Questions/ discussion sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18731w1yfgBcYex6_fATdqN73-3HR5MbewZPcUmiO_o0/edit?usp=sharing

Jorge Garcia : Hi Sophi

Jorge Garcia: Hi Charliex

Sophi Kravitz: HI Jorge!

technolomaniac and I'm matt, I work at autodesk. I manage eagle, 123D, tinkercad, a ton of other little bitty stuff

technolomaniac :)

charliex hey, hey jorge thanks for the help with the "next" stuff last month

technolomaniac also along for the ride is a buddy of mine Sam whom I worked with at altium.

technolomaniac and full disclosure...before we jump into eagle:

technolomaniac 1) yes, I was a director on the product team at altium

technolomaniac 2) I worked at supplyframe which owns hackaday

Jorge Garcia Your welcome Charliex

Samuel Sattel Hello Everyone.

Jorge Garcia Hi Sam

technolomaniac 3) I build a ton of electronic stuff, mostly wireless. a lot of RF. a lot of interesting things.

technolomaniac so...that said, I came into Autodesk to execute the acquisition of EAGLE.

technolomaniac on advice from me.

technolomaniac I use it. but between sam and I, I think we've used just about every tool.

technolomaniac and I'm super excited to talk about what we're doing with EAGLE

technolomaniac you'll find that the future of the tools is pretty much a who's-who of what users have asked for along with some things you might not have wanted or known you wanted (hopefully) until you get them

technolomaniac :)

technolomaniac (inner voice: man, I sure hope I dont screw that up)

technolomaniac so one example is routing improvments.

Garrett Mace "Signal names on traces" is a good example of something I didn't know I wanted, but use a lot

Jorge Garcia Same here.

technolomaniac oh man, that was a big one.

technolomaniac one of the first things we added post-ac

Christoph oh there comes a question

Christoph (I'm just stalking that spreadsheet)

Garrett Mace This is not super swamped at the moment, is the spreadsheet thing necessary?

charliex yeah signal name is great, i mixed up d+/d- on a usb host on the eagle before it, got the pcbs and then its sitting staring me in the face with the new signal names

Sophi Kravitz no, it's more to keep a record

technolomaniac

Sophi Kravitz not necessary at all, use it if you want

ed pataky :) Hello

technolomaniac that's an example of the signal names on traces and pads.

jarek319 oh the auto-enabling signal names on the baord was genius btw

Jorge Garcia Hi Ed!

jarek319 *board

technolomaniac so someone asked about including commonly used ULPs in the build.

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

this is always possible.

jarek319 says: 2 hours ago

basically stuff like circular array placement, smashing, etc

Jorge Garcia says: 2 hours ago

Which ones are missing?

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

we're working on the licesning for this (legalese) inside of ADSK, but definitely we want this stuff included.

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

we're working on the licesning for this (legalese) inside of ADSK, but definitely we want this stuff included.

Jorge Garcia says: 2 hours ago

Circular array placement is in.

jarek319 says: 2 hours ago

community ulps and are great since they help speed things up, but they tend to lose coherence after a version change, so I was wondering if there's a way the community can recommend things for inclusion/rework

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

there's an attribution component of this we want to get right.

Edwin Robledo says: 2 hours ago

HI, made it

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

that's for sue.

technolomaniac sure

charliex non blocking ulp's

Jorge Garci You can find it under tools > component placement.

Garrett Mace I would go the other way, remove the crustier ULPs and make a community site for them. Perhaps a ULP browser and way to manage updates

jarek319 i know i was using it as an example :)

Dirty Engineer I loved that added signal names.. I don't know how I did anything before.

Jorge Garcia Ah sorry about that

technolomaniac we can include them and also, I'd like to stress that if it's a ULP and it's awesome, then it should be driving our feature development

charliex yeah like bom-ex.ulp is great

@Dirty Engineer I hear yah. You were like me, just incredibly patient.

