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Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 08:57:25 -0900
Message-ID: <CAC4O8c9U+DzvkTNcdjYSAc7bU7CHOszLQmuOBprHsA7pUT6U_Q@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] New router pictures
From: Britton Kerin <britton DOT kerin AT gmail DOT com>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
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On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 7:55 AM, Stefan Salewski <mail AT ssalewski DOT de> wrote:
> On Mon, 2014-01-13 at 16:48 +0100, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote:
>> Stefan Salewski wrote:
>>
>> > Yesterday I put some new pictures on my page:
>> > http://www.ssalewski.de/Router.html.en
>>
>> Nice!
>> And most importantly: Good to see, the project receives serious attention.
>> I appreciate your efforts.
>
> Attention is low, as for most FOSS EDA projects. (OK, some exceptions
> exists, maybe raspberry pi, LUFA, and for KiCad there is at least some
> noise.) But I do not care too much about attention.
>
>>
>> Would it be possible to do only some connections? Or is the algorithm a
>> case of all-or-nothing?
>>
>
> Unfortunately the Router can be not used if there already exist traces
> on the layers it should use -- later we may define something like
> keep-out areas similar to large pads, but the router will not be able to
> interfere with manually drawn traces. That is very similar to Anthony's
> router and is a very basic habit of this type of routers.
>
> But of course it is possible to route the first part with the router and
> then manually modify the layout and insert the missing traces. Or it may
> be able to manually guide the router, i.e. by telling it some via
> positions or order of routing.
> Current routing strategy is straight forward, with a layer assignment
> algorithm as described in Tal Dayan's thesis. That one is good for
> preventing crossing of traces, but it takes not into account space
> blocked by pads and pins, which is necessary for dense populated boards.
> There exists many strategies and ideas to improve net ordering and via
> positioning -- all that is not difficult, but needs some thinking and
> testing.
>
> Maybe we should have a simple GUI which allows to insert additional
> rubber bands and to move vias -- that is very easy to do. As you may
> know I have staring a simple schematics editor two years ago
> http://www.ssalewski.de/PetEd.html.en
> a very simple application. I have just converted it to GTK3 (was easy)
> -- now I consider to extend it to basic layout editing. Unfortunately
> first I have to do very much cleanup work...
>
> I think you are one of the persons who have really used PCB program in
> the last 4 years (I did not, maybe DJ did) -- have you ever noticed the
> polygon bug reported some days ago by Gabriel Paubert? There seems to be
> no reply from other people, so my impression that no one is using PCB
> currently is supported unfortunately. I myself have no idea about

I use it.  My impression is that there are actually a decent number of people
lurking about who do.  But I haven't seen this bug.  I've only recently
moved to the latest version though.

Britton