Who wants a free, cross-probing viewer for DEHDL and PCB Editor?

My company is not fulfilled by the PDF Publisher and FREE Physical Viewer and I'm hoping to foster a discussion of design viewing requirements from SPB users that leads to a request for better viewing tools. I am posting this to connect with other SPB users and bring this issue to Cadence's attention.

To my company, these are some typical uses for free, cross-probing viewers:

-an engineer working at a lab bench where editing the design is unneeded

-manufacturing folks, both local and global/contract, who need to analyze, check, and query the design for manufacture

-local and global service department who needs to be able to view design information when troubleshooting a failed product; global service centers may need technical help over the phone which is much easier with more powerful software tools

The inability to cross-probe between schematic and PCB is a huge limitation. Especially with hierarchical blocks, where net names can get easily confused, it becomes quite difficult to correlate the schematic and PCB. The only option is using the Find tools in Adobe Reader and the FREE Physical Viewer, which is far more painful than being able to choose either a schematic or PCB element and have it highlighted.

PDF Publisher is an improvement over a "dumb" PDF schematic, but it does not meet all the requirements. Having the Object Data Tool and the Model Tree are nice, but I still feel greatly limited by the ability to view and query the schematic versus DEHDL. And I have to pay for this inconvenience! The FREE Physical Viewer, however, isn't too bad. I'd like to see some of the features in Viewer Plus become part of the FREE Physical Viewer, but compared with PDF Publisher I can't really complain about viewing PCBs. The best solution would be viewer programs which are simply "watered down" versions of the full program without editing and saving options.

Our previous ECAD package was P-CAD, and if you've ever used the P-CAD viewer you'd understand the comparative absurdity of Cadence's current solution. P-CAD's viewer looks and feels much like the full version of P-CAD. And P-CAD had their viewers available in 2000! I am shocked that the methods for viewing a design are so inadequate, when many other ECAD suppliers provide free tools with the capabilities one would expect with any ECAD tool, let alone a pricey, otherwise very capable tool like SPB. Are the Cadence folks not paying any attention to the tools provided by their ECAD peers in addition to shunning the users who pay their salaries?

A lot of DEHDL and Allegro features are delightful, and I am quite happy to design PCBs using these tools, but would I gladly give up some of those features in order to have a viewer package which is useful and comparable with Cadence's competition? Yes. Do I feel cheated? Absolutely. Based on the quality and innovation in Allegro (and to a far lesser extent DEHDL), so I believe Cadence is fully capable of churning out cross-probing viewers that are top notch if they're motivated? You better believe it.

Cadence is built around a design flow and it works well in the forward direction. But after the design is finished and is in production, the software must assist a technician who has a physical old revision on the bench and needs to use the schematic and PCB to troubleshoot that board. Cadence needs to put more effort into post-design support. If we imagine the requirements of this technician, I think it's obvious that the current solution is inadequate. I hope we can show Cadence that their customers want and deserve robust, cross-probing viewers. The use of ECAD software doesn't end when 100% of the nets are routed, but that's where the usability of the SPB tools end.

And here is an issue which exists even in the full version of DEHDL - how can you easily search for elements? There needs to be a better way to find nets and components. If you have a product on your bench, and R52 is burnt, you need to find R52 on the schematic. You cannot tell me the Global Find form is easy to use in this case. A list of all components and nets, allowing you to view the properties or jump to the element, needs to be implemented. And this information needs to reflect the actual ref des and net name on the PCB, which isn't always the case with hierarchical blocks. A repair technician is likely to be starting from the PCB, so it needs to be easy to move from the PCB to the schematic when viewing designs. Obviously cross-probing would be of great help here, but just making it easier to find elements on the schematic would be of great use. The Find filter in the FREE Physical Viewer is usable, but not especially helpful, however it's an immense improvement on finding elements over DEHDL. Even the Object Data Tool mode of Adobe Reader puts DEHDL to shame when it comes to locating components and nets.

I understand the portability advantage of PDF files for the schematic. Plus the challenges in creating any portable file from the DEHDL information structure. But those technical challenges can undoubtedly be overcome. I could live with a variety of solutions as long as they did the job. The current design viewing solution does not, which means there is an opportunity for innovation by Cadence in coming up with a solution that will work for their customers.

As an engineer, I know full-featured cross-probing viewers would be useful nearly every day for me. But this is also about proper software support for the people who deal with a project after it has left the engineer's desk. These folks may not be intimately familiar with the design so they need a solution which is easy-to-use and efficient. I find the current PDF Publisher + FREE Physical Viewer "solution" shameful on Cadence's part, but what about you? Are you perfectly content with the PDF Publisher and FREE Physical Viewer? Or would you be interested in cross-probing viewers? Is this a critical element which is holding your company back? Please reply with your thoughts, suggestions, comments, and/or rants. Thanks!