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For those who don’t know, Blender has developed a few complete animations/shorts with artists and developers working jointly, thus bringing in real world experience to the project.
I wonder if something similar could be done with an open hardware project.
One of my most wanted feature would me to be able to select a trace and get simulated electrical characteristics, like resistance, capacitance, inductance (for example to design a loop antenna, I integrated a few of them in my lastest PCB, for NFC, and had to calculate by hand)...
Of course this is not a small feature but wishing for that says a bit on how good kicad has become, there is very little small feature to wish for as most are here.
At first sight the title seems to wrong, that software is easier to be open compared to hardware.
however; the interview is really talking about using open software to create your open hardware designs. if you've developed your schematic using proprietary software, then only people who have the same proprietary (paid) software can contribute.
another interesting point they touched on is open instruction sets (e.g. RISC-V). people are developing open hardware platforms with open software solutions but in the middle there is ARM or some other proprietary processor instruction set.
I've been out of the EE world for a couple of years now, but looking at the screenshots of KiCAD schematic capture tool, it looks remarcably simular to Eagle (same colors, graphics, etc). Are KiCAD and Eagle related in some way?
Eagle predates KiCad by a wide margin, iirc. KiCad started in France, Eagle was German (iirc). I think modern Eagle is on Qt, KiCad uses wxWidgets for it's GUI library.
Unfortunately, using these free tools feels like a throwback to a less developed era in desktop computer aided design. Commercial CAD software with no-cost hobbyist licenses are much more usable, but tie you into their licensing structure and cloud data system. There's no telling whether you'll be able to open your Fusion360 or Onshape projects 10 years from now.
I have a lot of hope that eventually free software will overtake commercial software in a lot of fields, and establish a regime where everyone has access to "professional grade" tools. Something like that exists in the information technology field, and it has unlocked a lot of human potential over the last few decades. Just imagine every school child having access to advanced, professional grade free software tools in every sort of field of human creativity.
As a mechanical engineer, I'm envious of polished open source tools that exist in other fields. For parametric modeling and engineering drawing of mechanical parts, the free software tools are not nearly as mature and user friendly as commercial equivalents. When creating engineering drawings and models for public use, I would much prefer to use free software such as FreeCAD, SolveSpace, and OpenSCAD, because I want…
I'm not sure the solution.
As a mechanical engineer, I'm envious of polished open source tools that exist in other fields. For parametric modeling and engineering drawing of mechanical parts, the free software tools are not nearly as mature and user friendly as commercial equivalents. When creating engineering drawings and models for public use, I would much prefer to use free software such as FreeCAD, SolveSpace, and OpenSCAD, because I want…
Whenever a free CAD software exists, AutoCAD or similar buys them out. I'm not sure the solution.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whenever a free CAD software exists, AutoCAD or similar buys them out. I'm not sure the solution.
That's only really possible when there's a company behind it. It's much harder to buy out a whole OSS project, the only real option is to buy out the main contributors.
As a mechanical engineer, I'm envious of polished open source tools that exist in other fields. For parametric modeling and engineering drawing of mechanical parts, the free software tools are not nearly as mature and user friendly as commercial equivalents. When creating engineering drawings and models for public use, I would much prefer to use free software such as FreeCAD, SolveSpace, and OpenSCAD, because I want…
Apart from well known KiCAD, I hope more open-source electronic design and engineering software projects will get attention from the industry. Software like LibreCAD[1] and FreeCAD[2], Qucs[3], gEDA[4], Yosys[5] and Symbiflow[6], Chisel/FIRRTL[7], OpenROAD initiative[8], Degate[9], and many others. [1] https://librecad.org/ [2] https://www.freecadweb.org/ [3] https://github.com/Qucs [4] http://www.geda-project.org/ […