data interchange format for board layout?

[[email protected]]

Is there a data interchange format in the circuit board layout
industry comparable to DXF in the mechanical CAD world?

I use Gnu PCB for my company's designs, but I'm getting into a
collaborative project with another guy who uses Mentor Graphics. I
want to lay out my part of the design and pass that to my client, who
will add the analog parts and get the whole board fabbed.

If we were collaborating on the enclosure, we could use DXF as the
interchange format.

Is there any comparable, common format in the world of PCB layout?

 

[Joerg]

Is there a data interchange format in the circuit board layout
industry comparable to DXF in the mechanical CAD world?

I use Gnu PCB for my company's designs, but I'm getting into a
collaborative project with another guy who uses Mentor Graphics. I
want to lay out my part of the design and pass that to my client, who
will add the analog parts and get the whole board fabbed.

If we were collaborating on the enclosure, we could use DXF as the
interchange format.

Is there any comparable, common format in the world of PCB layout?

Nope :-(

All you have is the common Gerber format for the final product.

 

[[email protected]]

Nope :-(

All you have is the common Gerber format for the final product.

Ok then. Thanks,
Larry

 

[JeffM]

Is there a data interchange format in the circuit board layout
industry comparable to DXF in the mechanical CAD world?

I use Gnu PCB for my company's designs, but I'm getting into a
collaborative project with another guy who uses Mentor Graphics. I
want to lay out my part of the design and pass that to my client, who
will add the analog parts and get the whole board fabbed.

If we were collaborating on the enclosure, we could use DXF as the
interchange format.

Is there any comparable, common format in the world of PCB layout?

Brad Velander gave the best explanation of this I've seen:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....list-of-compatible-versions+zz-zz+qq-qq+exist

Another good thread on this:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....ools+zzz+*-nasty-cost+3rd-party-*+turf-battle

Here's what could have (and SHOULD have) been:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....-*-*-*-send-documents-to-*-government-*-*-*-*
..
..
Since you're accessing Usenet thru Google Groups,
haven't you noticed how usernames get borked
when they're email addresses?

SUBSCRIBING to the groups where you post
and using a username with NO DOMAIN in it
makes it look like you know what you're doing.
http://groups.google.com/groups/mysubs

 

[Joerg]

Brad Velander gave the best explanation of this I've seen:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....list-of-compatible-versions+zz-zz+qq-qq+exist

Another good thread on this:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....ools+zzz+*-nasty-cost+3rd-party-*+turf-battle

Here's what could have (and SHOULD have) been:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....-*-*-*-send-documents-to-*-government-*-*-*-*

This whole EDIF effort has miserably failed. My guess is that the EDA
companies did not want it, everyone wants to cook their own soup and not
tell the competition anything. Sad, actually.

Without wanting to brag, in the medical device industry we did a lot
better. I sent our SW manager to regular DICOM meetings. So did our
competitors. That takes guts because here you have SW managers and
engineers of nearly all competitors sit around a table, go to the pub
together at night, chat, talk, becoming friends. This increased the risk
of a valuable employee being snatched away by a competitor. But: That
did not happen. Instead we now have one common standard that allows
hospitals to exchange data regardless of make, type or model of a
machine. _That_ is how it ought to be.

 

[Joerg]

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:06:04 -0700, Joerg

[snip]

This whole EDIF effort has miserably failed. My guess is that the EDA
companies did not want it, everyone wants to cook their own soup and not
tell the competition anything. Sad, actually.

Absolutely true. I've _never_ seen EDIF function between any two
competing formats.

Probably just a bunch of armchair guys meeting and blowing through
travel funds. Maybe it stopped because the import of caviar into the US
was banned ;-)

Very rare :-(

Out here it's commonplace. When I busted an ankle the doc checked it
out, then we went to the 'puter room and he fired up one of the PCs
reserved for DICOM. Was Philips system with which I wasn't familiar but
it took only seconds to realize "Hey, this operates full DICOM just like
ours". Doc got stuck in the menues, so I jumped in one-handed (other
hand held the crutch) and, whoopdidou, here was the x-ray of my ankle.
Panned and zoomed it up to where I thought the doc wants to look and he
was impressed. "Now how did you do that so fast?"

