Polygon bugs in ver 7.7

On 11/07/2016 01:15 PM, Olin Lathrop wrote:

There is something messed up with polygons, at least in signal layers of a

board, in version 7.7.

 

I'm placing components on a 4 layer board.  I wanted a ground plane, so I

draw a polygon named "GND" over the whole board in layer 2, like I've done

many times before.  Everything looked OK, but the DRC coughed up a "width"

error at the bottom of the list.  This was shown to be only on the bottom

edge of the polygon, not the other three.  All four edges were draw exactly

on top of the dimension lines.

 

I checked, and polygon had a width of 0.008 inches, which should be fine.

I thought maybe I accidentally got something else in there while trying to

draw the polygon, so I went to delete it.  The polygon deleted as expected,

but the single blue line at the bottom of the board remained.  I displayed

only layer 2 and tried to delete it, but couldn't.  Grouping didn't work

either.  It beeped to indicate there was nothing in the group.  I did

RATSNEST and nothing changed.

 

Getting out of Eagle then back in made this strange remnant go away.  I

then carefully created the polygon again, this time typing coordinates to

make sure I didn't accidentally do something else with the mouse.  Same

thing.  The polygon showed up, but there was this strange remnant only at

the bottom edge that can be seen in layer 2, the DRC complains about

"width", but it otherwise doesn't seem to exist and can't be deleted.

 

I was curious if this had something to do with being coincident with the

dimension line.  I created a small polygon in layer 2 in the middle of the

board, and got the same DRC complaint about the bottom edge only.

 

But, there is now more strangeness.  No matter what I do, I can't get Eagle

to show this polygon filled.  And yes, I checked, "Ratsnest process

polygons" is turned on.

 

I deleted this polygon, got out of Eagle, got back in, and the remnant is

gone as before.

 

I created the layer 2 ground plane polygon again, and the remnant at the

bottom is back.  Getting out of and back into Eagle doesn't make it go

away.

 

Something broke from version 7.6 to 7.7.  Now what?

Jorge,

I've confirmed this as well.  I'm getting similar results as Olin on

Linux / 7.7.0.

I have found that the DRC error

• has nothing to do with the dimension line (to which Olin eluded),

• occurs whether the polygon is filled or not,

• has nothing to do with the layer (I get errors on any layer - 1, 2,

    15, and 16), and

• errors whichever leg is drawn first,

More on the last bullet.  When drawing the polygon, there are several

scenarios to explore.

Case 1: "set wire_bend 0" (horizontal then vertical)

    a) Click bottom left corner, then top right corner, then bottom left

    again to close it, the bottom horizontal leg generates a width error.

    b) Click top left, then bottom right, then back to top left.  The

    top horizontal wire generates a width error.

Case 2: "Set wire_bend 4"  (vertical then horizontal)

    a) Click bottom left, top right, then bottom left.  A DRC generates

    an error on the left wire.

    b) Click top right, then bottom left, then top right.  The right

    wire gets the error.

I've tried wire bends with 45's and arcs, and it's always the first wire

that generates the width error.

However, running a DRC on older projects seems to be more hit-and-miss.

Some polygons generate an error, while others don't.  It may be related

to a wire breaching the side of the polygon where ratsnest would have to

essentially cut the polygon wire and fill around the foreign signal -

merely a hypothesis and not confirmed.

HTH,

    - Chuck

On 11/07/2016 01:15 PM, Olin Lathrop wrote:

There is something messed up with polygons, at least in signal layers of a

board, in version 7.7.

 

I'm placing components on a 4 layer board.  I wanted a ground plane, so I

draw a polygon named "GND" over the whole board in layer 2, like I've done

many times before.  Everything looked OK, but the DRC coughed up a "width"

error at the bottom of the list.  This was shown to be only on the bottom

edge of the polygon, not the other three.  All four edges were draw exactly

on top of the dimension lines.

 

I checked, and polygon had a width of 0.008 inches, which should be fine.

I thought maybe I accidentally got something else in there while trying to

draw the polygon, so I went to delete it.  The polygon deleted as expected,

but the single blue line at the bottom of the board remained.  I displayed

only layer 2 and tried to delete it, but couldn't.  Grouping didn't work

either.  It beeped to indicate there was nothing in the group.  I did

RATSNEST and nothing changed.

 

Getting out of Eagle then back in made this strange remnant go away.  I

then carefully created the polygon again, this time typing coordinates to

make sure I didn't accidentally do something else with the mouse.  Same

thing.  The polygon showed up, but there was this strange remnant only at

the bottom edge that can be seen in layer 2, the DRC complains about

"width", but it otherwise doesn't seem to exist and can't be deleted.

