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CAD Software Development

Hey all!!

Couple years ago I started development on my own EDA Package, and at that time I finished a good portion of the schematic part. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I had to put the project to rest for a while.

Well in the meantime, life got out of the way again and I have resumed on this project. It is my goal to create an easy to use, affordable, and powerful complete EDA package including libraries, schematic, and pcb all together under 1 roof.

In it's current state, the schematic library editor is fully functional as is the schematic editor.

Netlist generator works as well, though it currently only outputs netlists in Tango format which I used to test my generator. Since we still use Tango at my father's company, I had lots of designs to test my generated netlists at. Success rate was 100% =)

The schematic error checker is a little overzealous right now, but it's there. I will do more work on it at a later point in time unless any serious issues arise with it.

With the schematic side primarily up and running I am now working on getting the basics for the pattern editor working and then get the pcb side running. You will actually see a test document when you start the app that tests my pads for the pattern editor. =)

What I am looking for right now is input, suggestions, feedback, bug reports, etc. Any input, both good and bad is appreciated.

So if anyone feels like playing around with this, I would love to hear your comments!!

The application can be download here:

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Just extract the archive anywhere you like, run iEda.exe in the bin directory to start the app.

For those who may not have winrar to extract the rar archive:

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The application also requires the .Net Framework 2.0 which can be found at the following location:

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It is a one-time install only.

The latest version of DirectX is also required, though not reccomended. If available, and if the video card supports DirectX9, the application uses a hardware accelerated renderer for drawing. If not, it falls back to standard software GDI. The latest version of DirectX 9 can be obtained here:

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If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at snipped-for-privacy@removeforspam.somrek.net or just post a reply, I will be happy to assist.

Thanks in advance for anyone who wants to check this out =)

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Reply to
Stephan Rose
Loading thread data ...

I don't get any files extracted. Zilch.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

Weird, I just downloaded the file from my server to test and everything extracted just fine...should get the following directory structure extracted:

iEDA/bin/iEDA.exe iEDA/bin/Plugin.dll iEDA/bmp/arc.png iEDA/bmp/arrow.png iEDA/bmp/attribute.png iEDA/bmp/circle.png iEDA/bmp/component.png iEDA/bmp/junction.png iEDA/bmp/line.png iEDA/bmp/pin.png iEDA/bmp/polygon.png iEDA/bmp/rectangle.png iEDA/bmp/reference.png iEDA/bmp/reroute.png iEDA/bmp/text.png iEDA/bmp/zoom.png iEDA/Plugins/Libraries.dll iEDA/Plugins/Schematic.dll

I put a zip file up for ya instead. Maybe that will work better =)

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Thanks,

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Reply to
Stephan Rose

Have you seen gschem?

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(uses 'pcb' to handle circuit layout)

Or KiCad?

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They are win32 free aswell.

Reply to
pbdelete

Oh I know other's exist but I am so far along now that there is no way I am going to stop. =)

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Reply to
Stephan Rose

At least make your version unix portable. Or your software will be obsoleted by the next fad ms comes up with.

Reply to
pbdelete

Erm you are telling this to a guy who has been writing windows software for oh I don't know...almost 10 years now? =)

But yes, it actually is sort of portable to unix. The code is purely .Net based making zero use of any win32 api calls with the exception of my debug profiler class for timing code. But obviously that timing class is not important for operation and would be easily ported anyway.

There is a .Net Framework implementation available for unix called Mono. I have never actually used it but it appears that they are doing quite good. The currently release does not support the .Net 2.0 specs yet but an upcoming release should making a port possible.

The only potential issue would be the DirectX rendering pipeline which is optional anyway. But without it, I would also need to ditch the Microsoft.DirectX.Vector classes I use for rendering purposes to save myself time in writing my own. Not really a major issue.

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Reply to
Stephan Rose

On the other hand, let me ask you this.

How important is unix portability? And I don't mean just your personal view on this. I am still at a point in time where I could say ok fine, I will go to C++ instead and disconnect the then required win32 portion. Would take a little bit of time but not that terribly much. If it's worth it, I will do it. But I don't even remotely have the ability to judge that from where I am sitting.

Note though that I am looking for professional reasons, not anti-microsoft statements.

Thanks,

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Reply to
Stephan Rose

Unix systems are on the whole more stable and straightforward. In practice this means less problems with network attacks and no virus problems. I have machines that only reboots when there's a trouble with power. It also makes it a lot easier to juggle around with cpu power, discs, and networks as the needs arises. In short superior flexibility with resources. API's tend to be more stable meaning investments in knowledge and code can be used for longer time. And no BSA to chase you should you missed some license issue.

More on why..

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Reply to
pbdelete

Honestly...I have to disagree with some of that. The only time my win2k3 server has restarted is when I had a power outage. Other than that I have had 100% reliability and uptime.

Every single XP system I own, and I do have multiple, all are stable, adware free and virus free.

In the hands of an inexperienced user, both a unix or windows system can go unstable and go to crap. In the hands of an experienced user, either can be just as good and it matters more towards the users needs / preferences which to use.

For me a reason to develop for unix would go more along the lines of "90% of my userbase resides there" or some other statement to that effect =)

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Reply to
Stephan Rose

Mac OS/X is Unix-based. We discovered (pleasant surprise) that the "Unix" PCB (pcb.sourceforge.net) builds as-is under OS/X using their OpenMotif library. No porting required, poof! Mac OS/X support.

Plus, of course, all those Linux distros are gaining market share too.

Reply to
DJ Delorie

I agree with Stephan here; WinXP is perfectly stable so long as you don't load a bunch of crap onto it -- which is the same thing that's true of ANY OS, Linux, the Mac OS, etc. I would, however, agree that WinXP comes somewhat less secured "out of the box" than many Linux distributions and the Mac OS does these days.

From an end-user point of view, Linux is still *considerably* more difficult to install software on than Windows is -- it certainly doesn't pass the "grandma" test.

Reply to
Joel Kolstad

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