#Diptrace to vector pdf#
#Diptrace to vector software#
#Diptrace to vector trial#

My current project involves a cap touch panel with a large number of buttons using GS I can 'print' my board layout to a PDF and then import that into my vector editor, AutoDesk Graphic. It's so handy to be able to 'print' a schematic directly to a PDF. I love GS as well! I've got it setup in my Windows 7 VM to provide a virtual PDF printer. I use it under macOS, but it should work under Windows just fine if you've got Ghostscript. Now, that may not be important in Eagle, it might support DXF files with splines, I'm not sure DipTrace doesn't, so it's very nice to be able to convert them to polys. You can also add switches that can convert splines to polys or even polys to lines, and you can do it with whatever precision you desire (which controls how many points it produces when turning a spline to a poly or a series of lines). For instance, you can convert to two different types of dxf files: Plain DXF and DXF_S (which supports splines). One nice thing about pstoedit is it gives you fine grain control over the conversion.

#Diptrace to vector software#

I see it uses ghostscript, which I've used in the past (along with GSView) for effectively turning my printer into a Postscript printer (which allows me to print halftone film positives for screen printing you'd normally need a Postscript printer or RIP software (such as Accurip) to do that.Įxactly! Since you've got Illustrator, you should be able to churn out pretty much anything you'd need vector wise. It sounds like pstoedit may be just as good, and it's free. DXF, and that did a beautiful job ('pdf2cad'), no issues even when extruding to 3D.

#Diptrace to vector trial#

I had a trial program whose sole function was to convert.

As long as they stay 2D they are fine, but I've seen some weird anomalies when extruding them to 3D. DXF, though there are sometimes issues with its. Plus, I've been using Illustrator for about 12 years, so that alone makes things a lot easier. This would be especially good for the silkscreen layer, because in Illustrator I can match text exactly, even if I don't have the correct font. I really like this idea, because I can very accurately reproduce almost anything in Illustrator the drawing tools are far superior to anything you'd find integrated into a PCB design program drawing is Illustrator's specialty, and it's the de facto industry standard. During import, DipTrace let's you assign each DXF layer to something different (pads, top and bottom copper, silk, paste, etc.), which allowed me to have a fully editable version of the board that I could produce Gerbers from. (Be aware the import will flatten the image to black and white (not grayscale), so you might want to do that yourself in a image editor before hand.) Edit: Once I scanned an old PCB and separated the traces from pads into separate layers using my photo editor, then I ran the layers through an online raster to vector converter, took the resulting SVGs and converted them to a single multilayer DXF and imported it into DipTrace. So long as you crop and scale your image in a vector editor (GIMP/PhotoShop/Pixelmator) it should work fine.

For raster images, DipTrace will also allow you to apply a BMP/PNG/JPEG as a Silk/Assembly/Paste/Copper layer. If you have a PDF file that contains a layout, you can use 'pstoedit' to convert it from PostScript to DXF. DipTrace can import DXF and Gerber files.