On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 17:16 +0000, Steve Wiseman wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:38:03 +0000, Peter Clifton <pcjc2@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >As I discussed with Wookey, I'm interested to see if it would be
> >(theoretically) possible to "open" the schematics by converting them
> >from Altium's propitiatory format, to the open gEDA(*) format for
> >schematics.
>
> I would be happy for this to happen.
Cool.. nothing happened so far though.
> >There is a possible conversion route, something like using Altium to
> >save as Protel 98 Format, then using Protel 98 to save as its old Protel
> >ASCII based format, followed by a conversion program which converts that
> >to gEDA schematics.
The ASCII Protel format is the one likely to be needed. I don't have
Altium, but I've heard that it can't save this directly, but might be
able to go via Protel 98.
> If you haven't solved this (apologies for the huuuuge delay), I'd ba happy to
> give it a go. I seem to have every version of Altium / Protel going back to
> the dark ages.
> Having had another play with gEDA, I don't think I can face doing the next
> Balloon in it (yet).
I don't think "PCB" would cope with the board layout, no. The schematics
might be workable though. If the right netlist output format doesn't yet
exist, we can write one. However.. if you're using Altium for layout,
and find its integrated schematic / layout work-flow useful, I don't see
great reason to change - I'm just interested in the experiment at the
moment.
BTW.. What versions of gEDA did you try? What platform? (Linux distro /
Cygwin / Virtual machine + Linux / Mac OS X / ...)
Considered feedback from experienced technical users is always
appreciated, so if you have any specific comments, please send them my
way. People are currently working on improving PCB and gEDA, so ideas /
prioritisation of our existing goals for improvement are always useful.
The development version of the schematic tool is much nicer than it used
to be, but as yet hasn't seen a stable release (will do in a couple of
months I guess). There is even a beta version available for Windows!
If PCB's speed was an issue, I've been using a not-yet-merged OpenGL
rendering layer for my boards, which improves matters a lot. It still
sucks at complex polygon fills around pins though - since it does them
incrementally in real time, it can be quite slow. (I tried, but didn't
manage to cure that yet).
Best wishes,
--
Peter Clifton
Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA
Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)
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