Mail Archives: geda-user/2017/01/27/04:58:47
Hi all,
pcb-rnd now features a not-to-scale cross-section view of the board for
layer group edition, as shown on this 50 sec video:
https://archive.org/details/pcb-rnd-csect
This view replaces the old layer group matrix tab in the preferences
dialog in the GTK HID. The view is interactive, it allows moving layers
among layer groups or layer groups within the layer stack with drag&drop.
It is also possible to create new copper layer group in the stack or to
remove an empty copper layer group from the stack.
This is not pure eye-candy: the core already has the same representation
of all physical layer groups, including the substrate layers. The old
assumptions about 2 silk layers stored after coppers, or special group
number for top or bottom are all gone: as far as the layer code goes, the
user should be able to set up arbitrary layers stacks. By the end of the
rewrite the only limitation would be that there must be a top and a
bottom copper layer group. And this why I had to replace the matrix view,
it was fine for a set of copper groups, but it was too weak for
representing a full detailed stackup.
Current standing
----------------
All export tests pass, there's no file format change. Lesstif and IO kicad
still needs some work. Next stable release is scheduled to mid Feb.
At the moment we are still far from the end; although the layer code
already supports custom stacks, the file formats haven't been upgraded
yet. So the current implementation of the UI still enforces some
restrictions and generally wants to deal with copper layers only. These
restrictions are extra code I will just remove when we start saving and
loading the extra details.
Vision
------
Later on this more generic layer code will allow us to:
- introduce custom layers easily (e.g. adhesives, comment layers, etc.)
- introduce active non-copper layers more easily (e.g. keepout)
- split up the generated layers (such as mask and paste) into a generated
one and one or two drawable layers; or in short: editable mask and paste
layers
- give more control over the exporter output file names - just set it per
layer group per exporter if needed
- get the code understand and store physical layer group material,
thicnkess, dieletric constant, etc., e.g. for simulation
As always, the speed of which these features are implemented greatly
depend on how much user testing the new layer code gets. If you need any
of those features, you can easily speed up the process.
Regards,
Igor2
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