GBRVU Unix Revision History

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:

v5.87 (08/09/2004)

RS274X Input
A new RS274X reader which has all the fixes made in the Windows version in the past 1 years.

Plotter Drivers
New plotter drivers for Raster Postscript, TIFF, RTL that support all the latest 274X commands, macros, positive and negative layers etc..

Flexlm Support
New version supports Flexlm license manager as well as the old Lserv license manager.

Linux Version
Linux version is now available.

v5.82 (03/15/2003)

RS274X Input
A new RS274X reader which has all the fixes made in the Windows version in the past 3 years.

v5.72 (03/22/2000) (Motif)

Program Crashed With Thermal Aperture
If the thermal gap value is so large such that the inner arc cannot be drawn, the program would crash. This has been fixed.

v5.71 (06/28/1999) (Motif)

Error Reading Small Gerber Files
Version 5.70 introduced a problem when the Gerber file is small. It would pop up a message "Error reading file '1.gbr'.". This has been fixed.

Special Keywords in Aperture
Older versions would drop information in the aperture file if they are unknown to the aperture module. This version preserves these unknown information.

v5.70 (06/15/1999) (Motif)

D10 to D9999 Apertures
This version supports apertures from D10 to D9999 and a maximum of 10000 custom apertures.

RS274X Custom Apertures
This version imports a RS274X file and generates only 1 rs274mac.x file which contains all custom apertures. Older versions would generate 1 rs274mac.x file per custom aperture. To keep this rs274mac.x file, pass in a -dbg from the command line, or make a copy of the file after the RS274X file is selected and imported.

Default Plot Configuration
This version would make a local copy of plot.cfg in the installation directory and use it's configuration if a local copy of plot.cfg does not exist. Older versions would always default all plot configuration without using the plot.cfg in the installation directory.

VAPE Support
This version supports VAPE commands (for IBM and Midas Vision project).

v5.60 (05/18/1999) (Motif)

Drawings in the Corner
Older versions would draw the drawings in the corner of the home view if one of the layer to draw has no data and another layer has data all in the positives or negatives. This has been fixed.

v5.59 (05/17/1999) (Motif)

Plot Setup Shifting Window Position
Older versions would not remember Plot Setup window position correctly, it would be shifted everytime Plot Setup is accessed. This version remembers exactly the Plot Setup window position.

v5.57 (03/08/1999) (Motif)

Files with Long Extension
Older version would crash when input gerber files have long extension. e.g. 08875.p08.op.v00. This seems to be a common file name format for MDA. This problem has been fixed.

Plot Window Status Message
When plotting, the plotted window is reported in the text area and plot.cfg.

Remembering Windows Position
Older verisons would remember the windows position a little off. This has been fixed.

Output Plotting Information
Output plotting window, paper size and margins information to plot.log file.

Allegro Aperture translator in batch mode
We include now an Allegro aperture translator that can run from a command line. It is very useful for designers who need automatic plotting with no viewing.

Usage is :

allegro.sh allegro_param allegro_aperture acs_apt

Users need to change the allegro.sh file to hold the directory of the location of these 3 files, the variable is PARENTDIR near the top of the file.

Auto Plotting for 274X files
RS274X auto plotting using -274x -plot command line option.e.g.

xgbrvu mygerber.art -274x -plot -iconic.

Auto Plotting for 274D files
RS274D auto plotting using -apt -plot command line option.e.g.

xgbrvu mygerber.art -apt:gerber.apt -plot -iconic.

v5.52 (10/20/98)

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.

v5.51 (10/09/98) (Motif)

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.

v5.42 (06/30/98) (Motif)

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.

v5.41 (06/23/98) (Motif)

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

v5.40 (05/06/98)

Faster Gerber Loading
This version speeds up the reading time of large gerber files by a factor of up to 5X.

Plot/Page Setup
This version remembers both the plot-to-file and custom output settings. For users who toggle between these 2 settings, they don't need to reenter them each time.

Version 5.39 (Motif) 03/30/98

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

Version 5.33 (06/19/97) (non-motif Unix)

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.

Version 5.32 (06/16/97) (non-motif Unix)

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.

Version 5.25 (06/06/97)

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.

Version 5.24 (06/05/97)

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.

Version 5.23 (05/28/97)

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.

Programmers note:
This problem was caused by an uninitialized varaible. If the 360 arc followed a POEX boundary, it would be plotted as a filled circle.

Version 5.22 (04/24/97)

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.

Version 5.21 (04/23/97)

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.

Version 5.20 (04/01/97)

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.

Version 5.19 (03/13/97)

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.

Version 5.18 (01/23/97)

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

Version 5.17 (01/14/97)

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.

Version 5.07 (05/17/96)

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.

Version 5.06 (05/14/96)

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

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