Command-line schematic/layout image export?

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erydo
Posts: 1
Joined: 21 Jun 2013, 14:15

Command-line schematic/layout image export?

#1 Post by erydo » 04 Aug 2014, 14:34

We use git for tracking our schematic and layout changes so we can always roll back to previous revisions, tag board spins, etc.

Because the *.dch and *.dip files are binary (rather than XML or JSON or something like that), they can't be easily diffed for determining what's changed.
Currently what we do is to export the schematics and layouts to images, and then diff the images. That's error-prone and tedious to do manually.

Is it possible to automate this process via command line?
We use the Mac version of DipTrace which is run through Wine, so I'm not sure whether the system's built-in UI-automation tools would work.

Ideally I'd be able to do something like:

Code: Select all

diptrace Foo.sch -export Foo.bmp
(Which I could script pretty easily to pipe different revisions into an image-diff tool).

Any ideas on how to do this without all the manual work?

Thanks,
Robert

Alex
Technical Support
Posts: 3897
Joined: 13 Jun 2010, 23:43

Re: Command-line schematic/layout image export?

#2 Post by Alex » 05 Aug 2014, 02:25

Do you know, you can export DipTrace ASCII files. They can be compared in text editors.

In regards to comparing images, it's really error-prone. I don't know how to automate the process.

bigjosh
Posts: 21
Joined: 15 Nov 2014, 06:31

Re: Command-line schematic/layout image export?

#3 Post by bigjosh » 30 Apr 2017, 04:56

+1 for this. Not just helpful for automatically including images in releases, but could also let us automate the creation of the board package ZIP. Right now, we have to manually export each and every gerber and drill file one at a time, and occasionally miss or mess up one. Being able to write a batch script to do it would be so, so, so much nicer and more reliable.

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