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ECAD tool
pete_yodis
OS Professional, Mentor Posts: 666 ✭✭✭
I've had a dialogue offline with Onshape personnel about the current state of ECAD and MCAD tools being separate. Onshape could clearly distinguish itself in the CAD market if it brought both of these tools under the same data model. Here is an excerpt of an email exchange I had. I am posting this here to facilitate discussion. This would be no small task, indeed, but it would really make working collaborately in design teams a joy...
....I was thinking of a toolset like Altium, but one that resides within the Onshape system. Altium seems very nice because it looks like the layout is entirely in 3D (as it really should be), unlike OrCAD. Currently when I work with EEs working on PCB designs, we have to constantly take data back and forth from a mechanical cad system and electrical cad system. The data is usually reproduced in the MCAD package as the PCB design is edited in an ECAD package. This creates the overhead of importing the data and managing the changes of the data in two CAD packages. If they all lived in one system where the layout of a PCB was a 3D model, it will allow electrical designers and mechanical designers to reduce a bit of design overhead and really collaborate efficiently on an electromechanical system. With Onshape as the total design tool they could see the same data and edits to the data in real time. Making the ECAD tool in Onshape another paid feature could keep costs manageable and separable between electrical and mechanical design needs. The data could always be available to any user, but the editing tools for ECAD designs might be separated behind a different pay wall. Having the data exist in the same format is the big thing in my mind. I would not be the one to comment on the particulars of the ECAD tools and what would be needed. Further down the road, I wonder if you could attract the component manufacturers to create models and related data for their components in Onshape and make their products public and shareable. Onshape users could then just use the manufacturers own data model in their designs. This would save electrical designers a tremendous amount of time creating their own library of parts. Onshape would be the library of parts for component manufacturers. Think of Onshape as the editing tool and publishing tool all in one (ECAD/MCAD and 3DContent Central). Hopefully I am making sense. I think I do… and others apparently do too…
http://www.lifecycleinsights.com/blog/technology-insights/single-mcad-ecad-application/
Hopefully, we can continue this dialogue. What I am asking is no small task I’m sure, but it would really make Onshape very unique and extremely valuable to design teams.
Regards,
Pete Yodis
....I was thinking of a toolset like Altium, but one that resides within the Onshape system. Altium seems very nice because it looks like the layout is entirely in 3D (as it really should be), unlike OrCAD. Currently when I work with EEs working on PCB designs, we have to constantly take data back and forth from a mechanical cad system and electrical cad system. The data is usually reproduced in the MCAD package as the PCB design is edited in an ECAD package. This creates the overhead of importing the data and managing the changes of the data in two CAD packages. If they all lived in one system where the layout of a PCB was a 3D model, it will allow electrical designers and mechanical designers to reduce a bit of design overhead and really collaborate efficiently on an electromechanical system. With Onshape as the total design tool they could see the same data and edits to the data in real time. Making the ECAD tool in Onshape another paid feature could keep costs manageable and separable between electrical and mechanical design needs. The data could always be available to any user, but the editing tools for ECAD designs might be separated behind a different pay wall. Having the data exist in the same format is the big thing in my mind. I would not be the one to comment on the particulars of the ECAD tools and what would be needed. Further down the road, I wonder if you could attract the component manufacturers to create models and related data for their components in Onshape and make their products public and shareable. Onshape users could then just use the manufacturers own data model in their designs. This would save electrical designers a tremendous amount of time creating their own library of parts. Onshape would be the library of parts for component manufacturers. Think of Onshape as the editing tool and publishing tool all in one (ECAD/MCAD and 3DContent Central). Hopefully I am making sense. I think I do… and others apparently do too…
http://www.lifecycleinsights.com/blog/technology-insights/single-mcad-ecad-application/
Hopefully, we can continue this dialogue. What I am asking is no small task I’m sure, but it would really make Onshape very unique and extremely valuable to design teams.
