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NAME

       gerbv - Gerber Viewer

SYNOPSIS

       gerbv [OPTIONS] [gerberfile[s]]

DESCRIPTION

       gerbv  is  a  viewer  for  RS274-X,  commonly  known  as Gerber, files.
       RS274-X files are generated from different PCB  CAD  programs  and  are
       used  in  the  printed circuit board manufacturing process.  gerbv also
       supports Excellon/NC  drill  files  as  well  as  XY  (centroid)  files
       produced by the program PCB (http://pcb.sf.net).

OPTIONS

       Warning!   On  some platforms, which hasn’t long option available, only
       short options are available.

   gerbv General options:
       -V|--version Print the version number of gerbv and exit.

       -h|--help
              Print a brief usage guide and exit.

       -b<hex>|--background=<hex>
              Use background color <hex>. <hex> is specified as an  html-color
              code, e.g. #FF0000 for Red.

       -f<hex>|--foreground=<hex>
              Use  foreground color <hex>. <hex> is specified as an html-color
              code, e.g. #00FF00 for Green. If a user also wants  to  set  the
              alpha (rendering with Cairo) it can be specified as an #RRGGBBAA
              code. Use multiple -f  flags  to  set  the  color  for  multiple
              layers.

       -l <filename>|--log=<filename>
              All  error  messages  etc  are  stored  in  a file with filename
              <filename>.

       -t <filename>|--tools=<filename>
              Read Excellon tools from the file <filename>.

       -p <project filename>|--project=<project filename>
              Load a stored project. Please note that the project file must be
              stored in the same directory as the gerber files.

   gerbv Export-specific options:
       The  following  commands  can  be used in combination with the -x flag:
       -B<b>|--Border=<b> Set the border around the image <b> percent  of  the
       width and height.  Default <b> is 5%%.

       -D<XxY>or<R>|--dpi=<XxY>or<R>
              Resolution  (Dots per inch) for the output bitmap. Use <XxY> for
              different resolutions  for  the  width  and  height  (only  when
              compiled  with Cairo as render engine). Use <R> to have the same
              resolution in both directions.   Defaults  to  72  DPI  in  both
              directions.

       -T<X,Y>|--translate=<X,Y>
              Translate the image by the distance <X,Y>. Use multiple -T flags
              to translate multiple files.

       -O<XxY>|--origin=<XxY>
              Set the lower left corner of the exported  image  to  coordinate
              <XxY>.  Coordinates are in inches.

       -a|--antialias
              Use antialiasing for the generated output-bitmap.

       -o <filename>|--output=<filename>
              Export to <filename>.

       -W<WxH>|--window_inch=<WxH>
              Window size in inches <WxH> for the exported image.

       -w<WxH>|--window=WxH>
              Window  size in pixels <WxH> for the  exported image. Autoscales
              to fit if no resolution is specified (note that the  default  72
              DPI also changes in that case). If a resolution is specified, it
              will clip the image to this size.

       -x<png/pdf/ps/svg/rs274x/drill>|--export=<png/pdf/ps/svg/rs274x/drill>
              Export to a file and set the format for the output file.

   GTK Options
       --gtk-module=MODULE Load an additional GTK module

       --g-fatal-warnings
              Make all warnings fatal

       --gtk-debug=FLAGS
              GTK debugging flags to set

       --gtk-no-debug=FLAGS
              GTK debugging flags to unset

       --gdk-debug=FLAGS
              GDK debugging flags to set

       --gdk-no-debug=FLAGS
              GDK debugging flags to unset

       --display=DISPLAY
              X display to use

       --sync Make X call synchronous

       --no-xshm
              Don’t use X shared memory extension

       --name=NAME
              Program name as used by the window manager

       --class=CLASS
              Program class as used by the window manager

GENERAL

       When you start gerbv you can give the files to be loaded on the command
       line, either as each file separated with a space or by using wildcards.

       The user interface is graphical. Simply press left mouse button and the
       image  will  pan  as  you move the mouse. To manipulate a layer, right-
       click on one of the rightmost buttons. That will bring up a pop-up menu
       where  you  can  select what you want to do with that layer (load file,
       change color, etc).

       If you hold the mouse button over one the rightmost button  a  tooltips
       will show you the name of the file loaded on that layer.

ACTIVATION AND DEACTIVATION OF LAYERS

       You can load several files at one time. You can then turn displaying of
       the layers on and off by clicking on one of the rightmost buttons.

       You can also control this from  the  keyboard.  Press  Alt,  enter  the
       number  on  the  layer  you  want  activate/deactivate on the numerical
       keypad and then release the Alt key.

ZOOMING

       Zooming can be handled by  either  menu  choices,  keypressing,  middle
       mouse  button  or scroll wheel. If you press Alt+I you will zoom in and
       if you press Alt+O you will zoom out. If you press middle mouse  button
       you  will  zoom out, and if you press Shift and middle mouse button you
       will zoom in.  Scroll wheel works if you enabled that in your X  server
       and mapped it to button 4 and 5. You can also zoom in by pressing z and
       zoom out by pressing shift+z (ie Z). You can  make  the  image  fit  by
       pressing f (there is also a menu alternative for this).

