Magazine circuit board illustrations info required

[top204]

Does anyone know what software is used to create the circuit board illustrations commonly used in a lot of different electronics magazines now, so it seems as though their is a commonality with software used?

I need some good graphic software for future books and articles etc, but all the software I have seen, and used, is extremely amateurish and produces dreadful images, or the images have to be drawn from scratch which will take too long for a single person to do, and without much illustrative skills. :-) Any information will be most welcome.

I've attached an image of the board layouts I am talking about.

[See_Mos]

Hi Les,
What have you tried already?

I had a look at Fritzing which I have seen used in Nuts And Volts magazine but that is only 2D

I know Easy-PC supports 3D visualization. It is not something I have tried. The drawback is the cost if you don't already own a copy.

Perhaps some other PCB design program?

[TimB]

If you want free 3d with a decent number of already built parts look at https://easyeda.com/

But unfortunately its not like the image. Not sure how that is done, perhaps someone can call the magazine.

[Sommi]

From my knowledge Autodesk Fusion 360 has a PCB design feature now and is free for private users. 3D view for the PCB design is common for a true 3D CAD.

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal

[okmn]

i had been showed before in here https://protoncompiler.com/index.php/topic,284.msg1930.html#msg1930
there is a software called loch master from Abacom
is it not ok for your ideas/plans




i found some other alternatives;

upverter  https://upverter.com/

Virtual Breadboard  https://www.virtualbreadboard.com/  https://www.microsoft.com/tr-tr/p/virtual-breadboard/9nblggh4tj3w?cid=storebadge&ocid=badge&activetab=pivot:overviewtab

VeroRoute  https://sourceforge.net/projects/veroroute/?source=navbar

SimulIDE  https://www.simulide.com/p/home.html

VeeCAD Stripboard Editor  https://veecad.com/index.html

StripboardCAD  https://www.sabrotone.com/stripboardcad/

PICSimLab - Prog. IC Simulator Lab  https://sourceforge.net/projects/picsim/

BlackBoard Circuit Designer  https://progsoft.net/tr/software/blackboard-circuit-designer

[Stephen Moss]

I know Easy-PC supports 3D visualization. It is not something I have tried. The drawback is the cost if you don't already own a copy.

Design Spark PCB by RS is free and virtually identical in layout and use and features (3D but no "real life" PCB view) to Easy PC, has a reasonable library of parts, and as I recall new parts are relatively easy to create although it has been a while since I have used it. Although the PCB 3D view may be a little less detailed than the sample image Les posted when it comes to the connectors in that some may be shown as blocks rather than showing the individual pins.

I suspect that the provided sample image may have been had drawn by a professional illustrator rather then a PCB or Mechanical CAD package as it has that feel to it and there are things like the cut away view of MFT1 to show C20 and DS5 that I would not generally expect as most packages I have seen either produce top down view and/or 3D where usually depending on the PCB angle those devices would be fully or partially hidden behind each other instead of visible via a cut away.

If that is the style required, maybe try contacting the magazines enquiring as to the software used to produce them as I cannot see why they would be unwilling to reveal that.

[rick.curl]

I think Diptrace does a really nice job of a 3D render too.
-Rick