kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Javier Serrano <javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 10:53 PM, Andrea <serra82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
> I tested your new Interactive Router, it's great!
>
> I had few crash, but I saved often! It stable enough to create a
> professional board.

Any extra details you can give would be useful, especially if the
crashes are reproducible.

> A little note: if I place a via from front layer(starting to draw the
> line from an smd pad), it correctly switch to back layer, but if I
> place another via the line doesn't switch to front layer. I have to
> finish the line with double click and restart to finish the line from
> front layer. (see attached interactiveRouter01.jpg)
> Is correct this behavior?

Yes, I think this is the same bug which was reported in the KiCad user
list last month [1]. Maybe Orson or Tom can give an update on this.

> Do you have any plan about a complete autorouter based to your
> push-and-shove feature? More in general what do you think about the
> integration of autorouter as freerouting or toporouter?

No plans today. This could potentially be a lot of work, and our
experience at CERN is that an autorouter is seldom (if ever) used.
There is a group of people doing layout full-time as a service for the
whole of CERN. Maybe it is because most designs contain many
high-speed lines with specific layout requirements which autorouters
struggle with. I'd be interested in the opinion and experience of
people elsewhere. There are things in our plan [2] which we consider
higher priority, like supporting differential pairs and length
matching. Regarding freerouting, there are good ideas in it
independently of the autorouting side of things, which could
definitely be used in KiCad's push & shove interactive router. Alfons
deserves credit for his openness and generosity.

Cheers,

Javier

[1] https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/kicad-users/conversations/topics/18203
[2] http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cern-kicad/wiki/WorkPackages