Re: Manual routing assist ance (push and shove)

Thanks Jorge.

Check out at least some of this lengthy video showing creating a whole PCB

in Kicad. I hope that all the Eagle developers will get to know how routing

in Kicad works, in particular since so many Kicad users seem to be former

Eagle users.

https://youtu.be/mI3iMBc-8yA?t=20m32s

If you start watching at time (20:32) the author will configure and use

Kicad's interactive (aka push and shove) router.

I'd like to draw attention to what he says at this point:

"Previously when I worked with Eagle it was always a matter, especially in

tight little regions like in here, of just fiddling and fiddling with vias

and traces, trying to get design rules to not be violated... but with the

push and shove router in Kicad it's actually pretty easy."

I wholeheartedly agree with this. The process of laying down closely spaced

tracks on dense boards is incredibly fiddly and frustrating in Eagle.

Please also see time (32:10) in the video. The author demonstrates

optimising already routed tracks by just dragging them around, and they

keep their minimum clearances. This is essential for really dense boards

with many tracks and not much free space, as you play around with different

layout approaches. Currently in Eagle it is a nightmare, and for me on the

very complex designs that I work on, by far the most time-consuming part of

the PCB design process - an almost never-ending cascade of DRC errors.

Eagle now seems to be almost alone among PCB suites in its approach to DRC

violations when laying out and moving tracks. Unlike in most other software

packages, Eagle will only TELL you about all the violations that are

occurring - it will not prevent or fix them. Doing this manually takes a

huge amount of time on complex boards, and for professionals that wasted

time is wasted money, too.

The full autorouter is of no use for dense, complex designs, and the

follow-me router is too limited and doesn't work well (or at all) at small

grid sizes.

On a personal note, I have used Eagle professionally for many years. It has

sometimes been a struggle for me to justify using it over other

professional suites due to some missing advanced features - most

particularly interactive routing. But it has advantages over the other

suites too: it is cross-platform, the file format is version-control

friendly and yes, it is somewhat cheaper (that said it is not saving me

money if it is slowing me down). But now that even Kicad, this totally free

package is able to tick all the boxes that used to give Eagle an edge, it

is almost impossible to carry on as before.

I realise there can be some tension on this list between developers and

users, and we are all very demanding, but still I feel I need to say my

piece, I hope you understand.

I truly hope that Eagle v8 will improve this interactive routing and

optimisation situation, and will be a good release all round. Due to the

length of the Eagle development cycle, realistically if v8 isn't improved

enough, it is likely to be too long before there is another chance. I

personally will not be able to stick around for that.

But I'm staying optimistic for now

Thank you for reading.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Thanks Jorge.

Check out at least some of this lengthy video showing creating a whole PCB

in Kicad. I hope that all the Eagle developers will get to know how routing

in Kicad works, in particular since so many Kicad users seem to be former

Eagle users.

https://youtu.be/mI3iMBc-8yA?t=20m32s

If you start watching at time (20:32) the author will configure and use

Kicad's interactive (aka push and shove) router.

I'd like to draw attention to what he says at this point:

"Previously when I worked with Eagle it was always a matter, especially in

tight little regions like in here, of just fiddling and fiddling with vias

and traces, trying to get design rules to not be violated... but with the

push and shove router in Kicad it's actually pretty easy."

I wholeheartedly agree with this. The process of laying down closely spaced

tracks on dense boards is incredibly fiddly and frustrating in Eagle.

Please also see time (32:10) in the video. The author demonstrates

optimising already routed tracks by just dragging them around, and they

keep their minimum clearances. This is essential for really dense boards

with many tracks and not much free space, as you play around with different

layout approaches. Currently in Eagle it is a nightmare, and for me on the

very complex designs that I work on, by far the most time-consuming part of

the PCB design process - an almost never-ending cascade of DRC errors.

Eagle now seems to be almost alone among PCB suites in its approach to DRC

violations when laying out and moving tracks. Unlike in most other software

packages, Eagle will only TELL you about all the violations that are

occurring - it will not prevent or fix them. Doing this manually takes a

huge amount of time on complex boards, and for professionals that wasted

time is wasted money, too.

The full autorouter is of no use for dense, complex designs, and the

follow-me router is too limited and doesn't work well (or at all) at small

grid sizes.

