kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Clemens Koller <cko@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello, Kristoffer!

On 2017-01-14 11:43, Kristoffer Ödmark wrote:
> The conceopt is amazing, the idea of realtime really intrigues me.

There are some more crazy ideas in my head. Imagine rigid body dynamics applied to PCB design to Push & Shove traces as well as components (as long as they are not locked in place)... physics engines are out there - propably they are not only useful in computer games. Or: You layout your PCB with components spread out wide. Then you hit a button turning all traces into virtial elastic bands shrinking your design to a minimal area as far as designrules (causing collisions) allow.

> parallels to how when I use vias, 
> I have a component for them, and when for some reason I have to change the minium via size, then 
> I just replace all instances of the VIA-0.25mm with another footprint VIA-0.30mm for example. 

IMO vias are not footprints. They don't have references, don't get assembled, they can get optimized away (removed) automatically. They can become testpoints for flying probe/ICT, ...

> How I would like to use PDR is similar to how I use footprints. Assign a layout to a schematic. 
> Basically I would want a new type of "component/part/layout" that I can add to either schematic 
> or pcbnew item. But instead of having a separate symbol and footprint, this would mean a file/folder
> containing both a symbol and layout(s) ( .sweet + .pretty = .cake ? ), I will call them cakes from now on =) 

Reusing proven parts of a previous layout can be a great feature. But what happened to me is that I needed
a technology change - replace all RLC footprints from 1608M (0603) to 1005M (0402) of such a reuse.
Or there is a need for an update from a library to replace all rectangular footprints with rounded rectangles to reduce tombstoning.
This could all be possible with table based design entry and database operations (search & replace in selection)...

Btw. reinventing pretty names could be fun, but it raises the barrier to migrate for designers who where using other tools.
KISS.

> This way when updating the layout, It would be easy to propagate it to every other .cake object in 
> the layout the same way you do with footprints, keeping the KiCAD workflow intact.

Basically yes. An intelligent copy/store, load/paste feature might speed up the design quite a lot, if it's done properly.

Regards,

Clemens