I don't think there is a standard. The Gerber files are defined in a spec, but the drill file is still only defined by the company Excellon I think. Well, I looked it up and while it is not part of RS274X, the Gerber file format, it is a separate IPC standard, IPC-NC-349, a superset of the Excellon defined format. The issue is that no one seems to use the format 100% correctly. I have some files that it barfs on. When I dig into the problem it's a bad file. But most Gerber viewers can work with it.Maybe the newer versions work around this bug in the file. I don't know, i haven't created any drill files with that bug lately. I don't even recall which program does that.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 29, 2021, 02:54:00 am
content: I use gerbv on Windows and have problems with the drilling info. It always reads it in as mils, so if you have a metric file it will be far too large. There is a right-click option to edit the file format, and you can untick 'auto' and then select mm, but it just flips back to imperial straight away. That was in the version I had, which was from 2013, so I just downloaded the latest version and it's exactly the same - now way to make that mm setting stick. Might as well not have that dialog!Apart from that, and being 'foreign' so not using native file dialogs (really really painful, but I guess on Linux you don't have stuff like Listary), it's OK for a quick check.

author: bpiphany
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 29, 2021, 06:56:35 am
content: I'm currently on gerbv version 2.7.0 (debian). I don't recall ever having drill files display incorrectly. My excellon file exported from Kicad has aMETRICcommand in it, and gerbv is set to autodetect for that file's format.I believe gerbv on debian uses the standard dialogs. My biggest gripe with it is that it doesn't ever remember the last path you were in

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 29, 2021, 10:24:18 am
content: It's a typical behaviour on my setup from more than one EDA tool, although sometimes I'm surprised and it works for no apparent reason!Yeah, the not remembering paths thing is an annoyance, but if it would use native dialogs that wouldn't matter because there are tools that will implement that (and more) regardless of what app has caused the dialog to pop up. Maybe there isn't a native dialog on Linux and each GUI does its own thing? If so, that's quite a large speed bump for someone looking to convert.

author: Pseudobyte
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2021, 05:36:14 pm
content: i still use viewmate. all you need to do is import the drill file and change the options once through the file selection dialog. it will remember your settings for future drill files

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2021, 06:51:22 pm
content: Thanks for the reminder. I seem to have a copy of that archived off but can't remember why I'm not still using it.

author: ricard2k
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 16, 2021, 05:13:22 pm
content: I use Kicad gerber file viewer and I have no problems with the measurement units.

author: Uky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 29, 2021, 08:06:05 pm
content: Tried KiCAD and liked it but it also seems unable to handle metric formats for the drill file.Like some other systems KiCAD seems not to have a translation configuration menu optionon how to handle imports.This "metric/inch/mill" confusion also affects IPC356 output and it cannot handle arbitrary formats eitherwich seems to be a limit set out by the standard itself.The USA is slowly adapting to the metric standard. Inch by inch...