Product Comparison
CAM350 vs. Gerbtool and Camtastic
History:
Revision / Date / Author / Comments01 / 10/03/02 / Ray Fugitt / Initial Release
General
This paper will give you a feature comparison list between these three products.
It’s important to realize that while CAM350 maintains an intelligent database (i.e. components and netlists) the other two products do not. You can extract netlists in Gerbtool and Camtastic, and in the case of Gerbtool, you can do a comparison to an IPC-D-356 netlist. There is no capability to import CAD databases or component information into either of these two products.
Bundles and Pricing
Note: All pricing is for single user node locked licenses in U.S. Dollars.
Gerbtool and CAM350 offer multiple product bundles, Camtastic does not. Camtastic Pricing is $695. Gerbtool offers 5 “bundles”, their pricing starts at $250 for a viewer, adding export and DRC brings the cost to $1000, and at $3000 is their top of the line product, GT-Fabricator. CAM350’s viewer is $500, Export and DRC are in the –100 “bundle” at $1750, and the top of line is the –750 “bundle at $12,000.
Product Comparison
CAM350 vs. Gerbtool and Camtastic
User Interface
In terms of user interface, Camtastic and Gerbtool have a more “Windows” look and feel. Both offer right click context options and both offer icons, and dockable toolbars. CAM350’s interface, while dated, is less intimidating to the new user. All three products have basic editing tools, such as adding, deleting and moving features. All have the ability to create custom apertures. View commands such, as zooming, panning, and windowing are similar throughout all three products.
Composite Layers
All three products allow users to view composite layers as individual entities. In CAM350 this is accomplished with the “view composite” option. Gerbtool and Camtastic do this automatically. Gerbtool has a weakness here, as it does not show the fill of any raster polygon when importing RS-274x data. ( Version 11) This makes it very difficult to review the layers on the screen. You cannot tell where an opening in a polygon is, and it is difficult to verify layers with copper pours. See Example 1 below.
CAM350 requires you to convert these composites to a singular layer before extracting a netlist and running DRC/DFF. This process of converting a composite to a singular layer can be time consuming, and there is the risk of error. Gerbtool and Camtastic allow you to process these composite layers, in DRC’s and Netlist extracts, as is.
DFF and DRC
Only CAM 350 offers DFF functions. Camtastic is used as a viewer only in most cases, and has a very limited DRC. Gerbtool has a similar set of DRC’s as CAM350, but does not offer DFF. DFF can be defined as items that may pass DRC, but still may cause failures in manufacturing, or even worse, in the field. Gerbtool has announced a DFF product, but it has not been released as of this date.
Netlist extraction and comparison
Camtastic does not offer IPC-356 netlist comparison, Gerbtool and CAM350 does. The process for this is very similar in CAM350 and Gerbtool; users extract a netlist from their Gerber files, and then import the IPC netlist. The comparison is done on import and the net names are updated to reflect the names in the incoming netlist.
Reverse Engineering
Only CAM350, with it’s intelligent database, allows the user to start with Gerber information only, add netlist and component information, and then export to a CAD program such as Power PCB.
ODB++
Both CAM350 and Gerbtool both offer ODB++ import as an option. CAM350 allows the import of either the compressed file or the “Job Directory”. Gerbtool only allows the import of the “Job Directory”. The standard method for file transfer is through the use of the compressed file method. Only CAM350 has ODB++ as an export option.
Panelization
Simple panelization is offered in both Gerbtool and Camtastic, but CAM350 has a much more robust Panel editor available. All three products allow the use of step and repeat codes to greatly reduce the amount of data, but only CAM350 allows you to move in and out of a Panel editor without losing data. CAM350 also offers intelligent symbol creation and intelligent venting patterns.
NC Tools
Drill and mill are areas that CAM350 excels in. CAM350 devotes an editor specifically to these functions. Gerbtool has basic tools for these functions and Camtastic has only the minimum. CAM350 allows the user to create complicated mill programs with advanced tools such as automated Mill Tab and Mill Slot creation.
Electrical Test
Both CAM350 and Gerbtool offer outputs to flying probe testers, Gerbtool choosing to use IPC-D-356 for all, and CAM350 having IPC-D-356 as well as some specific tester outputs. Camtastic does not have a flying probe option, but can output an IPC-D-356 netlist. CAM350 offers a dedicated bed-or-nails editor; Gerbtool offers some basic bed-of-nails capabilities and Camtastic none. Once again, CAM350 has specific outputs as well as IPC-D-356. Gerbtool has IPC-D-356 only.
Import and Export
Import and export options are detailed in the charts below. See Pages 4 & 5
Addendum
A product that was left out of this comparison was the Lavenir product line. Lavenir has a long history in this market, but the product line has not seen much attention in the last few years and was effectively killed. Recently, Pentalogix purchased this product line; a company formed from some of the original Lavenir employees. We expect that they will be putting a lot more effort into the product now. Lavenir and GC prevue are two products that offer free Gerber viewers; we should expect this to continue.
Example #1
Gerbtool:
Camtastic:
CAM350:
Import:
CAM350 / CAMTASTIC / GERBTOOLImport
Gerber
/ 274-d / 274-d / 274-d274-x / 274-x / 274-x
Fire 9000 / Fire 9000 / Fire 9000
Barco DPF / Barco DPF
Drawing
/ HPGL / HPGL / HPGLDXF / DXF / DXF
DWG
Drill/Rout
/ Excellon / Excellon / ExcellonSieb & Meyer / Sieb & Meyer
Takeuchi
Drill tool list
Database
/ Direct CAM (.cam) / V 7.5.1 / Camtastic (.cam) / Gerbtool (.gtd)ODB++ / (Folder) / Direct CAM (.cam) / V 6.0
(.tgz) / ODB++ / (Folder)
CAD
/ Mentor / Boardstation V8Zuken / Visula (cadif 4.0)
PowerPCB / V5
Accel / PCAD 2000
Tango / PCAD 2000
Gencad
Netlist
/ IPC-D-356 / IPC-D-356IPC-D-356A / (Not specified)
Legacy
/ Ecam .dsnIPC-D-350 / IPC-D-350
Export:
CAM350 / CAMTASTIC / GERBTOOLExport
Gerber
/ 274-d / 274-d / 274-d274-x / 274-x / 274-x
Fire 9000 / Fire 9000 / Fire 9000
Barco DPF / Barco DPF
Drawing
/ HPGL / HPGL / HPGLDXF / DXF / DXF
Postscript
Bitmap / Bitmap
Drill/Rout
/ Excellon / Excellon / ExcellonSieb & Meyer / Sieb & Meyer
Takeuchi
Drill tool list
Database
/ ODB++ / Camtastic (.cam) / Gerbtool (.gtd)Direct CAM (.cam)
CAD
/ Zuken (cadif 4.0) / Visula / Camtastic (.cam)PowerPCB / V5
Accel / PCAD 2000
Tango / PCAD 2000
Gencad
Netlist
/ IPC-D-356 / IPC-D-356 / IPC-D-356IPC-D-356A / (Not specified)
Legacy / CAM350 V6.0 / Gerbtool V8
IPC-D-350 / IPC-D-350 / IPC-D-350
Ray FugittPage 110/06/2018