Comment 6 for bug 1188934

On Sat, Jun 08, 2013 at 01:43:32PM -0000, Dick Hollenbeck wrote:
> Can you identify the chosen format being used by pcbnew? It must also be
> widely recognized, I have had no problems getting boards made. And gerbv
> recognizes it too....

Technically the G-code is modal (i.e. it has not to be specified for
every record), so pcbnew *is* gerber conforming. Citing page 11 of the
ucamco spec (which is *the* gerber standard)

    Each code applies to coordinate data located in the same data block
    as the code and to all subsequent coordinate data until another code
    of the same type is encountered, or a new layer is generated. This
    continuing action is referred to as modal.

In short, G1 has not to be repeated for each movement. In fact even the
D code and the coordinate values are modal in gerber! I.e. the
following:

G01X10Y20D03*
Y30*
Y40*

is the same as

G01X10Y20D03*
G01X10Y30D03*
G01X10Y40D03*

(and it would be indeed useful for IC pads). However since hopefully we
are not still using paper tapes to drive NC machines it's more important
these day :D

That said I can assure you that pcbnew gerbers are

a) gerber compliant

and

b) correctly read by gerbtool, cam350 and genesis2000 (and AFAIK this
   covers *a lot* of the installations around the world)

So I'd ask your fabricator which kind of sucky software is using...

--
Lorenzo Marcantonio
Logos Srl