Dear Colleagues, The many gerber files I have seen can be divided into two categories, according to how the geometrical figures (apertures) of the land patterns are generated: o Apertures declared as stand alone geometrical figures (e.g. a rectangular 100x200 pad is declared as a 100x200 rectangle) o Apertures generated by successive positions of a smaller element (e.g. 100x200 rectangle generated by adjoining twenty 100x10 lines) The second version does not come handy at all when trying to measure the center of an aperture with a gerber viewer. Questions: o How is each of them generated? o Are there CAD systems that can only generate the latter? o Any precautions that can be taken by the designer so that only the first one be generated? o If I want to call each method by its technical name, what would that be? Thank you, Ioan Tempea, ing. Ingénieur Principal Fabrication / Sr. Manufacturing Engineer 30 ans déjà! - Already 30 years! 950 rue Bergar, Laval, Québec, H7L 5A1 t : 450-967-7100 ext : 244 Mtl : 514-990-5762 f : 450-967-7444 [log in to unmask] www.digico.cc <http://www.digico.cc/> P N'imprimer que si nécessaire - Print only if you must --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------