Force Gerber Union engine to output data with target grid precision of Gerber output.
This was done to prevent outputting illegal polygons generated from resulting grid snapping.

GBRVU had an installation problem when using the Sentinel key option. This was fixed.

Gerber union DXF output in circular mode had a .1 mil error in the position of an arc under some conditions. Problem reported by Hortek and was fixed.

Add dialog controls displaying the "Notch Depth" and "Pitch Bounds" in
relation to the current raster settings.  These controls are updated
for the following events:
  (1) When the dialog box comes up
  (2) When the nominal pitch is toggled between the unit and percent
      input
  (3) When the Units are changed in the GUI
  (4) When the "Update Display" button is hit

The problem occurred when the working directory had spaces in it. In this condition and when window(s) have been selected, Gerber Union would fail to generate output.

A division by zero caused this when the format was 3.3 or less.

Add thread number and striping controls.

Gerber view now supports enhanced arc resolution for smoother lines and arc rendering.

Gerber view now supports measurement display in inches, um, and mm

Several new features in the Edge Rasterizer program.
With an option to set droplets diameter, pitch and dpi.
With an option to set the units in inches, um, and mm.
With an option to produce just edge pixels or edge and interior pixels.
Converts Gerber to TIFF.

Product version components includes:
Multiple input files selection.
Option to set the droplets diameter, pitch and DPI.
User defined input data window.
User defined transformation.
Interior droplet filling.
TIFF packbits monochrome output.
Multi-Threaded Boolean supporting up to 4 CPU cores.

Gerber view now support USB keys.

Several new features in the Edge Rasterizer program.
Add Advanced settings.
Change fill mode controls. (i.e. removed multiple sizing and changed scan line label to filled)
Add "Specify Window" dialog controls to window settings.
Add output type controls for Gerber or Tiff output.
Hot key launches Unit Display dialog.
"Offset" field label is changed to "Additional Offset".
Unit display now affects measurement information.

Gerber view now uses the registry to store defaults instead of the gbrvu.ini file.

Gerber Union with circular output had a problem with sizing. This has now been fixed.

At certain zoom levels, a flash is represented as a single pixel if it is too small to draw. The bug was that this was being done for other flashes. This has now been fixed.

Warning messages were appearing in Circular Gbrunion that were not appearing in standard Gbrunion. This has been fixed.

A Bug was fixed for net/node labeling when added from NETEX-G's 
Labels dialog.  Program used to crash.  This has now been fixed.

Label viewing/editing has been designed to dominate over window
selections.  This implies two things:
(a) The Label dialog OK button saves label changes and window
    selections instead of the "Select" button normally found in
    the window selection tool bar of the viewer.
(b) The auto on setting for rectangular window selection is not
    done for label viewing.

Standard Boolean program crash was handled with respect to Delphi problem files set. This has now been fixed.

Circular boolean problems with respect to the Hortek files was fixed. The problems were:
(a) Program errors appeared.
(b) Data was dropped
(c) Polylines that were found open were closed.

This launches a dialog box which controls GBR_RIP from the viewer..

A program crash occurred from changes introduced in v3.06c having to do with setting rectangular selection on initially whenever the selection tool bar appears. This has now been fixed.

File extensions separated by a comma were not recognized. The program has been revised to accept commas as well as semicolons.

Consecutive RS274X SR mass parameters with no draw data in between caused the viewer to display data without arraying it when called for. This has now been fixed.

In attempts to view more than one of the files at the same time, the large number of internal layers in combination with aperture conflicts encountered caused memory corruptions or data truncations in three areas:
(a) Layer Reordering
(b) Aperture Data Collection
(c) RS274X Importing
These have all been handled.

A problem was discovered in plotting traces with rectangular apertures found in aperture conflicts. Traces were drawn incorrectly because of the problem. This has now been fixed.

This image is a fix for Circular Gbrunion with respect to Hortek problem file. It had problems dealing with some overlapping flashes. This has now been fixed..

Users can now load or edit and external aperture file from the File|Aperture sub menu.

Edit/Copy Window mouse event handling same as zoom window.

There was a bug in the extents calculation when using the plot layer separately with window option.

Fixed layer view mode.

Layer table position is now saved from one session to another.

