Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems [was: pcb crooked traces]
On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Stefan Salewski m...@ssalewski.de wrote: On Fri, 2010-10-15 at 11:54 -0700, Andrew Poelstra wrote: The reason for it is that this is generally how drawing canvases work, so from a programmer's perspective, it is simpler to have y pointing down. WHY? Mainly because that has been the standard at least since Televisions were invented. The beam in a CRT scans from left-to-right, top-to-bottom. It's codified in the NTSC standard. So (x,y)=(0,0) is the upper left corner. Why are CRT's like this? Probably because words in books are also oriented left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Maybe if the television had been invented in the middle-east it would be different. I've got several digital image processing books on my shelf, the oldest is from 1972. Every one of them defines (x,y)=(0,0) as the upper left corner of an image. y as positive down, and x as positive right is simply the de-facto standard in digital image processing. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems [was: pcb crooked traces]
Am 17.10.2010 um 17:16 schrieb Levente Kovacs: I think that is why X11 has its coordinate system as is; and that is why PCB developers went that way. But a CAD tool is not about CRT display or image processing. I think we should change it; it looks very awkward for a new user, who doesn't know the story. Being a new gEDA user and fairly experienced with other CAD applications I can tell I couldn't care less. If one ever has to enter or read coordinates manually, there's something incomplete or wrong with the GUI. another EUR 0.02 :-) Markus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dipl. Ing. (FH) Markus Hitter http://www.jump-ing.de/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
Am 17.10.2010 um 17:55 schrieb Stephan Boettcher: With gEDA, we do not use GUIs, we enter the schematics and the layout in emacs ... ... at least parts of it, sometimes. Ah, emacs people here. This explains a lot. Just for your entertainment: http://reprap.org/wiki/PCB_Milling#gerbv gEDA is yet another software suite with schematic and PCB layout editor. It wasn't included in the set of preferred choices here because it requires hand-coding of text files in between usage of the different GUI tools. Markus ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
Levente Kovacs wrote: Well, take a footprint for example. How do you edit the solder mask opening with the GUI? I don't think there is a way to do that with the GUI. There are two ways ;-) 1) activate solder mask 2) let the mouse hover over the object you want to manipulate 3) type [k] to increase and [shift-k] to decrease the mask distance Alternatively: 1) activate solder mask 2) select the objects you want to manipulate 3) type [:] to open the command window 4) type ChangeClearSize(Selected, value, unit) where a signed value will be an increment/decrement, and unit may be mil, or mm IMHO, we'd need a footprint editor as well. I'd prefer a footprint-mode. I do all my footprints with the GUI and got used to quite a number of work-arounds. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems [was: pcb crooked traces]
Phillip Jones wrote: I disagree. There are situations I can think of in which manually entering coordinates would be simpler than using a GUI method. I definitely think we sould flip the coordinate grid, but what would that do to exiting files? Version the file format. Introduce a new PCB_FILE_VERSION. If this is defined in the file then call the appropriate read function, if it is not defined then use the old function. The file format of pcb-boards is versioned, the footprints aren't. Both use the Y+ is down cs now, but clearly that's the only solution for both ;-) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
On Sun, 17 Oct 2010 21:07:18 +0200 kai-martin knaak k...@familieknaak.de wrote: There are two ways ;-) 1) activate solder mask 2) let the mouse hover over the object you want to manipulate 3) type [k] to increase and [shift-k] to decrease the mask distance Alternatively: 1) activate solder mask 2) select the objects you want to manipulate 3) type [:] to open the command window 4) type ChangeClearSize(Selected, value, unit) where a signed value will be an increment/decrement, and unit may be mil, or mm Both examples work on a footprint placed on a layout. I am talking about a footprint itself. Off course, you can copy a footprint into the buffer, rip up, edit, convert it back again to a footprint, copy to buffer, and overwrite the old one. Yes, I use VI to edit the soldermask openings. :-) A footprint mode is okay with me. I am thinking about a script that can run through my footprints and modify such parameters like soldermask opening and keepaway, etc. in one go; controlled by my Makefile system. We'd need such tool as well, regardless of the ability of PCB itself. P.S.: tell me, if there any script that does today... Levente -- Levente Kovacs http://levente.logonex.eu ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
