Engineering documentation such as schematics, layouts, and other technical data is the stuff of collaborative design. Such materials need to be seen by various individuals and groups within a given organization as well as by partners in other organizations. However, sharing such data in native formats isn’t always convenient.
That’s where a product like Cimmetry’s AutoVue comes in. The software, which the company refers to as an “enterprise visualization” tool, enables users to view a wide variety of engineering-data files in their native formats.
The latest release, AutoVue 19.2, comes in two flavors to address the needs of various groups. Overall, the product has a number of features specifically aimed at printed-circuit-board (PCB) designers and contract manufacturers.
One version, AutoVue EDA Professional, provides native viewing of manufacturing documents, PCB layouts, and schematics. Amongst the tool’s features are rudimentary design-rule verification capabilities, cross probing between schematics and layouts, markup/annotation, and real-time collaboration for working across extended teams.
A second version, AutoVue Electro-Mechanical Professional, features native document viewing, markup, cross probing, and electromechanical digital mockup capabilities for hundreds of supported document types. The tool endeavors to close the gap between MCAD and EDA, and allows hardware manufacturers to enhance collaboration and reduce design cycle times.
Both versions provide a number of capabilities that are of broad usefulness throughout the PCB/contract manufacturing process. AutoVue 19.2 allows review and navigation through physical layout layers, allowing users to quickly and easily find vital information contained within large layout files. Users can easily turn on and off physical layers and entity types associated with each layer and bring layers to the top with a simple click of the mouse.
AutoVue’s ability to cross-probe between a board layout, its related schematic, and 3D PCB has been dramatically enhanced. While cross probing in AutoVue 19.2 users can find all occurrences of a particular component or net and easily navigate between them, should they be present on multiple sheets of a schematic. In addition, AutoVue now offers an automatic mode that intelligently determines the appropriate view (layout, schematic, 3D model) for the cross-probe target.
AutoVue’s new EDA “tooltips” display entity-properties by hovering the mouse over a specific element of a schematic or PCB layout. This productivity feature allows users to instantly access important information without having to repeatedly drill down into an entity’s details, thereby speeding up design reviews.
AutoVue now automatically imports the layer sets, as defined in Mentor Expedition and Cadence Allegro files. Users viewing these EDA files with AutoVue can easily load named layer settings, as originally set in the authoring application.
AutoVue 19.2 adds a host of PCB-related file formats to its portfolio, including: Mentor 8.10; CadStar 8.0; ODB++ V6.5; Altium Designer 6.0, 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5; PADs2005 SP2 and SP3; DxDesigner 2005; Protel DXP/2004 binary and ASCII Schematics; Protel DXP Project Files; Cadence Allegro 15.5, 15.5.1, and 15.7; and Mentor Expedition 2005.
Contact Cimmetry Systems directly for pricing and delivery information.
Cimmetry Systems www.cimmetry.com/_products/features/autovue_19_2_whats_new.html