Major changes and enhancements were made to GBRVU and GBRUnion in this release.

added the following information to the file report: Zero Suppression, data mode (absolute/incremental), circular interpolation and data extents (Xmin,Ymin Xmax,Ymax)

Removed buttons to job and aperture file dialogs.

added a button to re-order the layers. This opens a dialog enabling a user to delete layers, move up, move down and reverse order. Very helpful when the order of the layers viewed is important to what you can see.

Added a view mode control (in the layer dialog) with the following options:

by layer - each layer (including internal paint/scratch layers) is assigned its own color rotating through the available colors.

by File - each file is assigned its own color. All internal layers retain the color of the first layer.

as Film - displays all layers with a single color.

Window selection controls now appear in a new toolbar below the main one to allow visibility of all the controls. Previously the window selection toolbars were so far to the right that they could not be viewed on many screens.

Automatic redraw after changing status bar or toolbars to correctly align virtual draws with data.

Created an Advanced dialog box that adds additional options (these were moved from the main GBRUnion dialog because they are set less often.)

Output Grid - controls the resolution of the output file

Sliver - controls the removal of small slivers

Flatten Only - flattens macros without a complete boolean of other data

Outer Template Mesh - unique to Midas applications

Rectangular Partioning - needed for certain large jobs

Sizing Corner Control - options on how to handle corners during sizing (Manhattan, 3 point, 5 point) (added)

The following controls were moved or added to circular boolean advanced:

Rectangular Partitioning

Sizing Corner Control - Angle (added)

GBRUnion now remembers the last output directory specified by the user and will default to that if subsequent union operations are done. [requested by Steve DB]

For RS274 output: ["Single File Output" or "Multi File Output"]

For Other output: ["Single Layer Output" or "Multi Layer Output"]

Fixed a problem involving selection windows. After selections were made, a user could not revert to data extents during the same session.

Partitioning for circular boolean with embedding level is now allowed. Join partitioning for circular boolean now allowed.

Output Grid has been disabled for circular boolean

For any Gerber files containing relevant SR commands, unionization will be done on the data to be arrayed first. This should greatly speed up the unionization of such files.

DXF circular boolean has been currently disabled.

Disallows output filename being the same as any input Gerber file.

Added support for maximum points in Circular Gerber Union.

Added reversal option in Gerber Union to generate an inverse image.

Added data partitioning support, for circular boolean, consistent with standard GBRUNION.

Added window selection support, for circular boolean, consistent with standard GBRUNION.

Problem passing sizing value to circular boolean was fixed.

Added support for RS274D in circular union.

Fixed a bug which caused data to be dropped in Circular Gerber Union.

Added 0 width closed pline support in circular union with DXF output.

GBRUNION users can now export DXF and Gerber data with true arcs as oppose to vectored arcs.

You can now preview the plot before sending it to the printer.
For file output, changes were made that are curently different from legacy version:
(1)Cancel from "Save As" dialog will not continue to plot
(2)Default directory in "Save As" dialog is output directory.

There was a state problem dealing with files that did not end with a scratch layer. This has now been fixed.

Fixed tool bar color button

Removed CTRL KEY DOWN functionality for selection.


THE FOLLOWING EVENTS HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO...
     L. mouse down - drag - release to complete event:



     (a) Zoom Window
     (b) Pan
     (c) Query Window
     (d) Rectangular Selection




The following events have been changed to use L. mouse click - move -
L. mouse click
     to complete event:

     (a) Measure - (Note that measure currently does not work with grid or
object snapping)
     (b) Polygonal Selection



NAVIGATING WHILE IN SELECTION MODE
    Panning:
      middle mouse ,space bar, and ctrl key

    Zooming:
       - add < ctrl + >, < ctrl - >

First release of our new GBRVU.

Theres are four different groups of tool bar buttons:

1. Main for layer, fill/outline, redraw, and stop
2. View for ,home view, zoom window, zoom in, zoom out, view last, and view next
3. Info for point query, window, query, measure, and highlight aperture
4. Plot for plot screen, and plot window.

This button allows user to see layer attribute changes take affect without having to dismiss the layer dialog.

Any number of Gerber (RS274D or RS274X) files can be dragged into the viewer so as to be displayed.

Gerber files are now automatically scanned to detect whether they are RS274X or RS274D to allow window file associations of Gerber files with the viewer.

