At 06:33 PM 2/7/2002 -0800, John Williams wrote: > > A little interference > > checking, nothing terribly fancy, in Protel would go a long way. Just > > height checking, fine, as long as it is easy to set up height regions, > > simple or complex. More complex models for components, better as an option, > > terrible if they are a necessity. > >This function is available in QualECAD View3D. > >Take a look at: > > http://www.qualecad.com/page7.html
QualECAD has been highly recommended by users. Yes, it appears that QualECAD allows the assignment of a height attribute to rooms, and it detects height violations based on the footprint 3-D models (and QualECAD gives users, if I am correct, gives users access to the models). However, this is, if I am correct, a viewer. On-line DRC of height restriction would be *much* more useful in a practical sense. Being able to pick up a component and see immediately -- by the appearance of the error color -- that there is a height violation -- cuts out a huge amount of work. It is like on-line DRC in general. The original CAD DRCs were batch programs run after the design was done. That was a great improvement, but on-line DRC was a true productivity boon. Fixing errors could take ten times as much time as making things right in the first place. Sometimes late discovery of an error is a major disaster, if a lot of work has been done that depends, say, on components location. Even if routing has been postponed to get approval of placement, many components might need to be moved to fix a problem. Much, much better if the height violation is avoided from the beginning. This is a *placement* tool, thinking of 3-D in terms of viewing and checking is quite limited, it is the placement assistance that is truly important. Autoplace would necessarily respect height rules as well. It is difficult to think of a more central operation to PCB design than placement! [EMAIL PROTECTED] Abdulrahman Lomax Easthampton, Massachusetts USA * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
