EEVblog Electronics Community Forum

Electronics => PCB/EDA/CAD => Circuit Studio => Topic started by: Pack34 on November 29, 2017, 07:03:35 pm

Title: Compatibility between CS and AD components and designs?
Post by: Pack34 on November 29, 2017, 07:03:35 pm
I prefer not to use employer software for my personal projects and have been thinking of getting CS to replace my copy of Eagle.

Are there any roadblocks or compatibility issues between component libraries and designs made in AD and CS? I've been doing a lot of librarian work in my spare time and it would be nice to be able to reuse them in my side projects.
Title: Re: Compatibility between CS and AD components and designs?
Post by: tszaboo on November 29, 2017, 07:46:12 pm
Yep. Altium imports CS, but not the other way.
Title: Re: Compatibility between CS and AD components and designs?
Post by: voltsandjolts on November 29, 2017, 08:59:26 pm
That is misleading. There is reasonably good compatability both ways.

Libraries and schematics work fine in both without change.

CS PCBdocs can be imported to AD, I think there is a plugin for this but haven't tried it myself.

To go from AD PCBdoc to CS you need to firstly export it from AD by save-copy-as PCB 5.0 Binary File which will open in CS. You lose any STEP 3D models so there may be some tidying up to do.
Title: Re: Compatibility between CS and AD components and designs?
Post by: ahbushnell on November 30, 2017, 01:49:49 am
Quote from: voltsandjolts on November 29, 2017, 08:59:26 pm
That is misleading. There is reasonably good compatability both ways.

Libraries and schematics work fine in both without change.

CS PCBdocs can be imported to AD, I think there is a plugin for this but haven't tried it myself.

To go from AD PCBdoc to CS you need to firstly export it from AD by save-copy-as PCB 5.0 Binary File which will open in CS. You lose any STEP 3D models so there may be some tidying up to do.

I have tried this out and you are correct.

Andy
Title: Re: Compatibility between CS and AD components and designs?
Post by: SVFeingold on January 11, 2018, 06:22:27 pm
Since this was linked to in a recent thread, I'll throw in that in my experience you get pretty much complete backwards/forwards compatibility. Altium can import CS files without issue, and CS can open AD files without issue provided you save them (from AD) as CS format files without issue, including the 3D models. I did this a couple times when I was evaluating CS.

I've just had a look at AD again and don't see that option but I've also uninstalled CS, the exporter may have been packaged with CS.
Title: Re: Compatibility between CS and AD components and designs?
Post by: jmarkwolf on January 11, 2018, 10:14:46 pm
I have loaded many Altium SchDocs, PcbDocs and libraries directly into CS without issue, up to Altium v17 and as old as Protel 99SE. PcbDoc's need to be saved in Altium v5 format first, then imported into CS as opposed to a File Load, but it's painless.

Haven't gone from CS to Altium yet though.