gerber export problem with copper area's

[stressed_user]

Hi,

Just had a strange thing on a new design...

I'm using version 10.01 Ultiboard... 

I have placed ground tracks and included them into a copper area, connected to the correct net...

So far no problem, but from time tot time the copper area diisapears on my screen.

When doing a DRC check, things get back to normal, all tracks are back into the copper area.

But on this design, when I received the PCB's, the tracks were not connected to the copper area...

probablt because I didn't do a last DRC check before exporting...

So if anyone had this problem, just do a DRC check and it probably gets fine....

By the way, I contacted my PCB producer (Eurocircuits) and they told me that Ultiboard had pretty bad export-data,

Apparently gerbers made by Ultiboard are not very 'production-friendly' , they especially mentioned that Ultiboard had 'weird polygons and copper areas' 

I hope the NI designers read this and can try to improve the gerber export....

And I hope that in time there will be a real manual for the program, one that explains all possible option thoroughly...

Best regards from the rainy country

[kittmaster]

I've seen this export behavior, my fix was in the export > gerber properties : under options.  I made sure I had all the option off except "allow Non-convex polygons" only check.  I saw what you described if I had "merge polygons (slow)" checked.....so make sure it is UNCHECKED.  That solved the problem for me

Message Edited by kittmaster on 08-29-2008 10:03 AM

[stressed_user]

I allready had my settings just as you said, I also found these to be the best...

But even then I had the gerber fault.

On my screen, each time I change a track, my "copper area's" are voiding the tracks aftwerwards....

Only when I do a DRC check, it get's back to the way I want it...

I just found that DRC check trick last week, after 2 years of using UB 🙂

I hope it is usefull to many amongst you

[RnDMonkey]

I've noticed the same behavior with the thermal reliefs for power (in my case, ground) planes. DRC check works for me too. The odd thing is I would expect a "refresh" command to do that.

Just to make sure, I would suggest always verifying the gerbers after export to avoid potentially costly errors. Either use UB to open them back up, or use something like the ViewMate free gerber viewer from PentaLogix. I've used ViewMate and it works fine for that.