Gerber to 3d model?

[lamed]

Hi guys!
First of all, let me just say I know very little about electronics...
I am a solidworks user. All I'm trying to do is get a gerber file into solidworks in a 3d-fashion; I don't care about any metal layer at all, I just need the pcb shape with the 3d components on it in solidworks.
SW is very able to do just that using the internally built functionality of circuitworks, but only for idf files.
circuitworks's faq says: ..."As Gerber is basically a 2D plot format it doesn't contain the height information CircuitWorks for SolidWorks needs to create 3D solid models in SolidWorks."

-obviously, I can't get idfs, just gerber files.
-I need to do that in order to get things into place. It's a very tight fit and I have to sustain a minimal distance between other components without colliding.

So, what way can I use to automatically get the size and shape of components off the gerber file?
do gerbers carry names of components that some translator program might be able to use...?


I have been looking quite a lot into the subject lately in order to do this, but all I could find was about getting the upper metal layer into solidworks, either by converting to dxf or idf, or even iges, nothing about getting the 3d representation.

Thanks, I hope that's the right forum for my question and that I wasn't too ambiguous...

Shawn.

[Skip Yutkus]

Gerbers only contain x/y parameters to produce film for manufacturing PCB's there is no component information, even the text you see in gerbers is drawn and not inelligent, if you can't get the IDF or design file, you'll have to try and reverse engineer with what you have, and that will probably take more time than designing the board did.

Skip

[lamed]

Thanks skip! That's what I was thinking...

So let me ask you this, What's the normal workflow for making pcbs?
I suppose one would work in an environment that can 'remember' and save to files information such as components sizing and names (like idf files can)
and then, for the making of the pcb he would export the circuit to the various gerber files to feed into cnc machines.

or in other words, I would think gerber is 'dumb'er then idf, and it is used mainly on the fabrication stage, whereas the more advanced system of idf and such, is used for designing.

am I right?

Shawn

[morgandeo]

Hi lamed,
I have few information on gerber. GBR is a translator that converts the binary STL format into an Gerber photoplot file. The user can specify one or more Z-heights and the converter will "slice" the 3D model this height to create a 2D film.STL (stereolithography) output is produced by virtually all 3D design/modeling software including SolidWorks, ProEngineer and AutoCAD Inventor.

[varora]

DXF output from PADS tranfers "Z" info if the part type has "componet height" attribute is defined.

Convert component outline(s) to solid.

[artworkconversion]

Even though Gerber is 2D, you can associate height to each layer and then convert that to a 3D format.
We already offer such a tool for simulation tools like Ansoft/Ansys and AWR.

We are currently working on a Solidworks 3D importer. We do have a 2D importer now..

Regards

Hagai
hagai@artwork.com

[RLS]

It amazes me that some pcb assembly houses do not ask (or want) xy position data with the gerbers. Some how their software recognizes "standard" pcb footprints and uses that to place parts on the board.
Perhaps your assembly house could provide you with a file of xy location and package type (footprint). You could then add geometric.height info in SolidWorks or cross reference footprint to SW model of each part.
Any chance you can get ascii out data from the cad system? Instead of IDF, we used ascii out from Pads Layout which we imported into Circuit Works and then SW. Good Luck. RLS

[artworkconversion]

We now have a tool that will import your PCB design in ODB++ (or Gerber) to SolidWorks. You can read about it here:
http://www.artwork.com/solidworks/read3di/index.htm

Hagai Pettel
hagai@artwork.com