Component GCD

The component GCD represents the board as a whole. It has the following properties:

• Perimeter: length of the board’s outline (used for calculating cycle time for the Router process).

• Length: longer dimension of the bounding rectangle

• Width: shorter dimension of the bounding rectangle

• Height (if available): overall thickness of the board. Users can specify a value with the setup option Target Board Thickness. This value helps guide material selection for insulating materials (see Assigning Materials). After material selection, Computed Board Thickness helps guide machine selection.

• Number of Silkscreened Sides: aPriori tries to determine from the Gerber files the number of sides (0, 1, or 2) requiring Screen Printing. Users can edit the number of sides in the Geometric Cost Drivers pane.

• Surface Area: surface area of the board.

In addition, information about the shape of the board outline is extracted and can be used in the calculation of material utilization (see Part Nesting Type).