There are now two choices for data selection:

1. Use data extents
2. Use Window selections

1. Select one of the window buttons, rectangular or polygonal,
2. Select one of the modes, standard, additive, or subtractive to respectively define windows, modify current windows by unionizing current selection to other window(s), and subtracting current selection from other window(s)
3. Hold ctrl button down while defining a given window and use click move click mouse actions to do it. To finish defining a polygon, click on the last point twice.
4. Once all windows are defined hit finish button to complete selection.

Single layer output failed to generate output. This has now been fixed.

If the number of files is around 255, the viewer crashed when trying to write to the job. This has now been fixed.

The size of an internal buffer was reducing the number of files displayed to something less than the actual number of input files. This has been fixed by increasing the buffer size.

Equal drills are not removed anymore.

GBRVU crashed when it was asked to load 24 layers from NETEX-G. This has been fixed.

GBRVU complained when it generated drill files with spaces in the name. This has been fixed.

Added reveresal option in Gerber Union along with XY margin settings for the frame.

This release of GBRUnion (which lives inside of the GBRVU release) uses a new boolean engine that can "repair" certain illegal polygons. This means that the likelihood that a polygon is dropped in the output because the boolean engine deemed it to be illegal (typically a small self-intersecting loop) is reduced or eliminated.

fixed a bug when converting a short path (one where the length is less than the width) turn into a boundary. The old routine might generate an illegal polygon which would be dropped.

The pentax export engine was updated to support flexlm node lock licensing. [Reported by Midas Vision Systems.]

The boolean engine has been updated for improvement of polygon repairing during unionization i.e. small errors in self intersection that would have previously been dropped in the output are now repaired and output.

Added support for full page format in RTL -- forces the bitmap dimensions to be exactly the same as the requested page size. The type of RTL output to choose for this feature is one of the following:

HP650C Color Std FP
HP650C Color Fast Enhanced FP
HP750C Color FP

this is a spinoff from updates to GDSPLOT requested by Hitachi.

The viewer cannot handle dcodes defined in the same layer so it rewrites the Gerber file(s) with the remapping of repeated dcodes into the next available ones.

Arc resolution and arc sag values were always set to 9 and 0 respectively when multiply defined apertures were encountered. This has now been fixed.

The problem occurred when a G75 or G74 gcode was encountered. There was an internal memory buffer that was overwritten after the gcode was read which reased the x value specified in the aperture. This has now been fixed.

Boolean engine was fixed for "File | Export" menu item. When the option was set to link zero width polylines into boundaries, lines that were not linkable were dropped.

The viewer and the Gerber Union modules now support extended format statements such as 3.6 and 4.6.

Force working directory to be the same as the job file when passed as an argument.

The De-Embedding level routine had a bug when running on a computer with dual CPU. It had been fixed.

We have noticed that in some customer files, polygons were created incorrectly - small bow ties were created in points were arcs connect to a line. That would create illegal boundaries in GDSII or EGS. The program is now smart enough to remove such small errors.

The automatic extent calculation in GBRUnion did not account the aperture width. This could have caused data on the very edge of the design to be clipped. This has been fixed.

Previous versions did not properly output Gerber if the "cutline" option was not checked. This version now supports "paint" and "scratch" (also referred to as LPD/LPC in RS274X).

If the cut line button is not checked, the GBRUnion will output a multi-layer RS274X file (assuming this needed) with as many LPD/LPC layers as required to properly create the islands.

GBRVU has a maximum of 8 places dynamic range. Some users were creating Gerber files with formats such as 3.6 or 4.5 which caused GBRVU to behave in an unpredictable fashion. GBRVU now will "clip" the input data using the following rules.

If the input Gerber file is specified as M.N then it will be treated as if it were X.Y by clipping.

Step 1

 if ((N < 1) || (N > 6))   then  Y = 6

                           else  Y = N

Step 2

 if ((M + Y) > 8 )         then  X = 8 - Y

                           else  X = M

Example M.N = 4.5

Step 1: Since N is neither less than 1 nor greater than 6, Y = N = 5

M+Y= 4+5 = 9 which is greater than 8; hence X = 8-5 = 3

the data is clipped to 3.5

GBRUnion smoothing now has the ability to remove multiple co-linear points when they vary by less than 10% of the smoothing value. This was added in response to a file where the area fill strokes leaked out very slightly beyond the outline stroke resulting in a tiny wave in the outline. The field analyzer mesh circuitry picked up on this tiny wave and generated many more triangles than needed. [reported by Corning-Frequency DE.]

