An incremental re-import (a-la patch) from external simulator?

Schematic
1

Hello!

As v9.0.2 does already reasonably good imports from LTspice, with only few glitches with hierarchical projects remaining, I have some further improvements suggestion:

  • to be able to import “incrementally”, as if patching an existing KiCAD project

Consider I start my schematics in KiCAD, assign all the footprints, etc.
Then I export the netlist as a SPICE file to debug in LTspice. Having things debugged - I will need to re-import all the changes back in to the parent KiCAD project - without loosing unaffected parts of footprints, etc there.

Will it ever be possible?
Thank you in advance.

2

This could be possible in the future—but as of now, it would likely require:

A plugin or intermediate tool that tracks changes between exports and generates a “patch” netlist.
Native KiCad support for change tracking and selective import (akin to Altium’s ECO system).

1 Like
3

Hello!
Thank you very much for the reassuring answer.

It would be great if that intermediate tool could handle not only LTspice, but broader range of simulators.
There is a new one in development - Qspice that promises to be more precise and fast one.