On a personal note, I have used Eagle professionally for many years. It has

sometimes been a struggle for me to justify using it over other

professional suites due to some missing advanced features - most

particularly interactive routing. But it has advantages over the other

suites too: it is cross-platform, the file format is version-control

friendly and yes, it is somewhat cheaper (that said it is not saving me

money if it is slowing me down). But now that even Kicad, this totally free

package is able to tick all the boxes that used to give Eagle an edge, it

is almost impossible to carry on as before.

I realise there can be some tension on this list between developers and

users, and we are all very demanding, but still I feel I need to say my

piece, I hope you understand.

I truly hope that Eagle v8 will improve this interactive routing and

optimisation situation, and will be a good release all round. Due to the

length of the Eagle development cycle, realistically if v8 isn't improved

enough, it is likely to be too long before there is another chance. I

personally will not be able to stick around for that.

But I'm staying optimistic for now

Thank you for reading.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Thanks Jorge.

Check out at least some of this lengthy video showing creating a whole PCB

in Kicad. I hope that all the Eagle developers will get to know how routing

in Kicad works, in particular since so many Kicad users seem to be former

Eagle users.

https://youtu.be/mI3iMBc-8yA?t=20m32s

If you start watching at time (20:32) the author will configure and use

Kicad's interactive (aka push and shove) router.

I'd like to draw attention to what he says at this point:

"Previously when I worked with Eagle it was always a matter, especially in

tight little regions like in here, of just fiddling and fiddling with vias

and traces, trying to get design rules to not be violated... but with the

push and shove router in Kicad it's actually pretty easy."

I wholeheartedly agree with this. The process of laying down closely spaced

tracks on dense boards is incredibly fiddly and frustrating in Eagle.

Please also see time (32:10) in the video. The author demonstrates

optimising already routed tracks by just dragging them around, and they

keep their minimum clearances. This is essential for really dense boards

with many tracks and not much free space, as you play around with different

layout approaches. Currently in Eagle it is a nightmare, and for me on the

very complex designs that I work on, by far the most time-consuming part of

the PCB design process - an almost never-ending cascade of DRC errors.

Eagle now seems to be almost alone among PCB suites in its approach to DRC

violations when laying out and moving tracks. Unlike in most other software

packages, Eagle will only TELL you about all the violations that are

occurring - it will not prevent or fix them. Doing this manually takes a

huge amount of time on complex boards, and for professionals that wasted

time is wasted money, too.

The full autorouter is of no use for dense, complex designs, and the

follow-me router is too limited and doesn't work well (or at all) at small

grid sizes.

On a personal note, I have used Eagle professionally for many years. It has

sometimes been a struggle for me to justify using it over other

professional suites due to some missing advanced features - most

particularly interactive routing. But it has advantages over the other

suites too: it is cross-platform, the file format is version-control

friendly and yes, it is somewhat cheaper (that said it is not saving me

money if it is slowing me down). But now that even Kicad, this totally free

package is able to tick all the boxes that used to give Eagle an edge, it

is almost impossible to carry on as before.

I realise there can be some tension on this list between developers and

users, and we are all very demanding, but still I feel I need to say my

piece, I hope you understand.

I truly hope that Eagle v8 will improve this interactive routing and

optimisation situation, and will be a good release all round. Due to the

length of the Eagle development cycle, realistically if v8 isn't improved

enough, it is likely to be too long before there is another chance. I

personally will not be able to stick around for that.

But I'm staying optimistic for now

Thank you for reading.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

On 4/13/2016 11:21 AM, Rachael wrote:

Just to add another vote for this one, pretty please with sugar on top, can

we have push and shove routing in EAGLE? :d

 

Seriously though, this is the sort of big feature CADSoft absolutely needs

to bring to EAGLE for people to keep buying it now that the likes of KiCAD

offer serious functionality in an open source tool, and it would likely be

a very compelling reason for existing users of older versions to actually

be willing to pay more money to upgrade to a new licence too. I wonder what

percentage of paid for v6 users upgraded to v7?

 

Many thanks,

 

Rachael

 

Thanks you All,

It's a big job and it's definitely on the TODO list along with all of

the other stuff. I'll keep pushing to give this more prio.

Best Regards,

Jorge Garcia