Polygon apertures were missing on output whenever multiply defined dcodes were encountered..

Under unique conditions, some traces composed of arcs were being dropped.

Memory leak occurred when multiply defined apertures were detected and there was a large enough number of Gerber files to unionize at once. This has now been fixed.

A program crash occurred whenever a file set was opened containing many internal layers and having multiply defined apertures. This has now been fixed.

The ability to define nets and nodes interactively has been added in order to make this process faster for NETEX-G.

A clipping window can now be defined (using a series of mouse clicks) that is in the shape of a polygon.

When multiple Gerber files that each have paint and scratch internal layers were displayed, the scratch layers from one file interacted with the other files. Fixed.

DXF Layer names were generated using the prefix_suffix. Motorola requested not to use the suffix i.e. input file called test24.gbr would produce a layer called test24_gbr but now produces only test24.

Areas defined with arc and trace combinations were closed improperly. There is currently no closing attempted on such combinations.

Added support for the Flexlm license manager to GBRVU and all submodules including GBRUnion.

The way that multi-layer union works has been modified. If mutliple input files are supplied and union is requested (multi-layer) then the output file for DXF, EGS and GDSII stream will contain a union of each file in a single output layer. Previous to this, all input files were merged into one output. [Requested by Motorola]

If multiple Gerber files were input to GBRUnion and a d-code was redefined between files the GBRUnion output would fail. This has been fixed.

The number of internal layers that is supported was increased to 1024 from the previous limit of 64.

First encounter of a Gerber file that included explicit decimal points. Support for this has been added.

Error data could not be passed properly since v2.57 because the viewer was attempting to open the wrong log file. This has been fixed.

This option has been broken since v2.52 due to problems with log file output. Fixed.

Display problem for files with flashes only

Files that had flashes only on one axis or only a single point were not displayed correctly due to an error in calculating the extents of the data. Fixed.

Sometimes the a Gerber file could not be viewed if an SR statement was encountered. This has now been fixed.

Previous to this one had to have data fully unionized in order to get data sized up or down (GBRUnion). It is now possible to select "Flatten Only" and still get individual polygons sized.

Significant improvement in GBRUnion's boolean operations have been obtained by representing them internally as Leonov polygons (i.e. a parent polygon with children) instead of using cutlines to represent such geometries.

New algorithms in GBRUnion improve the performance when doing large complex union operations.

this effects only the ATG II specialized tool for Midas Vision Systems.

ADDED "-gbrexts:<filename>" ARGUMENT TO GET DATA EXTENTS FROM VIEWER

ALLOW GBRVU'S ENTITY FILTER QUERY TO WORK FROM ATGRULE SHELL OR WHEN ATG KEY IS FOUND

this effects only the ATG II specialized tool for Midas Vision Systems.

ADDED "-datawin:<filename>" ARGUMENT TO DEFINE A DATA WINDOW

ADDED "-vubkgnd:R,G,B" ARGUMENT TO CONTROL VIEWER BACKGROUND

Changed the layer table to right justify the names; for long names the rightmost part displays in the box.

File access synchronization was added to files generated from within tool. This was done because there were times when temporary files were generated for GBRUnion but the tool accessed the file before it was complete.

The MDA Importer (MacDonald Detwiller AutoPlot Format) was fixed.

ADDED "Sensitivity Background..." TOOL

REVISED "Gerber Union" TOOL

Added "Outer Template Mesh" control to filter out mesh holes smaller than the value specified in the "Hole Size" edit field.

ADDED "Adaptive Sizing..." TOOL

1) Key to run is ATG

2) Made "Entity Filter Attributes" more informative.

ADDED ENTITY SEPARATION TOOL

1) Added message box warning to inform user that the magnitude of sizing value cannot be less the Gerber file precision.

2) Changed cursor display while processing to an hourglass so user knows that processing is underway.

3) Fixed a bug that caused program crash due to GBRVUs confusing conflicting DCodes with custom apertures.

4) Fixed a bug that reset the window extents to zero whenever the tool execution was interrupted before completion.

Added error checking for GBRUnion.

Retain the GBRUnion log file after processing complete.