Jorge Garcia That's a good one.

jarek319 can we submit the ones we like to a special form or address somewhere?

technolomaniac agree! and I think we can do a lot with BOMs to try and improve that.

technolomaniac that, to me, is so fundamental that we need to get this part right.

technolomaniac up, through, and including creating a mirror of parts data that people can interface to via the browser

Jorge Garcia Jarek, for now you can post it to the suggestions forum.

Garrett Mace BOM quality is so dependent on part library quality

jarek319 forum?

technolomaniac having a datamodel for BOM info that works in the cloud will allow us to interface to stuff like findchips and other tools

Thomas Forum ? :-)

technolomaniac we are going to release a new forum

Jorge Garcia Yes, we have forums now and with Autodesk we'll get some shiny new ones.Dirty Engineer I'd like to echo the request for doing something about importing bitmaps/images/logos.. it's tenuous at best now.

technolomaniac a proper forum

jarek319 ooooo, alright, I'll keep an eye out, ty :)

Garrett Mace +1 on the interfacing to other parts search tools. Right now it's still very element14-centric

technolomaniac ooh...yah, that one is relatively straight foraward to implement

technolomaniac oh yah...that'll be extended to the platform providers for parts info rather than just one company

technolomaniac

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

so this is the Findchips Pro beta. and they already take an EAGLE file directly

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

you can have partial of incomplete data and then make selection of the final component

Garrett Mace says: 2 hours ago

Looks better than the MacroFab BOM tool

Edwin Robledo says: 2 hours ago

Manual entry is paramount...

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

I would like to interface to stuff like this, where you can have a crap BOM but solve it.

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

and do that with whatever data you get

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

someone asked about library management and this is a BIG area for us

Teuniz says: 2 hours ago

Differential pair routing has improved in the next version?

technolomaniac says: 2 hours ago

so we want to first of all connect libraries to git.

Dirty Engineer says: 2 hours ago

are there any plans to change how labaries are handled?

Jorge Garcia says: an hour ago

In what way do you think their handling could be improved?

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

it just doesn't make sense to not have version control or revision management on parts and this model for storing and socializing libraries has been decided by the community. better this, than we build a "Vault" which flies in the face of the opensource ethos that pervades the EAGLE community.

Radomir Dopieralski says: an hour ago

labaries?

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

creating parts should be a process also which gets easier

Dirty Engineer says: an hour ago

well first of all.. I need to learn how to speel libraries..

Dirty Engineer says: an hour ago

well first of all.. I need to learn how to speel libraries..

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so we started down the road of an IPC calculator and realized it's stupid to wrap this up into the tool

Garrett Mace says: an hour ago

I'm not against closed source that works well

charliex says: an hour ago

built in would be fine, i'd imagine most of us use git/svn/perforce etc already

Garrett Mace says: an hour ago

Case in point: Eagle itself

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so we will eventually release this as an online component

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so you should be able to just go to the browser and build a part to IPC spec (at least the FP)

charliex says: an hour ago

i always run into problems with libraries with parts that either disappear from a library or get renamed, so its missing you have to re-export the part and then replace it, just to do the edit, so it can get tedious and its easy to make mistakes

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

after we looked at that input data though - and being a 3D cad company - it was clear that we can connect that dirctly to parametric models for 3D as well

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

and generate the mechancial part as well

Garrett Mace says: an hour ago

Will such browser tools be open-source backend so we can duplicate the functionality after Autodesk does not want to host it anymore?

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so that's all in the cards.

Dirty Engineer says: an hour ago

Will Eagle eventually go the way of Fusion with full version for hobbiest and paid for professionals?

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

not in the next release but we are definitely looking to do this

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so I think the key is defining what parts - if any - need to be closed source and why

Garrett Mace says: an hour ago

We understand you have existing IP situations, that's ok

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so the freeware version will remain

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

and we have already opened up student versions to support multiple layers because you cant really teach wireless and impedance controls (easily) another way

Teuniz says: an hour ago

What about companies that uses Eagle for commercial development and don't want to use "online" tools but prefer tools running locally?