This was at Kaiser Permanente, they are a lot more modern than others
WRT electronic data exchange. The US in general is IMHO far behind when
it comes to integration. When we visit sick folks we often see half a
dozen nurses incessantly shuffling paperwork and (very few) others doing
the real work. That was different in Europe. Last time I witnessed a
clinical over there all the data was sucked into the big repository
instantly and the doc keyed his findings right into the keyboard of our
ultrasound system. Between four catheter labs they had only one (!) data
entry technician. And this guy also did all the re-cablings and such.

 

[Joerg]

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:06:04 -0700, Joerg

[snip]
This whole EDIF effort has miserably failed. My guess is that the EDA
companies did not want it, everyone wants to cook their own soup and not
tell the competition anything. Sad, actually.
Absolutely true. I've _never_ seen EDIF function between any two
competing formats.

Probably just a bunch of armchair guys meeting and blowing through
travel funds. Maybe it stopped because the import of caviar into the US
was banned ;-)

[snip]

When was that? I brought a bunch of Russian caviar back from Germany
in 1994 without a hitch coming through customs.

End of 2002 I think:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2193282.stm

 

[Joerg]

As far as I can tell, the problem is actually somewhat due to the U.S. getting
"computerized" sooner than many other countries: Many small players cropped
up, and it took some years before enough clinics were computerized that a
strong need for data exchange arrived. At that point, of course, the wars
over whose standard would be used began... with many clinics just sitting it
out, waiting for the government to step in (with Medicare and the VA program)
and settle the matter.

Maybe they need to set their clocks to the correct decade. This has been
solved many, many moons ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICOM

And why is it that when a client had an EMI issue in the Netherlands I
requested images and got the DICOM files emailed across the pond by next
morning while it took a whopping one month (!) to gather my medical
records when I started sef-employed and needed health insurance? The
only reason why they couldn't send the DICOM files immediately that
evening was that any identifying patient information had to be deleted
first because I did not have an NDA in place with the hospital.

IMHO we have the same problem in schools. Too much money vanishes into
the administration, not enough goes to where it really makes a
difference (teachers).

[...]

 

[Joerg]

There's a lot more to your medical records than just what DICOM encodes -- for
starters, there's all the various procedure codes, their results, and billing
arrangements that have to be recorded.

Well, my current hospital chain has that licked. Click, click, click ...
"Ah, you had an x-ray on that same ankle back in 19-something, let's see
what the doc diagnosed back then.

That being said, it's certanily not a technical problem -- plenty of vendors
have software that can make for completely paperless clinics (if that's what's
desired). The problem arises as soon as they have to send those results to
anyone else, and as with all border crossings, the politics ensue.

The Dutch hospital did just that, they sent me the results. Ok, I was
looking for noise but if I was a doc I could have interpreted the images
6000 miles away from them. Actually, having been in cath labs a lot I
often see the medical problem on some of the DICOM images I receive.

In the U.S. medicare (and others, I imagine) are working on the problem, but I
expect the results will be similar to the IRS and eFiling -- it'll eventually
work reasonably well and become ubiquitous, but don't expect a fast timeline
or even any cost savings.

They should start with what's already there. We, our competitor and lots
of other companies have put a lot of effort into it and it works.

 

[JeffM]

This whole EDIF effort has miserably failed.
My guess is that the EDA companies did not want it,

That's why I suggeested in the previous thread
that the gov't should have refused to play ball
with corps that wouldn't concede to an OPEN standard
and not grant them any contracts until they conformed.

everyone wants to cook their own soup
and not tell the competition anything. Sad, actually.

Without wanting to brag, in the medical device industry we did
[...]DICOM[...] _That_ is how it ought to be.

