This document summarizes enhancements and fixes to GBRVU for Unix. Please consult this page on a regular basis to determine what changes have been made to our programs. This revision history covers:

Display Mode's Added For Fire 9000 and Pentax
This version added controls for dark, reverse area fill (Pentax) display mode and Fire 9000 display mode. Access display mode via View | Display Mode. Aperture Generator
When xgbrvu starts up, 5.51 cannot access aperture generator (xaptgen) until a file is successfully loaded. This version allows users to launch aperture generator at start up and it can run simultaneously together with xgbrvu.

RS274X Import SpeedUp!
Previous versions used a shell parser to scan the RS274X file for apertures and layers. On large files (>1 MB) this process became noticeable slower. The import routine has been rewritten in "C" and now is extremely fast even for 20MB RS274X files.

To give you an idea of the speed up, a 16 MB 274X file required 6 mins to scan with version 5.50 and now requires only 3 seconds to scan with version 5.51.

Fix Bug in Arc Display
In previous versions, the start point of an arc was not used to compose a filled area. This lead to incorrect screen display. (Plotting did not have this problem.) This is now fixed.

Fix Problem in Erractic "Poex" Warning
In previous versions, a warning "One or more POEX figure(s) has(have) only boundary information displayed" might incorrectly appear. This bug might appear even when NO Poex tool was used. This bug is now fixed.

Fix Thermal Tool Rotation Bug
Thermal flashes are defined by 4 values:

 X     - outer diameter
 Y     - inner diameter
 Gap   - gap between spokes
 Angle - rotation of spokes

Example

D10 0.1 d Thermal 0.1  0.06,0.02,0

 0.1 outer diameter
 0.06 inner diameter,
 0.02 gap
 0 degree rotation 

In previous versions, the rotation angle was incorrectly ignored. This is now fixed.

Postscript II Escape Sequence
Older versions would always generate HP escape sequences and these sequences would often mess up non HP Postscript printers. This has been fixed.

Gerber Files Selection
This version restricts user from selecting more than 1 gerber file if RS274X, MDA or Job file is specified. The reason is that GBRVU cannot handle aperture redefinitions and ends up displaying incorrect data if an aperture is redefined in 274X. This restriction will be lifted once better aperture redefinition support is added.

G36/G37 bug fixed
When a G36 code is followed by a standalone D02, the G36 code was ignored. e.g. G36*....*G37*G36*G1D2*X..D1*...

In this example, the transition G37*G36 pair was ignored by previous version. This means that the originally 2 separate polygons were merged incorrectly. This bug is now fixed.

Hanging when Zoom or Pan
When using hot keys to zoom or pan, previous versions might hang, hitting escape would get out of the hanging situation. This has been fixed.

Crash on Solaris 2.5.1
Older versions would crash on 2.5.1 when selecting an aperture. This has been fixed.

Background Color Control Crash
5.40 would crash if the background color control -dabackgd command line option is used. This has been fixed.

New Y2K Compliant License Manager
Recompiled to use the Lserv 4.0 license manager which is Y2K compliant.

Fixed dropped data problem
If a dcode changed but a new D01 was not issued the program assumed that D02 (penup) was now in effect. This has been changed to retain the D01 (pen down) as modal. Reported by OCE

Support for RS274X and MDA file selection on command line
Add -mda and -274x options to select MDA and RS274X file type on the command line. When the Gerber file name is given on the command line, these two options allow automatic file conversion display and plotting.

Update to read RS274X custom aperture correctly
The previous version did not read a RS274X custom aperture correctly when the custom aperture was rotated. This is now fixed.

Support GBRPLOT command lines
Most command line options of the GBRPLOT program are added to GBRVU. This eliminates the need of a separate GBRPLOT program to drive the auto-plotting feature.

Eliminated the need of X-Windows in auto-plotting mode
Added a -noxwin option in command line. When used with -plot option (auto-plotting), GBRVU will no longer launch an X-Windows terminal. This means that GBRVU's auto-plotting feature can be executed on a non-X-Windows terminal or as a system daemon.

Support Gerber filename on command line
When a fully qualified Gerber filename is given on the command line, an automatic job file, named ~gbrvu~.job will be created, and the given gerber file will be added to the job file. This feature eliminates the need of a user defined job file.

Added -waitkey command line option
When -waitkey option is specified, GBRVU will wait for a key license if all valid licenses are used.

Changed maximum of layers allowed from 442 back to 260.This change was needed to prevent a nasty memory overflow problem.

Note: Windows version supports 256 layers only.

Increased layers allowed from 52 to 442
Increasing the allowed number of layers in the database from 52 to 442 allows GBRVU to support RS274X files with numerous polarity changes as well as MDA files with numerous subfigures.

In the previous version there was a problem that caused custom apertures to disappear from the plot output. Flashes using custom apertures (normally used in RS274X or MDA files) were not being plotted. This has been fixed.

Also in the previous version, a 360 degree arc would sometimes get a filled circle in the plot output. This has been fixed.

Ignore M00 at the beginning of data (UNIX)
Some gerber output application generates a M00 or M02 code at the very beginning of a gerber file. M00, M01 and M02 codes, by definition, indicates program stop, optional stop and end of program respectively. Previous versions of gbrvu, therefore, would report an "empty data file" warning. This version will solve this problem by ignoring any M00, M01 or M02 at the beginning of a data file.

For RS274X and MDA users: In previous versions, when a custom aperture was used some drawings would disappear or be drawn incorrectly on the screen and/or the plot output. This has been fixed.

Previously, when a POEX boundary had more than 2750 vertices,the program would crash with a "Signal 11" message. This has been fixed.

Support Mask Empty and Hole For MTOOLS customers:
GBRVU is used to preview MASK files. In previous versions, Empty and Hole entities were treated the same as Filled and Circle. Now, MASK file Empty and Hole entities are now shown on screen as scratched out area.

Some RS274X files crashed the program when a user zoomed in past a certain point. This was due to the routine that locked up when a custom aperture was located outside of the view window. This has been fixed.

GBRVU did not correctly support RS274X files with trailing zero suppression. This has been fixed.

Added the necessary link and key codes between GBRVU and the new MTOOLs 3.20.

Change report template filenames
The original report template filenames: gbrvurpt.d$d and gbrvurpt.t$t were a continual source of problems because the $ sign is a UNIX shell script special character. The template files been renamed to gbrvurpt.d_d and gbrvurpt.t_t. This was done to eliminate problems for CD duplication and distribution.

Zooming in (any scale) might cause random error, such as trash on screen or program crash; this is caused by that the new ARC drawing routine was using an uninitialized array variable. problem fixed.

Forced gbrvu to use opaque plotting when Scratch or Negative layer selected.

Force negative layer plotting to use black filling pattern.

Bug Fix:
Partial arc extent calculation was not correct when the arc passed through 90, 270 or 360 degree cut line.