Case 001 PCB Manufacturing

PCB Pre-Production Tools

01 — Problem

Before an assembly job can be quoted or run, customer BOMs must be cross-checked against pick-and-place files — mismatched designators, missing placements and format quirks are caught by eye, and they cause line stops when missed. Reviewing the Gerber data itself means switching between separate viewers with no link back to the BOM.

02 — Fix

A suite of browser-based pre-production tools: a Gerber/Excellon viewer with GPU rendering, layer management, snap-to-pad measurement and XY centroid import/align/export, plus a BOM toolkit that cross-validates BOM against placement data, scores assembly complexity, and generates synthetic test data with deliberate error injection. The validator flags fuzzy designator matches for engineer approval rather than silently failing.

Exhibit — PCB Manufacturing — Exhibit 001-A

03 — Proof

Formats parsed: Gerber RS-274X (incl. aperture macros, arcs, regions) + Excellon drill
Rendering: WebGL with Canvas 2D fallback, spatial-grid pad hit-testing
Complexity scoring: 0–100 score from 4 weighted factors, Easy→Expert tiers
Validation checks: missing-from-XY, extra-in-XY, footprint/value mismatch, fuzzy designator matching
Test data generator: 6 deliberate error types injected at configurable rates
Built-in export: high-resolution PNG board captures and CSV reports

04 — Method

.NET Blazor Server with a custom C# Gerber/Excellon parser and a modular JavaScript WebGL renderer, developed against agent-written parser and performance audits with the feature roadmap split into independently assignable items.