 

I was curious if this had something to do with being coincident with the

dimension line.  I created a small polygon in layer 2 in the middle of the

board, and got the same DRC complaint about the bottom edge only.

 

But, there is now more strangeness.  No matter what I do, I can't get Eagle

to show this polygon filled.  And yes, I checked, "Ratsnest process

polygons" is turned on.

 

I deleted this polygon, got out of Eagle, got back in, and the remnant is

gone as before.

 

I created the layer 2 ground plane polygon again, and the remnant at the

bottom is back.  Getting out of and back into Eagle doesn't make it go

away.

 

Something broke from version 7.6 to 7.7.  Now what?

Jorge,

I've confirmed this as well.  I'm getting similar results as Olin on

Linux / 7.7.0.

I have found that the DRC error

• has nothing to do with the dimension line (to which Olin eluded),

• occurs whether the polygon is filled or not,

• has nothing to do with the layer (I get errors on any layer - 1, 2,

    15, and 16), and

• errors whichever leg is drawn first,

More on the last bullet.  When drawing the polygon, there are several

scenarios to explore.

Case 1: "set wire_bend 0" (horizontal then vertical)

    a) Click bottom left corner, then top right corner, then bottom left

    again to close it, the bottom horizontal leg generates a width error.

    b) Click top left, then bottom right, then back to top left.  The

    top horizontal wire generates a width error.

Case 2: "Set wire_bend 4"  (vertical then horizontal)

    a) Click bottom left, top right, then bottom left.  A DRC generates

    an error on the left wire.

    b) Click top right, then bottom left, then top right.  The right

    wire gets the error.

I've tried wire bends with 45's and arcs, and it's always the first wire

that generates the width error.

However, running a DRC on older projects seems to be more hit-and-miss.

Some polygons generate an error, while others don't.  It may be related

to a wire breaching the side of the polygon where ratsnest would have to

essentially cut the polygon wire and fill around the foreign signal -

merely a hypothesis and not confirmed.

HTH,

    - Chuck

Chuck Huber wrote on Tue, 08 November 2016 08:25

errors whichever leg is drawn first

That is consistent with what I saw.  It hadn't occurred to me this was

related to the first wire of the polygon, but I did draw my polygons

starting at lower left and proceeding counter-clockwise.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

On 11/7/2016 1:15 PM, Olin Lathrop wrote:

Hi Olin,

 

I'm placing components on a 4 layer board.  I wanted a ground plane, so I

draw a polygon named "GND" over the whole board in layer 2, like I've done

many times before.  Everything looked OK, but the DRC coughed up a "width"

error at the bottom of the list.  This was shown to be only on the bottom

edge of the polygon, not the other three.  All four edges were draw exactly

on top of the dimension lines.

DRC errors involving polygons usually only grab one segment to draw the

error polygon so this so far is OK.

 

I checked, and polygon had a width of 0.008 inches, which should be fine.

Did you have netclasses defined for your GND signal? If that's the case

that might explain why you got the width error.

I thought maybe I accidentally got something else in there while trying to

draw the polygon, so I went to delete it.  The polygon deleted as expected,

but the single blue line at the bottom of the board remained.  I displayed

only layer 2 and tried to delete it, but couldn't.  Grouping didn't work

either.  It beeped to indicate there was nothing in the group.  I did

RATSNEST and nothing changed.

The only way to get rid of DRC polygons is to either exit EAGLE like you

did below, or open the errors dialog and click clear all.

 

Getting out of Eagle then back in made this strange remnant go away.

 

I was curious if this had something to do with being coincident with the

dimension line.  I created a small polygon in layer 2 in the middle of the

board, and got the same DRC complaint about the bottom edge only.

 

But, there is now more strangeness.  No matter what I do, I can't get Eagle

to show this polygon filled.  And yes, I checked, "Ratsnest process

polygons" is turned on.

Normally, polygons will only fill if there is a member of the net they

can reach within it's boundaries. Try placing a GND via, does the

polygon fill in now?

Both you and Chuck are experienced users so I would be surprised if you

guys didn't already try what I mentioned above. With that said, I tried

to reproduce the issue here and I can't find anything out of the ordinary.