I saw a telecource on my PBS outlet
where they took pairs of European kids and pairs of American kids
and had them play a simple game: On a checkerboard,
the goal was to move a button to one end of the board
whereupon the player at the opposite end would get a piece of candy.

The Eurokids cooperated to get it to one end then back to the other
and each each walked away with a pile of sweets.

The 'merkin kids fought each other to the death,
each preventing the other from gaining any ground.
None got a single bit of booty.

It reminds me of a description of the way BillG sees business
--not like NASCAR
(where everybody that finishes goes home with a bit of the pot),
but like a Demolition Derby where it's winner-take-all.

 

[Joerg]

This whole EDIF effort has miserably failed.
My guess is that the EDA companies did not want it,

That's why I suggeested in the previous thread
that the gov't should have refused to play ball
with corps that wouldn't concede to an OPEN standard
and not grant them any contracts until they conformed.

everyone wants to cook their own soup
and not tell the competition anything. Sad, actually.

Without wanting to brag, in the medical device industry we did
[...]DICOM[...] _That_ is how it ought to be.

I saw a telecource on my PBS outlet
where they took pairs of European kids and pairs of American kids
and had them play a simple game: On a checkerboard,
the goal was to move a button to one end of the board
whereupon the player at the opposite end would get a piece of candy.

The Eurokids cooperated to get it to one end then back to the other
and each each walked away with a pile of sweets.

The 'merkin kids fought each other to the death,
each preventing the other from gaining any ground.
None got a single bit of booty.

Strange, that's not how kids are brought up out here. Scouting,
basketball, baseball, football, you can't be successful in any of that
without good teamwork. Maybe they took kids from the wrong part of town.

It reminds me of a description of the way BillG sees business
--not like NASCAR
(where everybody that finishes goes home with a bit of the pot),
but like a Demolition Derby where it's winner-take-all.

Do you have any link where he actually said or wrote that? That would be
pretty gross for a company that makes an operating system. Although it
wouldn't actually surprise me.

 

[Joerg]

[email protected] wrote:
Is there a data interchange format in the circuit board layout
industry comparable to DXF in the mechanical CAD world?
JeffM wrote:
Here's what could have (and SHOULD have) been:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci....-*-*-*-send-documents-to-*-government-*-*-*-*

Joerg wrote:
This whole EDIF effort has miserably failed.
My guess is that the EDA companies did not want it,

That's why I suggeested in the previous thread
that the gov't should have refused to play ball
with corps that wouldn't concede to an OPEN standard
and not grant them any contracts until they conformed.

everyone wants to cook their own soup
and not tell the competition anything. Sad, actually.

Without wanting to brag, in the medical device industry we did
[...]DICOM[...] _That_ is how it ought to be.

I saw a telecource on my PBS outlet
where they took pairs of European kids and pairs of American kids
and had them play a simple game: On a checkerboard,
the goal was to move a button to one end of the board
whereupon the player at the opposite end would get a piece of candy.

The Eurokids cooperated to get it to one end then back to the other
and each each walked away with a pile of sweets.

The 'merkin kids fought each other to the death,
each preventing the other from gaining any ground.
None got a single bit of booty.

Strange, that's not how kids are brought up out here. Scouting,
basketball, baseball, football, you can't be successful in any of that
without good teamwork. Maybe they took kids from the wrong part of town.

It reminds me of a description of the way BillG sees business
--not like NASCAR
(where everybody that finishes goes home with a bit of the pot),
but like a Demolition Derby where it's winner-take-all.

Do you have any link where he actually said or wrote that? That would be
pretty gross for a company that makes an operating system. Although it
wouldn't actually surprise me.

Americans always come to the rescue of the Europeons. Maybe it would
be better if we... see SIG...

I think folks in some areas of the UK are already quite concerned.

Since you have Skype in your sig, how's your experience there? Is it
useful? Think it can be used for teleconferencing with docs that
everyone can see? My last experience (with Webex) was, well, we turned
it off right in the beginning. Did it the old-fashioned way "Now
everybody scroll to section 4.1.3. ...".

