Details
Questions and Answers from the Webinar:
Question: Regarding the Connect application, you mentioned the new Markup capability in the 2D viewers. Can you only add text annotations?
Answer: - The new Collaboration Panel is very powerful and it allows you to do more than just text annotations. Here are some additional capabilities that will greatly help teams collaboration via the collaboration panel. There is a NOTES field in the collaboration panel that allows you to provide more detailed context about the annotation. You can Add a reference URL to a markup object to provide links to information such as datasheets, distributor websites, etc.. And You can Associate Design Objects. In other words, References to design objects can be added to provide more details on your feedback. References can be made to components, nets, and more. You can also add Tags. Tags allow you to label markup objects to make them easier to find and group. For example, maybe you want to tag all of the mechanical issues so they can easily be found and addressed by the mechanical team.
Question: You mentioned that the Connect application is now integrated with Microsoft Teams, but I have Connect open and I don’t see how to enable this feature?
Answer: - The Microsoft Teams integration is still undergoing testing to be sure it works as spec'd. It will be released soon.
Question: Is DigiKey still supported in PartQuest Portal?
Answer: - The short answer is “yes”. The focus of our recent PartQuest Portal release was “expansion”. We wanted to greatly expand the amount of searchable Manufacturer Part Numbers (MPNs) in PartQuest Portal, which grew from 12M to now 625M parts. And we wanted to expand the amount of component suppliers that were visible through PartQuest Portal. So, yes, you can still see real-time component sourcing data from DigiKey, but you can also see data from Mouser, Farnell, Future, Avnet, and more that 125+ of the largest distributors globally. These changes were made based on feedback from users.
Question: I had never heard of PartQuest Explore before. What’s the difference between PartQuest Portal and PartQuest Explore?
Answer: - At a high-level, PartQuest represents a component digital thread that connects the OEM design community with the component manufacturers and suppliers they rely on to develop successful products. There are two aspects to this that we are focused on: one is Component Research and the other is Component Exploration. PartQuest Portal focuses on component research. It provides searchable access to 625M parts so you can assess technical fit of a component AND it allows you to download pre-made ECAD models with all the parametric properties or the most-relevant properties so you don’t have to enter all this information; it does the work for you. PartQuest Explore, on the other hand, provides customers with a virtual lab environment -- a complete modeling and simulation environment to explore complex parts in the context of a broader circuit. For example, maybe you want to use a new power conversion part because it can supposedly extend the battery life of your product. PartQuest Explore allows you to build a circuit to understand the performance of that part in a system context including the examination of interactions with external mechatronic elements. Be sure to check out PartQuest Explore at https://explore.partquest.com
Question: Are the enhancements to renumbering reference designators for Layout as well?
Answer: - PADS Professional Layout has had the ability to renumber reference designators since its inspetion. In 2.14, based on customer requests, we've added the ability to renumber on the schematic, which many engineers prefer.
Question: You mentioned enhancements to the MCAD collaboration. Our company is starting to look more into better integration with our mechanical tool with the MCAD Collaborator. Does it support Creo?
Answer: - PADS Professional supports all mechanical tools that support IDX format from ProSTEP (committee of ECAD and MCAD vendors). NX and SolidEDGE from Siemens, Catia, Creo, SolidWorks are some of the supported mechanical systems.
Question: Does "cloud" means exclusively Siemens/AWS kind of cloud computing , or it can be "corporate cloud" as well ?
Answer: - With PADS Professional, it is "cloud ready". This means, we have tested that PADS Professional will run on AWS or Azure. In other words, if our customer wants to independently run PADS Professional on AWS or Azure, we support that. All of our Siement native cloud apps (the Connect app, the PartQuest Portal app, the Supply Chain app) run on Siemens/AWS. PartQuest Explore runs on Siemens/Azure.
Question: What about embedded components support? In VX.2.14 documentation the function is not mentioned.
Answer: - There is no change to the support of embedded components in PADS Professional in 2.14. If this is functionality that you require, please look at Xpedition.
Question: Any plan to improve handling of 3D models in the library, basic functionality to manage mapping?
Answer: - We are exploring better 3D model handling in Library Manager. We have documented the specific use case and are adding this to our roadmap. Great feedback.
Question: Any plan to support parametric data exchange through EDX? Looks like that exists when using part quest. Can that be integrated for normal EDX import and export?
Answer: - As mentioned, PartQuest does include the parametric data within EDX at export/import. However, Library Manager does not include this functionility. This is an item we are exploring on our roadmap.
Question: I have used Part Quest a few times in Xpedition. I found that almost every Symbol was useless. Pin Names and Pin Number were placed on top of each other. Do you know if this has been fixed?
When it comes to drag and drop Users do not want to have to edit Symbols. Not having the ability to edit local Symbols like you can in the Layout seems like this has been a missing feature for many years.
Answer: - The Symbol issue that was reported some months ago where Pin Numbers and Pin Names were placed on top of each other has been fixed and is released in PartQuest Portal.
We are also looking to address the ability to edit symbols in the local project library. This is a item on our roadmap, however, it has not been given a definative release date.
Question: Does this new Renumber Ref Des is able to verify for RefDes Duplications or it's the same like in Xpedition Flow?
Answer: - Renumber reference designators has the same functionality as Xpedition.
Question: Is it possible to extract a project from Connect for a local storage?
Answer: - Yes you can do this. The Connect application stores project data in the cloud with version control. A user that has the "editor" or "admin" role assigned to them can select any of the versions and download that version to the desktop for local storage.