pcb-rnd knowledge pool
(Ab)using pcb-rnd for generic 2d vector drawing
| abuse_drawing by Tibor 'Igor2' Palinkas on 2019-11-12 | Tags: howto, 2d, drawing, vector, graphics, editor |
Abstract: While pcb-rnd is not the perfect 2d drawing program, for some applications it may be more convenient than some popular alternatives. This short node demonstrates how it can be done.
When it is worth doing this
- you are already familiar with pcb-rnd interface
- you only need simple, round-pen stroked lines and arcs and filled (but not stroked) filled polygons
- scale drawing: strong and convenient support for grid (both sizes, snapping and units)
- many export formats, easy export from the command line
- drafting aid (the ddraft plugin)
- user scripting for generating parts of the drawing
- small, efficient, UNIXy software
How to do it
pcb-rnd does not enforce having any physical layer. So the most straight-forward way to (ab)use pcb-rnd for documentation drawing is having a layer stack that consists of only one documentation layer group with different layers for the different colors (and/or for different drawing layers).
Since the lihata file format is designed for easy text editing, such a template board can be small and well structured. For example this template offers 7 colored layers with 3 different pens.
Exporting to any format needs the cam syntax (but not cam jobs) because normally direct exporters will tend to follow the physical stackup and ignore doc layers. For example exporting to svg from the command line:
pcb-rnd -x svg --cam "foo.svg=top-doc" foo.lht
The svg part can be replaced with any other format. For GUI exporting the same foo.svg=top-doc should be entered in the cam field.