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Process for importing a graphic logo to PCB?

ntraider

Hello everyone.

 

Does anyone know of a process for importing a small logo onto the PCB in Circuit Studio?  DXF imports seem to work and have good resolution, but they import as outlines and I cannot figure out how to 'fill' these back to a solid once imported.  Placing a photo onto the PCB also works, but the resolution is too low when scaling these to something less than an inch.  I think that we still use an old Altium script at my employer to scale monochrome photos to small logos for our Altium Designer software.  Its old, but seems to work.  However, this same script doesn't seem to execute for Circuit Studio.  :-(  Thanks for any help.

  • 0

    Hi Arnie. It should be possible to fill your DXF outlines with the following technique.

    image

     

    1. Select the outline you want to be filled.

    2. Type "convert region" into the search box and click on the command

     

    You now have a solid region.

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

    Thanks for the help.  Unfortunately, this doesn't appear to work well for imported DXFs.  I get this when trying to convert region:

     

    image

    image

     

    Clicking Yes, Circuit Studio freezes for a while trying to process this but ultimately cannot convert it.  I have tried three different simple logos as well exporting DXFs from InkScape and Adobe Illustrator.  All are yielding the above result.  Any other steps or settings that I could try?  Thanks again for the help.

  • 0 in reply to ntraider

    If you can email/PM me a very simple InkScape logo you have been trying and the DXF you generated from it I will take a look to see if I can find a way to get it working.

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

    Thanks for sending through the files. I cannot get all the elements to convert to regions but I think the logo is simple enough to draw directly in CS using polygons with straight and curved edges (use SHIFT+SPACE to switch modes).

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

    Thanks again Peter for spending time to help on this.  Importing graphics and logos to the PCB silkscreen is something that myself and many others will do on a periodic basis, so I was more interested in the process for doing this than converting that particular logo. 

     

    After spending a significant amount time working with this over the weekend, I think that 'placing an image' (i.e. bmp, jpg, gif) in the PCB context may be the better route than using a DXF for Circuit Studio.  CS seems to choke on DXFs, but it appears to easily import and convert image files to native regions.  However, the one problem that I have with this method, is that CS imports everything at 8x scale (i.e. 1 pixel = 8 mils)?!  This would work perfectly if it converted this at 1 pixel = 1 mil and would provide sufficient resolution for small graphics and logos.  I feel that the 8x setting may be connected to a project setting somewhere (perhaps a line width, etc.), but I cannot find where this is.  Is there a setting somewhere or a config file that affects this import?  Thanks again.

  • 0 in reply to ntraider

    After a little more research the best option appears to be to use polygons to create a filled logo, I have created a new knowledge base article on the subject.

    Adding logos to your PCB layout

     

    Expanding on this answer...

    Some logos don't work well with DXF import because far too many objects are created when importing and attempting polygon pours can become extremely slow. The above KB article has been updated to include another technique - generate a custom font file where one of the glyphs is your logo. A bonus to this technique is that the logo becomes scalable because it is added to the PCB as text.

  • 0 in reply to e14softwareuk

    There are some websites that let you create a custom font by just uploading the artwork.

    I have used this method to make a font with my logos in. They work great used in CS.

  • 0

    This looks very much like a bug I reported years ago in Altium. The imported file always scaled incorrectly to the PCB file. In my case the outline for the board. I was using Rhino3d to create the DXF. I found that opening the DXF in Vdraft, and then saving, fixed the issue and allowed proper import into Altium.

    One thing about DXF files is that they do not contain Unit information, so the Units you use in your CAD program has to match whatever Circuit Studio or Altium. wants. The DXF file format should have been depricated years ago. Now, I would probably pre-scale the file in my CAD program first.

    It would be nice if Altium would finally fix this bug, and use a different file format such as a later Autocad DWG format, IGES, or something else that works consistantly.

    Edit: It looks like DWG is supported. I would try importing the DWG to see if that works better.

  • 0

    Like      says, and i use it to, convert your logo to a font file.

    The advantage of this methode is that you can scale your logo to what ever size you want inside CS and it works on any layer.

    It's not an easy process and takes several steps.

    It took me a few tries but i made it work simular to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=373w510qbwo