Theme: XGerber and Excellon output, Sieb&Meyer, Gerber, photo plotter
What do "smallest aperture" and "max. error" and "Resolution" mean?
In principle, the "smallest aperture" is the smallest structure that the PCB manufacturer can produce. Usually, 0.15 mm is the smallest trace without a price surcharge. Smaller structures cost more or are not producible. The smallest aperture is also used for "painting out". If you rotate an octagonal pad by 12°, it will be painted out because there is no command in XGerber for this.
The "smallest error" is used for example in the output of arcs or splines as chords. The smaller the value, the more chords are output and the larger the output file becomes.
The resolutions "3.5" and "3.6" are possible fixed point formats when specifying coordinates. "3.6" is 10x more accurate. It means 3 digits before and 6 digits after the decimal point.
