Digramming tool (but not Dia)?

[slightly72]

One more tool, and one question.



You can also take a look at XCircuit, but the only output of the tool
is PS files -- so use that only for illustration. Otherwise, it's
pretty similar to XFig. It does come with all sorts of libraries for
standard gates.



Now, the question. I'm working on some EDA software that optimizes
circuits -- reads in Verilog, outputs Verilog. However, for debugging
I'd need a tool to display the circuits at each intermediate step in
the optimization. Each of the tools above seems to do manual schematic
capture (i.e. I have to draw everything). Is there a tool out there
where I can specify the objects and the connections (e.g. similar to
dot) and then draw the diagram for me? The shapes do not even need to
be standard gates, a box would suffice. Some notion of ports (or
circuit connections -- e.g. wire X is connected from output O1 of
module C1 to input A of module C2) would also be good.



I'm using dot now (i.e. my software outputs a dot graph at each step --
which then I can analyze), but the output is horrible for debugging,
especially with the curvy lines it produces, so I'm usually back to
text files. Ideally, the software that I'm looking for should be able
to produce something close to a circuit diagram (straight lines).
Having the ability to add labels to wires and modules would be really
useful. In addition, it would not hurt to have some sense of
hierarchies (something like clicking on an object would take me inside
the module implementation) -- but that's not a must. I think the most
important thing for me would be the automation part.


-- 
slightly72