CadSoft EAGLE Importer

Not all design work is done in Altium Designer. If you are new to Altium Designer, you will undoubtedly have designs in some other file format – either from an older Altium design solution, or some other EDA vendor tool. Even if you are an existing user of Altium Designer day-in, day-out, there may be times where you are presented with a design created outside of Altium Designer. Supporting your need to work with design files in other formats and from other tools, Altium Designer 14.0 heralds the arrival of an importer for CadSoft® EAGLE™ (Easily Applicable Graphical Layout Editor) design files and libraries (*.sch, *.brd, *.lbr).

Installing the EAGLE Importer

The EAGLE Importer can be installed alongside all other importers and exporters as part of initial installation of Altium Designer. Simply ensure that the EAGLE option – part of the Importers\Exporters functionality set – is enabled, on the Select Design Functionality page of the Altium Designer Installer.

Accessing and Running the EAGLE Importer

Import is performed using the Import Wizard (File » Import Wizard). Simply select the EAGLE Projects and Designs entry – to gain access to the EAGLE Import Wizard – and click Next.

The EAGLE Import Wizard will guide you through the steps involved when importing these types of files, including:

• Specifying which EAGLE design archives (BRD and/or SCH) to include in the process.
• Specifying which EAGLE library files (LBR) to include in the process.
• Setting general log reporting options.
• Setting options related to import of schematic design files and libraries.

You have full control over where the generated Altium Designer project(s) and associated documents are to be located, by specifying an output directory.

The proposed output structure is also displayed, so you can see exactly what you're getting. If all is as required, proceed with the import by clicking Next. If you need to change anything, click the Back button. If you want to cancel out of the import, click Cancel.

The result of the import can be seen in the Projects panel and can be summarized as follows:

• An Altium Designer PCB Project (*.PrjPcb) is created per EAGLE .sch, .pcb and .lbr involved in the import.
• An EAGLE schematic design archive (*.sch) is imported into an Altium Designer Schematic document (*.SchDoc).
• An EAGLE PCB design archive (*.pcb) is imported into an Altium Designer PCB document (*.PcbDoc).
• An EAGLE library (*.lbr) is imported as Altium Designer Schematic (*.SchLib) and PCB (*.PcbLib) library documents. In addition, an integrated Library (*.IntLib) is compiled based on these source libraries.
• A Log file (*.log) is generated for each imported file, which shows the results of analysis on the original EAGLE file, as well as any errors and warnings (if enabled for inclusion).