Easiest to script circuit layout tools and electromagnetic simulators?
One potential path is to script the layout in a traditional PCB schematic capture and layout tool such as KiCad, Altium, PADs, etc. and then export an IPC-2581, ODB++, or other file into the EM simulator and script the application of boundary conditions etc. The other method I could forsee would try to create through scripting simple layouts/geometries directly in the EM simulators. I think the second method might be simpler overall as it would only involve one program ideally.
Does anyone have any experience with the scripting abilities of PCB layout tools and EM simulators? Ideally I would prefer something that can be controlled through Python. I know that KiCad's PCBNew has some scripting ability through Python. Are there other PCB layout tools that can be scripted?
For fullwave EM simulators ANSYS HFSS appears to have a COM/VBA interface. I would prefer something that could work on Linux. How is the scripting in Keysight ADS/EMPro, NI Microwave Studio or CST Studio? Any other recommendations for scriptable EM simulators? Something open source would be even better.
Yes, my Inductor Toolkit uses ADS scripting to generate layouts and run EM simulations. The language they use is AEL, a homemade scripting language.
http://muehlhaus.com/products/rfic-i...oolkit-for-ads
Maybe some of my appnotes can help to get started genearting layout by AEL scripting:
http://muehlhaus.com/support/ads-application-notes
Keysight EMpro use Python scripting, but I never tried that.
Allegro relies pcb layouts directly to HFSS and Mentor Graphics has also a link to ADS/ MW Office.
But I'm not sure those are exactly you're looking for..
klayout I believe will do both PCB and IC layout, has a couple
of scripting languages (Ruby, Python, ?) and an API set that
is pretty well documented (better, I'd say, than are the GUI
menu commands).