Simple polygons producing large gerber files

On 6/25/2010 1:27 PM, Michael Sansom wrote:

Guys,

>

I'm making a planar PCB antenna. So, I have two polygons which are

essentially ~200mm x 15mm rectangles with a 45 degree chamfer on one

corner on each shape. I drew these shape on the top copper layer with

the polygon tool. When I generate gerber files they warn me that the

shapes on signals N$2 and N$3 (the two polygons) will generate large

gerber files, and in fact I get about a ~450kb gerber file.

>

For the life of me I can't see why this should be the case, each polygon

is simply defined by five x,y coordinates which are all nice integer

numbers in mm. The application I'm using to read this gerber data is

having issues with this size gerber file.

>

On a related subject - the two polygons are mirror images reflected

across the vertical axis. I thought that I could just draw one polygon

and then mirror it. Unfortunately, mirroring also flips it to the bottom

layer of the board. Is there a way to mirror an object and have it stay

on the original layer? It not this would be a nice feature to have.

>

-Michael

Gerber polygons are made by painting in lines, so if your lines are thin

there will be millions of them. Set the width of the polygon border as

large as you can and still make your shape.

In v4, you can copy, then mirror the polygon like you did to the other

side and then just change layer to put it back where you want it.

On 6/25/2010 1:27 PM, Michael Sansom wrote:

Guys,

>

I'm making a planar PCB antenna. So, I have two polygons which are

essentially ~200mm x 15mm rectangles with a 45 degree chamfer on one

corner on each shape. I drew these shape on the top copper layer with

the polygon tool. When I generate gerber files they warn me that the

shapes on signals N$2 and N$3 (the two polygons) will generate large

gerber files, and in fact I get about a ~450kb gerber file.

>

For the life of me I can't see why this should be the case, each polygon

is simply defined by five x,y coordinates which are all nice integer

numbers in mm. The application I'm using to read this gerber data is

having issues with this size gerber file.

>

On a related subject - the two polygons are mirror images reflected

across the vertical axis. I thought that I could just draw one polygon

and then mirror it. Unfortunately, mirroring also flips it to the bottom

layer of the board. Is there a way to mirror an object and have it stay

on the original layer? It not this would be a nice feature to have.

>

-Michael

Gerber polygons are made by painting in lines, so if your lines are thin

there will be millions of them. Set the width of the polygon border as

large as you can and still make your shape.

In v4, you can copy, then mirror the polygon like you did to the other

side and then just change layer to put it back where you want it.

 

In v4, you can copy, then mirror the polygon like you did to the other

side and then just change layer to put it back where you want it.

 

Thanks to both of you.  That was the problem.  I was thinking that

gerber was a vector format instead of a rasterized format.