Levente Kovacs wrote: Both examples work on a footprint placed on a layout. I am talking about a footprint itself. Off course, you can copy a footprint into the buffer, rip up, edit, convert it back again to a footprint, copy to buffer, and overwrite the old one. conversion and rip-up is not necessary in this case. I'd rather avoid this, because you loose the some information during the process. (pin numbers, placement of the name) Just change the solder mask of a footprint placed somewhere on the canvas. When done, copy the footprint to the buffer and overwrite the previous version in the library. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
Am 17.10.2010 um 20:28 schrieb kai-martin knaak: Markus Hitter wrote: http://reprap.org/wiki/PCB_Milling#gerbv gEDA is yet another software suite with schematic and PCB layout editor. It wasn't included in the set of preferred choices here because it requires hand-coding of text files in between usage of the different GUI tools. Actually, it does not. You can do the whole work-flow in GUI-mode only. You can use xgsch2pcb or the shiny new pull feature of pcb to eliminate the command line, too. That said, sometimes it is just easier to tweak the *.sch, or *.pcb files than use the GUIs. The reprap example shows how slightly misunderstood concepts may scare away potential new users/projects. As I wrote most of this RepRap Wiki page myself, I can also explain how this happened. When looking on how and wether to get away from the free but closed source Eagle I tried a small 8 elements electronics project on Eagle, KiCad, Fritzing and gEDA. All from creating schematics to the finished GCode needed for milling the PCB. RepRap is about machines replicating it's self, so getting boards from some industry company should be avoided as much as possible. Regarding gEDA, your home page recommends the gsch2pcb tutorial http://geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:gsch2pcb_tutorial for new users, so I started with that. If you look at this tutorial, it's full of command line stuff. Edit preferences files here, enter paths there, it even talks about manually fixing errors which occur ineviteably. Uh. I did the first steps successfully but when I messed up in either gschem or pcb the third time just because they use different mouse buttons for panning and zooming, I also started to wonder how I would explain all this stuff to these 16 year old schoolboys showing up at RepRap. I couldn't imagine that. Now it's a few weeks later and I use gEDA anyways, because I deviate from a part of the project done by an gEDA expert. I got accustomed somewhat to the inconsistent interfaces, found some spots of excellent GUI - DRC results or the layer setup editor, for example - and the suite starts to show it's bright side. Still it's difficult to explain this software to others. In case I'm allowed to write down my three biggest wishes, here they are: - Get that thing packaged as soon as a new release is done. Only software developers install from source these days. As far as I can see, Debian and the just released Ubuntu 10.10 still distribute the Nov 2009 release. - Get the interface, especially mouse button behaviour, consistent between all parts of the suite. At least for a default installation. It doesn't matter wether you have to use the middle or right mouse button to pan around, but having different buttons for applications you often switch in between is a non-starter. And no, pointing to the key bindings editor doesn't help, because people would have to learn that instead of learning how to get their project done. - Write a new tutorial. With a few pictures like before, and without any asking for editing text files. I've learned about xgsch2pcb and pull just with the email cited above, after reading many hours in various parts of the gEDA documentation. There is simply no hint such great features exist, so many users never find them. Yes, this type of public relations work is sometimes tedious, but it will undoubtly bring you a lot of new users as well. As far as I can tell gEDA is the most reliable and powerful choice of open source EDA. The text file format makes it attractive for experts. gEDA's GUI can be brought on par with Eagle or KiCad easily, so there's no reason to miss that opportunity. Thanks for listening, Markus ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
On Sun, 17 Oct 2010 23:22:05 +0200 Markus Hitter m...@jump-ing.de wrote: [...] I consider myself a geek, who doesn't mind editing text files, etc, however, I see your point, and I think you've got it right. Anyways... attached is my gpcb-menu.res, which addresses the panning problem. :-) Levente -- Levente Kovacs http://levente.logonex.eu gpcb-menu.res Description: Binary data ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
