Gerbv vis

This Python script allows visualizing gerber files for a PCB project using gerbv (http://gerbv.geda-project.org/). It generates a project file for gerbv which references the gerber files and then launches gerbv in headless mode to generate image files.

Requirements

Apart from having gerbv installed the script itself relies only on built-in Python libraries.

Usage

The only required argument is the path to a directory with gerber files.

usage: gerbv_vis.py [-h] [--format FORMAT] [--dpi DPI] [--output OUTPUT]
                    [--gerbv GERBV] [--show-paste]
                    path

positional arguments:
  path             Path to gerber files

optional arguments:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  --format FORMAT  Export format (png|pdf|ps|svg def. png)
  --dpi DPI        Board resolution as DPI (def. 300)
  --output OUTPUT  Output path (def. gerber path)
  --gerbv GERBV    Path to Gerbv binary (def. '/usr/local/bin/gerbv')
  --show-paste     Enables showing of paste layers

Gerber files discovery

The script automatically discovers gerber/drill files in the given directory. So far it has been tested only with gerbers generated using KiCad with the "Use Protel filename extenstions" option enabled.

The generic reognized gerber/drill file naming convention is <project_name>-<layer_name>.<extension>. Files for more than one project can be present in the same directory.