Anyone interested?

Hello group,
I have written a program more than 5 years ago and haven't touched it
since then. It is an IDF translator just like Circuitworks. I am
thinking of rewrite the program and publish it for the SW community but
don't know if there's anyone interested.

Sam

 

I think there would be someone. There is a pretty high ratio of lurkers
to participants here.

 

I'd be interested

Never used circuit works so really can't give any suggestions.

Regards

Jonathan

 

Hi Sam,

I'm sure the SW Community would be interested in a IDF Translator like
CircutWorks. On the other hand, SolidWorks 2005 and 2006 has a inbuilt
'free' IDF translator in the form of CircuitWorks Lite, and the latest full
release of CircuitWorks (v8) is a pretty powerful, well established and
comprehensive application: http://www.priware.com/common/circuitworks.aspx

Where your application will fit in the market place is uncertain.

Paul

 

I'd be interested as well.
===========================================================================
Chris

 

I'd be interested as well
Adrian

 

I'd be interested.
I currently run SW2006. Where is the "free" Circuitworks Lite?
I have SolidWorks Office. Is it included in there?

 

When you open a file, under the "File Type" pull down box, select the
type "IDF". This will let you import pcb files that have been saved in
a compatible format.

 

Sam

Yes it does, but it is very crippled. It will only import the extruded
sketches not map to a proper part and it only opens IDF 1.0 and 2.0 files.
It will not open 3.0 files which are now more common and allow parts to be
stood off the surface of the board. Solidworks IDF importer extrudes these
parts down to the board surface which sucks.

True, but it is very expensive when you only use it once in a while. There
maybe is a market for a budget solution that imports IDF 3.0 AND allows
mapping to models even in a simple form.

Regards

Rich

 

Rich,

You have your IDF versions mixed up.CircuitWorks lite (and the full fat v8)
support IDF 2.0 and 3.0 (alas, there was no version 1.0 published)

IDF 4.0 is currently unsupported by both products, but 4.0 is not in common
use.

I disagree with 'very expensive' as it will probably save the time to model
from scratch on one project. Try modelling a 1000 component board manually!

Stan

 

I'm all for a little competition. Especially if it is user written.

 

Stan

From my experience here, Solidworks 2006's built in IDF importer only
imports IDF 2.0 files correctly (my bad on the 1.0) It will import 3.0
files, but does not utilise the extra features such as the ability to stand
a component off the surface of the board. It imports 3.0 files as if they
were 2.0 files.

I'd love to be proven wrong though, it would be very handy to import 3.0
files correctly with components stood off the board.

regards

Rich