kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Andrew Zonenberg <azonenberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would argue that zone filling is implicit - if it was less
resource-intensive we'd do it live (perhaps we should revisit that
decision? Can we optimize the code to be interactively fast on modern
hardware?). The user assumes that zones will back off around objects to
make room.

Therefore, NOT re-filling zones before plotting should be considered a
UX bug.

On Mon, 2014-11-17 at 18:54 +0000, Ian Woloschin wrote:
> Andrew,
> 
> You are correct about DRC, I just double checked and it does re-fill
> zones.  I must have not been paying attention when I tried that
> earlier.
> 
> 
> I think I must have moved a via slightly, probably to align it in a
> grid with other nearby vias, and neglected to re-run DRC since I
> "knew" that change was minor and "didn't" require a DRC.  Maybe KiCad
> should just force a DRC before plotting?  That'd definitely be heavy
> handed, but it would help prevent stupid designers from doing stupid
> things.
> 
> 
> ...like myself.
> 
> 
> *sigh*
> 
> On Mon Nov 17 2014 at 1:50:06 PM Andrew Zonenberg
> <azonenberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>         I fixed the bug on my board the same way.
>         
>         As of last time I checked, there is an automatic zone-fill
>         before DRC
>         anyway. I've gotten in the habit of running DRC before taping
>         out a
>         design since that both reruns zone fills and confirms that the
>         fills are
>         good.
>         
>         On Mon, 2014-11-17 at 18:47 +0000, Ian Woloschin wrote:
>         > That was my original thought, but I wasn't sure if that was
>         too heavy
>         > handed since it could break existing designs?  Though of
>         course,
>         > they'd be bad designs if they relied on this as a "feature".
>         If the
>         > choice is to force a zone re-fill I'd request that it does a
>         zone
>         > re-fill before DRC as well.
>         >
>         >
>         > Should this be filed as a bug?  I'm happy to do so, but I
>         thought this
>         > could benefit from some discussion first.
>         >
>         >
>         > The good news, I just found my 3/64 bits from the last time
>         I did
>         > this, and drilling out the via through the inner layers does
>         indeed
>         > disconnect my power and ground nets, so this was definitely
>         my
>         > problem.  Easy enough to fix, especially since this was only
>         5
>         > prototype boards, but I'd have been real mad at myself if
>         this was a
>         > large run!
>         >
>         >
>         > -Ian
>         >
>         > On Mon Nov 17 2014 at 1:40:44 PM Andrew Zonenberg
>         > <azonenberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>         >         That bit me once too. Perhaps the best option is to
>         force an
>         >         automatic
>         >         zone re-fill before exporting gerbers?
>         >
>         >         On Mon, 2014-11-17 at 18:22 +0000, Ian Woloschin
>         wrote:
>         >         > Hi folks,
>         >         >
>         >         >
>         >         > I had a question regarding a
>         "sort-of-but-not-really" bug
>         >         that's
>         >         > bitten me a couple of times now.  Most of my
>         boards now are
>         >         4 layers,
>         >         > with the two inner layers being Power/Ground
>         zones.  This
>         >         generally
>         >         > works really well, but on at least two fairly
>         complex
>         >         boards, I've had
>         >         > the misfortune of not remembering to quadruple
>         check that no
>         >         zones are
>         >         > colliding with vias.  I believe this is usually
>         caused by
>         >         forgetting
>         >         > to redraw zones after moving a via, which is
>         entirely my own
>         >         fault,
>         >         > but I just did a quick check and I don't see any
>         indication
>         >         of
>         >         > potentially colliding zones, and my DRC passes
>         without any
>         >         issue :(.
>         >         > Can the DRC detect colliding Nets?  Is this
>         something that
>         >         could be
>         >         > exposed via Python?
>         >         >
>         >         >
>         >         > Unfortunately I cannot share any of these boards,
>         but it's
>         >         pretty easy
>         >         > to replicate this (4 layer board, punch a via
>         through, fill
>         >         Inner
>         >         > layers with zones, move via, run DRC).
>         >         >
>         >         >
>         >         > In any case, I wanted to ask about this before
>         filing a bug
>         >         report or
>         >         > feature request, because while it's not
>         technically
>         >         incorrect
>         >         > behavior, it's behavior that is not intuitive
>         based off of
>         >         all the
>         >         > other awesome things KiCad does for the board
>         designer.
>         >         >
>         >         >
>         >         > -Ian
>         >         > _______________________________________________
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>         >
>         >         --
>         >         Andrew Zonenberg
>         >         PhD student, security group
>         >         Computer Science Department
>         >         Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
>         >         http://colossus.cs.rpi.edu/~azonenberg/
>         >         _______________________________________________
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>         
>         --
>         Andrew Zonenberg
>         PhD student, security group
>         Computer Science Department
>         Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
>         http://colossus.cs.rpi.edu/~azonenberg/

-- 
Andrew Zonenberg
PhD student, security group
Computer Science Department
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
http://colossus.cs.rpi.edu/~azonenberg/

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