Re: LTspice data import

[Przemek Klosowski]

On 7/26/19 11:25 AM, Przemek Klosowski wrote:
> On 7/26/19 4:09 AM, Dr. K. nick wrote:
> > Dear octave maintainers,
> >
> > for my project I have created a function to load LTspice (=very popular
> > freeware circuit simulation package from Linear Technologies, now Analog
> > devices
> > https://gcc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.analog.com%2Fen%2Fdesign-center%2Fdesign-tools-and-calculators%2Fltspice-simulator.html&data=02%7C01%7Cprzemek.klosowski%40nist.gov%7Ceb99efed84854de84e0a08d711dd9783%7C2ab5d82fd8fa4797a93e054655c61dec%7C1%7C0%7C636997515738823633&sdata=iA757yUl0uqWqJjT9BtT85uf0P7%2F3Cx9Jl%2FgH8yyYxQ%3D&reserved=0) 
> >
> > simulation results into octave. It works quite decent so far but it
> > needs a bit of polishing and documentation to be easily usable for
> > somebody other than me.
> >
> > Before taking on this task I'd like to know whether people are
> > interested in this kind of functionality being added to octave.
> >
> > Let me know what you feel about this.
> LTspice is quite useful, and even more so when you can postprocess 
> data in Octave, so your project is very interesting. I have exchanged 
> data by exporting CSV from LTspice and reading it into Octave, as well 
> as cutting and pasting, but anything better is welcome!

Ah, and I forgot that even faster I/O is via the .wav files that both 
Octave and LTspice can read and write.

Having said that, I do support gnucap/Qucs/ngspice. I personally have 
been using LTspice because once Mike Engelhardt made it run well on 
Linux, it worked well for me in spite of the fact that I barely know 
what I'm doing; the other tools assume more domain knowledge than I had 
at the time.

Nowadays, with Kicad integration, I should probably try them 
again---especially since LT is no longer independent and who knows how 
the LTspice project will fare in the long term, e.g. if Mike retires. 
The FOSS alternatives have the community development model working for 
them, so in principle they should have a better long-term outlook.