I placed the write-up of the PCB placement utility that was discussed at last nights Freedog in the "not-quite-ready" section of luciani.org.
http://www.luciani.org/not-quite-ready/not-quite-ready-index.html (* jcl *) On 10/7/05, Stuart Brorson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Tonight's meeting started early because I needed to pick up some > people at the airport later in the evening. Three people came: Ales, > John, and myself (Stuart). I am always suprised and gratified by the > amount of interest these Free Dog meeting notes generate on the gEDA > lists! Hopefully, tonight's meeting will be as interesting to read > about as it was to attend in person. > > Herewith, some of the topics we discussed, in no particular order. > > > * The gschem patches which draw "L" nets. Ales had downloaded the > patches, and built them on his machine. He demonstrated the new net > drawing style, and we all liked it. Personally, I think this style of > drawing nets is preferable to drawing individual, orthogonal segments. > In particular, it makes it easy to connect two points which lie far > away from one another on a diagonal. > > We all agreed to thank David Carr and Werner Hoch for this most > excellent new feature! > > As an aside, most commerical schematic capture packages draw "L" nets, > so this feature brings gschem up to the same standard as, say, > ViewDraw. One thing I noticed: you can draw "L" nets through > components. In ViewDraw, nets will automatically avoid being drawn > through components. We discussed whether this was a feature or a > bug. John pointed out that one sometimes wants to draw nets through > connector symbols, so the way gschem works now is a feature. > > > * Embedded picture support. Ales demonstrated that gschem now allows > you to place graphics in the drawing field, and also allows you to > embedd the graphic directly into the .sch file. We played with > embedding and unembedding a .png graphic which Ales had on his > machine. Placing a graphic was very easy, and worked well. You could > resize the graphic, and gschem just "did the right thing". > > I asked what the feature was for, and we agreed that it would be nice > way to put a company logo into a schematic. I wonder if there are > other uses? > > As for embedding and unembedding the graphic into/from the .sch file: > Embedding worked great. However, unembedding failed the first time > around. Ales looked at the code which supports unembedding > components (which this new feature piggybacks upon), and we found a > slight bug. Ales fixed it in real time. To me, this is a > demonstration of the value of these user meetings: we can use them as > light-duty hacking sessions! > > We all expressed mega thanks to Carlos for this way cool feature! > > > * John introduced another Perl utility for PCB. His new utility, > "pcb-place", will take a config file holding a list of components and > desired positions, and place the components onto the PC board at the > locations specified in the file. Amongst other things, this utility > is very useful for automatically placing large numbers of components > arranged in regular patterns. John presented an example in which he > placed around 50 LEDs on a display board. > > His utility works by reading in an existing .pcb file, locating all > the components listed in the config file, and the moving the > components to the desired locations. Making this work engendered a > discussion about the PCB file format. One issue raised which we have > discussed here before is that in PCB a component's position is given > in the component's header line, and when you translate a component, > only the header changes. However, when you rotate a component, the > graphical elements *inside* the component are moved, even though there > is a "rotation" attribute in the header. Nobody could remember if the > rotation attribute was only for the component's text, or if it was > supposed to rotate the whole component, although John said that when > he munged the rotation attribute, it didn't affect the text > placement. Could one of the PCB developers chime in here and clarify > this? > > John's Perl placement utility will also add lines and vias to the > component's footprint, which I think is an excellent feature for > simplifying pin-escaping complicated parts. He wants to add a few > more features, and then will release it. Watch his website! > > > * CD Installer: Various people have reported problems getting the > gEDA Suite installer to work successfully. I am deeply concerned > about this. The biggest problem seems to lie with SuSE. I am > therefore going to build an installer test center in my gf's basement: > I have about 1/2 dozen old scrap computers upon which I will load > various distros (notably SuSE9.3 and FC4), and then try runing the > installer on those distros to diagnose and correct the problems. This > process will take place over a few weeks (or more). If you are > suffering from problems with the installer, hang tight! BTW: Thanks, > Ales, for the copy of FC4, and thanks in advance to the folks who are > sending me copies of SuSE9.3! > > > * I had been playing with BRL-CAD for a little while, so I showed to > the group what I had done so far. Following Marvin's suggestion, I > had started working through Vol 2 of the BRL-CAD documentation, > although I hadn't gotten very far. > > I demoed use of the CLI to read in, display, and render a built > object. I had previously drawn the handheld radio given in the > documentation, so I demoed that. We moved it around and zoomed in and > out. Beyond that I hadn't gotten very far, so we didn't do much more > than that. > > Some BRL-CAD comments: > > -- It seems more like a visulation tool than a CAD tool. For > example, I am at a loss about how to indicate dimensions, or > create a 2-D print of a 3-D shape I have modeled. Has anybody > on this list figured out how to do this, or is it possible? > > -- Driving BRL-CAD via the command line struck several of us as a > major annoyance. I said that one normally must do lots of > command-line stuff anyway when creating dimensioned drawings, so > it didn't annoy me. > > -- If BRL-CAD is indeed more about solid modeling and visulation > than about CAD, then the question is again raised: What 3-D > mechanical CAD pacakges exist for Linux, commerical or > otherwise? > > > * After fooling with BRL-CAD, I ran