ESD V4 - My open-source EDA for SCH/PCB Design

[richardiffusion]

I'm excited to share EDS V4, a professional-grade Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software that I've open-sourced after years of development.

EDS V4 is a comprehensive Windows-based CAD/EDA tool built with over 400,000 lines of C++.

This project is based on my own interest and passion. I used it for my own designs and for people around me who are also hardware hobbists and enthusiasts. I don't know if this project will be useful for other people online. So I would like to open-source this project for the first time.

Note: This project was originally developed in Chinese. Most of the commands are still in Chinese. It will take me some extra time to translate everything into English. If you find this software useful and want a English version, you can leave a message and I'll see if it's worth my time to translate everything into English...(may take up to 2-3 weeks) If you want to help in translating this software, it's also very welcome!

https://github.com/richardiffusion/Electronic-System-Design-ESD-Software
Try the Release first before you dive into the codes. It will give you an idea the scale and usage of this software.

[elektryk]

Does this software has file format compatible with other EDA?

[richardiffusion]

Thanks for your question! Yes it's compatible with other EDA softwares like Altium AD6 and Protel99.

[0xdeadbeef]

It sure looks impressive for a one man project, but looking at the screenshots, the GUI seems to be in Chinese. Is there a fully translated English version (yet)?

[Whales]

Trying my best to work it out by trial and error.   I'll see if I can design a small PCB and then report back.

Interestingly some of the text looks like it's in the wrong encoding, but other bits look fine.

[kripton2035]

use an AI to translate your source code texts to english. it will be done in no time compared to human work...
it will not be perfect, but then you can tweak the few bad texts.
as your code is open source, there is no privacy problem !

[richardiffusion]

Thanks for your reply! Yes, it's a one-man project I've been building for years. It indeed drew some early interest from investors and businesses, but they seem less interested now. The project is in Chinese, and I'm considering fully adapting it to English if that's what the community needs...

It sure looks impressive for a one man project, but looking at the screenshots, the GUI seems to be in Chinese. Is there a fully translated English version (yet)?

[richardiffusion]

Yeah definitely let me know if you get it working in your local environment. I saw the screenshots, and I think most of the issues might be caused by the language settings on your Windows. If you have Chinese (Simplified) as one of your installed languages, it should work fine. But if you don’t read Chinese, that might not help much either. So just play with it and see how much you could get out of it. I'm also considering to translate everything to English using AI. Might be much faster and easier too...

Trying my best to work it out by trial and error.   I'll see if I can design a small PCB and then report back.

Interestingly some of the text looks like it's in the wrong encoding, but other bits look fine.

[richardiffusion]

use an AI to translate your source code texts to english. it will be done in no time compared to human work...
it will not be perfect, but then you can tweak the few bad texts.
as your code is open source, there is no privacy problem !

Yeah that's also what i'm considering...Might be pretty fast to do it that way...

[Alex Eisenhut]

" System Requirements
Windows 7/10/11"

Good, no artificial requirement to run Win 11 like some other free PCB design suites...

[tycz]

Richard,

On your Github page it says "Supports Print, Plot, and Gerber Output - Print Preview", but this does not appear to be the case. I cannot find any kind of plot/cam output features in the program itself or the source code.

[richardiffusion]

Richard,

On your Github page it says "Supports Print, Plot, and Gerber Output - Print Preview", but this does not appear to be the case. I cannot find any kind of plot/cam output features in the program itself or the source code.

Hey tycz,

Regarding Gerber: This software can generate pcb file. As long as the output is a gerber printer, there's no need to compile special gerber file—selecting the laser photoplotter device automatically produces the film. From a software perspective, this is the same type of output as printing or plotting.

However, older Gerber photoplotters with fixed apertures cannot be supported, as manual aperture matching is no longer practical.

That said, if the goal is to send files to a PCB manufacturer, then gerber output is not supported. Manufacturers require the PCB design files directly. It is recommended to export the design in formats such as AD6 or Protel for manufacturing purposes.

There's another solution you may try, that is to download a laser photoplotter driver(I don't know the exact name), then select print to file, that should automatically output a gerber file.