output circuit netlist

[SpaceDreams]

Hi! Excellent Program! Can you also output a netlist; or provide code documentation so I could set it up?

Thanks!

[JPWiedemann]

Hi, the big problem I see right now with a netlist output is the mapping from all these different components onto netlist components. Do you have an idea on how to map circuitikz components to netlist components?

[SpaceDreams]

That's a good point; at first implementing the basic components:
R, C, L, ... for ngspice all are here
This would be sufficient. But, later it would be nice for users to be able to change default setting if needed.

[JPWiedemann]

Some more thoughts on this:

• one needs component values for a netlist to make sense, but this tool is primarily for documentation where a value is not always explicitly needed in the circuit itself, i.e. we only care about the labels and not the inherent values. So how to handle that? Should there be a pop up informing the user when certain components don't have values at the time of the export?
• How to handle circuit components which are not yet implemented for a spice export? Ignore? User pop up?
• I don't have much experience with different spice flavours but what is actually the difference between them for the context of a spice export? At what point do we really have to differentiate between them and start to support different spice flavours for the export?
• Why should we have a netlist export for a documentation tool? Shouldn't the circuit simulator/ a dedicated UI be used for that?

Overall, I'm actually not that fond of the idea to implement a netlist export since it would go against the primary use case of circuit documentation. Also, there are plenty of spice tools already available, so I'm not that sure if this is even necessary at all.

[SpaceDreams]

Symbols are fine. All netlist languages have something equivalent to a ".param" command which can define the symbolic variables.

Spice export for user defined elements is more tricky. My suggestion would be to start with what is defined in spice while keeping in mind that later, it would be most helpful to have a "spice footprint" that a user would fill out for user defined elements to be mapped to spice.

Exporting to ngspice is a great start. Cadence can read ngspice netlists, and I'm pretty sure most commercial software can. LTspice might not parse ngspice, but it's not that different, so that could be a second step.

Being able to export netlists will help with synchronization between circuit documentation and circuit design.

[cpfannenmueller]

The current project was designed in a research project were we started with a tool doing same as you planed, but in oposite direction: we first did "ADS board Link to TikZ" (abl2TikZ) for creating Tikz drawings from Netlists (mostly Cadence and Keysights Advanced Design system). Avaliable here: https://github.com/Circuit2TikZ/abl2tikz
There we did some of those component mappings to TikZ already, maybe this helps.

Same as you I also had the idea of inlcluding a simulator quite often, a netlist export would bring similar functionality. So I like that idea..

The documentation of both projects are avaliable here (unfortunately only in German):
https://open.fau.de/items/458456ea-8ae1-45b2-ad1d-3730b3e7613f
https://open.fau.de/items/7737a734-acd5-4527-8e7b-1e760b6a0355

Also you can just contact me directly, then we can give you more actual documentation and try to help adding us that feature if you like :-)