Added a "Flatten Only" option in GBRUnion.

v2.51 11/15/2001

When selected this rebuilds polygons that were cut because they passed through a partition stripe.

The boolean engine can now detect multiple CPU's in order to run in multi-threaded mode.

The viewer's display was not popping up in the foreground under W2K. This has been fixed.

The Gerber Union tool failed to work for a set of RS274D Gerber files when: no layer in position 1 and "cutlines" setting was on.

Additional checks and corrections were added to the exporter module to export valid data even if the Gerber data was not correct.

Revised Geber Union Tool

Snap Settings Are Now Remembered
In older versions the snap settings were not saved from session to session. This has been fixed.

Revised Layer Table Dialog Box
Added controls to globally change the on/off states and paint/scratch/negative states of all active layers.

Gerber Union Layer Control Setting
Added radio button controls labeled "Single Layer Output" and "Multi Layer Output". These control whether or not unionization is done between layers. If "Single...", it is per layer and between layers. If "Multi..." it is only done per layer.

Speed Improvement with Data Clipping
Clip Gerber data prior to union operation. The speed is most noticeable when the user selects only a small part of a layer to booleanize.

Shortened log to report only errors
Prior to this release the log file contained much information making it difficult to spot the warning and error messages. This has been fixed.

Bug fix to clipping rectangular or square traces.
Prior to this version, Gerber draws using a square or rectangular aperture were not correctly clipped at a window boundary. This has been fixed.

Bug fix to plotting rectangular or square traces.
Traces with rectangular or square apertures were incorrectly plotted with half the dimensions of the aperture. This has now been fixed.

BUG FIXES TO RS274X/EXPORT DIALOG

1)When RS274X exporter links or outputs pentax, it checks for zero dimension apertures and changes them to round. The bug was that it mistakingly changed "Custom, Poex, Poin, and Muliply defined types. This has now been fixed.

2)Exporter was failing to output any changes to aperture file that were necessary for linker o pentax. This has now been fixed.

3)The file extension of the output filename was always ".art" regardless of what the user was entering. This has now been fixed.

4)Exporter would crash when SR mnemonic with nonzero rows and columns was detected and found not to have any gerber data following it. This has now been fixed.

BUG FIXES TO GBRVU/X

This was failing to output handle custom apertures. This has now been fixed.

REVISED RS274X/EXPORT DIALOG

Added "Pass Error Data" check box and "Error Dcode" edit box to allow a user to output erroneous data and associate it to a specific DCode.

GBRVU/X BUG FIX

The "Extract Settings" controls labeled "Draws/Flashes" and "Block Flashes" were not working. Data was always solid and flashes were always blocked. This has now been fixed.

BUG FIXES TO VIEWING MASK FILES

1)Circular data was lost when circular mode was specified as 90 in aperture file. This is now ignored for mask file reading.

This tool was not allowing control of Paint and Scratch for files to merge. This has now been fixed.

The tool was crashing upon reading certain Gerber files. The intermediate file generation that precedes unionization was doing a memory access violation when a certain sequence of elements were read. This has now been fixed.

These control how to divide up the "Data Window" that is specified. The divisions appear as rectangular rows and columns. The operation(s) specified are performed within each rectangular area, and any polygons outside or intersecting that area are clipped.

a)The "Rectangular Partioning" check box activates this feature.

b)The "Nx" edit box defines the number of columns.

b)The "Ny" edit box defines the number of rows.

Added "Sliver" settings controls.
When the checkbox is set, polygons that are consistently narrower than the value specified in the editbox are removed.

Added "Gerber Union Memory (MB)"
Edit box control to allow the user to control the memory usage of the tool.

Added Gerber Union Help
Help for the Gerber union (QckBool) is now available.

Added Film Merge Option
A Film merge option has been added to GBRVU enabling a user to import RS274D (or RS274X) files and to then combine one or more of them and export them as either RS274X or MDA (FIRE 9000) files.

This has two applications - 1. to convert RS274D into RS274X making it more reliable to transfer to board mfgs. 2. to combine multiple files generated by the Gerber Union program.

Increased number of vertices from 5000 to 65536
This feature was needed for complex boundaries.

Output File Directory
The output filename's directory could not be set to anything other than what the temporary working directory was set to. This problem only occurred when RS274D or RS274X output was being generated. This is now fixed.

