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Reference Gerber Viewer

pvermeulen

Hi all

 

Let me first introduce myself: I'm the lead developer of the 'Reference Gerber Viewer'. This cloud-based viewer is created by Ucamco, custodian of the Gerber format, and given to the Gerber community as a free tool to view and check all your (X2) Gerber files. (see https://gerber.ucamco.com)

 

As always, your input is of great value to us: What do you think about the viewer? What can we do better? Any missing features?

We welcome all your questions and remarks.

 

thanks for your help,

Peter Vermeulen

  • Hi Peter,

     

    I only briefly tried it, but I liked it, it could be useful. I had these couple of initial suggestions:

    1. Text on the right side is yellow on white, which is hard to read. Different color preferred.

    2. When selecting an object, I only see partial information about the D-code. I could not see the xy co-ordinates (there is co-ordinates of the mouse pointer at the bottom of the screen, but I couldn't see the co-ordinates of objects, unless I'm missing something).

    3. For 'measure between objects' feature to be more useful, it should also allow selection between left, right or center of object too. Currently it measures shortest distance from nearest edge or point. Also, as well as showing the length, it should show the X and Y distance. I'd find that handy for measuring between (say) board holes. Currently I have to manipulate with a calculator, if the holes are irregularly placed on a board. Perhaps a popup could appear with radio buttons to select the left, right, center or shortest distance, for each of the objects. As mentioned the output could display the distance as currently implemented, and the X and Y distances.

     

    Here is my screenshot of a FRDM board using the system:

    image

    As mentioned, I've only tried it for a short while. I use other Gerber viewers, but may use this sometimes too.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Hi,

     

    thanks for your feedback.

    We strive to make our free online viewer the reference viewer for all Gerber files, so any feedback is greatly appreciated!

     

    We already made the text of the warnings more readable in the latest version.

    It is now also possible to upload a .zip file, containing a complete Gerber job.

     

    kind regards,

     

    Peter Vermeulen

    Ucamco

  • in reply to pvermeulen

    Just a quick note...

     

    Our viewer now also shows the exact locations of any object of your PCB design.

    Just hover over the object.

     

    regards,

     

    Peter Vermeulen

    Ucamco

  • in reply to pvermeulen

    Hi all,

     

    The viewer now also supports the Gerber X3 extensions (components).

     

    regards,

     

    Peter Vermeulen

    Ucamco

  • in reply to pvermeulen

    Hi all,

     

    we keep improving our Reference Gerber Viewer.

     

    New in the latest version (which you still find at https://gerber.ucamco.com):

     

    - increased accuracy while measuring

    - measure object will show you the x and y distance as well

     

    We hope you enjoy it!

     

    kind regards,

     

    Peter Vermeulen

    Ucamco

  • in reply to pvermeulen

    Hi Peter,

     

    It's becoming great for quickly checking out gerber files: )

    My favorite feature is the XY co-ords displayed of objects automatically when the mouse pointer is hovered over the object.

    The measurement X and Y distances is fantastic - if they could be in a slightly different color to the diagonal (or perhaps have the diagonal in Italic to make it clear) that would be nice, but it's a minor thing.

    One other feature (which you will probably hate me for asking, more difficult : ( would be to allow board rotation by 90 or 180, and also board flip. Maybe it could be a temporary visualization without all the measurement features, e.g. user has to go back to the normal orientation to get all the features. Sometimes it's just hard to mentally visualize things without the board flip or rotate. Anyway, even without this, it's a very good board viewer.