Patent Application
20080244501
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the extraction of logical design information from a design schematic, and particularly to the extraction of hierarchal design information from a logical design schematic creating application.
2. Description of Background
Before our invention, traditionally, the only means by which to extract logical design information from a hierarchical schematic was to transform the hierarchical schematic into a physical representation of the hierarchical schematic. Further available logical design extraction methods were designed for use only with flat schematic designs and therefore were not configured to work with hierarchical designs. Thus, no methods were available that allowed for the accurate extraction of logical design information from a hierarchical schematic design.
Logical design information that is extracted from a hierarchical schematic can subsequently be used as input data for an assortment of business related applications (e.g., preliminary bill-of-materials, part review reports, physical versus logical bill of material comparisons, and schematic reviews). However, the strict reliance upon information that has been obtained from a physical representation of a hierarchical schematic presents a variety of potential obstacles that may hinder product development cycles. Physical symbols are not needed to determine a logical layout for a schematic. In particular, physical symbols often require a significantly greater amount of time to complete than logical symbols. This is mainly due to the requirement that each dimension for a physical symbol must be defined, wherein a logical symbol only illustrates the pin names for a particular component. Therefore, work being performed upon a particular design can progress with logical symbols while the physical symbols are being created for the design. Also, while the physical symbols for a schematic are being created for a design a designer can extract information from the design logic that can be used to generate a bill-of-materials in addition to other information regarding required parts and design aspects of a project in order to start the procurement of necessary design components.
Therefore, there is a need for a logical design information methodology for extracting information from a schematic, wherein the extracted information can be utilized to assist in the design project review and component procurement procedures.
The shortcomings of the prior art are overcome and additional advantages are provided through the provision of a method for obtaining physical component information that is associated with hierarchical and non-hierarchical symbols as represented within a logical schematic diagram. The method comprises extracting logical design data of a hierarchical schematic from a primary software application, identifying a hierarchical symbol for analysis, and determining at least one physical component that is comprised within a schematic diagram that is represented by the identified hierarchical symbol. The method further comprises determining a schematic diagram page and path that is associated with the determined at least one physical component, determining schematic diagram children pages and paths that are associated with a common parent page and path of the at least one physical component, determining the schematic diagram parent page and path of the at least one physical component; and saving the schematic diagram child page and path information and the schematic diagram parent page and path information of the at least one physical component into a predetermined format.
A computer program product corresponding to the above-summarized method is also described and claimed herein.
Additional features and advantages are realized through the techniques of the present invention. Other embodiments and aspects of the invention are described in detail herein and are considered a part of the claimed invention. For a better understanding of the invention with advantages and features, refer to the description and to the drawings.
The subject matter that is regarded as the invention is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification. The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention are apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
The detailed description explains the preferred embodiments of the invention, together with advantages and features, by way of example with reference to the drawings.
One or more exemplary embodiments of the invention are described below in detail. The disclosed embodiments are intended to be illustrative only since numerous modifications and variations therein will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art.
The present invention relate to a methodology for the accurate extraction of the design information from a hierarchical schematic diagram. This method operates independent of the physical design of the hierarchical schematic diagram, and as such can be interchanged between hierarchical and flat schematic designs. The advantages of the present invention result in faster project development cycles and the early detection of any project part shortages.
Aspects of the present invention are carried out within a computing system environment. The computer system as operated by a system user can embody a conventional personal computer system on which an application that is configured to accomplish the objectives of the present methodologies is operating. As is conventional, the computer system also includes other hardware and software elements that are conventionally included in personal computer systems.
Within an electronic schematic diagram the differing component parts of the electronic schematic of a particular design are represented as standardized symbols, with power and signal connections between the components also being represented. As illustrated in
However, the above-stated relationship between the symbol, page number, and path property is not sufficient to determine how many times that a particular symbol occurs in a schematic diagram. The reason being is that each symbol of a hierarchical schematic design is regarded as a unique schematic that comprises its own pages and path properties. Further, for any given schematic there can be two or more symbols on a page that have identical paths. To remedy this event, within aspects of the present invention, each of the symbols in a hierarchical schematic diagram is logically linked to its respective page and path property information.
It will be seen that in
As mentioned above, by identifying the association between a symbols parent and children pages and path properties the present invention allows for the extraction of data from the logical design information of any hierarchical design schematic. Further, within aspects of the present invention the determined component part hierarchical schematic information can be saved in a predetermined format delivered for further processing to an additional processing application within a design project implementation network. For example, extracted component part information could be delivered for further processing to applications such as a bill of material generation, an automation of similar parts, an early part procurement, a part table file generation, or any other application program based upon aspects of a schematic design.
The capabilities of the present invention can be implemented in software, firmware, hardware or some combination thereof.
As one example, one or more aspects of the present invention can be included in an article of manufacture (e.g., one or more computer program products) having, for instance, computer usable media. The media has embodied therein, for instance, computer readable program code means for providing and facilitating the capabilities of the present invention. The article of manufacture can be included as a part of a computer system or sold separately.
Additionally, at least one program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying at least one program of instructions executable by the machine to perform the capabilities of the present invention can be provided.
The flow diagrams depicted herein are just examples. There may be many variations to these diagrams or the steps (or operations) described therein without departing from the spirit of the invention. For instance, the steps may be performed in a differing order, or steps may be added, deleted or modified. All of these variations are considered a part of the claimed invention.
While the preferred embodiment to the invention has been described, it will be understood that those skilled in the art, both now and in the future, may make various improvements and enhancements which fall within the scope of the claims which follow. These claims should be construed to maintain the proper protection for the invention first described.
