gerbv Logo

gerbv - A Free Gerber Viewer

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. Note that gerbv will not display RS-274D files! The basic difference between RS-274D (the old standard) and RS-274X is the addition of apertures in RS-274X. If you have an RS-274D file, you need to convert it to RS-274X before viewing it with gerbv. Fortunately, almost all PCB layout programs output RS-274X nowadays.

Gerbv also supports drill files. The format supported is known under such names as NC-drill or Excellon. The format is a bit undefined, and different EDA-vendors implement it differently. But basically you need to have the tools definition in the file, then the parser is quite tolerant. The different holes are shown as dots in the (scaled) correct size.

Finally, gerbv will also display many pick-and-place files. To view a pick-and-place file with gerbv, the file should hold X, Y, rotation, and placement side data (XYRS), as well as the refdes of each component to be placed. The data should be held in a comma-separated ASCII (.csv) file.

The different layers of the PCB are separated into different files. gerbv can load all files at the same time and display them "on top of each other". You can independently turn them on and off. Other features include the ability to change the displayed stackup (i.e. move layers up and down), save a project file that lists a collection of gerber files and associated color setup for later use, and a measurement tool. Finally, you may export your files to .pdf, .ps, .png, and .svg format.

General Resources

Packaging and porting

System Requirements

gerbv is dependent on a couple of different external libraries: Earlier gerbv was known to use Guile. Since release 0.0.9 this has been removed. The batch feature and Guile support is removed.
gerbv is known to compile on all system which the above mentioned libraries compile on, basically all flavors of *ix. It has been tested on:

Support

An attempt to gather information on different CAD-programs and how to use them with gerbv:

Competition?

This is a list of programs for *ix that can view and manipulate Gerber files:

Is there going to be windows version?

The reason I started this project was the lack of Gerber viewers for Linux. But now Juergen Haas has actually made a port of gerbv that is available here. Please note that this is a beta and there might be quirks and problems, but it is useable.

I have actually got several indications that the regular Windows Gerber viewers are actually too complicated to use. So this might be an alternative for you to try out if you find the other programs too complicated to use.

If you don't like gerbv there is a list of gerber viewers here. They are free as in free beer.

License

gerbv and all associated files is placed under the GNU Public License (GPL) version 2.0. See the toplevel COPYING file for more information.

Programs and associated files are:
Copyright © 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by Stefan Petersen and the respective original authors (which are listed in respective files).

Status

Install

Submitting a patch or addition to gerbv

gEDA and gerbv Internet resources

Contact information

Archives

SourceForge Logo
$Id: index.html,v 1.76 2008/04/14 20:13:06 spetm Exp $