gerber-to-svg API

Create a gerber-to-svg converter like:

var gerberToSvg = require('gerber-to-svg')
var converter = gerberToSvg(input, options, [callback])

input
- options
streaming API
callback API
static methods
- clone
- render
events
output
public properties
- parser and plotter
- defs
- layer
- viewBox
- width and height
- units

input

The function can either take a utf8 encoded string or a utf8 encoded readable-stream. For example:

var gerberToSvg = require('gerber-to-svg')
var fs = require('fs')

// input a readable-stream
var gerberStream = fs.createReadStream('/path/to/file.gbr')
var streamConverter = gerberToSvg(gerberStream, 'my-gerber-file')

// input a string
fs.readFile('/path/to/file.gbr', function(error, gerberString) {
  var stringConverter = gerberToSvg(gerberString, 'my-gerber-file')
})

options

The function must be passed an options object or string. If passed a string, it will be used as the options.attribute.id value. You may also use options.id in place of options.attributes.id. An id must be defined. The following options are available:

svg options

key	value	default
id	String	See below
attributes	Object	See below
createElement	Function	`xml-element-string`
includeNamespace	Boolean	`true`
objectMode	Boolean	false

parsing and plotting options

key	value	default
places	[int, int]	Parsed from file
zero	'L' or 'T'	Parsed from file
filetype	'gerber' or 'drill'	Parsed from file
units	`mm` or `in`	Parsed from file
backupUnits	`mm` or `in`	'in'
nota	`A` or `I`	Parsed from file
backupNota	`A` or `I`	'A'
optimizePaths	`true` or `false`	`false`
plotAsOutline	Boolean or Number (in mm)	`false`

id and attributes options

The id and attributes options are used to set additional attributes of the top-level SVG node. Either the id option or attributes.id is required. id should be unique to avoid display problems with multiple SVGs on the same page.

Some good candidates for other attributes to specify are:

color - Fills and strokes are set to currentColor, so setting color will change the color of the entire layer
width and height - By default, the width and height will be the real world dimensions of the layer, but you may want to set them to 100% for display purposes
class or className (depending on your createElement function) - self explanatory

element options

createElement, includeNamespace and objectMode allow you to generate renders in a different format than the default XML string. createElement is a hyperscript-style function that takes a tagName, attributes map, and children array. The default createElement function is provided by xml-element-string.

var defaultCreateElement = require('xml-element-string')

var customCreateElement = function(tagName, attributes, children) {
	// create an element somehow
	return 🍩
}

The includeNamespace attribute is complementary to the createElement function, and determines whether the xmlns: 'http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' attribute will be included in or omitted from the attributes parameter of createElement. In certain virtual-dom implementations, you will need to set includeNamespace to false to avoid problems with document.createElementNS.

objectMode needs to be set according to whether createElement returns a string (objectMode: false) or anything else (objectMode: true). If objectMode is set to true, the converter stream will be in object mode and emit objects instead of buffers.

parsing and plotting options

These options are available in case you have an older or poorly formatted file that does not contain the necessary format information and does not conform to the assumptions this library makes in the absence of that information. Some knowledge of the Gerber and Excellon formats are helpful when trying to understand these options.

For more information, please reference the API documentation of gerber-parser and gerber-plotter, as these options are passed directly to these modules.

key	description
places	The number of places before and after the decimal used in coordinates
zero	Leading or trailing zero suppression used in coordinates
filetype	Whether to parse the file as a Gerber file or as a NC drill (Excellon) file
units	Units of the file
backupUnits	Backup units only to be used if units cannot be parsed from the file
nota	Absolute or incremental coordinate notation
backupNota	Backup notation only to be used if the notation cannot be parsed
optimizePaths	Rearrange trace paths to occur in physical order
plotAsOutline	Optimize paths and fill gaps smaller than 0.00011 (or specified number) in millimeters

streaming API

The object returned by the function is a readable-stream. That means that the normal data, readable, error, etc. events are present, as well as the pipe method.

var gerberToSvg = require('gerber-to-svg')
var fs = require('fs')

var gerberStream = fs.createReadStream('/path/to/file.gbr', {encoding: 'utf8'})
var streamConverter = gerberToSvg(gerberStream, 'my-gerber-file')

// pipe the output to the stdout stream
streamConverter.pipe(process.stdout)

callback API

Alternatively, if you don't like streams, you may pass in a callback function to be called when the conversion is complete. It is passed any error that occurred, and the result of the conversion if no error. The function will still return a readable-stream.

var gerberToSvg = require('gerber-to-svg')
var fs = require('fs')

fs.readFile('/path/to/file.gbr', {encoding: 'utf8'}, function(fsError, gerberString) {
  if (fsError) {
    return console.error('fs read error - ' + fsError.message)
  }

  gerberToSvg(gerberString, 'my-gerber-file', function(error, svg) {
    if (error) {
      return console.error('gerber to svg error - ' + error.message)
    }

    console.log(svg)
  })
})

static methods

The factory function also includes several static methods for working with the converter objects.