 

[Joerg]

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 11:09:24 -0700, Joerg

[snip]

Since you have Skype in your sig, how's your experience there? Is it
useful? Think it can be used for teleconferencing with docs that
everyone can see? My last experience (with Webex) was, well, we turned
it off right in the beginning. Did it the old-fashioned way "Now
everybody scroll to section 4.1.3. ...".

I am using Skype (voice) extensively, communicating with my Australian
client. It is _infinitely_ better than land-line. Skype bandwidth is
so much superior that I have no problem with the Aussie accent, while
the land-line leaves me asking for a repeat of what I couldn't
understand.

Let us all know when you start using non-voice features. It would be
nice if one could put a schematic onto the screen and the guys on the
other side could scroll and pan around and ask questions.

I haven't tried the video yet, but I'd like to be able to conduct
design reviews without traveling. I simply despise air travel
anymore. I wish the railroads would put on some high-speed trains ala
Japan... I like to travel in comfort ;-)

I don't mind air travel but it'll become very expensive and soon. High
speed rail is what I thoroughly enjoyed in Europe, mostly Germany.
However, it's a bit too late for us in the US. California is mulling a
concept but it would be prohibitively expensive. They already can't live
within budgeted means, heck, they can't even get a budget done. In
industry we would have been fired for that kind of "performance".

Trying to install a child gate. Looks like they didn't consider that
most US homes contain drywall. This stuff is all so flimsy. Harumph,
grumble ...

 

[Joerg]

On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:37:39 -0700, Joerg

[snip]

Trying to install a child gate. Looks like they didn't consider that
most US homes contain drywall. This stuff is all so flimsy. Harumph,
grumble ...

Aren't your doorways and arches backed up by at least a 2x4?

This is towards an open stairway. I can find a stud but the HW only
takes these tiny deck screws.

(I use "SNAPTOGGLE" anchors whenever I need heavy-duty strength.)

Problem is when the (steel) gate is open its weight will cause the
screws to slosh around and gradually make the holes oval to the side.
Wish they had used aluminum.

 

[JeffM]

I saw a telecource[...]where[...]European kids and[...]

American kids[...]played a simple game[...]

The Eurokids cooperated to get it to one end then back to the other
and each each walked away with a pile of sweets.

The 'merkin kids fought each other to the death[...]
None got a single bit of booty.

It reminds me of a description of the way BillG sees business
--not like NASCAR
(where everybody that finishes goes home with a bit of the pot),
but like a Demolition Derby where it's winner-take-all.

Do you have any link where he actually said or wrote that?

I didn't mean to imply that.
It was said *of* him--not *by* him.

That would be pretty gross
for a company that makes an operating system.

I don't see any "would" about it.
Their record speaks for itself:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cach...crets+*-*-*-*-insolvency+*-*-*-new-sweetheart
http://www.google.com/search?q=cach...ent-*-Justice+*-describe-Microsoft's-strategy

Although it wouldn't actually surprise me.

I think anyone not in a coma sees it. That was my point.

 

[JeffM]

[...]reminds me of a description of the way BillG sees business
--not like NASCAR
(where everybody that finishes goes home with a bit of the pot),
but like a Demolition Derby where it's winner-take-all.

Do you have any link where he actually said or wrote that?

I found the quote. It was by ESR, the guy who wrote
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar":
(The quote is at the 50 percent point)
http://www.google.com/search?q=cach...Microsoft-and-freedom-of-choice-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

 

[Joerg]

[...]reminds me of a description of the way BillG sees business
--not like NASCAR
(where everybody that finishes goes home with a bit of the pot),
but like a Demolition Derby where it's winner-take-all.

Do you have any link where he actually said or wrote that?

I found the quote. It was by ESR, the guy who wrote
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar":
(The quote is at the 50 percent point)
http://www.google.com/search?q=cach...Microsoft-and-freedom-of-choice-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Ok, thanks. I though Bill had said that himself. That would have been
quite damaging, especially in view of all the court cases they lost.