Openflex Boardview Manual.dvi Manual

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Openflex Boardview
Written: Paul Daniels (Inflex)
(Version R6)

Chapter 1

Preface
1.1

Introduction

Welcome to Openflex Boardview (from hereon referred to simply as OFBV). OFBV is an advance development fork of
OpenBoardView (OBV) by Chloridite in May 2016 as a response to seeing a need for an Open Source board viewing
software to assist in the repairs of many electronics systems.
At the time of writing, OFBV supports brd, bdv, asc, fz (with correct key) and bv (with converter to bvr) board
formats and is available on Windows (7 onwards), OSX and Linux.

1.2

Contact

Contact can be made with the developer(s) of OFBV via the following means;
Web

http://openboardview.org

IRC

#openboardview@irc.freenode.net:6667

GitHub

https://github.com/inflex/OpenBoardView/tree/inflex-ui-features

1

Chapter 2

Installing
2.1

Windows

No installation required, simply run the executable.

2.2

Linux

2.2.1

Installing using debian package

$ sudo dpkg -i openboardview-R5.deb
Run it
$ openboardview

2.2.2

Building source from github

If you haven’t already installed the required development packages;
$ apt-get install build-essential cmake libsdl2-dev libgtk-3-dev
Clone the project
$ git clone –recursive ’https://github.com/inflex/OpenBoardView’
Build it
$ ./build.sh
Run it!
$ ./bin/openboardview ...or... $ ./openboardview.sh

2.3

OSX

???

2

Chapter 3

Getting Started
3.1

Main display

Figure 3.1: Openflex Boardview opened, no file

3

4

CHAPTER 3. GETTING STARTED

3.2

File Menu

Figure 3.2: File menu

CHAPTER 3. GETTING STARTED

3.3

5

Open file dialog (linux)

Figure 3.3: Selecting board file from file picker

3.4

File opened

Each file successfully loaded is added to the recent history, allowing for quicker access for subsequent loads of the
same board.

3.5

Command line parameters (linux)

Flag
-h
-V
-l
-c 
-i 
-x 
-y 
-z 
-p 
-r 
-d

Description
Display help for command line parameters
Display current OFBV Version
Enable slow CPU mode
Load alternative configuration 
Load board 
Set window to  pixels wide
Set window to  pixels high
Set font size to 
Set DPI resolution to 
Explicitly select a type of rendering engine [ 0..2 ]
Enable debug mode

6

CHAPTER 3. GETTING STARTED

Figure 3.4: Board file successfully loaded.

Chapter 4

Controls
4.1

Keyboard

Action
Open file-load dialog
Quit Openflex Boardview
Pan viewport UP
Pan viewport DOWN
Pan viewport LEFT
Pan viewport RIGHT
Search for component/net
Display component list
Display net list
Clear all highlighted items
Mirror board
Flip board
Zoom in
Zoom out
Center board and zoom to fit
Rotate Clockwise
Rotate Counter-Clockwise
Toggle pin blanking

4.2

Key(s)
CTRL-o
CTRL-q
w, up-arrow
s, down-arrow
a, left-arrow
d, right-arrow
CTRL-f, /
k
l
ESC
m
 (ctrl+ for alternative origin)
+, numpad +
-, numpad x, numpad 5
. (period), numpad period
, (comma), numpad 0
p

Mouse

Action
Select pin/network
Select part (only)
Zoom
Flip board
Annotations

Mouse control
Left click on pin.
Left click on non-pin part area. CTRL+Click to select additional parts
Scroll wheel
Middle/Scroll click
Right click