Jorge Garcia says: an hour ago

EAGLE still runs locally, what Matt is referring to is an additional online component

Jorge Garcia says: an hour ago

You can still make your own parts on your desktop

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

it doesn't benefit us to kill products people love, ever. and even with 123D which is going away....that was a hard sell internally.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

I had to convince people that it was all about focus.

Jorge Garcia says: an hour ago

@Teuniz Our routing guru hasn't been able to get to the differential pair routing yet, but we hope to have some news on that front soon.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

ok...so regarding licensing, the free version stays free, student is upped to a meaningful license, startups can just contact us and we'll get them a license.

Dirty Engineer says: an hour ago

I must say it, thanks for making Eagle better. It's been neglected for far too long.

Jorge Garcia says: an hour ago

With Matt at the helm and Autodesk, we'll catch up pretty soon.

Sophi Kravitz says: an hour ago

you guys want to address any of the questions that weren't asked?

charliex says: an hour ago

yeah autodesk are a great partner

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

it's been pretty amazing to see what we've pulled off in such a short time.

Sophi Kravitz says: an hour ago

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18731w1yfgBcYex6_fATdqN73-3HR5MbewZPcUmiO_o0/edit#gid=0

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so here's the thing about the eagle acq which motivated it: it's not that hard to add features to SW.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

it just takes people and time.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

it is much harder to build a community.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

and we've staffed up developers from all over the place who are really the best of the best to address ecad.

Thomas says: an hour ago

:-D so wise saying about producing SW

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so take routing for example...we know we need obstacle avoidance and loop removal and we should be able to work with the via at the cursor, etc.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so this is an example of the stuff coming.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

that first bit is automatic loop removal.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

if you have a redudant track section, it should just remove it.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

also the way vias were placed didnt make a lot of sense. you had to hit the middle mouse button and then you would drop the via where you *were*

Dirty Engineer says: an hour ago

neat

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

so that second part of that clip - which is in the build now (our development branch) is where the vias follow the mouse.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

also, we added support for Spacebar for layer changes on routing.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

it is far and away the best way to place vias when you have a trackpad

Sophi Kravitz says: an hour ago

nice

Dirty Engineer says: an hour ago

mind blow lol.. can't wait for the spacebar layer change.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

we also have added support for the Backspace key to unroute sections you are working on.

technolomaniac says: an hour ago

and stuff for track cleanup.

Benoit Rapidel says: 44 minutes ago

Does the differential routing improvements are planned ?

technolomaniac says: 43 minutes ago

so it's on the roadmap which I'm getting more and more inclined to share with folks.

charliex says: 43 minutes ago

heh

technolomaniac says: 43 minutes ago

we will improve it, and we will also look to do important things like multi-track, better length tuning, etc.

technolomaniac says: 43 minutes ago

just getting the foundations in place to do it is tricky, but that's all moving along nicely.

Jorge Garcia says: 42 minutes ago

You're giving away to much! Stop before the accountants hear you!

Jorge Garcia says: 42 minutes ago

:)

technolomaniac says: 42 minutes ago

HAHAHA...that's true!

Teuniz says: 42 minutes ago

What about real board mirror view without using an ulp that modifies the actual board?

technolomaniac says: 42 minutes ago

is anyone here an accountant? I hear that you have to tell me if you are?

technolomaniac says: 41 minutes ago

so that'll be something we look to do once we tidy up something incredibly important...the board shape

technolomaniac says: 41 minutes ago

and this is a great sounding board for that effort: we need a polygon board shape. closed boundary.

technolomaniac says: 41 minutes ago

any objections? going once...going twice...no? perfect.

technolomaniac says: 41 minutes ago

:)

Sophi Kravitz says: 41 minutes ago

like

alexanderlang1980 says: 40 minutes ago

Setting the board shape and size did need some attention

charliex says: 40 minutes ago

trying to think of a reason why you wouldn't do it that way

technolomaniac says: 40 minutes ago

here's why: to calculate a 3D model of the board, cutouts, etc, it can't just be a gaggle of lines on a dimension layer.

technolomaniac says: 40 minutes ago

just the code to handle that is SUPER ugly.

technolomaniac says: 40 minutes ago

and polygon clipping is very easy with tools like GPC or other libs for that sort of thing

Jorge Garcia says: 39 minutes ago

I think they are referring to just a simple 2D upside down view within EAGLE. Not 3D, this request comes up often just an underside view in EAGLE.

