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VisualCAM is a powerful Manufacturing Engineering CAM software package that addresses the wide-ranging needs of EDA professionals. For the PCB layout engineer VisualCAM offers a complete set of Design Verification features. If you are a Bare-Board PCB engineer there is a full range of Manufacturing Verification and Tooling features available. Finally VisualCAM rounds out its capabilities by offering Loaded-Board PCB engineers an array of Assembly Processing capabilities not typically found within competitive products.

Design Verification: Verification of your design data is a critical step before submitting your job for production. Today's product complexities require PCB layout engineers to push spacing limits while laying out their board designs. Tighter tolerances can mean more expensive bare-boards, and thus the risks of scrap become more expensive as well--especially if the problems are not identified until after assembly. VisualCAM provides you with a Dynamic DfM Analysis Suite that offers 75+ Design and Manufacturing checks. A blend of traditional design related checks, like track-to-track and track-to-pad, as well as manufacturing checks, like acid traps and copper slivers, can be found within VisualCAM. Rounding out your design verification experience is VisualCAM's graphical netlist comparison with pin-point error detection. Compare your data set against any IPC-D-356 netlist, or use netlist information extracted from ODB++ or PADS ASCII files, and quickly zoom to any shorts or opens in the workspace.

Manufacturing Verification/Tooling: As mentioned above VisualCAM provides a Dynamic DfM Analysis Suite that provides both design and manufacturing related checks. The ability to save and load different rule sets allows you to verify your data against your original design spacing rules, or against your manufacturer's spacing rules. Bare-board PCB engineers and PCB layout engineers alike appreciate the more robust checking features found within VisualCAM, versus those found within traditional CAD tools. VisualCAM also helps you go beyond verification and allows you to complete your final manufacturing-related tasks with automated features like solder mask and paste mask generation. Complete production tooling can be generated using VisualCAM's Advanced Panelization capabilities. You can create unlimited panel templates to accommodate a wide range of standard panel sizes. Advanced Panelization will even let you step single designs or multiple designs within the same panel frame. Venting and thieving are fully automated and user-defined as well. VisualCAM can finalize any manufacturing process flow with a robust set of NC drill and mill capabilities, including functions such as drilled text, drilled slots, user-defined break tabs, and one of the most efficient sort engines in the industry.

Assembly Processing: There are many powerful tools on the market that are adept at extracting component footprint information from intelligent sources such as FATF, ODB++, GenCAD, or even your source CAD system's database. But what if you need to generate an assembly program and all you have to work from is Gerber data? While VisualCAM is designed to work on "intelligent" data formats like ODB++, ODB++ XML, or IPC-2581 data formats, it can still operate on traditional Gerber and NC data as well. Because of this, VisualCAM is one of the only manufacturing engineering software packages that can offer you five different automated methods to reverse engineer component footprint information from Gerber data, for the purpose of assembly pick-and-place programming. Depending on the data available to you at the time of processing, you can complete a component footprint identification process in as little as a few seconds. Even when reverse engineering interactively, most jobs can still be completed in just a few hours. You can even save and load footprint libraries, allowing you to build master libraries to help keep your output consistent. There is support for both component footprint fiducials, as well as board-level fiducials. When you complete your processing, you can output the data to a variety of formats: ASCII, FATF, ODB++, ODB++ XML, or GenCAD**.

VisualCAM and GerbTool version 16 Highlights

NEW ADVANCED PANEL OPTIMIZATION - New in this release is a powerful panel layout optimizer. Efficient optimization is fast and easy. Set a few layout constraints, click optimize, and then choose the layout you like best. Very simple to do "what if" layouts.

NEW POLYGON OVER/UNDERSIZE COMMAND - New for version 16 is a new command to accurately perform over/undersize operations on your raster polygon data. This new command allows flexible methods for you to control how the sizing takes place.

NEW STENCIL TOOLS FEATURES - WISE Software has always been committed to insuring the most user-friendly tools, while providing the latest features being requested by our users and industry demands. This led WISE to a sweeping update of the Stencil Tools including new shapes, analysis information, and the ability to choose single pads for modification as well as keeping all of the home plating that our users have grown accustomed to.

• Added support for Snubnose, Dogbone, and Window Pane.

• Checks for min and max area reduction with reporting.

• Added ability to select single pad for new shapes supported.

• Modify basic size without changing the shape.

DRC/ANALYSIS ENHANCEMENTS - New in version 16 includes a new Stacked Blind/Buried Data info check and a new option to the Drill Annulus DRC check to ignore isolated drill hits. We also substantially improved our care and handling of blind/buried technology designs.

NEW HOLE CHART DOCUMENTATION FEATURES - This command was given a complete make-over. The dialog associated with this command now allows you to add/remove columns, change column ordering, rename columns, manually enter data in columns, use graphic symbols as hole legends, create your own graphic hole legends, and more.

NEW NC MILL/DRILL FEATURES - This release has several new features added to our NC support. Starting with a new variable size Break Tab, this new type allows interactive placement and sizing of break tabs. Another enhancement to Break Tabs is the new ability to add them to milled circles. We’ve made it easier to control tool compensation including setting preferred defaults and adding a new interactive command to change compensation of existing mill paths.

EXPORT BITMAP ENHANCEMENTS - We’ve enhanced the way we handle memory during a Bitmap export that allows you to select much larger DPI values. DPI settings as high as 10,000 are now possible. The data window used is now selectable between the old current window method and a new method based on the actual data extents. This allows your exported bitmaps to be concise with no wasted empty areas. We’ve also added a Batch mode that allows you to export each layer as a separate file in one go.

IMPROVED USER EXPERIENCE - Several more essential dialogs are now re-sizable including the Import Wizard and DRC Analysis dialogs. Stretch them out as big as you want, adjust the list columns, click OK and they will stay that way. Folder selection dialogs are also now bigger and re-sizable. Other commonly used dialogs like Layer Setup, the Navigator, and others include enhancements like multi-selection edits, info tips, and more. Zooming is easier now with new support for your mouse wheel. More toolbar buttons have been added with improved organizing. The Navigator can now be set to auto-hide by clicking on it’s pushpin icon; in this mode it will normally be hidden with just a vertical button on the side. Hovering over the vertical button will cause it to slide out for you to use. Added Help menu command to check the WISE web site for software updates. The Copy and Move commands now offer a convenient "In Place" option to minimize keystrokes and data entry.

NEW MACRO LANGUAGE COMMANDS - This release brings more new commands to our powerful Macro language. In no particular order they include:

• MILLPATHCOMPENSATION

• SETUPBREAKTABS

• ADDBREAKTAB

• DELETEBREAKTAB

• DELETENCTOOLTABLE

• DELETEUNUSEDNCTOOLTABLES

• EXPORTIPCD356TESTPOINTS

• FLATTENCUSTOM

• FLATTENDCODE

• POLYOVERUNDERSIZE

WINDOWS 7 OPERATING SYSTEM COMPATIBILITY - WISE Software has always been committed to insuring the highest level of compatibility with the Windows operating system. For this release we have made the necessary changes to our installation process to ensure that VisualCAM is being placed properly within the Windows 7 environment. This includes making sure that all necessary drivers, for components like hardware keys and FlexLM, have been updated and tested for compatibility.

OTHER ENHANCEMENTS AND FIXES The following are several of the many general enhancements and fixes available in this release.

• Improved internal polygon processing engine for