BD Cleanup Option - Optimal Wire Routing Only

[Darin.K]

I am probably not alone in my trepidation in using the Block Diagram Cleanup tool, but I can not help but recognize its power to be a tremendous help.   We already have tools (Grids, Align and Distribute, Ctrl-T QD shortcut, etc.) to get Nodes and terminals positioned nicely.  Even with this idea in Beta, wiring can still be a tedious chore.  The BDCT does a reasonable job routing wires, but also moves things around including control/indicator labels, and is often unsatisfying.

What I want is to be able to lay out the BD, wire things while only worrying about beginning and end, and then have the BDCT only adjust the wire routing.

Despite numerous RCF shortcuts and new behavior in LV10, this is not the same as cleaning wires.  The solution is not to methodically select only wires and Ctrl+U.  The reason:  the process should be a global optimization, not a serial process where each wire route is chosen based on the current state of the BD.  The BDCT uses a global optimization, 'Cleaning wires' does not.  What I want is the optimization of the BDCT limited to only wires, leave my nodes and terminals and labels alone!

For example see the following:

[johnsold]

I hate it when tools make things worse.  I had a secretary once who inserted misspellings and grammatical errors while typing from my legible and correct manuscript.

Of course not everyone has the same ideas of what is the desired arrangement of wires, controls, and other nodes, but do not mess up what is already good. If all the controls in the selection have the same label positioning, cleanup should not change it.  Similarly if all the controls are nicely aligned, cleanup should move them as a group if necessary but should not change the relative position.  I would consider a cleanup of Darin's posted image to be OK if the positioning was similar to the bottom (BD Cleanup - argh) if the controls were packed together as in Start Here with the labels at the left and element 3 wired straight in with 1 and 2 above and 4, 5, and 6 below.  However, given that element was originally wired straight and none of the others were, Cleanup should give priority to that and produce what he wanted.

Lynn

[SteveChandler]

I totally agree. I very seldom use BD cleanup because of this. I want nodes to stay where I put them. My idea of cleaning up is limited to the wires only. Much like designing a circuit board. You place the componenets, connect the wires and get what is known as a "rat's nest", then use autorouting tools and manually apply the finishing touches.

[dthor]

I posted this Idea a little while ago, but it didn't get many kudos (perhaps because of my CTRL-B/CTRL-U mixup). If one has to be marked as a duplicate, mark mine.

Yes, we can select each wire individually or in small groups, but that's a pain in the donkey when you're just throwing stuff together.

[SteveChandler]

I am really surprised your idea only got seven kudos. Even with the mixup it was clear to me what the idea was. But one of the seven kudos came from the one and only Jeff Kodosky. But kudos to both!

[Darin.K]

At first when reading that idea I thought, "Great minds think alike."  Then I saw the handful of Kudos and thought "Fools seldom differ."

That ideas and other similar ones all fell back on the "Clean Up Wire" method, with much simpler methods to select the wires.  The key distinction I want to make is that this method is not satisfactory since the results can be selection order dependent, and not that clean if one wire is placed that the remainder then have to cross.

Sounded like a good excuse to add a new idea with a picture.  

Or to quote myself from here : 

Perhaps it is time to realize that machines have indeed become our masters and that in fact LV does know better.  We should then all adapt our vision of what clean is to match what the BDCT produces.  Who am I to argue with a mathematical formula?

Great analogy with the PCB layout software.  I hope this autoroute is a bit faster than the ones I use, but the "cost" of a crossing in a PCB is just a bit higher than on a BD.

[dthor]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. On the Idea Exchange, it's worth at least a hundred Kudos! I think I made that post before I learned that lesson 

[Les__Bartel]

I'm with SteveChandler, give me an option to select all (ctrl-A) and cleanup only the wires.