Benoit Rapidel says: 39 minutes ago

Ok, do yo uhave a public roadmap anywhere ?

technolomaniac says: 39 minutes ago

with that, then we have a real "board" and we can map a change in the polygon to a change in the mechanical file as well for real-time syncing with Fusion

technolomaniac says: 39 minutes ago

(Jorge...sorry)

charliex says: 38 minutes ago

yeah the board flip has been a constant question, it's super useful and helps visualise so many things, saves exporting it to another viewer and looking at it

Benoit Rapidel says: 38 minutes ago

Yep a simple window mirror function with an ULP

technolomaniac says: 38 minutes ago

not just yet...but you can bet that once the ADSK forums come online, we'll spell out the roadmap

technolomaniac says: 38 minutes ago

I don't want to do this in a vacuum or without something like consensus

technolomaniac says: 38 minutes ago

we all pretty much knew that the Line tool should be named 'Line' for example

charliex says: 38 minutes ago

dont need real time path traced AR, just a flip :)

technolomaniac says: 37 minutes ago

yup!

davedarko says: 37 minutes ago

I always upload to oshpark to see the actual board

technolomaniac says: 37 minutes ago

life is easy.

davedarko says: 37 minutes ago

flip + stopmask

charliex says: 37 minutes ago

yeah i use mayhew

Dirty Engineer says: 37 minutes ago

Is it possible to add a button to disable component incrementing when penalizing boards? To avoid having to move names to another layer and then back again.

Jorge Garcia says: 36 minutes ago

Use the panelize ULP. You don't have to move anything. Or am I missing something?

technolomaniac says: 36 minutes ago

we can address that also when we have a board shape properly implemented

technolomaniac says: 36 minutes ago

because we should have mouse bites and route paths, etc

technolomaniac says: 36 minutes ago

after all, we own Delcam!

charliex says: 36 minutes ago

i think pure instancing?

technolomaniac says: 35 minutes ago

if we can't handle milling and routing of PCBs...we pretty much suck

technolomaniac says: 35 minutes ago

indeed!

technolomaniac says: 35 minutes ago

it's step and repeat codes and it's already a CAM concept that maps to instancing

technolomaniac says: 35 minutes ago

here's another one we have cooking

technolomaniac says: 34 minutes ago

technolomaniac says: 34 minutes ago

supports both schematic and PCB (easy because EAGLE keeps all of this in Sync)

technolomaniac says: 34 minutes ago

Pier 9, San Francisco CA, 94111

technolomaniac says: 33 minutes ago

so the design block concept allows you to capture and reuse blocks and recall them for use whenever

Benoit Rapidel says: 33 minutes ago

Ho, FINALLY!!

technolomaniac says: 33 minutes ago

so switchers, or other BS you use all the time

Benoit Rapidel says: 33 minutes ago

Thanks…

alexanderlang1980 says: 33 minutes ago

That looks very cool....and useful

charliex says: 32 minutes ago

nice

Dirty Engineer says: 32 minutes ago

perfect.. no more copy paste from other boards.

Teuniz says: 32 minutes ago

Nice

b2aff6009 says: 32 minutes ago

:)

technolomaniac says: 32 minutes ago

yes. we did away with that.

technolomaniac says: 32 minutes ago

when you switch from Schematic to PCB...here is how it looks:

technolomaniac says: 31 minutes ago

technolomaniac says: 31 minutes ago

sorry, was over the 3MB hackaday limit

technolomaniac says: 30 minutes ago

so you can selectively grab stuff in both editors

technolomaniac says: 30 minutes ago

and you can only add things that are in sync or non-electrical

Teuniz says: 30 minutes ago

What about push & shove during routing?

technolomaniac says: 29 minutes ago

but you can also include tracks, vias, etc and there is a merge dialog which allows you to merge net names and handles designator collisions automatically

Dirty Engineer says: 28 minutes ago

I see Eagle 8.0.0 :)

technolomaniac says: 27 minutes ago

push and shove is on the list. we need to handle obstacles in routing first and that's coming.

technolomaniac says: 27 minutes ago

have you checked cadsoft.io lately?

technolomaniac says: 27 minutes ago

I won't insist you do it.