       You  can  also  do  zooming by outline. Press right mouse button, draw,
       release.  The dashed line shows how the zooming will  be  dependent  on
       the resolution of the window. The non-dashed outline will show what you
       actually selected. If  you  change  your  mind  when  started  to  mark
       outline,  you  can always abort by pressing escape. By holding down the
       shift key when you press the right mouse button,  you  will  select  an
       area  where  the  point  you  started  at  will  be  the center of your
       selection.

MEASUREMENTS

       You can do measurement on the image displayed. By pressing  shift,  the
       cursor  changes  to a plus. By using left mouse button you can draw the
       lines that you want to measure.  The result of the last measurement  is
       also  displayed  on the statusbar.  All measurements are in the drawing
       until you either zoom, pan or press the escape key.

       The statusbar shows the current mouse position on the layer in the same
       coordinates  as  in the file. Ie if you have (0,0) in the middle of the
       image in the gerber files, the statusbar will show (0,0)  at  the  same
       place.

SUPERIMPOSING

       When  you  load  several  Gerber files, you can display them "on top of
       each other", ie superimposing. The general way to display them are that
       upper  layers  cover  the  layers  beneath,  which is called copy (GTK+
       terms).

       The other ways selectable  are  and,  or,  xor  and  invert.  They  map
       directly  to  corresponding functions in GTK. In GTK they are described
       as: "For colored images, only  GDK_COPY,  GDK_XOR  and  GDK_INVERT  are
       generally useful. For bitmaps, GDK_AND and GDK_OR are also useful."

PROJECTS

       gerbv  can  also  handle projects. A project consist of bunch of loaded
       layers with their resp. color and the background color. The easiest way
       to  create  a  project is to load all files you want into the layer you
       want, set all the colors etc and do a "Save Project As...".

       You load a project either from the menu bar or by using the commandline
       switches -p or --project.

       Currently there is a limit in that the project file must be in the same
       directory as the gerber files to be loaded.

SCHEME

       The project files are simple Scheme programs that is interpreted  by  a
       built  in  Scheme interpreter. The Scheme interpreter is TinyScheme and
       needs a Scheme program called init.scm to initialize itself. The search
       path  for init.scm is (in the following order) /usr/share/gerbv/scheme,
       the directory with  the  executable  gerbv,  the  directory  gerbv  was
       invoked   from  and  finally  according  to  the  environment  variable
       GERBV_SCHEMEINIT.

TOOLS FILE

       Not every Excellon drill file is  self-sufficient.  Some  CADs  produce
       .drd  files where tools are only referenced, but never defined (such as
       what diameter of the tool is.) Eagle CAD is one of such CADs, and there
       are more since many board houses require Tools files.

       A  Tools  file is a plain text file which you create in an editor. Each
       line of the file describes one tool (the  name  and  the  diameter,  in
       inches):

            T01 0.024
            T02 0.040
            ...

       These are the same tools (T01 etc.) that are used in the Drill file.  A
       standard practice with Eagle is to create an empty Tools file, run  the
       CAM processor, and the error report tells you which tools you "forgot".
       Then you put these tools into the file and rerun the CAM processor.

       You load a tool file by using the commandline switches -t  or  --tools.
       The file can have any name you wish, but Eagle expects the file type to
       be ".drl", so it makes sense to keep it this way. Some board houses are
       still  using  CAM  software  from DOS era, so you may want to excercise
       caution before going beyond the 8.3 naming convention.

       When gerbv reads the Tools file  it  also  checks  that  there  are  no
       duplicate  definitions  of tools. This does happen from time to time as
       you edit the file by hand, especially if you,  during  design,  add  or
       remove  parts  from  the  board and then have to add new tools into the
       Tools file. The duplicate tools are a very  serious  error  which  will
       stop  (HOLD)  your  board  until  you  fix the Tools file and maybe the
       Excellon file. gerbv will detect duplicate tools if they  are  present,
       and  will  exit  immediately  to  indicate such a fatal error in a very
       obvious way. A message will also be printed to standard error.

       If your Excellon file does not contain tool definitions then gerbv will
       preconfigure  the  tools by deriving the diameter of the drill bit from
       the tool number. This is probably not what you want, and you  will  see
       warnings printed on the console.

ENVIRONMENT

       GERBV_SCHEMEINIT
              Defines  where  the  init.scm  file  is  stored.  Used by scheme
              interpreter, which is used by the project reader.

AUTHOR

       Stefan Petersen (spetm at users.sourceforge.net): Overall hacker and project leader
       Andreas Andersson (e92_aan at e.kth.se): Drill file support and general hacking
       Anders Eriksson (aenfaldor at users.sourceforge.net) : X and GTK+ ideas and hacking

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright ©  2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Stefan Petersen

       This document can be freely redistributed according to the terms of the
       GNU General Public License version 2.0