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Development

Gerbv reaches the 2.0 release milestone

By Forrest Cook
January 29, 2008

Gerbv (Gerber Viewer) is a utility for displaying CAD files that are used in the manufacture of electronic printed circuit boards:

[gerbv logo]

Gerbv is a viewer for Gerber (RS-274X) files. It is one of the utilities affiliated with the gEDA project. Gerber files are generated from PCB CAD systems and sent to PCB manufacturers as the basis for the manufacturing process. The standard supported by gerbv is RS-274X.

In the 1980s, computer generated Gerber files were used to drive photo-plotter machines made by by the Gerber Systems Corporation. The photo plotters used a mechanically stepped light source and rotating image wheels to optically imprint a image of a circuit board onto a large piece of film. The film was then used to manufacture the printed circuit board. Additionally, PCB manufacturing requires information for defining the size and placement of drill holes (drill files).

The photo plotting machines are now obsolete, but the Gerber standard remains as a standard in the PCB manufacturing business. The output from Gerber file plots can look considerably different than the original CAD drawings, making a visualization tool like Gerbv important.

Gerbv can be used for examining the CAD files generated by such software as CadSoft Eagle, a popular commercial application with a freely downloadable hobby version. Another Linux-compatible printed circuit CAD application is PCB. PCB is less powerful than Eagle, but is open-source software. LWN examined PCB a long time ago.

Version 2.0.0 of Gerbv was recently announced: "Gerbv release 2.0.0 represents a a whole new look for gerbv. Most importantly, the layer control GUI has been made much more powerful through the outstanding work of Julian Lamb. Julian has also re-worked the GUI's button and menus to make them more convenient to use. We are certain that you will find gerbv-2.0.0 even easier to use than before because of Julian's amazing work!"

The feature list for Gerbv 2.0.0 now includes:

  • Display of RS-274x Gerber files.
  • The complete implementation of the current Gerber spec.
  • Display of Excellon drill files.
  • Display of XYRS pick-place files for surface mount technology.
  • A completely redesigned GUI.
  • Controls for zoom/pan and fit to screen.
  • A measure tool for making mouse-controlled distance calculations.
  • User selected display of the various layers.
  • Support for transparency so that multiple layers can be viewed.
  • Report windows showing Gerber and drill code stats and errors.
  • A built-in print button.
  • Use of the Cairo graphics library, enabling export of PDF, PS, SVG, and PNG files.
  • Incorporation of a new unit test suite in the code.
  • Improved file-type autodetection.
  • Expanded configuration options for the build system.
The project's SourceForge screenshot page gives several examples of Gerbv 2.0.0 in use.

[miniature gerbv image]

Installation of Gerbv 2.0.0 was straightforward. The source code was downloaded, uncompressed and untared. The standard Unix configure/make/make install steps were performed on a Ubuntu Feisty Fawn system, no problems were encountered.

Gerbv 2.0.0 was tested on some Eagle CAD files that your author had worked on in the past. Startup was easy, running the command gerbv slc1.* had the desired effect of pulling in all of the various layers for the test project. Moving and zooming around the layers showed the CAD graphics in detail, as expected. The analyze tools produced a lot of useful status information for the various files.

Details in the copper layers that did not show up in Eagle (version 4.16) were easily seen with Gerbv. In the past, your author has encountered problems with Eagle incorrectly displaying the placement and scaling of text on the silk screen layer. This showed up when CAD files were taken to a board manufacturer. Gerbv displayed the text as it appears on the manufacturer's system, which is the desired behavior.

The export functions were experimented with. Export to a png file worked as expected. Export to a PostScript file caused Gerbv to hang up. Export to a PDF file took a very long time to complete, and gpdf took a long time to load the file. When gpdf finished rendering, it only displayed large polygons that were barely visible due to their almost identical colors. Export to svg produced a file that caused the mirage image viewer to hang when reading. An attempt to convert the svg file to a jpg file with convert resulted in this error: 

convert: unable to open image `pattern0': No such file or directory.
convert: Non-conforming drawing primitive definition `fill'.
Clearly, this is still a .0.0 release with some bugs. Despite these problems, Gerbv 2.0.0 is a tool that is useful, if not critical, for performing Linux-based printed circuit board design.

Comments (3 posted)

System Applications

Clusters and Grids

Release of rsplib 2.4.0beta1

Version 2.4.0 beta 1 of rsplib has been announced. "rsplib is the Open Source implementation (GPLv3) of the IETF's upcoming standard for Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool). It provides protocols and functionalities for the management of server pools and sessions between users and pools. In particular, RSerPool takes care for server selection and session failover support among servers of a pool."