Best Regards,

Jorge Garcia

On 11/7/2016 1:15 PM, Olin Lathrop wrote:

Hi Olin,

 

I'm placing components on a 4 layer board.  I wanted a ground plane, so I

draw a polygon named "GND" over the whole board in layer 2, like I've done

many times before.  Everything looked OK, but the DRC coughed up a "width"

error at the bottom of the list.  This was shown to be only on the bottom

edge of the polygon, not the other three.  All four edges were draw exactly

on top of the dimension lines.

DRC errors involving polygons usually only grab one segment to draw the

error polygon so this so far is OK.

 

I checked, and polygon had a width of 0.008 inches, which should be fine.

Did you have netclasses defined for your GND signal? If that's the case

that might explain why you got the width error.

I thought maybe I accidentally got something else in there while trying to

draw the polygon, so I went to delete it.  The polygon deleted as expected,

but the single blue line at the bottom of the board remained.  I displayed

only layer 2 and tried to delete it, but couldn't.  Grouping didn't work

either.  It beeped to indicate there was nothing in the group.  I did

RATSNEST and nothing changed.

The only way to get rid of DRC polygons is to either exit EAGLE like you

did below, or open the errors dialog and click clear all.

 

Getting out of Eagle then back in made this strange remnant go away.

 

I was curious if this had something to do with being coincident with the

dimension line.  I created a small polygon in layer 2 in the middle of the

board, and got the same DRC complaint about the bottom edge only.

 

But, there is now more strangeness.  No matter what I do, I can't get Eagle

to show this polygon filled.  And yes, I checked, "Ratsnest process

polygons" is turned on.

Normally, polygons will only fill if there is a member of the net they

can reach within it's boundaries. Try placing a GND via, does the

polygon fill in now?

Both you and Chuck are experienced users so I would be surprised if you

guys didn't already try what I mentioned above. With that said, I tried

to reproduce the issue here and I can't find anything out of the ordinary.

Best Regards,

Jorge Garcia

On 11/08/2016 12:35 PM, Jorge Garcia wrote:

On 11/7/2016 1:15 PM, Olin Lathrop wrote:

Hi Olin,

 

 

I'm placing components on a 4 layer board.  I wanted a ground plane,

so I

draw a polygon named "GND" over the whole board in layer 2, like I've

done

many times before.  Everything looked OK, but the DRC coughed up a

"width"

error at the bottom of the list.  This was shown to be only on the

bottom

edge of the polygon, not the other three.  All four edges were draw

exactly

on top of the dimension lines.

DRC errors involving polygons usually only grab one segment to draw

the error polygon so this so far is OK.

 

I checked, and polygon had a width of 0.008 inches, which should be

fine.

Did you have netclasses defined for your GND signal? If that's the

case that might explain why you got the width error.

Jorge,  try this from the control panel with all projects and editor

windows closed.

Here's what I did to duplicate Olin's find.

From the control panel: File->New -> Board.

From the Board Editor:  (Note that it's an empty board.  Nothing on

layer 20.)

• grid mil 10;

• change width 8mil;

• set wire_bend 0;

• layer 1;

• poly (10 10) (400 400) (10 10);

• drc;

    I get the single error here along the bottom edge.

• undo;

    (Gets rid of the polygon)

• errors clear;

    (Gets rid of the DRC polygon.)

• set wire_bend 4;

• poly (10 10) (400 400) (10 10);

• drc;

    I get the single error here along the left edge.

Jorge,  You asked about the classes:

• class

    0, default, 0, 0, 0mil

    (close the classes dialog)

You also asked about the DRC params:

• Clearance -> Everything is 8 mils

• Sizes ->  Minimum Width is 10 mils

• Layers -> (1*16)

    Note - two layer board.

Hmmm... wait a minute... I just found it.  The minimum width is set to

10 mils.  This means that the wire width for a polygon is checked

against this parameter.

I consider this closed and not a bug.

I thought maybe I accidentally got something else in there while

trying to

draw the polygon, so I went to delete it.  The polygon deleted as

expected,

but the single blue line at the bottom of the board remained.  I

displayed

only layer 2 and tried to delete it, but couldn't.  Grouping didn't work

either.  It beeped to indicate there was nothing in the group.  I did

RATSNEST and nothing changed.

The only way to get rid of DRC polygons is to either exit EAGLE like

you did below, or open the errors dialog and click clear all.

Not exactly true.  One can get rid of them using "errors clear;" in the

command line.  But that's a bit off topic.

 

Getting out of Eagle then back in made this strange remnant go away.

 

I was curious if this had something to do with being coincident with the

dimension line.  I created a small polygon in layer 2 in the middle

of the

board, and got the same DRC complaint about the bottom edge only.