Improved Progress Report
Indicate when Gerber Union tool has completed its task. This means that the tool will show a messagebox indicating "Gbrunion output generated".

Bug fix with memory management
This bug deals with memory allocated during querying. It turns out that large amounts of memory were being allocated but not freed when traversing through a trace. This has now been fixed.

v2.21 04/12/00

The three modules don't come with the standard gbrvu. You will need special key codes to activate these modules.

The following explains the usage of this tool.

1)Use "Tools|Gerber Union..." menu item to launch "Gerber Union"
  dialog box.

2)Set "Gerber Union" dialog box settings wherever necessary:

  a)"Sizing" specifies how much to grow the polygons.  If set to 0.0,
    the polygons will not be grown.

  f)"Smoothing" edit box specifies which line segments to take out.
    Any segments smaller than the length specified are taken out.
	This works with the "Sizing" control and was created to avoid the
	apearance of spikes when sizing.

  c)"Arc Resolution" setting controls how circular data is broken up 
    in degrees.  The finer of the arc resolution and the arc sag is
	used.

  d)"Arc Sag" setting controls how circular data is broken up 
    by specifying the perpendicular distance from an arc chord midpoint
	to the actual arc.  The finer of the arc resolution and the arc sag
	is used.


  e)"Cut Lines" check box controls whether or not to output
    booleanized polygons with cut lines.  If not set, the cut lines are
	replaced by interior polygons drawn on another layer different
	from the target layer.  Otherwise booleanized polygons may appear
	with cutlines.


  f)"Output File Name" is the name of the output file that will be
    generated.

3)Hit OK and the tool will generate the booleanized file in the selected format.

v2.19 10/22/99

Moire support added
Moire targets are now supported in both the viewing and plotting modules.

Vape key validation changed
There is no longer key error messages appearing for VAPE activation. The viewer will now simply gray the related menu item, "Tools|Translators|Model 714 VAPE", whenever there is an absence of a valid key for VAPE.

v2.17 7/30/99

The converter from VAPE to RS274X was modified so that VAPE flashes can be converted to draws and VAPE draws are approximated using round apertures.
Requested by Midas Vision Systems.

v2.16 7/15/99

A converter from VAPE to RS274X is also available now as a separately licensed translator. This converts each VAPE command to either a G36/G37 polygon or to an rectangular aperture. This function is not available unless specifically ordered and the correct license code installed.

Fixes to Postscript Output
Some fixes to the Postscript plotter driver were made. These are primarily for those who wish to use GBRVU to drive very high resolution imagesetters.

v2.12 6/9/99

BUG FIX TO QUERYING TRACE STARTING WITH ARC
Before the fix, the querying would start at the arc's center point, rather than its starting point. This has now been fixed. Reported by Bernie from Filtran.

v2.11 4/19/99

LAYER NAMES IN QUERY NOW MATCH ONES IN LAYER TABLE
The query box, displayed by the viewer, no longer shows RS274X internal layers in the @:FILE_POS format.

VIEW FAILED TO RECOGNIZE SOME ACTIVE APERTURES
Whenever a set of layers shared a dcode number that varied in definition, those dcodes would not appear in the "Highlight Aperture" dialog box, and the "Aperture Table" dialog box would not show them as being used in the Gerber files being viewed. This has now been fixed.

v2.10 2/9/99

QUERYING FIXED FOR MULTIPLY DEFINED D-CODES IN RS274X
When querying flashes of these d-codes, the wrong flash would be displayed in the querying area. This has now been fixed.

WIN98 BUG FIX FOR IMPORTING RS274X FILES W/ MULTIPLY DEFINED D-CODES
The flashes inserted had the wrong dcode type and dimension when the same d-code was used for two or more aperture definitions accross a set of files imported. Problem only happens on Windows 98. This has now been fixed.

ADDED REPORT OF PLOT WINDOW COORDINATES
Each time the viewer outputs a plot, the window coordinates of the desired plot will be stored in the plot.cfg file. The information appears like the example below: pltcfg.PLOTWINDOW: 37216,36533 50073,43073 The first and second pair of numbers are the minimum and maximum coordinates respectively.

BUG FIX WHEN SWITCHING JOB FILES
The viewer would simply crash when opening a job file after having opened another set of Gerber files. This has now been fixed.

