Do Sketch has some not known by me and Google meaning?

Layout Gerbers (GerbView)
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In File - Fabrication Outputs - Gerbers there is checkbox:
[ ] Sketch pads on fabrication layers.
Google translator translates ‘Sketch’ into the word that then is back translated also into ‘Sketch’ so looks being direct translation. But this word means ‘make a rough or unfinished drawing’.

To tell you truth I don’t understand what exactly this flag is intended to mean. I would expect rather something like Delete, Subtract or Mask pads from fabrication layers or Mask fabrication layers with pads. Do the idea is to avoid any fabrication layers from pads?

I also don’t know which fabrication layers are modified if this flag is set. Silk layers only?

If I switch KiCad into my language I see here something even more difficult to understand. It translates into English as “Field outlines on production layers” and this time it is accurate translation - no pads but fields and not the whole field area but its outline only.

I know that it is hard to name as if pad have to be delayed from silk it not have to be delayed from mask because mask is negative.

I think in past in gerber generation silk could be eliminated from mask openings. Do now is eliminated from pads only?

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I have noticed that “Subtract soldermask from silkscreen” option is still there.

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Have you read the tooltip?

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image1100×726 119 KB

Also note that KiCad uses “sketch” for only drawing the outlines of pads / via’s / tracks.

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SKETCH | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
a simple, quickly-made drawing that does not have many details:

So KiCad using “sketch” for only drawing the outline instead of filling the objects does make sense to me.

1 Like
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No !! :frowning:
I understood fabrication layers as all layers used during PCB fabrication - like silkscreen, soldermask, paste, adhesive.
Fab layers are for me exact mechanical element dimensions what (even named Fab) I don’t understand as fabrication layers.
If instead of Fabrication text was saying Fab I would understood it correctly.

Thanks.
I didn’t used that flag, but since it is I didn’t understood its purpose.

I have never exported Fab layer so just didn’t considered it thinking about gerbers.

Now, when I understand its meaning it does make sense to me also.

Edit.
I suppose that Fab layers are not PCB fabrication layers but PCB assembly layers :slight_smile:

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If you type in an english word into a search engine and add “dictonary” then you usually get links to a bunch of different online dictionaries. I once had a quite nice Collins/Cobuild dictionary (in paper) but it went into the old paper recycling along with nearly all my paper databooks. It’s just too much work to find anything in it.

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It was not a problem of dictionary but my wrong assumption what Fabrication layers means here.

For many years when there were no Google translator I was using DOS Collins dictionary but probably when I moved from 32 bit Windows XP to 64 bit Windows 7 it refused to work :frowning: