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Auto-place, or at least "semi-automatic"

autodeskguest

Hello,

 

In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow first of all a major

thank-you to Cadsoft for introducing a hierarchical schematic sheet

structure. This will hopefully bring Eagle more into the mainstream and

it was "the" reason why I bought V7 (I was a V4 hold-out).

 

Since Eagle does not have an auto-place routine and Jorge Garcia said in

another forum that there aren't any really suitable algorithms for that

I have a suggestion for a simpler fix:

 

When switching to board view for the first time let Eagle scatter the

components the same way they are on the schematic, with multiple pages

in sub-groups. It's ok if that occupies a large area because people will

then be able to concentrate on one stage at a time, drag that over as a

group and arrange the parts as need. Then the next cluster. And so on.

 

Right now Eagle just plops the parts down in a willy-nilly fashion. It

looks like neat rows but the designators are all mixed up, the ratsnest

is a mess. This lengthens the placement job because one has to search

for many parts.

 

Also, I strongly suggest to let the "lesser versions" such as Eagle

Standard pre-group clusters outside the board area just to get a grasp

of what belongs together. Right now it refuses with an error message

"objects outside allowed board area". You cannot move one little thing

unless you move it into the board area. You can't even move it back out

if you grabbed the wrong part. Just let people arrange parts outside the

board area wherever they want but without routing permission. That will

uphold the license limitations because they can only route after the

affected parts have been moved inside the board area.

 

--

Regards, Joerg

 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

 

Parents

  • Am 27.11.2014 02:02, schrieb Joerg:

    You cannot move one little thing

    unless you move it into the board area. You can't even move it back out

    if you grabbed the wrong part. Just let people arrange parts outside the

    board area wherever they want but without routing permission. That will

    uphold the license limitations because they can only route after the

    affected parts have been moved inside the board area.

     

    Since Joerg's idea is a good one, let me elaborate on that a bit more to

    (hopefully) prevent misunderstandings:

      1. YES, it REALLY is a nuisance that, once you moved a part inside the

         routing area, you cannot move it back outside anymore due to the

         size limitations. Especially for limited-sized boards, one often

         wants to try better placements, and this is often quite hard for

         the "non-profit" users who cannot move components back outside.

      2. If CadSoft would let people 'move' everything everywhere, but not

         'route' everywhere, some people would surely place and route a

         small area, move that outside the allowed area, route the next

         small chunk, move it outside, etc. All in all, users could then

         easily create and route large boards, just separated in smaller

         chunks. This is quite probably NOT what CadSoft wants...

      3. Therefore, my own suggestion would be to:

          a) Allow MOVING of UNrouted components (that are NOT connected

             to ANY copper, but just to 'unrouted' signals) everywhere.

          b) Disallow MOVING of ROUTED components (that have at least

             one copper track attached) outside the allowed area.

          c) Disallow ROUTING and WIRING outside the allowed area.

          d) Disallow MOVING of copper tracks or other wires outside

             the allowed area.

         This should take care of (2) and additional tricksters who

         would otherwise do one of the following things:

          - Route copper in a way that the copper overlaps the corresponding

            pads, but is not EXACTLY positioned on top of the pad center, so

            it would be 'unrouted' mathematically, but correctly routed

            mechanically.

          - Use self-defined layers for the copper and not ROUTE tracks,

            but just WIRE them.

         (The above restriction for MOVE would also apply for COPY and

         PASTE)

    The net benefit for non-profit users would be that they could really

    FULLY use the allowed area, including trying differently routed designs,

    which could be ripped up and placed outside the allowed area again.

     

    Probably this is exactly what Joerg meant, but just to clear things up...

     

    Andreas Weidner

     

     

     

  • in reply to anweid

    Andreas Weidner wrote:

    Am 27.11.2014 02:02, schrieb Joerg:

    You cannot move one little thing

    unless you move it into the board area. You can't even move it back out

    if you grabbed the wrong part. Just let people arrange parts outside the

    board area wherever they want but without routing permission. That will

    uphold the license limitations because they can only route after the

    affected parts have been moved inside the board area.

     

    Since Joerg's idea is a good one, let me elaborate on that a bit more to

    (hopefully) prevent misunderstandings:

    1. YES, it REALLY is a nuisance that, once you moved a part inside the

        routing area, you cannot move it back outside anymore due to the

        size limitations. Especially for limited-sized boards, one often

        wants to try better placements, and this is often quite hard for

        the "non-profit" users who cannot move components back outside.

     

     

    That limitation also goes for the not so cheap standard version. I

    bought that because I normally do not do layouts myself but for one

    upcoming project must likely crank out a few small-size 4-layer fast shots.

     

     

    2. If CadSoft would let people 'move' everything everywhere, but not

        'route' everywhere, some people would surely place and route a

        small area, move that outside the allowed area, route the next

        small chunk, move it outside, etc. All in all, users could then

        easily create and route large boards, just separated in smaller

        chunks. This is quite probably NOT what CadSoft wants...

