OpenOrCadParser

Purpose of this project is to provide a C++20 library for parsing Cadence's OrCAD Capture binary file formats. This library can be linked to other software for reading/modifying?/writing? OrCAD binary files. This repository does not cover every possible use case, maybe you find what you are looking for in section Related Projects.

The focus lies on schematics (*.DSN/*.DBK) and symbol libraries (*.OLB/*.OBK), the second file format is just the extension for its corresponding backup file. Backups should be identical, just with a different file extension.

OrCAD allows exporting its designs to XML files which are easy to read and verify the interpretation of bytes in the DSN/OLB-files. E.g. enums are stored as a numeric value which should be the same that is used in the binary formats. However, it seems like not all information is stored in the XML.

The following two XSD files provide a good overview of the XML file structure, types and much more. They can be used as a reference what features are actually stored in the binary file and which we do already parse and which not.

C:\Cadence\SPB_17.4\tools\capture\tclscripts\capDB\dsn.xsd

C:\Cadence\SPB_17.4\tools\capture\tclscripts\capDB\olb.xsd

Documentation

Current State — June 2024

Working on a native KiCad 'Library' Importer

Build

# Install and set up vcpkg
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
./vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.sh

# Set path to vcpkg
VCPKG_ROOT=$(realpath ./vcpkg)

# Allow parallel builds
export CMAKE_BUILD_PARALLEL_LEVEL=$(nproc)

# Get OpenOrCadParser
git clone https://github.com/Werni2A/OpenOrCadParser.git

cd OpenOrCadParser

# Build
cmake --preset release
cmake --build --preset release

Dependencies

Compiler with C++20 Support
CMake >= 3.8
Boost - Program Options
compoundfilereader
fmt
Magic Enum
Nameof
spdlog
TinyXML2

Usage

./cli/OpenOrCadParser-cli --help
Allowed options:
  -h [ --help ]               produce help message
  -t [ --print_tree ]         print container tree
  -e [ --extract ]            extract binary files from CFBF container
  -i [ --input ] arg          input file to parse
  -o [ --output ] arg         output path (required iff extract is set)
  -v [ --verbosity ] arg (=4) verbosity level (0 = off, 6 = highest)
  -s [ --stop ]               stop parsing on low severity errors
  -k [ --keep ]               keep temporary files after parser completed

./cli/OpenOrCadParser-cli --input file.DSN
./cli/OpenOrCadParser-cli --input file.DSN --extract --output out/
./cli/OpenOrCadParser-cli --input file.DSN --print_tree
./cli/OpenOrCadParser-cli --input file.OLB --verbosity 6 --keep >> file.txt

:construction: KiCad Import

An initial draft of the KiCad importer is provided on my add-orcad-importer-Branch. Current focus is to get the 'Library' import into a mature enough state to display most important features and merge it into upstream KiCad.

'Design' imports are not yet supported nor worked on, this will probably take some more time.

KiCad Imported Package

:skull: XML Export

:warning: Previously I provided a preliminary XML export that could be used with pyorlib2ki to import into KiCad. I abandoned the XML exporter in favor of a native KiCad importer. :warning:

Unit Tests

Test Documentation

How to Contribute?

There are different ways to help this project forward. Some are

provide test files (manually created or automated via Tcl/Tk),
help reverse engineering/documenting the file format, or
implement some unit tests.

In case you don't have access to OrCAD you can get

OrCAD Viewer free of charge,
OrCAD Trial with all its functionality for a trial period of 30 days or
OrCAD Academic Program with all functionality for one semester.

What about OrCAD Lite? It was was replaced with OrCAD Viewer/Trial [1].

Cadence Terms and Conditions

Terms and Conditions

Werni2A / OpenOrCadParser

readme