immense amount of GDS to DXF

lunanz88

Hello,

I have hundreds of .GDS files and I need to convert them to .DXF files. I can convert them one by one ( save a .GDS as .DXF ). But it would take quite a long time to convert all the .GDS. Is there any way to convert them at the same time (or faster)?

Matthias

Hi

there is a discussion about a similar problem here: http://klayout.de/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=195&page=1#Item_5. Another discussion covering that topic is http://klayout.de/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=173.

The approach uses a simple script. You can easily extend the script to do the conversion on many files or you put the klayout call into a .bat or shell script.

Matthias

lunanz88

Hello Matthias,

Thank you very much for your help! Your codes work great!

I have one more question, is there any way to set the "scale factor" during the conversion?

Regards,

Lunan

Matthias

Hi Lunan,

yes there is. Instead of "ly.write" use the version with an option object:

options = RBA::SaveLayoutOptions.new
options.format = "DXF"
options.scale_factor = 2.5   # TODO: change this value
ly.write($output, options)

You can configure more options on "SaveLayoutOptions", like the DXF file's unit etc. Please note that with this method, you'll have to configure the format option on "options" - the write method won't derive it from the file name. Just in case you want to write a different format.

Regards,

Matthias

lunanz88

Hello Matthias,

Thanks a lot for your help! It works very well!

Lunan

lunanz88

Hello Matthias,

Sometime there are more than one cell that is inclueded in a .gds file. Is there a way to select a certain cell (I know the cell name) using RBA? Then I could be able to automatically to convert the cell to .dxf (pretty much like the command "Save selected cells as"...)

Thanks!

Lunan

wildwolfcj

"there is a discussion about a similar problem here: http://klayout.de/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=195&page=1#Item_5. Another discussion covering that topic is http://klayout.de/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=173.

The approach uses a simple script. You can easily extend the script to do the conversion on many files or you put the klayout call into a .bat or shell script."

I am also encountering this problem now, but the two links in the answer are invalid.

dick_freebird

I sometimes have a need to go the opposite direction,
like taking packaging house cavity drawings in to the
layout for making bond figures.

Matthias

@wildwolfcj The forum links changed from "DiscussionID=xyz" to "https://www.klayout.de/forum/discussion/xyz". So these links should lead you further: https://www.klayout.de/forum/discussion/195 and https://www.klayout.de/forum/discussion/173. They date back to 2012 however.

Matthias