    3. Therefore, my own suggestion would be to:

         a) Allow MOVING of UNrouted components (that are NOT connected

            to ANY copper, but just to 'unrouted' signals) everywhere.

         b) Disallow MOVING of ROUTED components (that have at least

            one copper track attached) outside the allowed area.

         c) Disallow ROUTING and WIRING outside the allowed area.

         d) Disallow MOVING of copper tracks or other wires outside

            the allowed area.

        This should take care of (2) and additional tricksters who

        would otherwise do one of the following things:

         - Route copper in a way that the copper overlaps the corresponding

           pads, but is not EXACTLY positioned on top of the pad center, so

           it would be 'unrouted' mathematically, but correctly routed

           mechanically.

         - Use self-defined layers for the copper and not ROUTE tracks,

           but just WIRE them.

        (The above restriction for MOVE would also apply for COPY and

        PASTE)

    The net benefit for non-profit users would be that they could really

    FULLY use the allowed area, including trying differently routed designs,

    which could be ripped up and placed outside the allowed area again.

     

    Probably this is exactly what Joerg meant, but just to clear things up...

     

     

    Yes, that's what I meant with "without routing permission". It would be

    perfect. From a code point of view it should be fairly simple for

    Cadsoft. Just warn about or, better yet, delete all routed traces the

    millisecond they are dragged outside the licensed board limit. That

    would allow situations like "Oh, I think I should have done the RF

    section first so lets just scrap all this stuff over here and move it

    back out for now". Then you could even move routed parts back out, with

    the understanding that they'd lose all trace connections.

     

    --

    Regards, Joerg

     

    http://www.analogconsultants.com/

     

Reply
  • in reply to anweid

    Andreas Weidner wrote:

    Am 27.11.2014 02:02, schrieb Joerg:

    You cannot move one little thing

    unless you move it into the board area. You can't even move it back out

    if you grabbed the wrong part. Just let people arrange parts outside the

    board area wherever they want but without routing permission. That will

    uphold the license limitations because they can only route after the

    affected parts have been moved inside the board area.

     

    Since Joerg's idea is a good one, let me elaborate on that a bit more to

    (hopefully) prevent misunderstandings:

    1. YES, it REALLY is a nuisance that, once you moved a part inside the

        routing area, you cannot move it back outside anymore due to the

        size limitations. Especially for limited-sized boards, one often

        wants to try better placements, and this is often quite hard for

        the "non-profit" users who cannot move components back outside.

     

     

    That limitation also goes for the not so cheap standard version. I

    bought that because I normally do not do layouts myself but for one

    upcoming project must likely crank out a few small-size 4-layer fast shots.

     

     

    2. If CadSoft would let people 'move' everything everywhere, but not

        'route' everywhere, some people would surely place and route a

        small area, move that outside the allowed area, route the next

        small chunk, move it outside, etc. All in all, users could then

        easily create and route large boards, just separated in smaller

        chunks. This is quite probably NOT what CadSoft wants...

    3. Therefore, my own suggestion would be to:

         a) Allow MOVING of UNrouted components (that are NOT connected

            to ANY copper, but just to 'unrouted' signals) everywhere.

         b) Disallow MOVING of ROUTED components (that have at least

            one copper track attached) outside the allowed area.

         c) Disallow ROUTING and WIRING outside the allowed area.

         d) Disallow MOVING of copper tracks or other wires outside

            the allowed area.

        This should take care of (2) and additional tricksters who

        would otherwise do one of the following things:

         - Route copper in a way that the copper overlaps the corresponding

           pads, but is not EXACTLY positioned on top of the pad center, so

           it would be 'unrouted' mathematically, but correctly routed

           mechanically.

         - Use self-defined layers for the copper and not ROUTE tracks,

           but just WIRE them.

        (The above restriction for MOVE would also apply for COPY and

        PASTE)

    The net benefit for non-profit users would be that they could really

    FULLY use the allowed area, including trying differently routed designs,

    which could be ripped up and placed outside the allowed area again.

     

    Probably this is exactly what Joerg meant, but just to clear things up...

     

     

    Yes, that's what I meant with "without routing permission". It would be

    perfect. From a code point of view it should be fairly simple for

    Cadsoft. Just warn about or, better yet, delete all routed traces the

    millisecond they are dragged outside the licensed board limit. That

    would allow situations like "Oh, I think I should have done the RF

    section first so lets just scrap all this stuff over here and move it

    back out for now". Then you could even move routed parts back out, with

    the understanding that they'd lose all trace connections.

     

    --

    Regards, Joerg

     

    http://www.analogconsultants.com/

     

Children
  • in reply to autodeskguest

    Am 28.11.2014 18:25, schrieb Joerg:

    Yes, that's what I meant with "without routing permission". It would be

    perfect. From a code point of view it should be fairly simple for

    Cadsoft. Just warn about or, better yet, delete all routed traces the

    millisecond they are dragged outside the licensed board limit. That

    would allow situations like "Oh, I think I should have done the RF

    section first so lets just scrap all this stuff over here and move it

    back out for now". Then you could even move routed parts back out, with

    the understanding that they'd lose all trace connections.

     

    Won-der-ful. Let's do it like that. I'll just look into the source

    and... ah, what a pity, I don't HAVE any source. Well, so we probably

    just have to wait...

     

    Andreas Weidner