Full Story (comments: none)

Database Software

Firebird 2.1 RC 1 is available

Release Candidate 1 of Firebird Version 2.1 has been announced. "This is the first release candidate of the Firebird version 2.1 series. Its purpose is for FIELD TESTING. Deployment into production systems is not recommended. Cumulative release notes covering both V.2.0.3 and this build of V.2.1 are available both in the build kits and online. Installation notes (updated for Windows) and cumulative bug-fixes for both versions are released in separate documents this time."

Comments (1 posted)

MySQL 5.0.51a has been released

Version 5.0.51a of the MySQL DBMS has been announced. "MySQL 5.0.51a is a security hotfix release. We recommend all users of any previous release in the MySQL 5.0 Community Server branch to upgrade to 5.0.51a as soon as possible. Please see below for details."

Full Story (comments: none)

Postgres Weekly News

The January 27, 2008 edition of the Postgres Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.

Full Story (comments: none)

Security

Havp: 0.87 released (SourceForge)

Version 0.87 of Havp has been announced. "HAVP (HTTP Anti-Virus Proxy) is a proxy with a clamav antivirus scanner. The main aims are continuous, non-blocking downloads and smooth scanning of dynamic and password protected homepages. It can be used with squid or standalone."

Comments (none posted)

Metasploit Framework 3.1 released

Version 3.1 of the Metasploit Framework, a development platform for creating security tools and exploits, is available. "The Metasploit Project announced today the free, world-wide availability of version 3.1 of their exploit development and attack framework. The latest version features a graphical user interface, full support for the Windows platform, and over 450 modules, including 265 remote exploits."

Full Story (comments: none)

Telecom

Activa for Asterisk: New release 1.4.4 (SourceForge)

Version 1.4.4 of Activa for Asterisk has been announced. "Activa brings the Asterisk IP PBX to the call center. Built on top of Asterisk, Activa components enable successful call center implementations adding value in areas such as computer telephony, screenpop & click2dial, agent control, automatic dialing... This is a maintenance release".

Comments (none posted)

Miscellaneous

ALE Server 1.1.2 Released (SourceForge)

Version 1.1.2 of ALE Server has been announced. "logicAlloy ALE is RFID-EPC compliant RFID middleware. ALE collects and processes RFID tag data from RFID readers, then pushes RFID data to ERP apps."

Comments (none posted)

Desktop Applications

Audio Applications

aTunes: Jukebox Power Pack announced (SourceForge)

The first release of the Jukebox Power Pack has been announced. "aTunes is a powerful, full-featured, cross-platform player and manager, with audio cd rip front-end. Currently supported formats are mp3, ogg, wav, wma, flac, mp4, ape, mpc, mac, radio streaming and podcasts. The aTunes, Jajuk and Jukes audio player projects are pleased to announce the start of close collaboration on shared ressources. The three projects aim at providing full-featured cross-platform jukeboxes for advanced users. As a first result, the Jukebox Power Pack has been released. It contains the three applications bundled together."

Comments (none posted)

Desktop Environments

GNOME Software Announcements

The following new GNOME software has been announced this week: You can find more new GNOME software releases at gnomefiles.org.

Comments (none posted)

KDE Software Announcements

The following new KDE software has been announced this week: You can find more new KDE software releases at kde-apps.org.

Comments (none posted)

Xorg Software Announcements

The following new Xorg software has been announced this week: More information can be found on the X.Org Foundation wiki.

Comments (none posted)

Educational Software

iTALC: 1.0.5 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.0.5 of iTALC has been announced. "iTALC aims to be an alternative to commercial software for working with computers in school. Features: monitoring student's activities, help students (remote control), show demo, locking student's screens and much more.."

Comments (none posted)

Interoperability

Wine-doors 0.1.2 released (GnomeDesktop)

Version 0.1.2 of Wine-doors, a Windows application management utility for GNOME, has been announced. "Wine-doors 0.1.2 has been released, this release sees vastly improved exception handling thanks to Andrew Stormont who joined the project after 0.1.1, along with some new features tweaks and various other fixes. We’re also syncing the repos from SVN nightly, this means that we can release apps faster between now and the finalisation of the new application database which is currently being worked on by Sam Taylor."