7

Chapter 5

Menus
5.1

View

Figure 5.1: View menu
Flip Board Visually turn the board over to show the other side. Flipping is done around the X-axis ( some would
refer to this as flipping vertically )
Rotate CW Rotate the board clockwise
Rotate CCW Rotate the board counter clockwise
Reset View Zoom and pan the board back to fit the window
Mirror Board Mirror the board over the Y-axis (mirroring horizontally). This is used with some files that have been
generated relative to a different coordinate plane. This is not the same as flipping the board.
Toggle Pin Display Enable/disable the drawing of the pins on the board
Show FPS Enable/disable the display of the frame rate in the status bar
Show Position Enable/disable the display of the current cursor position in the status bar
Net Web Enable/disable the drawing of radial lines to all other pins/pads within the same net
Annotations Enable/disable the display of the annotations flags
Board Fill Enable/disable the filling of the board with the pinstripe/floodfill
Part Fill Enable/disable the drawing of fill of the individual parts
Net List Show/hide the Net list window
Part List Show/ide the Part list window
8

CHAPTER 5. MENUS

5.2

9

Quick access & Tablet/Touch Controls

Along the menu bar, after the H ELP menu, there are Quick Access buttons for enabling/disabling Annotations, NetWeb
and Pins. This have the same function as those items located in the F ILE ->V IEW menu, as well as the configuration
preferences.

Figure 5.2: Annotation completed, red flag indicates annotation location. Hovering will show partial text
OFBV is equipped with controls on the menu bar to facilitate use on tablets and touch screens.
[ - ][ + ] Zoom in normal steps
[-][+] Zoom in reduced steps
< Rotate counter clockwise
^ Flip board
> Rotate clockwise
X Reset view
CLEAR Clear all highlighted items

Chapter 6

Searching
Openflex Boardview uses a compound searching system, which lets you mix nets and parts, both complete and
partial searches in to a single search with up to three (3) separate search parameters. All parts/nets matching will be
highlighted when the search is applied. Search results will be fitted and centered to the display window.
The search dialog can be invoked by pressing Ctrl-F, /, or selecting File->Search
Search results can be cleared by pressing the [ESC] key.

Figure 6.1: Entering the search parameters

10

11

CHAPTER 6. SEARCHING

Figure 6.2: Search results

Chapter 7

Annotations
Annotations allow you to leave notes about specific locations, pins, parts or nets for a particular board. Annotations
are stored in a sqlite3 database with a filename that mirrors the board (see Files).
To create an annotation, right click on the location, pin, part or net of interest. A dialog will appear and in its
reference description it’ll have the details of the location, pin, part and/or net depending on where you right-clicked.

Figure 7.1: Preparation of an annotation, selecting pin [2] of R5410

Figure 7.2: Writing the annotation

12

CHAPTER 7. ANNOTATIONS

13

Type in the annotation and select [Apply]. You can cancel by clicking the dialog close icon on the top-right of the
dialog, or the [Cancel] button.
When the annotation has been saved a flag will appear on the board in the location. When the mouse hovers over
the flag a short-form of the annotation will be displayed. To edit the annotation you can right click the flag.

Figure 7.3: Annotation completed, red flag indicates annotation location. Hovering will show partial text

Chapter 8

Configuration Preferences
File->Program Preferences
Parameter
Window width
Window height
Font size
Screen DPI
Board fill spacing
Zoom step
Zoom modifier
Panning step
Panning modifier
Flip mode
Annotation flag size
Annotation flag offset
Pin Select Masks
Pin Halo
Halo Diameter
Halo thickness
Center/Zoom Search Results
Show Net Web
slowCPU
Show FPS
Fill Parts
Fill Board
FZ Key

Description
Startup width
Startup height
Font size in pt
Screen dpi
Gap between board area fill lines
Proportion of zoom with each click/press
Divides Zoom Step when CTRL pressed
Viewport pixel step with panning
Divides Panning Step when CTRL pressed
When flipping the board, OFBV can either maintain board-in-viewport
position, or flip around current cursor point
Pixel size for Annotation flag on board
How far from the actual point of annotation to display the flag
To assist with contrast, if enabled this will mask the non-selected parts off
with the bitmasks set in Colour Parameters
If set, will display an additional ring around the pin(s) selected
Multiplier of pin size for the halo size
Thickness of circle drawn for halo
If active, frame the search results (both sides) within the current display
If active, draw radial line interconnects to other pins/pads on the board with
the same net
If active, deactivates various items to help improve the frame rate
Display the frame rate in the status bar
Fill parts with colour specified
Fill board area with colour
Required to decode ASUS FZ board files. Consists of 44 32 bit hex values

