@steve.carney To test X3, I think you’re looking for Official Gerber Format Website and its downloads page Ucamco | Downloads
Currently, I have to hit enter an extra time, and it refreshes with a list of downloadable files, including about a dozen test files.
They’ve been pretty careful to ensure that sending a new-version file to an old process won’t break anything. From section 6.9.1 of the standard:
“Component information was added in revision 2020.09, also called X3, by defining two new Gerber layers. By placing the component data in separate files, full compatibility is maintained: if one does not need component information, one can simply ignore the component layers. The new standard is therefore compatible with existing workflows. Legacy software can handle the CAD data with the new assembly information without change. Great care is taken to minimize the development effort by keeping the existing fabrication outputs in place and sticking to an existing syntax.”
For example, the file attributes (from X2) answer some of the questions customers otherwise have to fill out manually, and provide some integrity checks to prevent version skew. But if you just ignore them, you’re no worse off than before, except that a customer might wonder why they’re re-entering the data.
%TF.FileFunction,Copper,L4,Bot*%
%TF.FilePolarity,Positive*%
The top few test cases should test anything that changed with X3. Normally, the only difference will be two extra gerber files to represent the component layers. For example,
Gerber Layer Format - X3 - Kit Dev Coldfire Xilinx (zip)
includes kit-dev-coldfire-xilinx_5213-pnp_bottom.gbr which contains the X3 attribute value of “Component”.
%TF.FileFunction,Component,L4,Bot*%