Regards,
Pete Yodis
0
Comments
Methinks it would be best to just offer IDF import/export capabilities and move on. Keepouts (both in plane and in the Z direction) can and should be communicated to the PCB layout team well before the first iteration is "test fitted" in 3D CAD. Not to mention, a lot of PCB layout is outsourced.
My 2 cents...
Linked[in]
http://www.lifecycleinsights.com/blog/technology-insights/single-mcad-ecad-application/
Part of Onshape's business model will be to provide the tool and host data for free on any set of data that is publically shared. I think they do want to host the data. My thought would be to have the component manufacturers control and maintain their own library within Onshape and share that with anyone that wants to use the components in their design. That would be really efficient for everyone involved.
I just see it as a matter of short term vs. long term goals. Right now there is no ECAD solution in OS, and there really needs to be before they launch. As Chad points out, PCB's. Are. Everywhere. I vote that they toss in an IDF translator, and move on. It's depth before breadth, IMHO, and there's plenty of core MCAD stuff that needs to get dialed in first...
Linked[in]
Linked[in]
http://www.pcbworks.com/#home
http://gfxspeak.com/2015/02/13/mechanical-electronic-integration/
It's a web-based ECAD-MCAD translator rather than a standalone web-based ECAD system, so it'll take in files from desktop-based ECAD systems from Cadence, Mentor etc, and then produce MCAD files which can either be downloaded for use in a desktop-based MCAD system, or sent directly to web-based MCAD systems like Onshape.
It's capable of building simple models using the data in the ECAD files, or more complex models using a built-in Library of standard electrical component packages. We've got about 1000 or so detailed models so far, but we'll be adding more in the coming months.
We'd be really keen to hear your ideas and feedback, either on the limited functionality that's up there now, or on the full product when it's launched. Please let us know what your thoughts are - either here, or through the 'Contact Us' page of the site, and hopefully we'll have a great solution for ECAD-MCAD collaboration in Onshape as soon as possible.
Many thanks,
Rob
Dave
Ariel, WA
Rob - Is there still a plan for the software to work directly with Onshape?
Linked[in]
Many apologies for the very long delay in replying, my email address associated this forum isn't valid any more, so I only stumbled upon your comment while searching for something else.
To answer your question - yes, ecad.io does now belong to Autodesk. Consequently it was decided that the direct link to Onshape would be discontinued to enable the development team to concentrate on closer integration with Autodesk's MCAD tools.
However, it is still possible to use ecad.io with onShape. Whilst it's no longer possible to send data directly from ecad.io to Onshape, you can still upload an ECAD file to ecad.io, create a STEP file, download it and then upload it to Onshape.
There's are no plans to charge for ecad.io in the near future, so hopefully ecad.io will still prove to be a useful tool for Onshape users, but unfortunately with an extra step required!
Error message:
Also the speed of the tool feels kind of slow. The online one below takes 2 sec to generate. IDF-to-3D about a minute before crashing.
Used the online tool http://3dbrdviewer.cytec.bg/board. Just to give you an idea what I'm trying to import to onshape
Combination of PythonOCC ( which is the python wrapper to the OpenCascade engine ) and Three.js (webgl for browser). Its limited to only Eagle board files and I dont think it gives any options to generate a model that can be imported into a CAD package. I also dont think there is a way to augment the component library.
The IDF-to-3D app will give you a 3D model and load it into Onshape. It will also let you modify component placements, upload your own components, integrate with Onshape collaboration and versioning, and will accept boards from other ECAD packages besides Eagle.
If I try the example Arduino board in Eagle the site seems to also have lots of issues. This may be due to how Eagle manages some of the internal data. If you use Eagle with the IDF-to-3D export you should get a good board. If not then I can work to resolve it as I wrote the IDF exported and the IDF-to-3D application. Over the years we have tuned IDF-to-3D to work with lots of variations in boards and IDF files. We see lots of variation in files and we incorporate fixes for common issues (unclosed outlines, component/packages name issues, multiple board outlines, etc)
Onshape IDF-to-3D screenshot
Other site screenshot