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Back Annotate from Allegro to bring in component location and board side using "pickdata" broken on 17.4

JERATSSI

We generate our bill of materials from the schematic and one of the things we need is the component board side.  A long time ago Ole Ejlersen wrote a script called symboldata that creates a swap file I could back annotate into the schematic to bring in that information so I can export a report with all the components and their placement info.  It worked fine on 17.2 but now that I've gotten to 17.4 it appears to be broken.  

This is the example of the output

;**************************************************
;Backannotation file with pick and place data
;from Cadence Allegro to Capture and Capture CIS
;**************************************************
.Section3 UpdateProperties Parts
"{Reference}" "COMPX" "COMPY" "COMPROT" "COMPSIDE"
"C11" "-142" "-764" "180.000000" "BOT"
"C12" "-266" "-879" "180.000000" "BOT"
"C13" "-206" "-627" "90.000000" "TOP"

When I try back annotating with or without the generate board feedback box selected I get:

"Encountered an improper argument."

I'm guessing by this message and another thread about compatibility being lost with PADS that back annotate has changed significantly and my script will no longer work.  Is there a new way to get this information into my schematic component properties so I can do my standard BOM reports again?

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  • 0 in reply to JERATSSI

    If Cadence has removed the back annotate feature this would really suck.   I use this feature in several different ways, for example how would pin and gate swapping be supported from the layout to the schematic?

    Can someone confirm this?  My team is finally starting to think about moving from 16.6 to 17.x, they would be rather stumped by this loss of functionality. - Maybe I am just misunderstanding this, sorry if I am.

  • 0 in reply to Wild

    It was specifically the "layout" tab of back annotate which I think let you bring in legacy designs, and I think the script the OrCAD engineer wrote took advantage of the legacy import and swap file to bring in component information.

  • 0 in reply to JERATSSI

    All of the data from the BRD file should be backannotated using the PCB Editor mode, not Layout mode.  That includes pin swaps, component swaps, etc..  And you can add all of your user data as well.  I think you are doing something wrong by trying to use Layout mode.

  • 0 in reply to redwire

    I'm using a script generated by someone working for OrCAD many years ago.  It creates a swap file that contains component location and most importantly board side information, when using back annotate it would bring that information into the part properties so I could export a BOM that was separated by board side.  That functionality is broken on 17.4.  When I asked Cadence they forwarded me to EMA who said that Cadence removed support for the "layout" tab of back annotate which I had been using and they don't plan on bringing it back. They said I'd have to write a custom TCL script to read in the board and update the schematic, they don't see a better solution.

  • 0 in reply to JERATSSI

    If you are using OrCAD schematic and OrCAD PCB (aka Allegro) then the "Layout" backannotation is the incorrect method despite your claim.  It has *always* been through the PCB Editor mode.  The Layout tab was there to support other tools only which have been removed.

    All of your data can still be injected into your schematic if you use OrCAD schematic via PCB Editor backanno.  It just requires setting up the config file to import/export user defined properties.

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