Schematic Capture for publishing
Programs for drawing circuits
SIMetrix
SIMetrix [1], as of version 5.40b (Jan 2008):
Advantages:
- Nice looking output.
- Schematic editor with SPICE simulator.
- Free version with unlimited schematic drawing and editing.
- Hierarchical schematics
- Selection of colours for components, wires, etc. for easy identification.
- Zooming facility, auto-routing and snap-to-grid.
- Simple placement of components — select and click-to-place with mouse.
- Automatic repeat placement of last component.
- Can save a schematic as an SVG or other graphic file.
- Can save schematics in an ASCII or binary format — documentation for the ASCII format is provided with the installation.
- Free version for Windows or Linux may be used indefinitely; program may be freely shared (per SIMetrix 5.40b splash screen)
Disadvantages:
- Free version has limited simulation capability (not applicable for drawing schematics).
- Not open source
- Email registration required to receive download link (no password or user account needed)
KiCad
Having recently moved to SourceForge, KiCAD KiCAD is an open source suite of tools including schematic design. It has some nice features:
- Snap to grid
- Component libraries with built-in editor
- Rotate components
- Moving a component moves attached traces when pressing CTRL while clicking the group to move.
- Outputs in SVG (which works with OOo's SVG import tool)
- Open source and actively maintained
But isn't perfect:
- Doesn't route around components
- SVG output includes page border, title, etc (can be cropped with something like InkScape)
- Part labels and values in SVG output are rendered as lines (thus the letter "M") is 4 line segments... making them very difficult to change later.
- Can't use Greek in labels, which means no Ω on resistor values.
Qucs
Qucs [2] (Quite Universal Circuit Simulator) is an open source (GPL) circuit simulator. It is very easy to work with for drawing schematics. It is close to being an ideal tool for drawing schematics for use in documentation, but lacks SVG support.
Feature Comparison
The Electronics Project has a list of desirable features for a circuit drawing program. This table attempts to summarize which of the features each of the above programs has.
The "Easy circuits" column is specifically answering the question: "Is it easy to use this program to draw circuit layouts?" This is to help clarify that while programs like Inkscape and Dia may pass all the criteria, they are not good choices for drawing circuits. They are easy to use for other tasks, but this chart is specifically geared toward finding a good circuit drawing program.
The "Attach wires" column answers the question: "Once I have a schematic, if I move some component, do the wires that were attached to it move so that they stay attached?"
Note that WikiTeX + gschem is left out of the chart as it is a server-side solution, not a client-side application. To make it a practical solution, one would need a GUI to create the schematics that could export them into the proper format for processing by the server.
| Program | Free | Cross Platform | SVG | Library | Grid | Attach wires | Drawing | Bezier curves | Easy circuits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inkscape | yes | yes | yes | partial | yes | yes | yes | yes | no |
| Xcircuit | yes | yes | with help | yes | yes | yes | |||
| Dia | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | no |
| Gimp | yes | yes | no | no | no | yes | no | ||
| Klunky | yes | yes | no | yes | yes | no | no | no | yes |
| Microsoft drawings | no | no | no | no | no | yes | no | ||
| SIMetrix | no | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | |
| pst-circ | yes | yes | yes (with help) | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| KiCAD | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes(*1) | yes | no | yes |
| Qucs | yes | yes | no | yes | yes | yes | yes | no | yes |
| gnu Electric | yes | yes | partial | yes | yes | partial | yes | ||
| gEDA gschem | yes | with Cygwin | with help (PNG) | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
(*1) Use the "g" key (instead of "m") to "Grab" a component and drag it with all connections.
Rejected
- XCircuit. Not for Windows, GUI ugly as hell.
- Dia. Not specifically for circuits.
- Inkscape. Generic drawing program.
- Klunky. WTH?
- PSTricks
- gnu Electric
- gEDA. Not for Windows
