The Cadsoft miscellaneous downloads page has a number of utilities and Perl scripts that convert images to Eagle compatible scripts. We tried a few, and liked BMP2EAGLE the best. BMP2EAGLE works by converting simple monochrome bitmap images into dots that can be drawn in Eagle with a script.
- The bitmap format used by our usual photo editor wasn’t compatible with BMP2EAGLE. We saved the logo as a large (450px wide) GIF file, loaded that in Windows Paint and saved it as a BMP. Windows Paint outputs a compatible format.
- Start BMP2EAGLE and load the image file.
- The ‘Scale’ setting determines how big each bitmap pixel will be in Eagle. We got the best ‘resolution’ by using a large image and small scale value (0.2mils per pixel) to produce a small logo.
- BMP2EAGLE scripts draw the black areas of the bitmap, tick ‘Negative’ if you’d rather draw the white areas.
- Click start to output the script.
- Open Eagle and create a new part library, then create a new package.
- Run the script (file->script) to draw the image on the new package. Save the library.
- Load the library for use (library->use). Add the logo from the library directly to the PCB (there’s no schematic component).