First successful Linux field test (NixOS 26.05, Plasma 6, KiCad 10).
Getting there peeled three layers the error messages misattribute:
the FHS env itself (libgthread), then libs the xcb-cursor hint hides
(the xcb-util family, and libzstd for libQt6Core - in zstd.out, not
zstd's default output), and finally Plasma's QT_PLUGIN_PATH feeding
the system Qt's platform plugins to the wheel's bundled Qt, a
private-ABI mismatch that fails exactly like a missing library.
New docs/NIXOS.md carries the verified buildFHSEnv wrapper, the
steam-run quick test (now with env -u QT_PLUGIN_PATH), and a guide
for chasing future missing sonames. README upgrades Linux from
untested to works and links the doc. The in-plugin error no longer
suggests programs.nix-ld: the venv python is a Nix binary, so the
nix-ld shim never engages for it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
First NixOS attempt: pip wheel PySide6 cannot load libgthread-2.0.so.0
because NixOS has no FHS library paths. Nothing inside the venv can
fix that (KiCad installs wheels only) - but the plugin made it worse
twice over:
- The backend probe imported bare PySide6, whose pure-Python __init__
succeeds even when QtCore's .so cannot load - so matplotlib was
promised QtAgg and the error figure died at switch_backend, taking
the failure report with it. The probe now imports <binding>.QtCore
and falls through to Tk/Agg on a broken Qt.
- The user got a raw ImportError traceback. A cannot-open-shared-object
failure during the kipy/dialog imports now raises a UserFacingError
that names the actual fixes: run KiCad in an FHS environment
(steam-run) or enable nix-ld with Qt runtime libraries. The README
Linux notes carry the same guidance.
141 passed on the dev stack and the Python 3.9 mac-equivalent stack.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
On OK the dialog closed and nothing appeared until the figures did,
which on a real board is minutes of looking like the plugin did
nothing. Put a small always-on-top window up for that stretch: the
stage now running, elapsed seconds, and Cancel.
Qt only repaints while the event loop runs and the solve owns the
thread, so the window pumps events itself - from inside the CG/AMG
iteration callback, which is where the time actually goes. That is
also where Cancel is noticed. The state is module-level because the
tick happens several frames deep in scipy/pyamg, and threading a
handle through those signatures for a progress bar is not worth it;
it stays inert until start(), so the standalone runner and the tests
are unaffected.
The window covers the figure work too, not just the solve: laying out
labels and writing four PNGs at full DPI is seconds on a real board -
10-15 of them on a large one - and closing before that left the same
silent gap one step later.
kipy's Board.remove_items discards the DeleteItemsResponse, and the
proto warns the overall status may read OK even when nothing was
deleted - a locked image comes back IDS_IMMUTABLE. remove_overlays
went through the proto layer already for create; do the same for
delete, so a locked overlay is reported instead of silently surviving
while a second image is stacked on top of it.
Slots that a narrower run does not write kept the previous solve's
heatmap and read as current; clear them. The whole push is now one
commit, so a single undo reverts it rather than one layer of it.
_pad_polygons probed F.Cu before B.Cu regardless of which side the
joint protrudes from, so a pad sized differently per copper layer had
its solder coat measured from the wrong face; probe the solder side
first. Pads on no single copper layer are now noted rather than
silently skipped.
_fail could report nothing at all: before the output directory exists
no PNG is written, and with no GUI toolkit plots only opens saved
PNGs - the broken-plugin-environment case the docstring promises to
cover. Fall back to the temp dir, and never let reporting mask the
fault. Frequency input now keeps its specific rejection reason, as
the other numeric fields do.
After a solve, the per-layer current-density maps can be pushed into
the open board as reference images on User.9..User.12 (stackup order,
top first) - visible right in the editor, toggled like any layer,
never plotted to gerbers. Dialog checkbox, default OFF; every push
replaces all reference images on those layers.
Rendering (fill_resistance/overlay.py, KiCad-free and tested headless):
one pixel per grid cell, opaque over copper with the log scale lifted
off the colormap's near-black bottom (dark canvas), transparent
elsewhere, one pixel of half-alpha edge bleed so the overlay reaches
the drawn outline instead of stopping half a cell short. Pushing lives
in board_io (ReferenceImage via the IPC API, KiCad >= 10.0.1; scale =
width / (pixels * 1 inch / 300 PPI), position = image center); kipy
0.7.1 swallows creation errors, so the per-item status is read from
the raw CreateItemsResponse. pipeline.run takes an optional overlay
callback; failures are reported, never fatal.
tools/kicad_overlay_test.py pushes a fiducial alignment pattern (KiCad
bbox readback verified placement to half a pixel); tools/
kicad_heatmap_overlay.py runs the whole thing headless against the
open board, filtering marker rectangles of other nets' analyses via
the exact copper test.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Selected vias and through-hole pads inject at the drill-wall ring on
every spanned layer (both contact models), not the whole pad face,
so the pad/pour spreading resistance is part of the result. Vias are
now selectable as contacts.
- Soldered THT joints: the hole is modeled solder-filled (core in
parallel with the plating, also for stitching THT barrels) and the
pad face carries an average-thickness solder coat over the modeled
copper (SOLDER_THICKNESS_UM).
