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Subject: Re: [geda-user] Converting footprints from PADS to PCB
From: "Roger Williams (roger AT qux DOT com) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com]" <geda-user AT delorie DOT com>
In-Reply-To: <1507282021.AA04907@ivan.Harhan.ORG>
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 16:47:29 -0400
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http://qux.com/GTA02-MB-A6_50-71481-00.asc.zip

-- 
Roger Williams <roger AT qux DOT com>
Chief Technical Officer, Qux Corporation

On 28 Jul 2015, at 16:21, Spacefalcon the Outlaw <falcon AT ivan DOT Harhan DOT ORG> wrote:

> Erich Heinzle wrote:
> 
>> From what I can see, altium can import ascii PADS data, but not binary.
> 
> Yes, when I googled it, I saw a couple of posts from people who wanted
> to convert a layout from PADS into Altium, and they were told that
> they needed to go back into PADS first and save their PCB in PADS
> ASCII format.
> 
> I wonder, would anyone here perchance have access to a working
> installation of PADS that could do this load & save operation?  I
> reason that if we had the PADS layout file in ASCII format instead of
> binary, I might be able to figure that format out by staring at it and
> write a converter to our own beloved PCB.
> 
> The binary PADS PCB file is inside this ZIP:
> 
> ftp://ftp.freecalypso.org/pub/GSM/GTA02/GTA02-MB-A6.zip
> 
> If we could grok the original PADS layout file, we could probably get
> a much better PCB import than would be possible from gerbers alone.
> Recovering an editable PCB source from gerbers is somewhat like
> reconstructing C source from the disassembly of a binary: while the
> gerbers fully capture the copper structure of a board, they lose the
> semantic information like what copper pieces belong to what element vs
> what are traces or polygons connecting different elements, etc.
> 
> Note that my ambition is to port an entire board layout, complete with
> elements and copper interconnects between them, from PADS to PCB, with
> all geometry *and* all semantics fully preserved.  A very ambitious
> goal, but I believe it may be possible if I can find someone who has a
> working installation of PADS and who would be willing to load the
> historical binary file into it and save it in PADS ASCII format - I
> would then stare at that ASCII format and perhaps grok it enough to
> write an all-preserving converter to PCB.
> 
> TIA,
> SF