kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Oscad Developers,

Your work sounds interesting.  I have a few questions about the current
state of your code:

1) I've been working under the assumption that you were interested in
merging your work into KiCad to provide an integrated simulator solution
but it almost sounds like you are developing a stand alone project so
some clarification on that would be helpful.

2)  Is there a source repo that we can download and build to get and
idea of how well the software works, what kind of effort it takes to
build on all of the platforms KiCad supports, and how difficult it will
be to merge into the KiCad project?

3) Have you bee keeping up with the latest changes in KiCad to ease any
code merges?

4) If you do plan to merge your simulator code into KiCad, are you going
to supply developer resources to maintain and support your code?

Thank you for you interest in contributing to KiCad.

Regards,

Wayne

On 8/18/2014 6:10 AM, Oscad Team wrote:
> *
> 
> Dear KiCad Developers,
> 
> 
> Greetings from Oscad Team, IIT Bombay!
> 
> 
> In continuation to the earlier discussions, we would like to propose the
> following roadmap:
> 
> 
> Integration of ngspice to KiCad
> 
> Currently, Oscad uses KiCad for schematic creation and uses ngspice for
> simulation. Ngspice has its inbuilt plotting mechanism but it is not
> interactive. Therefore we come up with interactive plotting using python
> matplot library.
> 
> 
> How the Python plotting works?
> 
> Ngspice can print all the plotting data using “print allv” and “print
> alli” command which can be easily stored in a text file. The file is
> then parsed in such a way that it contains only time information and
> value of voltage or current at a particular node. After parsing text
> file, it is send to the plotting function which plot the data. We can
> also plot any arithmetic function on this data. Note: The plotting is
> available only for analog node as there is no command to print all
> digital voltage in ngspice.
> 
> 
> Below are the questions your team had asked in the earlier communication:
> 
> 
>> - What type of simulations should be possible? Spice, digital, S-parameter, IBIS for signal integrity, other?
> 
>   *
> 
>     Spice, digital,S-parameter are supported
> 
>> - How a user would set up and run a simulation.
> 
> There are two ways to do it set up the simulation:
> 
>   *
> 
>     Directly generating KiCad netlist from the schematic that is
>     compatible with ngspice.
> 
>   *
> 
>     The generated KiCad netlist is modified to be compatible with ngspice.
> 
> A button can be provided in the KiCad interface to run the simulation.
> 
>> - What type of UI would be offered to the user? Would e.g. plots be automatically re-calculated and displayed if a parameter is changed in the schematics? How would stimuli be entered? How would you probe signals and select them for plotting?
> 
> The simulation opens up a python based UI.
> 
> When the parameters are changed in the schematic, the simulation can be
> done only after generating the modified netlist. So the simulations will
> not change automatically.
> 
> A dialog box based entry is provided to enter the parameters for
> simulation,   
> 
> To probe the signals we can use global label and save the netlist with
> name. After that by using python plot we can take the outputs by
> selecting the name which is given as a global label.
> 
> 
>> - Formats of any output files the user would get.
> 
>   *
> 
>     You have the options to print or just view the simulations. In
>     python plotting the user can save the simulation in png and jpg
>     formats.
> 
> 
> As KiCad is looking at integrating QUCS for simulation, ngspice
> simulation and python plotting can serve as added capability to KiCad.
> 
> 
> We are open to your inputs and suggestions.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Oscad Team,
> 
> IIT Bombay.
> 
> 
> *
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 8:43 PM, Javier Serrano
> <javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> 
>     On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Javier Serrano
>     <javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx
>     <mailto:javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>     >  Functional specifications can be discussed
>     > before even writing the technical specs, and would include things
>     > like:
>     >
>     > - What type of simulations should be possible? Spice, digital,
>     > S-parameter, IBIS for signal integrity, other?
>     > - How a user would set up and run a simulation.
>     > - What type of UI would be offered to the user? Would e.g. plots be
>     > automatically re-calculated and displayed if a parameter is changed in
>     > the schematics? How would stimuli be entered? How would you probe
>     > signals and select them for plotting?
>     > - Formats of any output files the user would get.
> 
>     One more idea: Python scripting support for interacting with
>     simulation would surely be very popular with KiCad users.
> 
>     Cheers,
> 
>     Javier
> 
> 
> 
> 
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