I found one a couple of weeks ago: Go to
http://www.lavenir.com/ and download the "ViewMate"
software.  It is a free, crippled version of the $500
"ViewMaster" software. The main restrictions are in editing
and saving the Gerbers, but you can at least load them
in and see what they look like.  The worst part of the
no-save restriction is that, while you have to load all
the gerbers separately, layer-by-layer, (componant side,
solder side, solder stop mask, silkscreen, etc...) there's
no way (AFAICT) even to save a script as to which file to
load into which layer. Still, I spent a good bit of time
digging around for Gerber viewers, and this was by far the
best thing I found that didn't cost hundreds of dollars;
it would appear that the non-free version is pretty nice.

There's a couple of other viewers out there that I found,
but they were, IMHO, by far inferior to ViewMate while
not being much less crippled.

BTW, I found the ViewMate software through a link off
the IPC website http://www.ipc.org (note: .org, not
.com -- there is a .com but it is unrelated). IPC
is an industry association for printed circuit manufacturers
and the like, and there is a ton of good information to
be found there; It is well worth poking around in their
site for a while.

--Bob


On Sun, Aug 15, 1999 at 03:28:29PM -0400, John D. Kerr wrote:
>
> Are there any Gerber file viewing utilities out there that anyone can
> recommend? Ivex does offer one, but I thought it would be best to get the
> utility from a separate company other than that of the PCB design software
> that I use.
>
> Would appreciate the feedback.
>
> John

--
============================================================
Bob Drzyzgula                             It's not a problem
bob@drzyzgula.org                until something bad happens
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