X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Original-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s2048; t=1433990061; bh=wzqX5URmuE8gSVHnGXzDyECCQOAeX4WKXuNJWosued4=; h=Date:From:Reply-To:To:In-Reply-To:References:Subject:From:Subject; b=sSeHaknU5MGLRzCQjHOqUM6MJGau+iWs+D+/zmq3GFL3UHcy97S1lQ0e08hCgaoCXFQDcRKlLponeMFD3A7VtUVfL4HbYeAr83y225KuMHvFDcdsTgW0R0DU7vZFcw79Ly38EPgrOXRVkfa3jvn4Q/3TvhRuviWs4kly+2tCWGcDTnodVEGbpRvdZbf/WEDeCsRAVnMq+01KDsT6chbOEQgYQ5clpzXCKDpqr5cUBzAikA+SBjH/IvgZmTk7Ha/+uFJrLO3ofec7q3hCPMWZ9mipmMzm9yQa4qt1qDjMCxrf5xRlhKgTArvdTYy+Ybhol/4uAbFvo6YPfffXJFd+sg== X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 8089 DOT 92572 DOT bm AT omp1008 DOT mail DOT ne1 DOT yahoo DOT com X-YMail-OSG: 7HHIIywVM1lwDtvTOJO60l67cNurbyHl89acf.Az5BJiOWk.SZiFkqF8CAd1HyI 8DQvpmgYxLvWlObhWrsATX0PLLGGC59W7xqAq2p9qx29dPLfn9Pai1QtsrwsEnEPdtAQCMjwes2R xm9D8xYPvVnQod0N_EZfFvTO7Il6wz11bNnokHleLfcJpRiSXUq.jMEHAyFePqYu.BPpq0Jk3_vU Tvvin51ItJTqS5dK9EsyHY8gTHT5hk_KMdLZaIyfainUj78uLuNJH8jpfaUIBcWOPG.oKudRWjBy 1DYSfTIIGsIDRE4D.t7BEokyrL1V7HVVcrp7rj3mCALtCFh1ouIWiR29khkONbtOA0VRyeje.8C5 MjUZiRqf4MjwJTYx725_8O9UoSH7dTyer7klzV6temJjnCllYANN4O84oAmI1Bxwrdp_ebuT.B4y MJla.y6PE9SBtCRfa84oFtJGH9c6CDBt3I7faPYOypLmjvOiA8RhGpiY0kQD0yiuebwo3y0Y3kUc zTun00xEIUkF6DWmRpVs- Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 02:34:19 +0000 (UTC) From: "Cirilo Bernardo (cirilo_bernardo AT yahoo DOT com)" To: "geda-user AT delorie DOT com" Message-ID: <1467655833.733018.1433990059994.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: References: Subject: Re: [geda-user] Interchange formats MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk STEP is a different beast altogether and historically the effort was in IGES and driven by US government contracts and an effort to unify design and manufacturing files and ultimately reduce manufacturing costs by having a standard interchange format for Computer Aided Manufacturing. There was such a large global interest in this that groups from many countries were involved early in the process (in fact a lot of early MCAD algorithms were developed in the Scandinavian countries). That's the historical background, and STEP was created to overcome many of the deficiencies in IGES, but the primary purpose remains largely the same: to provide CAM users with One True Format to work with and CAD users some hope of being able to convey shape information to other CAD users. Since the early days STEP has evolved to include electronics documentation and testing etc. and for a long time it's had the dubious distinction of being the world's most complex standard. Having said all that, no MCAD on the planet uses STEP as its native format and I don't even know if STEP can provide that feature, so it remains little more than an interchange format. With the big changes in manufacturing in the 1990s IDF attempted to modernize with IDFv4 and failed miserably; around the same time the Pro-STEP consortium formed to work on an IDF replacement based on STEP. Roughly 20 years later the results are mixed and although there has been some level of adoption by the likes of Boeing and Airbus (among other big players). However, Pro-STEP has always been intended for MCAD-ECAD collaboration and not ECAD-ECAD exchange. I think for ECAD you'll be lucky to get people to agree on a format for representing information in schematic symbols, PCB footprints, and associated mechanical models; I don't believe you'll ever convince commercial operations to agree to a universal schematic/artwork definition file since that kills their lock-in by severely reducing the cost of changing software. I suspect it is possible to develop a common symbol/etc format though and convince vendors to adopt it, but you need to get the big ECAD vendors on side early on and expect this to take a few years. While STEP was created to serve manufacturing and demanded by governments as well as many corporate users, a common ECAD data exchange format would really be mostly useful for vendors to provide users with reference models for their ECAD work; you've got to ask yourself how a vendor like Altium, Mentor, or Cadence will benefit because if there isn't money in it for them (save on their own cost or give them a product to sell) they won't be interested. - Cirilo ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Britton Kerin (britton DOT kerin AT gmail DOT com)" > To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com > Cc: > Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2015 8:52 AM > Subject: Re: [geda-user] Interchange formats > > On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 12:26 PM, Evan Foss (evanfoss AT gmail DOT com) > > wrote: >> For those of us who are not as well versed in our history of this >> subject. I would like to know why so many common EDA formats have >> failed? > > I don't see how the folks selling $100k EDA tools with a bunch of locked-in > customers would benefit from implementing them, and without them on board such > efforts are probably doomed. Big outfits have large design silos that they > aren't going to throw out. Who forced the mechanical design tool vendors > to support STEP? > > Britton >