Interactive routing

[Bengt]

I just looked upon a Youtube video of another software. It had a nice interactive routing feature there it automaticly drawed the wires along a path that you drawed with the mouse. It automaticly followed shortest distance or placed it self close to other traces. Most interesting was the push feature. If you specified it should trace inte a field with existing traces the traces just moved away keeping a certain distance from each other. 45 degrees corned was created automaticly.The entire trace was made in seconds and I think the same had took several minutes without the pushing feature.

I know some of this features have been discussed in developing EdWin but I do not think anything have really been implemented part from the clear component zone. Will we see interactive routing in such a way in EdWin or will it keep working only in the current command activated manner?

What do you other user think? Have you seen similar functionality and do you miss it in EdWin?

[patard]

Hello,

I remeber that you can use feature like that with Freerouting (http://www.freerouting.net). Very good tool, but a quite slow (java application...)

I saw also this feature in Altium Designer demo DVD. A very good professionnal tool.
Altium is expensive, but they offer to replace my CAD at a very nice price (concurrent upgrade). I wonder if I won't change out my EdwinXP and its numerous bugs...

Best regards.

[josabraham]

Dear Bengt,

this feature is there EDWiXP too.While routing a connection press "SHIFT + A" to start auto path finding in EDWinXP.By setting the appropriate layers you can improve the perfomance of this function in EDWinXP.

regards

josabraham

[Bengt]

Freerouting, yes that was the one.

About EdWin and bugs, at the time I started to use EdWin ten years ago I was happy to find a CAD tool that was stable and hadn't so many bugs compared to what I was used to. I hope that EdWin will soon find its way back to that situation again.

There are some very good CAD tools out there and maybe you can get a nice starting price but what about upgrades and support? It is there and in the free library service that EdWins win. This forum maybe is not the correct place to discuss that sort of things so lets leave that discussion to somere else.
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OK, so EdWin have a hidden feature, shift-A? I think I have heared about it some time. Well, it puts vias on top of other wires, it lacks the push feature, it can not find its way through a narrow path and it is to much fixed with layer directions.
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I tested a recent design with freerouting. EdWin can export Specctra so it was easy to test.

Se the result from my test. This design is a tough task for an autorouter, I am aware of that. But it is interesting to see how the autorouters performs anyhow. EdWins result is very bad. Some of the traces are really stupid routed. Check the horizontal red track under the BGA. And in the right bottom area there are parallell traces. 12 pads wasn't routed. This is the result I am used to from EdWin.
Now check the result from freerouting. The result is much more like what you want to see. The router is not so fixed in horizontal or vertical while working and this by itself results in a much better result compared to EdWin that only can add 45 degrees cornes at the end of routing. Freeroter performs really well at the beginning but as the complexity increases the router almost freezes. For simple boards I think this tool performs perfectly but not for more complex designs. However, this post is not ment to evaluate Freerouter but to discuss EdWin. And my point here is that you can use Freerouter together with EdWin and get much better result than using EdWins built in autorouter. Of course it would be great is EdWin could have a better Autotrouter built in but as it don't it is good to know about free alternatives.
The settings of the two routings was not exactly the same as it took me a while to find the settings for freerouter.

Autorouting.png

[patard]

Hello,
I agree with you in these two points :
- it is not the place here to discuss subject EdwinXP vs concurent CAD softwares : I work with EdWinXP for more than five years, it's not a bad tool, and quality/price seems to to be good. The Edwin support team is sympathetic and efficient : 9 questions of 10 are solved fast and well..... If I am sometimes hungry, it because of the tenth that is not solved... that was THE one I need at the moment !!! that makes me hungry a little bit more...
- FreeRouting is a great tool, Autorouting in EdWinXP is not a good one in complex or personalized routing, I use FreeRouting each time I need a complex routing, mixing net classes, clearances, vias classes, and so on...

I apologize to have "polluted" (pollution) this Edwin help forum... You (EdwinXP support) can delete my post. It is not my aim to deserve you.

Best regards.