Kovac Software puts ‘the cat among the pigeons' by releasing its completely free PCB design system.

Stafford, England - May 30, 2002. Kovac Software, a leading developer of Windows based 2D and 3D graphics software, is pleased to announce the availability of AutoTRAX EDA, a desktop electronic board-level design software suite for FREE! It is not a demo program and contains no timeouts or limits. It is truly free…
AutoTRAX EDA combines schematic capture, circuit simulation, PCB layout and 3D modeling of both parts and the final board with extensive CAM integration.
What's the catch? "Well there really isn't one!" Says Ilija Kovacevic, founder of Kovac Software. "After our recent successes developing 3D software for Template Graphics Software in San Diego and the award winning 2D interactive form designer for the e-forms management product marketed by Cardiff Software, Inc., in Vista, California, we reviewed the current electronics CAD market. While it appears to be flooded with products, upon closer examination there is a lot of consolidation at the top end. It reminds me of the story of big fishes eating little fishes etc. Meanwhile at the bottom end there are a lot of ‘one man garage products' that are going nowhere. What does this mean for the design communit?, Well as is usual in industries when the main players such as Mentor Graphics, Cadence and Altium are swallowing up their competitors, prices remain high. For example, just look at Altium's new Protel DXP product which is to be priced at $7,995US. This is certainly not good news for the design engineering industry."
"The time is now ripe for someone to ‘put a cat among the pigeons' and provide a viable alternative. Similar to the way Lunix shook up the Unix business, the board level EDA industry needs a fresh alternative that has been designed for the 21st century, not a collection of programs each with a different look and feel bundled together"
Why AutoTRAX EDA? "Here at Kovac Software we have taken a fresh look at the desktop EDA market and have coupled our extensive experience in user interfaces, 2D/3D graphics and simulation together with the latest software design methodologies to rapidly develop the next stage in EDA software. Kovac Software is working with leading CAD suppliers Solidworks and Autodesk to integrate the electronic design cycle and the mechanical design cycle. No longer can electronic designers ‘throw the finished PCB over the wall' to the mechanical designers saying ‘can you squeeze that in somewhere'".
Schematic Capture and simulation. AutoTRAX EDA features a powerful drag and drop schematic capture module with integral SPICE simulation and virtual instruments giving the user a virtual electronics workbench with oscilloscopes, function generators, spectrum analyzers and many others. Tight design rules prevent invalid designs such as schematics with wires going nowhere or connected to blank space.
PCB Designer. The schematic capture module is tightly integrated with the PCB designer. The engineer can rapidly create their final boards using the PCB design wizard. The fast interactive autolayout/autorouter ensures an accurate error free design within a short time.
3D solid modeling. In order to ensure that the design will integrate with the mechanical enclosure, AutoTRAX EDA incorporated the unique Active3D solid modeler to provide views of the final board and communicate the design to third party CAD/CAM programs. The Active3D part designer is truly a pleasure to work with. The designer can create basic parts, drag and drop pre-made parts from the design gallery and add parts to the design gallery. Next materials can be dragged from the design library and placed onto parts. A built in photorealistic renderer provides a professional photographic quality image for incorporation into other documents.
CAM collaboration. Finally the designer can send their finished work to production using AutoTRAX EDA's comprehensive CAM interfaces. Kovac Software is working closely with SolidWorks and Autodesk to provide a complete desktop design solution.
Open database. All the modules are tied together via AutoTRAX EDA's distributed open format part database.
"The desktop EDA industry is about to get a wake-up call!" says Ilija Kovacevic with a wry smile.
AutoTRAX EDA is available for free download from <http://www.autotraxEDA.com> complete with printable Adobe PDF manuals. In addition printed copies of the manual can be ordered on-line.

About Kovac Software.
Kovac Software was formed in 1990 and has developed many ‘shrink wrap' 2D and 3D computer graphics programs. These were distributed via offices in San Diego and Tokyo. In addition Kovac Software has developed component software for leading companies such as Silicon Graphics, Solidworks, IMSI and PTC.
Recently Kovac Software developed the award winning form designer for Cardiff Software in southern California. <http://www.cardiff.com>.

About Ilija Kovacevic
Ilija Kovacevic received his B.Sc.(Hons) in physics at Birmingham University. After working in the electronic industry at both National Semiconductor and Motorola, he founded Kovac Software. His main research interests are in computer simulation and making complicated software seem simple. In his spare time he combines cycling with competitive power lifting. He is the 1990 British 125Kg. Powerlifting champion.

Contacts
Ilija Kovacevic
Ilija@kov.com Ilija@kov.com>
+44(0)1889 505094

Kovac Software
Fair Oak, Skeath Lane, Sandon Bank, Stafford ST18 9TD, England
Telephone +44 (0)1889 508094          http://www.autotraxEDA.com




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