- Vias with drills above a configurable threshold (dialog field,
default CAP_MAX_DRILL_MM = 0.5) keep open mouths even with capping
selected - the fab caps only small vias.
- Geometry dump schema v6: electrode barrel fields, cap_max_drill_nm.
- Verified against R = rho/(pi t)*acosh(d/2a) for two circular contacts
on a sheet (+2.6% at h = 0.15 mm, a = 1 mm; uniform model above the
equipotential one as required by the contact bracket).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
config.ADAPTIVE_CELLS (dialog checkbox "adaptive cells", off by
default; standalone --adaptive) routes run_solve through
fill_resistance/adaptive.py: per-layer balanced leaf grids where every
non-uniform fine cell (electrodes, 1D chain cells, buildup, via-mouth
thickness map) is pinned at the fine size, leaf faces via the
series-half-cell rule, chain links and barrels re-attached by node id,
connectivity restriction and both contact models on the leaf graph via
solver cores extracted for reuse (_equipotential_core, _uniform_core,
_conductance_params, _barrel_links). All fields (V, |J|, power density)
are computed per leaf and expanded to the fine grid, so plots, summary
and dumps are unchanged.
Element sizes: minimum = the grid cell size itself (auto / dialog /
CELL_UM_OVERRIDE); maximum = ADAPTIVE_MAX_CELL_UM (2 mm default);
ADAPTIVE_GUARD sets the clearance a block needs to grow.
Measured end-to-end (feature-dense 120x120 plate, h=50um): 25.9 s ->
5.4 s, 5.58M -> 823k unknowns, R -1.1%. Accuracy documented honestly:
coarse-fine interfaces carry a first-order tangential flux error
biasing R low by ~0.5-2% depending on geometry (worst on narrow
strips); the earlier assumption that linear fields solve exactly on the
leaf graph was wrong - offset centers across size transitions leave an
unpaired residue. Gradient-corrected interface fluxes remain as phase 4
if tighter accuracy per leaf is needed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Each via now contributes its ring/pad copper (full-thickness disc of
the pad diameter on every spanned layer) and its drill mouth: with
"vias filled + capped" (dialog checkbox, default on, VIAS_CAPPED) the
mouth carries a CAP_PLATING_UM (15 um) thin copper cap on the outer
layers and is an open hole on inner layers; unchecked, mouths are open
everywhere. Mouth coverage is area-weighted per cell (4x4
supersampling) through a per-cell thickness map feeding the existing
harmonic-mean face machinery, so sub-cell mouths perturb the sheet by
their true covered fraction instead of whole cells. Fully swallowed
cells leave the mask; the barrel then attaches through the ring via the
existing pad-footprint search. THT-pad copper and drills stay outside
the model. Ring discs paint before 1D trace chains (chains see them as
regular copper), mouths after wide tracks (drills go through trace
copper). standalone gains --uncapped.
Tests: cap==foil identity against the feature-off reference, strict
R(solid) < R(cap) < R(hole) ordering, ring bridging a fill gap that a
ringless barrel cannot cross, gentle sub-cell perturbation at coarse
grids, and JSON roundtrip of the new fields.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Tracks are now first-class Problem objects (TrackSeg: centerline +
width, dump schema v5), so the wide/narrow decision replays at raster
time: traces at least TRACK_1D_FACTOR (3) cells wide rasterize from
their outline as before; narrower ones mark the cells their centerline
crosses as copper and connect them with explicit conductance links
carrying the trace's TRUE arc length per link - no staircase inflation
for diagonals or arcs, and no discretization error in the trace R, at
any grid size. Links across cells already joined by pour faces are
skipped (union, not sum); chain-only cells get no sheet faces (their
copper is narrower than a cell). Electrodes, via barrels, connectivity
restriction and the skin-effect scaling all work on chain cells
unchanged.
This removes the need to shrink the cell size for thin traces: a 0.2 mm
bridge at 500 um cells now matches its finely-rasterized ground truth
within a few percent (tested), including diagonal and arc traces.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Straight tracks become capsule outline polygons (rectangle +
semicircular caps), arc tracks annular bands with end caps, both
tessellated to the same sagitta tolerance as zone-fill arcs; they merge
into the per-layer copper next to the fills, so rasterization, via
stitching, the solver and the plots handle them unchanged. Trace-only
layers and trace-only nets now qualify as candidates. Dialog checkbox
(on by default, INCLUDE_TRACKS) toggles them per run.
Hole-less polygons (every track outline) now paint the layer mask
directly instead of allocating a full-frame temporary each.
Tests: exact N-cell chain on a rasterized capsule, analytic annular-
sector convergence for an arc trace, capsule/arc-band outline geometry
invariants, collinear-arc degradation, and fill+trace union solve.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
DC/AC resistance, power dissipation, and via/injection-area currents of
copper zone fills. KiCad 10 IPC-API plugin (kicad-python/kipy):
multi-layer via-coupled FDM solver, multi-part terminals via User.1/User.2
marker layers, pads as contacts, uniform-injection and equipotential
contact models, per-foil skin effect, optional solder/copper buildup on
mask openings. 54-case test suite incl. exact analytic references.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Berwn
grabowski