Breadboard for Ultrabook

Introduction

Breadboard is a Desktop application for the Windows 8 Ultrabook that will allow users to easily document wiring diagrams created on a breadboard. The multi-touch interface will allow users to easily select common components such as microchips, resistors and capacitors to put on their diagram. Users will be able to save the diagram to look at in the future within the application or to export the diagram to one of many common image formats.

Background 

If you’ve ever played with an Arduino you know how frustrating it can be to find good  examples of how to wire up your electronic components. There are lots of great articles on how to do things, but the photos and hand drawn wiring diagrams that go along with these articles usually leave something to be desired. Breadboard will solve this problem by making it easy for both professionals and hobbyists to document the wiring diagrams they create.

Features 

Breadboard will consist of a multi-touch user interface with the following features:

• Component Library - An organized/searchable list of common components. The initial library will be limited as we are working on making a quality product before we dedicate time to building out the library.
   
• Component Creator - A tool that will allow users to add components to the library including meta-data about the component such as category, part number, package type and description.
   
• Breadboard Layout - The primary feature of the system where users will drag and drop, rotate, and connect components taking advantage of the Ultrabook's multi-touch features.  Additionally, the user will be able to select the size (width/height) of the breadboard that is being used as well as add labels and other text to the diagram.  

Sample Output  

The sample output is NOT actual output from our system.  It is from  a website (http://mtbaldy.us/~dnewman/dice/ ) and is a good example of what we are aiming to create. Our output will  include a few improvements to what is shown below including clear labels and the wires will follow paths that will make them easier to see.  

As you can see the diagram is a clean easy to read picture that is a huge improvement over the typical hand drawn diagrams you find in How-To articles like the one shown below (from this blog http://mevans77.wordpress.com/).

Using the code  

We plan on publishing portions of the code that may be of interest to the Code Project community. At this time the application is still being created so there is nothing to post just yet.

History

October 24 - Initial article posted.
October 25 - Added sample output and a hand drawn wiring diagram.