Semiconductor outfits will spend an amazing amount of money trying to get me to use their latest and greatest part. They all shy away from providing anything more than a pdf of the part to get it into the library. We do *exactly* the same thing for the parts we sell. The why always comes back to the fact that there *is* design work that goes into the library. Without that work being done, it will likely be wrong to some degree for this or that assembly process. I get all that.
I also make the observation that going from an "almost right" item to a "is correct" version is a *much* faster process than creating one from scratch. The barrier to getting the part on the board comes way down. I do not write all my own C libraries. I complain about this and that. Sometimes I patch things. For the most part, I use them as they are, with various flags set as appropriate. That approach is completely missing from the library process for parts. We are still pretty much stuck back in the 1960's and everybody does it from scratch themselves.
Autodesk is in an ideal position to help here.
Many mention human inertia - well, the same applies to those working in the Parts Suppliers too
![Smiley :)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
- so the
vendors need a simple, free, open tool to create footprint examples - complete with 'as is' disclaimers.
This means those furthest upstream on this problem,
can start creating widely portable footprint data.
The output of this should be in scriptable/readable format, provided both in file url, and even as text in the PDF.
I'd suggest here DXF
and a s-format variant of DXF - exactly the same information, but in a less spaghetti form, and CrLf agnostic.
This should export as a choice of
* simplistic DXF, - lines with circles and arcs converted to lines. yes, Ugh, but this is close to 100% 'DXF portable'
* moderate DXF - but have polylines and circles and arcs, and entity end points on all PAD centre points.
quite modest conversion smarts/rules will be needed to create a footprint, eg using circle diameter as pad diameter, inner as drill etc.
* Block DXF - as above, but with terminals defined as Blocks, and inserted - this should be able to do 100% PCB footprint definition.
A good DXF summary I found here (better than Autodesks more verbose help)
http://www.klayout.de/dxf_format.html... that allows you to see a transparent PDF or image file of the part over the pad layout to visually confirm what is happening. ( I do that all the time in SolidWorks ). The drawing or image gets scaled to match the dimensions on the sheet in X/Y.
Noooo.... anything that says "The drawing or image gets scaled" opens a whole can of worms.
Best to export in a
proper CAD format, that has explicit units, be those mils, or mm or even inch.