Bot Thoughts: A Review of Free Windows Gerber File Viewers

Friday, September 2, 2011

A Review of Free Windows Gerber File Viewers

When you send off your latest PCB design to a PCB fabrication shop you'll typically send Gerber files. You probably want to perform a final proof-read of your design, so you'll need a Gerber file viewer to view your files graphically. If you're cheap like me you want a free Gerber viewer. Here's a brief review of truly free Gerber file viewers for Windows.

Name and Link	Verdict	Files	Drill	UI	Features	Notes
gerbv	WIN	many	yes	great	good	Second Favorite
3D Gerber Viewer (web)	WIN	many	no	good	fair	fast, 3d; not all layers
Circuit People (web)	WIN	zip	no	n/a	minimal	black and white
GerberLogix	WIN	zip, many	yes	great	good	My Favorite!!
GC-Prevue	WIN	zip, many	yes	good	great	odd zoom; merge!
ViewMate	WIN	zip	yes	good	great	edit, too!
ViewPlot Viewer	WIN	many	yes	fair	great	drill displays wrong
gerber-viewer.com	FAIL	zip, many	yes	fair	fair	slow, drill displays wrong
Gerber Viewer Lite	FAIL	one	no	good	good	only 2 layers!
ExcelCAM	FAIL	one	no	poor	good	can't read gerbers?!
ProntoGERBER CONNECTION	FAIL	one	no	poor	good	can't read gerbers?!

The table above tells you, for each viewer application, the overall verdict of Win or Fail; whether it opens multiple Gerber files, if it opens zip files; whether it opens and displays drill files properly; UI quality; richness of feature set; and additional notes.

Some of the problems listed above might be fixable but I could only spend so much time on each product. My top picks are: GerberLogix, gerbv, and GC-Prevue.

GerberLogix is my favorite Gerber viewer. Easy to use, simple and clean UI, simple zip import, and fast to launch and load. Update: Version 2.5 now automatically detects Excellon format so the drill file displays perfectly.

Gerbv comes in a close second favorite. If only it opened zip files it would be awesome. It is also fully featured, displays correctly and doesn't appear to have commercial use restrictions. Since I'm now selling products, I'll use gerbv as my go-to viewer. It's also Linux compatible.

GC-Prevue is fast, you can import multiple Gerber files or zip files, and it has a lot of features including the ability to merge Gerber files graphically!

Screen Shots