Ronald J. Ryan wrote:
>We have a need to recreate printed circuit board artwork from an
>existing double sided board that was manufactured from hand taped
>artwork. Unfortunately all we have is the board. Our Cad system is
>PADS and AutoCad.  Any suggestions?? There are around 100 equivalent
>ICs.

Mark Ross wrote:
>There are design services out there that can scan the board.  They
>are not always completely accurate  so I don't know how exact the
>board has to be but it is possible to scan a circuit board in and
>recreate useful Gerber data.  If you are trying to recreate an
>intelligent database from it that may be another issue entirely.


If you really need an intelligent database, you could export DXF data
from the Gerber files, then import the DXF into your CAD system.  The
traces would appear as dumb graphics which you can use as a pattern,
over which you manually add parts and intelligent traces.  This way
you can recreate the artwork fairly well, but also get things on grid.
Extra work, but useful if you need an insertion file, netlist, etc.

Ron James
UT Electronic Controls