Markus Hitter m...@jump-ing.de writes: - Get that thing packaged as soon as a new release is done. Only software developers install from source these days. As far as I can see, Debian and the just released Ubuntu 10.10 still distribute the Nov 2009 release. I am using Debian unstable (sid). Even there I get PCB version 20091103. I have very mixed feelings about that. In most times, I prefer to cutting edge software. If something breaks, I can fix it. But for PCB layout, a bit of stability is good, for long running projects at least. During space flight board designs, I was compiling from a tarball and made sure I did not upgrade until the final flight boards were made, populated, tested. Current Debian PCB cannot read those early flight layouts any more. The ground planes get messed up. But in between really important designs, I am happy with the rather stable Debian version. If my .emacs file breaks with an emacs upgrade, no harm is done to my files. When a PCB upgrade messes with my current layout, ... The downside is, I do not get to use the new features in development, and I do not participate in testing those. And when all those new feature are dumped at me eventually, I'll nee be very careful when to upgrade. Maybe, when I finished the current series of rather complex boards, I may switch to track some git tree. But do not even really know which git tree I should track. -- Stephan ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
Markus Hitter wrote: - Get the interface, especially mouse button behaviour, consistent between all parts of the suite. yes, yes, yes! And make the most important keyboard shortcuts compatible, too. - Write a new tutorial. With a few pictures like before, and without any asking for editing text files. You've got a point here. It's been quite some time since I did the tutorial myself. But I still remember that the first part of it was a bit confusing and tedious. I think you are right. The tutorial is in need for a rewrite. I've learned about xgsch2pcb and pull just with the email cited above, Well, pcb pull was added this summer. So this is a brand new feature and not very established among regular users. The utility xgsch2pcb on the other hand was initially labeled proof-of-concept by the developer. It proved pretty usable but still has its edges. For example, it does not play nice with hierarchical schematics. gEDA's GUI can be brought on par with Eagle or KiCad easily, so there's no reason to miss that opportunity. The good news: There was a discussion on revamping the pcb GUI on Kthe list lately. The bad news: I don't remember any of the established developers engage much in the discussion. Hopefully the new developers elan will suffice to get some of the proposed changes done and accepted by the established developers. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
- Write a new tutorial. With a few pictures like before, and without any asking for editing text files. You've got a point here. It's been quite some time since I did the tutorial myself. But I still remember that the first part of it was a bit confusing and tedious. I think you are right. The tutorial is in need for a rewrite. I've recently started using PCB and found the tutorial difficult to follow and inaccurate at several steps. I thought I would go ahead and update the wiki to help anyone else who followed the guide after me, but unfortunately it seems that it is not possible to get an account to edit the wiki. I emailed a request for an account (as indicated on the wiki itself) and never received a reply. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
I've recently started using PCB and found the tutorial difficult to follow and inaccurate at several steps. Which one? I've written a new one here: http://www.delorie.com/pcb/docs/gs/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems
Phillip Jones wrote: I emailed a request for an account (as indicated on the wiki itself) and never received a reply. Oh dear. This seems like a single point of failure in the system. Haven't heard from Ales lately. On vacation, maybe? ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=getsearch=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems [was: pcb crooked traces]
...and pcb is the only CAD program I know of, that does like this I've run across other PC layout tools which do this. Mechanical CAD tools usually have (by default) Y+ pointing up, but for some reason PC design tools occasionally have Y+ facing down. I don't remember any of these tools justifying their (less common) choice of convention however. :) Joe T On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 3:35 AM, Armin Faltl [1]armin.fa...