inspectAR - Recent Threads

Allegro Procedures with inspectAR

DesignTech — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 12:13:20 GMT

In the PCB fabrication industry, debugging a PCB with bare schematic and board is often very time-consuming and affects the business.

Just imagine a built-in feature that lets you create procedures, a list of step-by-step instructions that can be used to explain the manual work, which must take place in a PCB design once it has been manufactured.

Each step contains the specific instructions that must be completed to advance to the subsequent step. It has overlays, which are pieces of the 2D artwork that will be rendered to the user in AR once the procedure is published and run in inspectAR.

Of course, the procedure can be used to document results and reviewed back in Allegro if that is convenient for you. This would be preferred especially in a use case where you need to run the procedure to verify multiple copies of the same design.

Access to part datasheet on the fly with built-in component search

DesignTech — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 10:02:42 GMT

It is always a challenge finding a data sheet to look up component pin mapping before probing problematic task when you must guess which orientation that part was placed on the board by the designer.

Sometimes, finding a temperature curve or various electrical characteristic curves for a given component can be equally difficult.

Just imagine a built-in utility that lets you bring up the datasheet and other part information on the fly; no more struggle in searching the datasheet in the middle of a debug.

The built-in part search of inspectAR leverages the Unified Component search of Cadence to bring datasheets and parametric part information right into the lab. PDFs can be viewed from within the inspectAR tool right alongside your overlays and board.

Create a markup using inbuilt screenshot markup tool

TechiEE12 — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 14:34:41 GMT

Engineers spend several hours preparing lab documentation, user guides, and so on and struggle to get a suitable markup drawing to illustrate specific steps.

With the inspectAR screenshot markup tool, you can achieve this quite easily. This feature takes a screenshot of the current view in inspectAR, and then you can mark the photo saved, much like a paint program. It allows adding your custom drawings, directions, and instructions to the image. Once you complete the markup, the tool has a save option that will enable you to store the photo in the local drive or add it to the project that you can share with anyone.

This feature can be beneficial for passing on the information when a PCB needs to be modified, like replacing a part, shorting two pins, and so on. The feature helps remove any dependency on third-party tools for markup and offers a one-stop solution.

Now access PCB components information on the go

PCBTech — Mon, 29 May 2023 11:43:07 GMT

While in the middle of a PCB debug, many times, quick access to information about a component is required. To access this information, the user needs to search for the datasheet online and seek the desired data.

InspectAR offers a valuable feature to deal with this. You can view the component and all its pads highlighted by its layer color. Apart from this, the Info pane on the right is now populated with all part attributes like reference designator and description from the BOM (if available). For example, if you wish to check the recommended voltage for an IC, you can directly click on Open Datasheet to gather the required information. This feature gives instant access to all the component-related information available in the BOM and saves time.

Other than accessing the existing information, you can attach a file and tag it with this component. This file could contain any component-related details required for future reference or debugging. It could also have some instructions for modifying the part solder/connections.

How does inspectAR treat customer data and security?

Cadence Eric Park — Tue, 31 May 2022 12:31:39 GMT

I was wondering if there's any reference to inspectAR's detailed security/privacy policy, or really anything specific with regards to that matter.

Thanks in advance!

Does anything else besides the camera affect the image quality?

Zach Vaters — Mon, 30 May 2022 11:48:04 GMT

Hosting inspectAR Within Your Organizations Network

LiamTheInspectAR — Fri, 13 May 2022 22:06:06 GMT

inspectAR is currently hosted on the Cadence Cloud using AWS infrastructure. This is a scalable, enterprise-ready solution that would be suitable for any EDA organization which accesses the external internet to transfer EDA data for manufacturing, etc.

For customers whom external internet access is not feasible to get, we have a more traditional 'on-premise' offering which can be hosted entirely within an enterprise network. This solution is intended to be supported by the enterprise's IT, it is beyond the skill level of a traditional PCB designer or production technician to set up. Cadence will support your organizations IT directly.

