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Cadsoft's Easily Applicable Graphical Layout Editor (EAGLE) is an ECAD (Electronic Computer-aided design), a software product for designing printed circuit boards. As that product has a demo/freeware version which is adequate for many users, as well as having a reasonable price structure for more-capable versions, and being cross-platform, it had considerable popularity.
A year ago, Autodesk acquired Cadsoft Computer GmbH and changed the licensing of the product to a subscription model. Since then, many users of EAGLE have been seeking a path away from that EULAware app. Many have moved to (FOSS) KiCAD, a project started by French academics which has gained developer support from personnel at CERN.
A sticking point for those wanting to transition to a new tool is the projects previously developed using the old tool and saved in the native format of that package.
Hackaday reports
There is a desire to port those innumerable Eagle board layouts and libraries to other PCB design packages. This tool does just that.
The tool is an extension of pcb-rnd, a FOSS tool for circuit board editing [itself, a fork of gEDA's "PCB" module], and this update massively extends support for Eagle boards and libraries.
As an example, VK5HSE loaded up an Eagle .brd file of a transceiver, selected a pin header, and exported that component to a KiCAD library. It worked the first time. For another experiment, the ever popular TV-B-Gone .brd file was exported directly to pcb-rnd.
This is a mostly-complete solution for Eagle-to-KiCAD, Eagle-to-Autotrax, and Eagle-to-gEDA-PCB, with a few minimal caveats relating to copper pours and silkscreen--nothing that can't be dealt with if you're not mindlessly using the tool.
While it must be noted that most Open Hardware projects fit inside a 80 [sq.cm] board area, and can therefore be opened and modified with the free-to-use version of Autodesk's Eagle, this is a very capable tool to turn Eagle boards and libraries into designs that can be built with FOSS tools.
Previous: Cadsoft EAGLE is Now Subscription-Only
CERN is Getting Serious About Development of the KiCAD App for Designing Printed Circuits
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 27 2017, @11:34AM (8 children)
I knew, years ago, that there was no decent CAD software that was FOSS.
Last time I fooled with AutoCAD was the early 90s, when it was on release/version 12 as I recall. I was stunned by how primitive and awful AutoCAD's user interface was. At start, it showed a top level numbered menu of about 8 options on a text screen. No GUI. Users had to key in the number, and press the Enter key. Who knows why they made the users press Enter, it was a completely unnecessary extra keystroke. Maybe it's because under the hood, they used the infamous C library function gets, you know, the one that you should never use because it's insecure and will make your program insecure.
One of the menu options was to load a drawing file, and AutoCAD would not give the user a helpful list of file names from which to choose, no, AutoCAD insisted that the user type in the full name, blindly. If you couldn't remember the exact name, a different menu option on the top menu would display a list of all the files. The interface did not keep the list on the screen when the user navigated back to the prompt for the file name. It was the worst file load interface I've ever seen, and I found it ominously suggestive that the rest of the interface might be as bad. It nearly was. The interface with the mouse was an afterthought. You could just use the mouse to draw lines, but it was near impossible to draw nicely aligned lines. Had to dig into the interface to find "grid" and "snap", then the mouse was more usable. AutoCAD was obviously keyboard oriented.
So I thought it ought to be easy for FOSS to improve on that. But the years rolled by and no one ever made a decent FOSS CAD program. What little there was were toys, or mockups with all kinds of major features that were planned but never implemented. There's BRL-CAD, but, well, bleh. Wasn't open source before 2004. I eventually moved on to other things. So this story is the first I've heard of KiCAD. Been around since 1992, hmm? Well, it sounds like it's specialized for PCB. What about a more general CAD program?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:12PM
FreeCAD.
And dont dismiss BrlCAD. Sounds like its too complex for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:21PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_computer-aided_design_editors [wikipedia.org]
Several *n?x-compatible things and blue rectangles (FOSS).
Recommendations from a (now retired architect):
FOSS mechanical CAD offerings [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [linuxmint.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:02PM
5 Autocad Alternatives for Linux user - June 2016 [linuxlinx.com]
.
Softpedia's last item on the CAELinux live distro was in 2013. [softpedia.com]
There's been a recent release. [distrowatch.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:26PM (2 children)
For simple 2D, there is LibreCAD. I had to do a steel case for a large desktop device (about 60cm wide, 40 deep, 20 high) this year. The sheet metal company wanted DXF for direct import into their CAM. The case in the end consisted of 10 sheets, some rather irregular shaped, with lots of folds and holes of different sizes. I was able to draw the stuff reasonably well and put cutting outlines, folds, and drills on separate layers. It took a while, because I am not used to the Autocad-heritage GUI, and there was an issue with the company not being able to import the written DXF, probably because the written one was too new or something. I might have gone back and forth a bit, between QCad (of which LibreCAD is forked off, and which is rather castrated in the free version; 'cause it ran on Snow Leopard?! I don't remember exactly) and LibreCAD itself (because of the comprehensive DXF export).
After the little bumps in the process were sorted, the sheets came out very well. They are going to be filled with electronics done in KiCAD, using which was also an overall pleasant experience. 6 boards so far, from 10 x 5 to 20 x 16 (double euro), without a single problem, except for mistakes I made myself. The only major issue with KiCAD is their infamous buggy libraries, where you have to diligently check every component not only when initially picking it, but also after each update.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:40PM
Well, I don't do much CAD, but when I do I absolutely love OpenSCAD [openscad.org].
It's not really a typical CAD software though, and not loaded up with a ton of features either although it doesn't necessarily have any use for a ton of toolbars and utilities*. Essentially it works by programming a model in instead of drawing it. You type up the code, hit render, and it displays the object. Great for people like myself who suck at drawing but are pretty good at programming and geometry. And it also makes it easy to script and parameterize your models which can be extremely handy.
Definitely isn't a tool you'd use for PCBs though. But it seems to be pretty good for 3D printing.
*For one example of the missing/unnecessary features...there's no parts library that you can click and import from, but you can include external code files, so you could easily put together a library of common functions that each represent some often used component.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:18PM
It looks like KiCad has recently taken some action regarding their libraries. We'll how that holds up over time. :)
http://kicad-pcb.org/post/kicad-official-libraries/ [kicad-pcb.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:04PM
This article isn't about mechanical design CAD, it's about PCB design CAD. You've never noticed probably because you never designed PCBs. I've been using KiCAD for many years now; it works great, though the libraries need help. I used EAGLE before that, but switched to KiCAD early on, since EAGLE wasn't FOSS and had serious limitations if you didn't buy a license.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday December 28 2017, @01:15AM
Excuse me, but that's not how Autocad is used. Grid and snap (to the grid) are not needed. You can draw by coordinates and angles, abs and rel, and you can use reference geometry and qsnaps to existing one. I worked with acad for several years. You can also use autolisp scripts, stock and your own, with parameters. Autocad is the best 2d tool today. Draftsight would be the remote second, but it is too buggy.