PLOT ONE LAYER AT A TIME
GBRVU/W can plot one file at a time from a set of imported files being viewed. This change means the following:

1)An added menuitem, "Plot|Plot Layers Seperately".

2)A check box labeled "Plot layers seperately"  has been added to the 
  "Plot Window" dialog box to control the same thing.  Remember that
  the dialog box is launched from the "Plot|Plot Window Coords..."
  menuitem.

3)The setting affects all three kinds of plotting:

    a)Screen Plotting

    b)Window Plotting

    c)Plot Window Coordinate

3)The default setting is off.

4)For MDA and RS274D a layer plotted is an imported file.

5)For RS274X a layer plotted is an imported file with all the layer 
  polarities contained in it.

SCREEN SAVING AND DUMPING IS DONE FOR MOST REDRAWS
A window appearing and disappearing over the viewer use to cause a redraw on the area covered. This functionality has been changed to do a screen dump rather than a redraw.

IMPORTED RS274X FILE WAS SOMETIMES COMING UP EMPTY
A file without a G-code preceding its first LP mnemonic, caused the viewer to think the file was empty.

v2.08 12/23/98

1)Additions were made to "Aperture" dialog box.

  a)Aperture Table Dialog shows a new type, "Extended", for d-code types
    for d-code numbers referring to more than one kind of aperture.  

  b)Clicking on the d-code button of this type will launch a "D-code" 
    dialog box showing layers and corresponding aperture type of the
	d-code.

  c)"Custom" and "Extended" type d-codes are read only.  They can only
    be removed.  This is done to prevent a user from accidently changing
	these kinds of apertures and realizing later that there is no way 
	to get them back.
	
	To remove an "Extended" type, do the following:
	  - Click on d-code button.
	  - After "D-code" dialog box appears, hit "OK" button.
	  - Click "Clear Line" button of "Aperture" dialog box.

	To remove a "Custom" type, do the following:
	  - Click on d-code button.
	  - After "Types" dialog box appears, select "" and hit "OK"
	    button.

2)The aperture file represents the "Extended" type as DCPointer as shown
  below:

		D24 0 d DCPointer 26,1101;38,1102;

  The example above defines d-code 24 as being, d-code 1101 in layer 26
  and d-code 1102 in layer 38.

v2.07 12/11/98

Increased number of macros from 256 to 1024. [requested by SteveDB to support Allegro/APD RS274X files with hundreds of apertures for BGA design applications....

Dramatic Speed Increase in RS274X Import.
Removed the awk based Gerber parser and replaced with a compiled parser. Speed improvements of up to 50X during importation. Requested by Steve DB to load large Gerber files generated by Allegro.

v2.06 12/10/98

    Circle Control	(Circle or Polyline) [default=polyline]

v2.05 10/28/98

1. Off [default]
2. Self Intersect
3. Self Intersect & Reentrant

BUG FIX TO REVERSE DISPLAY MODE
Fixed a bug in version 2.04 which broke the reverse area fill display mode. This mode is often referred to as Pentax mode because it emulates the behavior of the Japanese Pentax photoplotter.

BUG FIX TO FIRE 9000 DISPLAY MODE AND MORMAL DISPLAY MODE
The Fire 9000 mode automatically sets the self intersecting and reentrant polygon check mode while Normal turns off checking. The default display mode is now Normal.

v2.04 09/21/98

The Extract settings dialog has been changed to control :

    Draws Control	(Connectivity or Graphics)
    Draws/Flashes	(Solid or Outline)
    Block Flashes	(Blocked or Exploded)
    AutoCAD R14		(On or Off)

Added SR support to Extract
Extract selection has been fixed to work with layers that are stepped and repeated bt RS274X SR mnemonics.

v2.03 07/28/98

Interupt of Screen Display Fixed for Custom Apertures
Hitting the escape key normally interrupts drawing on the screen, but interrupting custom aperture draws could not be done. This condition can be annoying if the custom aperture contains a lot of data. This has now been fixed.

Auto Detection of RS274X, MDA and RS274D Added
The user can either let the viewer detect and import GBR files or force a specific kind of import. The user can also define file extensions from the File | Preferences | File Extensions menu item.

Opening an Existing Job File
A user can select job files from the available file types in the combo box labeled "Files of Type:", in the "Open GBR File" dialog box. This will open a set of Gerber files and their corresponding aperture file. automatically.

