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Adobe Illustrator to Gerber Conversion for our RF PCB Design - Is that possible with ACE?

We find it handy to have the freedom to do our RF PCB design in  programs like illustrator. Is that possible with ACE?
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Since you're using AI, most users will simply output as a Postscript (or  PDF), then import directly into ACE 3000, and export to Gerber/Drill. Here's some tutorials showing how to do a Postscript/PDF to Gerber: 



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpLSxrBBxtg



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toCaUFRj0UU



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5u0gV0XIyg



Here's another useful link:

http://www.numericalinnovations.com/pages/postscript-and-pdf-conversions-101



Feel free to send me a PDF or Postscript (from your AI design) and I'll show how to quickly convert to Gerber & Drill. 

Note: If you'd prefer to convert DXF instead, please let me know and I'll continue  with creating a tutorial movie for that. The sample DXF has duplicate data (Polylines with Hatch on top), so there is a bit of minor clean up required. 

Best regards,

Simon

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Hi again Simon,

I tried ACE3000 and it worked very well. I have one question, though:

Is it possible to use acrobat layers instead of colors to specify different

layers in the output file?

It would be somewhat convenient because then you could output the gerber

files with names given by the layer names in the PDF file (instead of the

color names, which now gives names like "C00-A6-51.gbr", and

which I then have to rename manually to recognize which file is

which logical layer in my PCB).

Let me know about pricing too, it looks very attractive.


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Glad to hear ACE worked well for you. 

Yes, you're correct it currently separates layers by colors. 

I will look into what would be required to have the ability to use Acrobat Layers.

Drill data requires "Flashed Pads" in order to output the drill holes.

Make sure during PDF Import that you check the option "Flash Round/Donut Shapes".

Then when you check the "Drill" during the Layers Export it will output drill data - see my tutorial below (I will only focus on drill layer).

http://screencast.com/t/zFynIlAMI

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