Teuniz says: 26 minutes ago

And this is all coming as version 7.xxx?

technolomaniac says: 27 minutes ago

but it might allude to some stuff in the works.

Garrett Mace says: 26 minutes ago

Wanted to address the polygonal board shape thing...will this not work with smoothly curved PCB edges?

Radomir Dopieralski says: 26 minutes ago

the results of the 1kB contest are here!

Jorge Garcia says: 26 minutes ago

It would the main requirement is closed contour.

technolomaniac says: 26 minutes ago

yup. that's a requirement for slots and holes, etc.

Benoit Rapidel says: 21 minutes ago

The popup at each page change is kind of annoying

Garrett Mace says: 21 minutes ago

technolomaniac says: 21 minutes ago

so have a look at cadsoft.io

technolomaniac says: 20 minutes ago

oh that's cool.

Garrett Mace says: 20 minutes ago

I suppose any curve can be implemented as a large number of lines

charliex says: 20 minutes ago

yeah the bga tools will be a welcome thing

technolomaniac says: 20 minutes ago

I want to get that in there as well

Jorge Garcia says: 20 minutes ago

Ideally EAGLE would have a mirror view button so you could see the bottom of this board Garrett. Using smooth curves is OK.

technolomaniac says: 20 minutes ago

the BGA tool is really starting to come along and handles layer pairing as well

technolomaniac says: 19 minutes ago

rules need an overhaul also, but we'll get there.

Garrett Mace says: 18 minutes ago

Fun feature idea (not totally needed, but useful) a "realistic view" with the ability to choose mask and silk colors. Doesn't have to be 3D

technolomaniac says: 18 minutes ago

again, it's not the features that are hard to build...it just takes time and investment. both of which we have now and of course, we have to do that without upsetting the community ;)

charliex says: 18 minutes ago

honestly i was a big fan of the auto router gui changes , they're a bit more confusing than before i often find my parts getting reveted coz i click the wrong button

technolomaniac says: 18 minutes ago

ahh, that's going on the list.

charliex says: 18 minutes ago

(wasn't sorry)

charliex says: 18 minutes ago

yeah i know, no one uses atuo router...

technolomaniac says: 17 minutes ago

@charliex yah...Im not so sure about that. it's actually one of the better routers Ive used for simple things like breakouts and such

Garrett Mace says: 17 minutes ago

Many board houses will automatically clip your silk when it goes over pads, would be good to preview that too. Maybe I'm thinking of a "print preview" button

technolomaniac says: 17 minutes ago

@charliex yah...Im not so sure about that. it's actually one of the better routers Ive used for simple things like breakouts and such

Garrett Mace says: 17 minutes ago

Many board houses will automatically clip your silk when it goes over pads, would be good to preview that too. Maybe I'm thinking of a "print preview" button

technolomaniac says: 16 minutes ago

even somewhat more sophisitcated boards

Jorge Garcia says: 16 minutes ago

The autorouter is a tool like a hammer, you just need to know when you are looking at a nail. ;)

technolomaniac says: 16 minutes ago

that is something we are investing in heavily is the interface to mfg altogether...to include visualization and more rule sets, even how you buy parts

charliex says: 16 minutes ago

usually i drop my eagle boards into pulsonix for a final pass, i use its tighten tracks features, add teardrops and test points

charliex says: 15 minutes ago

i hear you, i use the auto router myself, but i know a lot of people talk smack about them

technolomaniac says: 15 minutes ago

I dont want to be the seller of record for any of that, but it can definitely do a better job of visualizing the effect of rules

technolomaniac says: 15 minutes ago

and also providing the mfg specific data for review before you send it

Jorge Garcia says: 15 minutes ago

EAGLE currently supports teardrops through ULP and testpoints using the testpad library. Have you played with these?