 

But, there is now more strangeness.  No matter what I do, I can't get

Eagle

to show this polygon filled.  And yes, I checked, "Ratsnest process

polygons" is turned on.

Normally, polygons will only fill if there is a member of the net they

can reach within it's boundaries. Try placing a GND via, does the

polygon fill in now?

Well, there was never a problem with the fill.

 

Both you and Chuck are experienced users so I would be surprised if

you guys didn't already try what I mentioned above. With that said, I

tried to reproduce the issue here and I can't find anything out of the

ordinary.

 

Best Regards,

Jorge Garcia

Thanks for your reply.  This turned out to be a bunch of interacting

screw-ups on my end.

Jorge Garcia wrote on Tue, 08 November 2016 12:35

DRC errors involving polygons usually only grab one segment to draw the

 

error polygon

I didn't know that.  This may have been the first time I got a DRC error on

a polygon.  This contributed to my not realizing there really was a DRC

error.

Quote:

Did you have netclasses defined for your GND signal? If that's the case

 

that might explain why you got the width error.

Yes, it turned out this is exactly what happened.  Portions of the

schematic were copied from another project.  That, and what turned out to

be a script that ran amok without other obvious symptoms, changed the

netclass for GND to other than the default, something I usually don't do.

This other netclass did indeed have a larger width than I used for the

polygon.

The rest of the problems followed from me not realizing this really was a

genuine DRC error.

Quote:

The only way to get rid of DRC polygons is to either exit EAGLE like

you

did below, or open the errors dialog and click clear all.

Yes, my mistake in not realizing this really was a genuine DRC error.

Quote:

Normally, polygons will only fill if there is a member of the net they

 

can reach within it's boundaries. Try placing a GND via, does the

polygon fill in now?

I think I actually knew that at some point, but run into this so

infrequently that I forgot about it.

Quote:

Both you and Chuck are experienced users so I would be surprised if you

 

guys didn't already try what I mentioned above. With that said, I tried

 

to reproduce the issue here and I can't find anything out of the

ordinary.

Sorry for the false alarm.  You get used to using a complex tool like Eagle

in certain ways, and tend to forget details you aren't regularly exposed

to.  I should have looked at the initial symptom more closely.

What started me thinking down the wrong path was that the DRC error only

showed on one of the polygon edges.  That immediately caused me to rule out

a genuine width error, since that wouldn't apply to just one edge of the

polygon.

Again, sorry for the run-around.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Thanks for your reply.  This turned out to be a bunch of interacting

screw-ups on my end.

Jorge Garcia wrote on Tue, 08 November 2016 12:35

DRC errors involving polygons usually only grab one segment to draw the

 

error polygon

I didn't know that.  This may have been the first time I got a DRC error on

a polygon.  This contributed to my not realizing there really was a DRC

error.

Quote:

Did you have netclasses defined for your GND signal? If that's the case

 

that might explain why you got the width error.

Yes, it turned out this is exactly what happened.  Portions of the

schematic were copied from another project.  That, and what turned out to

be a script that ran amok without other obvious symptoms, changed the

netclass for GND to other than the default, something I usually don't do.

This other netclass did indeed have a larger width than I used for the

polygon.

The rest of the problems followed from me not realizing this really was a

genuine DRC error.

Quote:

The only way to get rid of DRC polygons is to either exit EAGLE like

you

did below, or open the errors dialog and click clear all.

Yes, my mistake in not realizing this really was a genuine DRC error.

Quote:

Normally, polygons will only fill if there is a member of the net they

 

can reach within it's boundaries. Try placing a GND via, does the

polygon fill in now?

I think I actually knew that at some point, but run into this so

infrequently that I forgot about it.

Quote:

Both you and Chuck are experienced users so I would be surprised if you

 

guys didn't already try what I mentioned above. With that said, I tried

 

to reproduce the issue here and I can't find anything out of the

ordinary.

Sorry for the false alarm.  You get used to using a complex tool like Eagle

in certain ways, and tend to forget details you aren't regularly exposed

to.  I should have looked at the initial symptom more closely.

What started me thinking down the wrong path was that the DRC error only

showed on one of the polygon edges.  That immediately caused me to rule out

a genuine width error, since that wouldn't apply to just one edge of the

polygon.

Again, sorry for the run-around.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Did you have netclasses defined for your GND signal? If that's the case

that might explain why you got the width error.

Is there a way to allow clicking on the error message to see the above

info?  In some case (not all) Eagle could probably provide more details of

the cause of any errors, or maybe even provide a tip (such as above),

saving hours of frustration.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at http:
www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.