gEDA-dev: GsoC 2008 - autorouter

[Ben Jackson]

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 04:56:35PM +0100, Gert-Jan van den Braak wrote:
> 
> My suggested project is one from the project ideas page, creating a
> topological autorouter. This autorouter should be able to take care of
> the entire routing process, from placing all components on the PCB to
> routing them as good as possible.

Here's what I would recommend, from my personal experience writing plugins:
Step 1, figure out the datastructures.  You can actually learn a lot from
the plugins because they're somewhat focused (see my autocrop, eg).
Step 2, figure out how your algorithm would like to see the board.  Make
a complete copy of the board state to your new datastructures before you
start work.  Step 3, autoplace/route.  Step 4, map everything back to a
set of changes to the board.  You could do step 4 incrementally.


> What do you think of this idea, does it come close to what you guys
> have in mind?

It'd be awesome, but it's a big task.

-- 
Ben Jackson AD7GD
<ben at ben.com>
http://www.ben.com/