Comments (none posted)

Mail Clients

The beginning of Thunderbird 3 planning

Thunderbird users may be interested in this message from David Ascher, who is heading up the newly spun-off "MailCo" company. He wants to get a public "milestone" build of Thunderbird 3 in 2008, with calendaring support, better search, better extensions, and more. "Thunderbird's impact is proportional to its user count. Thus driving adoption is my primary concern. Our current user base is very significant (many millions of mostly quite satisfied users), but the number of possible users of Thunderbird is orders of magnitude greater than our current reach."

Full Story (comments: 27)

Video Applications

Dirac 0.9.1 released

Version 0.9.1 of the Dirac video codec has been announced. "This is a minor release complying with Dirac Bytestream Specification 2.1.0."

Full Story (comments: none)

On the road to a Dirac standard (Son of Id)

Thomas Davies reports that the Dirac video codec is on its way to becoming an international standard. "First, Dirac (or part of it) is going to be an international standard. Yay! We made a cut-down version doing intra coding only and this has only just been submitted to the SMPTE. If it goes through it will become VC-2 (Windows Media 9 became VC-1 when they standardised it). After a lot of hard work fighting SMPTE's preferred Word format (yuk) it went in just before Christmas and is being voted on as a Committee Draft as I write this." (Thanks to erwbgy)

Comments (8 posted)

Announcing Miro 1.1: dramatically faster BitTorrent

Version 1.1 of Miro, a video download/watcher application, has been announced. "First, we have dramatically improved performance for torrent downloading and we offer more settings and control (thanks to libtorrent). With this update, Miro is truly a powerhouse for torrent feeds, if I do say so myself. Torrents are still a difficult and mysterious technology for many users, despite the huge bandwidth savings they provide to publishers. We aim to make your torrent experience seamless at worst and invisible at best." The other major change involves getting results from all five search engines at once.

Comments (none posted)

Web Browsers

Mozilla Links Newsletter

The January 17, 2008 edition of the Mozilla Links Newsletter is online, take a look for the latest news about the Mozilla browser and related projects.

Full Story (comments: none)

Mozilla Links Newsletter

The January 27, 2008 edition of the Mozilla Links Newsletter is online, take a look for the latest news about the Mozilla browser and related projects.

Full Story (comments: none)

Languages and Tools

C

GCC 4.3.0 Status Report

The January 28, 2008 edition of the GCC 4.3.0 Status Report has been published. "We are in Stage 3 and the trunk is open for regression and documentation fixes only. When we reach zero open P1 regressions, we will create a release candidate for 4.3.0, branch and announce the opening of Stage 1 for 4.4."

Full Story (comments: none)

Caml

Caml Weekly News

The January 29, 2008 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new articles about the Caml language.

Full Story (comments: none)

Lisp

SBCL 1.0.14 has been released

Version 1.0.14 of SBCL has been announced. "Steel Bank Common Lisp 1.0.14 has been released on 28 January 2007. This version revives OpenBSD support, adds a process exit hook, and fixes many bugs."

Full Story (comments: none)

Perl

This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)

The January 13-19, 2008 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is out with the latest Perl 5 news.

Comments (none posted)

Perl 6 Design Meeting Minutes (use Perl)

The minutes from the January 23, 2008 Perl 6 Design Meeting have been published. "The Perl 6 design team met by phone on 23 January 2008. Larry, Allison, Patrick, Jerry, Will, Jesse, Nicholas, and chromatic attended."

Comments (none posted)

Python

Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links

The January 28, 2008 edition of the Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.

Full Story (comments: none)

Tcl/Tk

Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links

The January 24, 2008 edition of the Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.

Full Story (comments: none)

Editors

ZEmacs: Version 5.0 (SourceForge)

Version 5.0 of ZEmacs has been announced. ZEmacs is: "A bundle of lisp extensions, largely original, for GNU Emacs with the goal to obtain a more user friendly and powerful interface. The new features include contextual tool bars, new TeX interface and much more. I am happy to announce the new version 5.0 of ZEmacs. The new release contains a huge number of bugfixes, improvements, and new packages."

Comments (none posted)

Libraries

iText: 2.0.8 released (SourceForge)

Version 2.0.8 of iText has been announced. "This library contains classes that generate documents in the Portable Document Format (PDF) and/or HTML. Whenever people think of PDF and Java, they think of iText. That's great, but it also involves a lot of responsibility: we have to keep on working on the product; fixing bugs, adding new functionality, making it a better product. The first thing that jumps in the eye with this new release, is the reorganization of the source code."

Comments (none posted)

Page editor: Forrest Cook
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