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Eagle 9.7.0

stewart.maguire
Explorer

Eagle 9.7.0

stewart.maguire
Explorer
Explorer

Hey

 

So after the recent outage rendering Fusion 360 Electronic unusable for a day, I decided to have a look at the deployment files that come across the inter-web during an upgrade and get copied the User directory (C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Autodesk\webdeploy\). I wanted to see what type of dll's etc where included and maybe figure out why on earth it took soo long to launch the app.  I'm an embedded guy so wasn't holding out much hope.

 

Anyhow, I found the new libEagle directory (\production\xxx\Applications\Electron\LibEagle) and noticed a few things which may or maynot be correct.

 

1) Fusion 360 appears to run as and Electron app like Microsoft VS Code
2) The executable that used to be delivered in standalone Eagle, eagle.exe, had been deployed as a dll
3) The QT environment, libGLES and libEGL all appeared to be still in use
4) The recently added plugin, AnsysEdb was there in all its glory
5) The help files all refer to eagle 9.7.0

 

So, here are my questions:

 

1) Do the Fusion 360 Schematic design and PCB layout components really still run as a QT app which is wrapped in an electron environment?
2) Does libEagle still contain all the Schematic/PCB and rendering code (via calls to QT) that used to be there in 9.6.2 and all the enhancements since then?
3) Why is the infrastructure for the old standalone Eagle (help files. ngspice, examples etc) still being deployed if it's a newly rewitten app?
4) How come the Eagle help files are versioned as 9.7.0?

 

And to my main question, does all this point to an insurance policy as such that gives Autodesk a way to split the PCB environment back out as 9.7.0 Eagle or is it really time for me to move on lol?

 

Cheers
Stewart

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yqliu
Autodesk
Autodesk
Accepted solution

Hello @stewart.maguire , sounds like you have strong software development background. As you can understand, it takes long time to rewrite everything. We are reusing a lot of EAGLE code in Fusion electronics, although not in the Electron app way: many features are not available in EAGLE. That's why you see the components from EAGLE inside Fusion directory.  Besides adding more new features to Fusion electronics, we are also replacing the old code step by step. For example, we will release the new high-quality renderer in early next year. 

 

To your main question, our policy is not to go back to the old EAGLE. It's definite the time to move to Fusion electronics. Since Fusion 360 is an integrated environment for not just electronics but also mechanical design, CAM, Simulation, generative design etc, it takes longer time than EAGLE to launch. The Fusion develop team is still working on the performance improvement. If you see anything else in Fusion electronics is no better than EAGLE, or if you have any suggestions, please let us know. 

Thanks, and Merry Christmas!

Richard

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stewart.maguire
Explorer
Explorer
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Hey Richard

 

Thanks for the detailed reply, I appreciate it!

 

As a first point, I was merely curious as to how the Fusion 360 worked, wasn't in anyway a criticism of the work you guys are doing. I wasn't expecting to actually improve anything myself, just shouting from the sidelines 🙂

 

I can only image the complexity of designing and implementing Fusion 360 Electronics, so not surprised elements of the old Eagle engine still linger. Certainly makes the transition to your new code base easier by having it there. I'm working on a new iteration of an embedded product at the minute where half the code base is 15 years old lol, so I know what it's like.

 

Secondly, I actually like the new functionality added to Fusion Electronics and although I don't use the more advanced integrations just yet, I will in the future. I just haven't used it in anger so the workflow between Electronics->CAD and back is not familiar to me personally, that why I hire people more talented than me 🙂 .  Integrated CAD/Mechanical and Electronics certainly seems to have it's benefits and clearly outweigh a slower startup time.

 

I have a rake of older personal Eagle projects that will I'll be importing and improving using the new features that are now available and looking forward to that new rendering engine too!

 

Maybe time to invest in an SLS printer 🙂

 

Anyway, Happy Christmas to yourself and the guys there, keep up the good work!

 

Cheers

Stew

 

 

PS Fancy open sourcing Eagle once you're done with it 😉

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