@aon.at wrote: Andrew Poelstra wrote: On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 10:12:41PM +0200, Armin Faltl wrote: Btw. while being a different topic, how about getting rid of the lefthanded coordinate system, when all numeric computations have to be checked anyway? This should make the cs consistent with trigonometric functions. What does lefthanded coordinate system mean? It means, that positive coordinate axes can be generated as follows: looking from Z+ to the center X+ moves into Y+ by a clockwise rotation (for lefthand). Z+ is your extended thumb, then form your fingers to a hook; the finger tips point into the direction of rotation around the thumb. With cyclic permutation look along: Z+: X - Y X+: Y - Z Y+: Z - X A lefthanded coordnate system is the mirror image of a righthanded one, the later being the norm for mathematical formulations, esp. vector notation of rotation. E.g. in polar coordinates P = P(r, phi) the angle phi has to be measured counterclockwise from the X-axis to make the transformation to cartesian coordinates look like: P = P(x, y) = P(r*cos(phi), r*sin(phi)) with X+ pointing right an Y+ pointing up (and Z+ pointing out of screen). This is a convention. One can argue, to define the the sense of rotation clockwise and have Y+ look downward, but this is against the mathematical standard and pcb is the only CAD program I know of, that does like this. It's incompatible with any CAM file format, plotter language, OpenGL etc. Many raster devices and -image formats are lefthanded, probably the reason, why pcb is. Sorry for (partly) repeating myself. ___ geda-user mailing list [2]geda-u...@moria.seul.org [3]http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user References 1. mailto:armin.fa...@aon.at 2. mailto:geda-user@moria.seul.org 3. http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems [was: pcb crooked traces]
On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 11:49:11AM -0700, joe tarantino wrote: ...and pcb is the only CAD program I know of, that does like this I've run across other PC layout tools which do this. Mechanical CAD tools usually have (by default) Y+ pointing up, but for some reason PC design tools occasionally have Y+ facing down. I don't remember any of these tools justifying their (less common) choice of convention however. :) The reason for it is that this is generally how drawing canvases work, so from a programmer's perspective, it is simpler to have y pointing down. I remember learning to draw function graphs in grade school, and being surprised that y went up because I had used QBASIC for many years before that. Afterwards, I had to remember to put -y everywhere when using Qbasic as a graphing calculator. -- Andrew Poelstra Email: asp11 at sfu.ca OR apoelstra at wpsoftware.net Web: http://www.wpsoftware.net/andrew/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems [was: pcb crooked traces]
On Fri, 2010-10-15 at 11:54 -0700, Andrew Poelstra wrote: The reason for it is that this is generally how drawing canvases work, so from a programmer's perspective, it is simpler to have y pointing down. WHY? And of course, we had that discussion some months ago: http://archives.seul.org/geda/user/Aug-2010/msg00406.html ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems [was: pcb crooked traces]
On Fri, 2010-10-15 at 23:15 +0200, Stefan Salewski wrote: On Fri, 2010-10-15 at 11:54 -0700, Andrew Poelstra wrote: The reason for it is that this is generally how drawing canvases work, so from a programmer's perspective, it is simpler to have y pointing down. WHY? And of course, we had that discussion some months ago: http://archives.seul.org/geda/user/Aug-2010/msg00406.html For cairo two statements fix the default system: CR.translate(0, y) # translate y==0 to bottom CR.scale(1, -1)# flip y direction May be similar for OpenGL. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems [was: pcb crooked traces]
Andrew Poelstra wrote: On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 10:12:41PM +0200, Armin Faltl wrote: Btw. while being a different topic, how about getting rid of the lefthanded coordinate system, when all numeric computations have to be checked anyway? This should make the cs consistent with trigonometric functions. What does lefthanded coordinate system mean? It means, that positive coordinate axes can be generated as follows: looking from Z+ to the center X+ moves into Y+ by a clockwise rotation (for lefthand). Z+ is your extended thumb, then form your fingers to a hook; the finger tips point into the direction of rotation around the thumb. With cyclic permutation look along: Z+: X - Y X+: Y - Z Y+: Z - X A lefthanded coordnate system is the mirror image of a righthanded one, the later being the norm for mathematical formulations, esp. vector notation of rotation. E.g. in polar coordinates P = P(r, phi) the angle phi has to be measured counterclockwise from the X-axis to make the transformation to cartesian coordinates look like: P = P(x, y) = P(r*cos(phi), r*sin(phi)) with X+ pointing right an Y+ pointing up (and Z+ pointing out of screen). This is a convention. One can argue, to define the the sense of rotation clockwise and have Y+ look downward, but this is against the mathematical standard and pcb is the only CAD program I know of, that does like this. It's incompatible with any CAM file format, plotter language, OpenGL etc. Many raster devices and -image formats are lefthanded, probably the reason, why pcb is. Sorry for (partly) repeating myself. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: coordinate systems [was: pcb crooked traces]
On 12.10.2010 22:37, Andrew Poelstra wrote: What does lefthanded coordinate system mean? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_coordinate_system#In_two_dimensions ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