QCad for the group. The group > opinion is that QCad's user interface is not very good, and requires > far too much clicking on buttons on the left hand window. No keyboard > shortcuts exist for most operations, and certainly none exist for > drawing. This is a major misfeature, since it makes creating anything > more than a trivial drawing a real pain. We discussed how gschem > allows one to move the mouse in one hand, and type keyboard shortcuts > with the other. Everybody agrees that that is a major feature of > gschem. > > We also observed that QCad's demo binary automatically closes down > after 10 minutes of use. Nobody liked that at all -- it's worse than > nagware, although at least it gives you the option to save your work > before it shuts down. > > > * We agreed to try PyCAD for the next meeting. John told me that the > latest PythonCAD rev is version 25, released last May. The website > is: > > http://www.pythoncad.org/ > > My quest is to find an open-source drawing program suitable for > creating dimensioned drawings suitable for sending to a machine shop. > Stay tuned to hear about what we think about PythonCAD! > > > * An aside: I mentioned interest in Linux-based CNC software. In > particular, I have been following the "Enhanced Machine Controller" > (EMC) list for a while. Here's a link: > > http://www.linuxcnc.org/ > > Other CNC links courtesy of John: > > 80/20 is at http://www.8020.net > Rockler is at http://www.rockler.com > Machinist Workshop is at http://www.homeshopmachinist.net/index.cfm > > Perhaps at some future FreeDog we will have a longer investigation of > this kind of software. > > > * Back to gschem. Ales is thinking about creating a "newbie mode" > for gschem. Newbie mode will offer more help to the new user, telling > him what to do with each step of using the program. We discussed > whether newbie mode should be on by default, run one for the first 20 > sessions and then go away, etc. It will be configurable, and will > likely be an option in the gafrc. > > > * Another gschem topic: There is some interest in a version of > gschem which doesn't run the GUI. This feature would be useful for > scripted applications. Ales is going to post a script that demos > an alternative method (virtual buffer?) > > > * We talked about what to put on the gEDA Wiki. Besides Ales' FAQ, > here are some suggestions: > > -- Link to Bill Wilson's excellent tutorial. We discussed whether > it should just be a link, or perhaps take his stuff and wiki-ize > it. Ales wants to put a link since Bill did such a nice job > with formatting, and Ales thinks preserving the formatting will > be difficult with the Wiki. On the other hand, I think that > wiki-izing the tutorial will enable others to add to and improve > it (even though it's already excellent). > > -- This idea led to another tutorial which I wrote a while ago and > shared privately with a small circle of readers. I wrote the > tutorial for a glossy magazine, and submitted it. It was > accepted, but they haven't done anything with it. Since I > haven't signed over ownership yet, I can pull it from them and > stick it on the Wiki. This would obviate the need to wiki-ize > Bill Wilson's tutorial, and would provide another gEDA tutorial > for newbies. I promised to pursue this. > > -- I will also create a graphic showing the design flow to create a > PC board, starting from gschem, and going through PCB. Expect > to see this on the wiki soon! > > > * Windoze version of gEDA/gaf. Ales said that he would spin a > Windows version of gschem as soon as he (or somebody else) replaced > the custom file browser with one build using stock GTK widgets. > Hackers -- if you're looking for a gEDA project, this may be simple > enough to get your feet wet with the project! > > > * GEDA project manager. The current project manager, geda, is broken > and unsupported. Personally, I think having a working project manager > would be a good thing, particularly becase so many newbies try using > the suite by typing "geda" at the command line. Right now, > unfortuantely, they are likely to get a segfault when starting geda, > which is a real turn-off. > > We discussed whether it was better to fix the existing program > (written in C), or to just write something new from the ground up. > Something new could be written in Python (my suggestion). This makes > sense because the purpose of the project manager is to present a GUI > to the user, invoke various the various programs used in the design > flow, and keep track of various project files. This type of > application naturally lends itself to a scripting-type language, > instead of C. As for scripting languages, Ales threatened to > write the project manager in Scheme. :-) > > However, before doing a rewrite, it would be a good idea to look more > closely at geda to see if it can be easily fixed. I belive that its > problem is just that it hasn't kept up with changes to the GTK API > (and perhaps a few other issues). > > > * John mentioned that he still wants to do a gEDA 200K (200 km) bike > ride from Boston to New Hampshire! Both Ales and I are a little too > out of shape for that. (Although I ride, John wants to average between > 15 and 20 mph for the whole ride, which is very strenuous.) Anybody > else on this list who bikes and wants to take John up on the offer?!!? > > > * Finally, responding to Ales' question, we talked about Google stock > and why it was so high. Personally, I think it is a bubble. Google's > business model is based upon selling advertising. However, ads on > television reach zillions of times more people than ads on Google > since more people watch TV than do anything with computers. Also, for > the small percentage of people who are computer & Google users > (including readers of this list), who every actually looks at the > Google ads? Anybody here read them? I rarely do. On the other hand, > TV ads are inescapable. Despite this, the stock prices of TV network > companies are in the toilet, while Google is flying high. To me, this > makes no sense. Others may have a different opinion. > > > After 2 1/2 hours of conversation, we broke up. Thanks to John > Luciani who e-mailed me a list of topics we discussed -- it helps to > jog my memory about all the interesting subjects touched upon during > the course of the evening! > > Your FreeDog correspondent, > > Stuart > > > -- http://www.luciani.org
