Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

[Harishiyer21]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Hi Piernov,
Can you help me with an FZ key at your irc channel?

[piernov]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Is your video driver up to date? Is you hardware not too old? OpenBoardView uses video hardware acceleration so it needs an OpenGL 3 compatible card by default. You could force it to OpenGL 1.2 if your hardware is too old by setting the "renderer" parameter to "1" in the configuration file.

I would highly recommend against using Windows XP. If you absolutely need it, run it inside a virtual machine without networking.

[daveyk021]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

I am running Windows 7 32 bit Pro. When I double-click on openboardview.exe I get a Windows Message asking if I want to run this program or allow it to make changes, so I click on YES. I get a brief hourglass cursor and then nothing loads or happens.

I downloaded release 7.3 direct from openboardview.org.

Thoughts?

Thanks kindly,

Dave
P.S. - wish it worked on Windows XP. I must maintain a main service computer in Windows XP because a lot of the instruments I work on have support software that only run on XP (older equipment).

[inflex]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Hello Jasko,

When you refer to "layers", do you mean top and bottom? OpenBoardView is not intended as a multilayer/PCB-trace rendering program; that information is not included in the BRD files usually. When you change between top and bottom, it should not resize, I am unsure what effect you are referring to; can you show a before-and-after screen shot? Have you looked at Gerbv?

If you click on any single node/pin of a net, OpenBoardView will highlight all the other pins also connected.

The parts cannot be rendered more realistically because that information is not included in many of the board files. For most board files, the only information provided is the part-name, pin-locations, net-work name for each pin. Some files do have package names included (I know some .fz and .asc files do) but that is a project for the future to generate all the official outlines.

I did try to include a colour-wheel selector with ImGui (the library that is used to provide the cross-platform interface) but it did not seem to operate; we are waiting on a new release.

Paul.

[jasko_jacker]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

I'm using this software (on windows, there is a differcence with linux version ?) every day and I want to share my experience with it.
Probably, this software is made to work with brd format; I use principally the fz and asc format. there are some things that I appreciate as the zoom with mouse, other things as the position of the components on the board should be improved because (for me) it's very easy to locate the component if what I see on the screen is equal to the motherboard. Other things:
possibility to change a layer without resize the board, and very important for me make more clear all the connection on the same net with the possibility to switch between one layer to another. This is not a criticism but the considerations on the use of this software. One last thing , put a color table to avoid insertion in hex format.
keep it up, I appreciate your efforts and excuse me for my english

[Argolin]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Does it do it regardless of OBV being maximised or minimised?

Yes, the behaviour is the same irrespectively, in background or minimized doesn't make any difference

Does OBV take any notable CPU time when it's idle/minimised?

No, Cpu is not an issue whatsoever. It's impossible to tell OBV is open unless one searches for it. It's beautifully lightweight on Cpu and memory under any circumstance.

That's why it took me some time to convince me there was something to troubleshoot somewhere around. When I remembered I could check the activity monitor I discovered that OBV requires high performance Gpu and prevents sleep, unlike other programs I use normally.

[inflex]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Anything I could do to help, just ask if you please..

Does it do it regardless of OBV being maximised or minimised?

Does OBV take any notable CPU time when it's idle/minimised?

Initially, waaaay back in the first weeks of development, I found OBV would consume a lot of CPU when you minimised it, this was a hiccup in the ImGUI engine basically creating a very tight-loop CPU intensive polling problem, but since then we did some additions which put it to 'sleep' after a few polls without activity.

[Argolin]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Thanks for that. It might be the ImGui engine with its constant polling, not sure, I don't have a system to test on here but I'll have a look.

Anything I could do to help, just ask if you please..

[inflex]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Don't know if it's a desired feature, but I noticed on Mac Os it's preventing sleep function, screen included. Just in case it's not wanted now you know
Thanks again for the good work !

Thanks for that. It might be the ImGui engine with its constant polling, not sure, I don't have a system to test on here but I'll have a look.

[Argolin]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Don't know if it's a desired feature, but I noticed on Mac Os it's preventing sleep function, screen included. Just in case it's not wanted now you know
Thanks again for the good work !

[highpulse]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

INFLEX , LONG TIME NO SEE MATE , keep the good work coming !!

[inflex]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Still working on decoding new board file formats. If you have something you need decoded, and even better, if you have documents/specifications of the format, please do send them along

[piernov]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Looks like CMake cannot find the MinGW toolchain. Anyway, compiling under Windows isn't really supported anymore, you can still try using the Visual Studio solution (under src/vcpp) though.
Windows binary is built automatically under Linux using the cross-compiling MinGW-W64 toolchain. I'm not sure if it can be installed under Windows, but if it is you can try to use it and set the CMake toolchain file to Toolchain-mingw64.cmake.

Otherwise, you can grab them openboardview.org instead of trying to build it on your own.

[jasko_jacker]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

I am interested to compile the source on Windows, I installed cMake 3.7.1 and I set MinGW as compiler but probably I have to set a toolchain file ...
I downloaded this source: OpenBoardView-R7.3.zip

[inflex]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

If I get across any misbehaviour or bug I'll be happy to report it.
Thanks again !!

Thanks Agrolin, you can post any issues on the github issues page if you like; easiest way then to ensure that all the developers see it.

Right now we're working on adding more file formats, particularly wanting to get the PADs pcb format decoded ( some manner of structured binary blob, probably in-house custom *sigh* ).

[Argolin]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

What a beauty, wonderful software you created..can say goodbye to T-link eventually, thank you so much and congratulations.
Running it on a MBP a1297, os 10.11.6, seems to be running smooth and nicely. If I get across any misbehaviour or bug I'll be happy to report it.
Thanks again !!

[rtra]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

Hi guys,

I found a key in one paste bin that starts with 0x25d8d248 and ends with 0xdacf7668. But in the obv.conf file they ask for a 44 sets of 32bits but my key only have 36 sets, is this the reason why i can't open the files. I'am using the lastest release with w7x64.
Thank you..

[inflex]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

CST/CAST format support added in the master-source. Will be in the next binary release too.

[highpulse]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

well its oficial , i cant live without it kkkkk

inflex mate and piernov , remeber what i told about when pressing a component for it can display the info , like if its n channel and what code number it is ? well on FZ after that released you gave me it work nice , but for outher kinds its wont display info , for ex BDV files :P any future release fixing this issue :P thk in advance

[inflex]

Re: Openflex Boardview: New boardview software (linux, windows and OSX)

The Openflex fork has now been merged back in to OpenBoardView, and we've released R7.3 ( and now also have rpm packages )

http://openboardview.org