Compared to the most widely used versions 6.1 for PCB prototyping and 6.2 for Laser manufacturing, the new version 7.0 offers the following main advantages:
- totally new way of NC tool path generation in the form of customizable jobs
- new "Quick access" view that lists available jobs with pictures and explanatory text (v 7.0.1)
- library management for electronic components including footprint, package data, macros and more
- generator for electronic packages
- enhanced Geometric Manipulation Center (GMC)
Details per variant:
General - Viewer enhancements
New features for the Viewer and all other variants:
- Selection of graphical objects that are bigger or smaller than a given value. This can be combined with other selection filters such as layers or object types.
- Zoom-in and -out is now centered on the actual cursor position.
- Panning is available with ALT+right mouse button.
- Display of version number of CAM format in properties dialog is nothing is selected, actual version of CAM format is 1.1
- Support of HP-GL pen width (PW) commands
- Automatic color assignment for new created layers
- Preview / World View: When you zoom deeply into a big layout it is often not easy to track the current global position. The world view always tells you where you are. Otherwise when a layout from the library view or a tool from the tool view it selected a preview of the selected element is displayed.
Basic Variant
Similar to previous Lite and PCB variant
- New dialog to create base material and fixture holes
- Optimized tool-path generation for insulate jobs
- Updated Combine and Combine to Polygon function. User can now define a minimum gap between paths to combine. At the end a statistic of the results is given.
- Added path manipulation operators (move, add, delete, cut, ...) in context menu
- Tool compensation function as a separate available low level CAM operation
- Extended layer selection for export tasks for all layers and all visible layers (v 7.0.1)
- Fixed minor issues with HP-GL and DXF export
- Tool compensation: Calculates the offset curve for a given boundary curve
- Cancel button together with progress bars in long running calculations
- Improved manual control and editing of the ordering (sequence) of tool paths
Laser Variant
Similar to previous PCB variant, but now with Laser insulate and fill support
- Export to HP-GL with variable tool-width command to drive Laser machines with variable Laser aperture within a given range.
- Updated import of compressed and bundled ODB++ files (tar, format, extension *.tgz)
- Customizable batch jobs functionality with geometry engine
- Export to Postscript (v 7.0.1)
Pro Variant specific functionality
Similar to previous Laser variant
- GMC library now integrated with the general library function for footprints
- After Package recognition an associated optimized footprint can automatically be inserted to replace the original footprint.
- Libraries can be shared by several users on a network drive
- Export of layout instances in a configurable CSV (comma separated values) format
- Package recognition: Information which packages & types actually be used for recognition is stored independently from the library file.
- Library: Statistic dialog, displaying the number of objects per type and category
- Creating footprints from footprint occurrence via GMC
- Enhanced property view to display info about the selected layout or layout instance