The Cadence downloads portal has a detailed and up-to-date guide on how to install the inspectAR server within your network. This includes system requirements.

For any other questions or concerns you need help with please post below and our team will respond.

Hardware Requirements

LiamTheInspectAR — Wed, 11 May 2022 22:01:57 GMT

Because inspectAR is an augmented reality tool there is some required hardware needed to get started. Augmented reality is based off of the field of computer vision, the study of creating algorithms to make computers interpret the real world. This required the use of a camera. Because inspectAR is a specialized software package which uses augmented reality to interpret circuit boards, which are generally flat, planar objects, you will likely need a stand as well to position the camera orthogonally above the board.

For the mobile versions of inspectAR, only the device's onboard camera is supported. As such there are no hardware requirements for the mobile version. Typically the mobile version is only used for very quick references, so holding it in your hand is acceptable and you can also forego buying a stand. For extended use of the mobile version a simple gooseneck stand is recommended.

For the desktop version, you will need to attach an external camera to your computer. The minimum resolution of the camera is 1080p, however 4k is recommended. inspectAR operates at a maximum resolution of 1080p, so the advantage of higher resolution is an ability to zoom further on small components, etc. The value of this cannot be overstated, and all major inspectAR customers use a 4k camera.

To position the camera above the board, which is the optimal position for zooming in on components and calibrating, you will need a stand. We recommend a scissor jack stand since this gives the best tradeoff of stability and manoeuvrability.

For a detailed guide of cameras, including links to buy our recommended 4k camera and scissor jack stand, please see our hardware requirements.

If you have questions about a specific piece of hardware you have on hand, or want to recommend something new for us to try please leave a post below.

How to Download inspectAR

LiamTheInspectAR — Wed, 11 May 2022 21:29:13 GMT

To download inspectAR you will first need an account. You can create an account at https://www.inspectar.com/start-free-trial

The mobile version of inspectAR is free for everyone to use. The mobile version is available for both iOS and Android operating systems in the respective Apple App Store, and Google Play Store.

The desktop version of inspectAR is available for both Windows and MacOS operating systems. This is available to Pro users only, so you will need to purchase inspectAR. If you have not yet tried the tool, we offer a 14-day free trial of the Pro version so you can get started.

If you have any trouble downloading, please add to the discussion below.

inspectAR Project Creation

LiamTheInspectAR — Mon, 09 May 2022 21:18:48 GMT

Project creation in inspectAR is achieved through a number of different file sources. inspectAR is intended to be used after or during manufacturing the process of a circuit board has been completed. Because of this, manufacturing data is the primary data source for project creation.

This makes the inspectAR tool CAD agnostic, and so boards designed by a variety of vendors can be used.

The following tools can be used via the IPC2581B standard:

All Cadence PCB products
Siemens EDA PCB products
Zuken eCADSTAR, CR5000/8000
Altium Designer

The following tools can be used from their native file format:

Cadence Allegro PCB Editor
KiCAD
Autodesk Eagle

For full guides on exporting IPC2581B from the various supported tools, please see the inspectAR help centre.

If you are unsure about exporting, or would like to see a new format supported please let us know below!

Welcome to the inspectAR Forum

LiamTheInspectAR — Mon, 09 May 2022 20:36:17 GMT

Greetings to all!

Welcome to the inspectAR user forum. As one of the original co-founders of the tool before we joined the Cadence family in August of 2020 I am so proud to still be here writing the first post on our forum.

The tool has come a long way from some very humble beginnings at an electrical engineering lab inside Memorial University of Newfoundland, but it is now available to all engineers worldwide under our free and premium tiers! And we still have a very long way to go, that is a big part of why this forum exists, to engage with you, our users about what will take the product forward another step, and learn how you are using it today.

If this is your first time coming here please leave an introduction below with what you're doing with the product and how you found out about us.