Re: [Gumstix-users] Still looking for a good way to share our board designs

[Andrew Plumb <aplumb@gm...>]

On 12/22/05, John Perry <j.e.perry@...> wrote:[deletia]

> Gordon,
>
> How about dxf format? Most cad applications, including Eagle, have
> conversion utilities, and it's a text-only format that can be put under
> version control with no trouble at all.
>
> Since I've not had occasion to use it except to convert to and from
> Autocad to another mechanical cad format, I can't give any advice or
> endorsement myself, except to say that my mechanical conversions went in
> both directions without a hitch.  But no one seems to have mentioned it
> yet, so it may be worth a look.
>
> John Perry


Hi John,

You may find that exported DXF is graphical, more for documentation purpose=
s
than electrical implementation.  Does Eagle import DXF as well?  If it does=
,
there is hope that the process isn't too lossy and enough electrical
properties are preserved to be useful.

Historically, the more common ASCII format used for exchanging
graphical/symbolic representations of PCB circuits between software
applications has been EDIF.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDIF

I used to use it a lot between Protel and some in-house tools, back when I
was reverse-engineering stuff at Chipworks. ;-)

My own personal preference based on more recent endeavours is something
XML-based like SVG.  It's a LOT easier to mark-up, filter, and massage an
intermediate XML-based format using XSL Transforms, to handle those subtle
differences between what one program puts out and the other expects, as wel=
l
as write out to whatever destination format you need.  The tricky part is
coming up with the initial "db2xml" parser...

Andrew.

Disclaimer:  I work for Cadence Design Systems, albeit on the semiconductor
design software, so I choose to keep my distance with respect to downloadin=
g
and/or using Eagle to check things out for myself.  A necessary evil,
unfortunately.

--

If you don't know what to do, do something.

Re: [Gumstix-users] Still looking for a good way to share our board designs

[John Perry <j.e.perry@co...>]

>Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 11:47:51 -0800
>From: Gordon Kruberg <gordon@...>
>To: gumstix-users@...
>Subject: [Gumstix-users] Still looking for a good way to share our board designs
>Reply-To: gumstix-users@...
>
>I had started to post the schematics in Eagle format, just to get things 
>going, and I have discovered that it's close to useless as a shared 
>development environment because of the inability to do diff/merge/build 
>on a system.  I am looking at the following as the "Source Data To 
>Publish"  to allow us to share (including diff and merge) the 
>daughtercard schematics we have been using.  I do not propose at this 
>point to get into the layout issues.
>
>(1) netlist in a standard format (choose 1 of: Eagle, Eagle netscript, 
>Tango, Protel, PADS)
>(2) partslist in my own format (tsv list of Reference, Device, Value, 
>Rating, Tolerance, Package, Sheet, X, Y, Rotation )
>(3) reference mapping for the base Eagle system (Device, Value, Rating, 
>Tolerance, Package, Library, Device, Package)
>(4) scripts/ulps to create the above files,
>(5) scripts/ulps to create schematics from the above files,
>(6) a script/ulp to merge changes into a working system.
>
>Again, using svn for the diffs of a netlist, these will be easily 
>accessible on the web.
>
>I plan to dive into this over the next week:  any commentary from those 
>who think they might like to use the data will be welcomed as I work.
>
>  
>
Gordon,

How about dxf format? Most cad applications, including Eagle, have 
conversion utilities, and it's a text-only format that can be put under 
version control with no trouble at all. 

Since I've not had occasion to use it except to convert to and from 
Autocad to another mechanical cad format, I can't give any advice or 
endorsement myself, except to say that my mechanical conversions went in 
both directions without a hitch.  But no one seems to have mentioned it 
yet, so it may be worth a look.

John Perry

Re: [Gumstix-users] Still looking for a good way to share our board designs

[Andrew Plumb <aplumb@gm...>]

On 12/22/05, John Perry <j.e.perry@...> wrote:[deletia]

> Gordon,
>
> How about dxf format? Most cad applications, including Eagle, have
> conversion utilities, and it's a text-only format that can be put under
> version control with no trouble at all.
>
> Since I've not had occasion to use it except to convert to and from
> Autocad to another mechanical cad format, I can't give any advice or
> endorsement myself, except to say that my mechanical conversions went in
> both directions without a hitch.  But no one seems to have mentioned it
> yet, so it may be worth a look.
>
> John Perry


Hi John,

You may find that exported DXF is graphical, more for documentation purpose=
s
than electrical implementation.  Does Eagle import DXF as well?  If it does=
,
there is hope that the process isn't too lossy and enough electrical
properties are preserved to be useful.

Historically, the more common ASCII format used for exchanging
graphical/symbolic representations of PCB circuits between software
applications has been EDIF.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDIF

I used to use it a lot between Protel and some in-house tools, back when I
was reverse-engineering stuff at Chipworks. ;-)

My own personal preference based on more recent endeavours is something
XML-based like SVG.  It's a LOT easier to mark-up, filter, and massage an
intermediate XML-based format using XSL Transforms, to handle those subtle
differences between what one program puts out and the other expects, as wel=
l
as write out to whatever destination format you need.  The tricky part is
coming up with the initial "db2xml" parser...

Andrew.

Disclaimer:  I work for Cadence Design Systems, albeit on the semiconductor
design software, so I choose to keep my distance with respect to downloadin=
g
and/or using Eagle to check things out for myself.  A necessary evil,
unfortunately.

--

If you don't know what to do, do something.