Aperture Conversion has been broken out Separately
When opening RS274D gerber files, the user is prompted for an aperture file. If the file selected is not an Artwork aperture file, the user will be instructed to use the aptgen program to first convert his aperture list into Artwork's apt file format.

the new Aperture Generator can be started either stand alone or from the Tools | Aperture Generator .... pulldown.

POEX Check Default to OFF
The setting which checks for illegal polygons is initially off. If on, all illegal polygons will be displayed with an error color and outlined instead of filled. The setting can be found in the "File|Preferences|Poex Check" menuitem. When it's checked, it's on.

DXF Layer Colors in GBRVU/X Fixed
The layer colors in the DXF file now correctly match the layer colors that one sees in GBRVU.

Added TIFF Output
Added the TIFF output format to the plotter driver set. Enables Users to get high resolution TIFF output.

Version 1.95 12/12/97

Fixed bug interaction between SR and Custom Aperture

Fixed Bad Mouse Action

Excellon Format

Confuses String for M-Code Fixed

Fixed Wrap around in Raster Plotter Driver

Version 1.89 06/16/97

Plot Extents Calculation Bug

Version 1.88 06/12/97

Version 1.87 06/11/97

Bug when reading mask file

Bug when drawing and plotting thermal square flashes

Support A4 to A0 Plot Paper Size

Step and repeat (MASS PARAMATER "SR") support added

Version 1.85 (04/24/97)

Long file names restriction

Bug fix: Truncating Layername in Job File

Skipping non-gbr drawing header information

Version 1.84 (04/21/97)

Bug Display of Custom Apertures w/Traces = (LINES AND ARCS)

FIRE 9000 Display Bug

Memory allocation bug for plotting

DXF Extract bug for RS274X Layer Polarity

Version 1.79 (11/01/96)

this version ships with 5.41 of ASM 500 family for Windows...

Grid and Object Snap Added The ability to snap either to objects (vertices of draws, centers of flashes) or to a user defined grid has been added. Snap is controlled from the FILE | PREFERENCES dialog.

Fixed memory bug in Extract Module The DXF eXtract module incorrectly allocated and locked memory. This has been corrected.

Version 1.76 (08/01/96)

this version ships with 5.38 of ASM 500 family for Windows....

CR/LF and Suppress Leading Zero Parameters GBRVU was ignoring the value of CR/LF and Leading Zero Suppression present in the .apt file and was rewriting them to the default value. If a user had turned on CR/LF in ASM 50x then GBRVU would modify the .apt file to turn it back off. This has been fixed so that these settings are no longer ignored (and modified) by GBRVU

Circles, arcs and FIRE 9000 emulation While testing MTOOLs 3.10 we detected that GBRVU would fail to display as filled a 360 degree arc (essentially a circle). We also determined that two such concentric arcs were confused as a illegal POEX boundary. Both conditions have been fixed.

Version 1.74 (07/18/96)

this version ships with 5.37 of ASM 500 family for Windows....

• Improved import of RS274X

• Fixed the problem where GBRVU plotting could not remember the last selected printer. This was a problem for network printers.

• added auto-rotation option for page size. When plot sizing is set to FIT, and page orientation is set to autorotate, the program will analyze the selected plot window and rotate the page to create the largest area plot. Autorotation is disabled when plot scale is set to a fixed value.

Version 1.71 (04/17/96)

this version ships with 5.35 of ASM 500 family for Windows....

• Maximum number of layers supported increased from 64 to 256.

• Fixed the viewing of RS274X films generated by the film merge routine of ASM 50x.

• Made several improvements to support for RS274X files:
  • Increased number of internal layers from 64 to 256.
  • Fixed a bug related to display of custom apertures in 274X files with multiple layers.
  • Fixed an anomaly that occured when the very first internal layer was not preceded by LPD. Although the 274X spec implies that each layer should be preceded by either LPD (dark) or LPC (clear) we ran into some files that did not declare LPD before the first layer. (requested by Bob Devraes of Sheldahl.)

• Added HP RTL drivers as part of the standard distribution for GBRVU/W. RTL is HP's raster transfer language used for driving color inkjets. This will enable users to plot to HP 500C, 550C, 560C, 600C, 660C, 650C and 750C color plotters.