14

CHAPTER 8. CONFIGURATION PREFERENCES

File->Colour Preferences
Base Theme
Background
Board fill
Board outline
Parts
Outline
Hull
Fill
Selected
Fill (Selected)
Text
Text background
Pins
Default
Default text
Ground
NC
Test pad
Test pad fill
Selected
Highlighted
Halo
Same net
Net web strands
Net web (otherside)

There are two core built in themes for OFBV, Light or Dark. Once you have
selected a theme you can adjust it further
Background colour of the main board viewing window
Colour used to generate the board fill pin striping
Perimeter of board

Outline of the parts
On parts with many pins, there will often be a convex hull generated, this can
be drawn with this colour
Colour to fill the part Outline with
Outline of selected parts
Inner fill of selected parts
Colour of text of selected part name
Background of selected part name

Default colour of normal (connected and not ground) pins
Colour of pin number/name text for default pins
Colour of ground pins
Colour of non connected (NC) pins
Outline colour of test pads
Inner fill colour of test pads
Outline colour of selected pin
Outline colour of pins additionally highlighted (ie, on same net)
Colour of extra contrast ring around same net pins
Colour of text for pins on same net
Colour of interconnect rays drawn from selected pin to other pins on same
net for currently visible side
As above but for pins located on opposite board side

Annotations
Box
Stalk
Popup text
Popup background

Fill colour of box used to flag annotation
Colour of stalk and border of annotation
Colour of text shown when annotation is hovered
Background colour of text show when annotation is hovered

Masks
Pins
Parts
Outline
Boost (pins)
Boost (parts)
Boost (outline)

Masks are applied as originalColour | ORmask & ANDmask
AND’d mask for pins
AND’d mask for parts
AND’d mask for board outline
OR’d mask for pins
OR’d mask for parts
OR’d mask for outline

15

Chapter 9

Board Formats
Type
BRD

BRD2
BDV

ASC
FZ

BVR

Details
Often distributed in an encoded format with a leading 4-byte signature of 0x23, 0xe2, 0x63,
0x28. Decoded text will contain the strings “str_length:” and “var_data:”. A lot of Apple
schematics are in this format
Contains signature strings such as BRDOUT: and NETS:
Very common board format, detected by the presence of strings such as “dd:1.3"
“<>" and "<>" in the content. It is consolidated version of the multifile
ASC format.
Multi-file version of the BDV format. To load you will only need to select a single file of the
group.
Encrypted ASUS distribution format. In order to view these files you will need the 44
quad-byte decoding signature in the Preferences->FZKey else an error will result when
attempting to decode.
An OFBV specific format which is a SQL dump from MSAccess formatted BV file. A separate
decoder/converter is required because the tool to do the decoding is covered under the GPL
licence but OFBV is MIT licenced and thus incompatible.

16

Chapter 10

Files
10.1

obv.conf

Configuration file. Plain text. Parameters are accessible via the File->Program Preferences, and Color Preferences
dialog

10.1.1

Location

Windows
%APPDATA%\locate\openboardview

Linux
~/.config/openboardview
OSX
???

10.2

obv.history

History file. Plain text. Contains recently loaded board files paths.

10.2.1

Location

Windows
%APPDATA%\locate\openboardview
Linux
~/.local/share/openboardview
OSX
???

10.3

*.sqlite3

Companion files for board files. Contains annotations currently but likely will be expanded out to contain other data
associated with the boards.
The sqlite3 companion files are generated by taking the board file name (eg, exampleboard1.brd) converting the
filename separator period in to an underscore and appending .sqlite3 to the name (eg, exampleboard1_brd.sqlite3).
These files can be safely removed without affecting the operation of OFBV other than the loss of the (currently)
annotations.
17



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