clone

Clones the public properties of a converter (expect for parser and plotter) to a simple object for storage and/or caching.

gerberToSvg.clone(converter)

var gerberToSvg = require('gerber-to-svg')
var cloneConverter = gerberToSvg.clone

// or, for smaller builds
var cloneConverter = require('gerber-to-svg/lib/clone')

var converter = gerberToSvg(input, options, function(error, result) {
  var converterClone = cloneConverter(converter)
  storeSomehow(converterClone)
})

render

Returns the SVG from a completed converter or a clone of a completed converter.

gerberToSvg.render(converter, idOrAttributes, [createElement, includeNamespace])

converter is the original gerber-to-svg converter or a clone of it
idOrAttributes is a string element id or an object of attributes
- If it is an object, an id field is required
createElement is an optional function to use to create elements
- Default: xml-element-string
- If used, must be the same createElement used in the original conversion
  - The API of createElement is hyperscript style: (tag, attributes, children) => element
  - Can be used to create a VDOM element rather than an SVG string
includeNamespace is an optional flag that determines whether the xmlns attribute is passed to createElement (defaults to true)

var gerberToSvg = require('gerber-to-svg')
var renderConverter = gerberToSvg.render

// or, for smaller builds
var renderConverter = require('gerber-to-svg/lib/render')

var converter = getConverterCloneSomehow()
var id = 'my-cool-id'

var svgString = renderConverter(converter, id)

events

The stream events of data, readable, end, close, and error are present as described in the readable-stream documentation

The returned object can also emit warning events. The warning object passed to the event handler is of the format:

{
  message: WARNING_MESSAGE,
  line: LINE_IN_GERBER_FILE
}

Warnings are non-fatal, but if they are present, it may be an indication of an incorrect or unexpected render. Generally, if the warning message says something about a "deprecated" command, you don't need to worry. If the message says something about an "arc" or a "flash" being "ignored", or anything being "assumed", you may get unexpected results. Most likely this is the result of poorly generated Gerber file.

converter.on('warning', function(w) {
  console.warn('warning on line ' + w.line + ' - ' + w.message)
})

output

The output will be a string of an SVG node with the following format:

<svg
  id="${id}"
  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
  version="1.1"
  xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
  width="${width}${units}"
  height="${height}${units}"
  viewBox="${xMin * 1000} ${yMin * 1000} ${width * 1000} ${height * 1000}"
  stroke-linecap="round"
  stroke-linejoin="round"
  stroke-width="0">

  <defs>
    <!-- example pad definition -->
    <circle cx="0" cy="0" r="200" id="${id}_pad-10"/>
  </defs>

  <g
    transform="translate(0,${1000 * (yMin + yMax)}) scale(1,-1)"
    fill="${color}"
    stroke="${color}">

    <!-- example pad flash -->
    <use x="1000" y="1000" xlink:href="#${id}_pad-10"/>
    <!-- example stroke -->
    <path stroke-width="5" fill="none" d="M 400 400 400 200 200 200"/>
    <!-- example region -->
    <path d="M 0 0 100 0 100 100 0 100 0 0 Z"/>
  </g>
</svg>

Note that units are scaled by 1000. This is to ensure proper rendering in Firefox, which has a slightly buggy SVG implementation.

public properties

The returned object also contains several public properties. Any properties not listed here should be considered private.

property	type
parser	`gerber-parser` parser
plotter	`gerber-plotter` plotter
defs	Array
layer	Array
viewBox	Array
width	String
height	String
units	String

parser and plotter

The parser and plotter properties are both transform streams used in the conversion process. If you need to hook into these streams, this is the place to do it. See gerber-parser and gerber-plotter for more information and the APIs of these streams.

defs

An array of the interior elements of the defs node of the SVG. This is where pad shapes and clear layers will be defined.

layer

An array of the interior elements of the top-level g node of the SVG. This is where regions, strokes, and flashes of dark layers will be. If there are clear layers, there may be nested g nodes with mask attributes inside layer. If no image was produces, this array will be empty.

viewBox

The viewBox of the SVG as an array of numbers. This property can be used to align several layers from the same board. (viewBox[0], viewBox[1]) is the location of the bottom left of the SVG in board coordinates.

The viewBox units will be 1000 times the actual units.

width and height

The real-world size of the SVG as a number. Will be 1/1000 of the corresponding viewBox value.

units

Units of the width and height. Either in or mm. If units is an empty string, then no image was found in the file.

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gerber-to-svg API

input

options

id and attributes options

element options

parsing and plotting options

streaming API

callback API

static methods

clone

render

events

output

public properties

parser and plotter

defs

layer

viewBox

width and height

units

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gerber-to-svg API

input

options

id and attributes options

element options

parsing and plotting options

streaming API

callback API

static methods

clone

render

events

output

public properties

parser and plotter

defs

layer

viewBox

width and height

units