Opinions on IE3D Drawing Concept software

[GoaGosha]

Hi People,

After I've started again using IE3D I faced again
with very hard and not intuitive (at least for me) GUI.

Does anyone here in this forum feeling the same ?
Do you think that this drawing concept has more advantages than the other tools have?

I suppose of course that eventually I'll get used to it , but the problem
is that once (1 year earlier) I could set problems properly in IE3D
but now after a while i'm feeling like newbie, probably because it easier to
forget concepts that are not intuitive.

I'm also working with Momentum ,Sonnet & HFSS and sometimes
stop using them for a while but I've always regain the drawing
skills very fast.

Jian, maybe you can explain what is the thought behind the concept
of IE3D ,why you thought this concept is good for setting the problems?

Thank you.

 

[jian]

Re: IE3D Drawing Concept

Hi, GoaGosha: Thank you for your question. IE3D's GUI was originally built for its power and flexibility in modeling complicated structures. Much of them has been evolved during years. I understand some users like it very much and some users do not like it. For those users who get used to it, they can do much. Some simulators are much simpler. It may be easier to use. However, they do not have the power and they can not solve many problems.

As I have pointed out before, IE3D's layout editor (MGRID) is dealing with vertices and polygons. You can have very good control over low level geometry features and it does require many commands for it. However, for some high level objects, it might be tedious to change some global geometry feature. For this reason, we have implemented the IE3DLibrary for parameterized geometry entry. Parameterized geometry entry can make changing global parameters much simpler. However, it will be difficult to change small details. Anyway, two ways are useful and none of them can replace the other completely. We are working on unifying the two ways. We are also making progress for users to create layouts from other tools. This year, we have released the EM Socket between MWO 2004 and IE3D. A user can use IE3D as if the user is using the MWO 2004. We also release the Automatic GDSII to IE3D Flow (AGIF). AGIF allows users to create very complicated geometry easily. In our examples, we demonstrate how we can build a bga structure with vias, solderballs, wire bonds, holes and thick traces and ground in one shot. These featuers make geometry entry much simplified. We should be able to release some links to Cadence very soon. All these efforts are to make IE3D easy for different kinds of users.

On IE3D, we keep implementing new features into it and it may change much in one year. I think we are one of the most active vendors in improving products. I think you should try to use it more often. EM simulators are dealing with geometry. They are very complicated. When you do not use it for a long time, you may forget something. Certainly, we welcome users to provide feedback so that we can further improve it. You can send suggestions to support@zeland.com. Thank you very much!

 

[victorcl]

IE3D Drawing Concept

i suggest you read books about Electromagnetic
and have some basic concepts ,that will benifit you
a lot and better understanding of ie3d's thought.
hope helps.

 

[skygazer]

Re: IE3D Drawing Concept

O god.. the GUI is terrible.. even simple functions like snapping to the closest vertex cannot be done without getting frustrated...
i used it for modifying my design with each iteration till i get optimum response.. it took me a whole day for 10 iterations..
the GUI is very painful to use..