technolomaniac says: 14 minutes ago

so you dont read it all on OSHPark

Garrett Mace says: 14 minutes ago

I have paid about $1600 total into Eagle, none of it for the autorouter :<

technolomaniac says: 14 minutes ago

Ive used the ULP for teardropping for sure Jorge, I just really like tapering

technolomaniac says: 14 minutes ago

it is nice for flex and also for gradual changes in impedance

Jorge Garcia says: 14 minutes ago

I was asking Charlie

charliex says: 14 minutes ago

yeah i have the issue is its hard to remove them if you screw up later down the line, i use the split method to layout teardrops, but pulsonix can add and remove them

technolomaniac says: 13 minutes ago

ahh...sorry sorry.

technolomaniac says: 13 minutes ago

so that's something to look at is how we handle teardrops and how we view and manage them as teardrops

Arsenijs says: 13 minutes ago

Oh, hi, @charliex! Long time no see!

charliex says: 13 minutes ago

and then if you miter or move a track later, the teardrop gets messed up since its not a primitive by itself

Jorge Garcia says: 13 minutes ago

Whenever I've done teardrops I usually do it as a last step. You are correct though modifying them is a pain.

charliex says: 13 minutes ago

heya

technolomaniac says: 12 minutes ago

even potentially just adding to the pad a teardrop property that knows where entry and exit occurs and handles that automatically

Garrett Mace says: 12 minutes ago

Teardrop could be a new primitive attached to pad coordinates and line one up for each incoming trace

technolomaniac says: 12 minutes ago

seems so easy and so obvious

technolomaniac says: 12 minutes ago

seems so easy and so obvious

Garrett Mace says: 11 minutes ago

Only for default pad shapes though, not easy otherwise

technolomaniac says: 11 minutes ago

@Garrett Mace totally agree. this is easy enough. it's on the list.

Jorge Garcia says: 11 minutes ago

I like the idea of having it as a pad property you can set on the board and then adjust the parameters of the drops in the rules. Or perhaps on a case by case basis.

technolomaniac says: 11 minutes ago

yah...that's true.

charliex says: 11 minutes ago

yeah ditto, its just when you find an error or are working with otherr people on a shared board, i use the couple of different teardrop ulps and get decent results or hand teardrop with splits, but i like the idea of them being a primitive/entity with attributes and intelligence

technolomaniac says: 11 minutes ago

but that should also get some touchup. would be nice to have a few other intrinsic pad shapes.

Garrett Mace says: 10 minutes ago

Having teardrops be traces does allow existing DRC to detect any problem

Jorge Garcia says: 10 minutes ago

Yep

charliex says: 10 minutes ago

yeah, one of the reasons i like eagle is because of how extensible it is with scr and ulps so often its easier to ad it that way since its personal preference

technolomaniac says: 10 minutes ago

yup. a fun problem to play with.

technolomaniac says: 10 minutes ago

I agree...this is something we have to persist.

charliex says: 9 minutes ago

also being able to type commands

Jorge Garcia says: 9 minutes ago

CLI forever!

technolomaniac says: 9 minutes ago

and as we support the mirror image of the design in the cloud (ie. a server-side data model for if/when we want to interface to a web service like a mfg or a dist), we can extend scripting to work on that model via javascript

Garrett Mace says: 9 minutes ago

I have made ULPs that generate entire small boards. LED spacing and angles, mounting holes, even power traces and polygons

technolomaniac says: 8 minutes ago

just so the young'uns can all program along with us old dudes.

Garrett Mace says: 8 minutes ago

Never take away the command line :) My old autocad days are still relevant thanks to that

technolomaniac says: 8 minutes ago

so a lot of interesting things we start to open up and explore with these things

technolomaniac says: 7 minutes ago

oh man...autocad guys tried that once. it didnt end well.

technolomaniac says: 7 minutes ago

:)

tec