Feature Idea: PCB Multimeter
Description
I wanted to estimate the DC resistance of a track between two points on a PCB. Unfortunately I had no simple solution to automate the task, so I ended up splitting the tracks up into segments and calculated the resistance per segment.
It would be nice if PCBnew had some kind of "multimeter" tool to calculate parameters like track resistance, inductance and capacitance between two random points on the layout directly inside PCBnew. All calculations could be done based on length, width and stackup information.
I know such tool can become complex verry fast, but for some basic estimations a lot of parasitic effects probably are negligible. Maybe at a later stage more and more parasitic effects could be added to improve the calculations. Even back integration into spice simulation could be handy for some tasks.
Is such feature even possible with manageable effort? I currently don't know of any other ECAD package having similar functionality.
KiCad Version
Application: KiCad
Version: (5.1.12)-1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.5
libcurl/7.77.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1k (Schannel) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.9 zstd/1.5.0 libidn2/2.3.1 libpsl/0.21.1 (+libidn2/2.3.1) libssh2/1.9.0 nghttp2/1.43.0
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.5 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.75.0
OpenCASCADE Technology: 7.5.0
Curl: 7.77.0
Compiler: GCC 10.3.0 with C++ ABI 1014
Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=OFF
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON