BD-Viewer12.000

BD-Viewer is a CAD program specialized in helping you view and reference CR-5000 Board Designer native data. It is able to display PC board information, panel and footprint data without depending on the CD-5000 execution environment.

User interface and importing options

The tool reveals the PC board data, footprint library or panel info with the aid of a tree-like display containing the corresponding values (e.g. components and nets, footprints). You can select a figure embedded in the design and view detailed information about it in an output window.Files can be added in the working environment using the drag-and-drop support or built-in browse button. The utility works with the following file formats: PCB, PNL and FTP, and allows you to print the design.There’s also support for a help manual that describes the program’s capabilities in case you can’t decode its functions.

Edit and view options

BD-Viewer gives you the freedom to input comments, undo or redo your actions, work with multiple layers (you may change the color and display mode for each layer, and show or hide the layers), set visible layer groups, alter the display order of each layer, tweak canvas settings, as well as change the color and display mode for each net.If you reference footprints, you are allowed to set the color of pin numbers, pin reference points and padstack reference points.What’s more, the application lets you measure the distance between two points indicated on the canvas, zoom in or out of the design, show the coordinates at the location of the cursor, and search data by signal name, reference designator or terminal.

Bottom line

All things considered, BD-Viewer comes with a decent feature pack for helping you process CR-5000 Board Designer native data. On the downside, it hasn’t been updated for a while so it proves to be particularly useful especially if you are the owner of an old operating system, such as Window 2K, XP, Vista or 7.