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Date: Sun, 04 Oct 2015 18:22:11 +0200
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On Sat, 2015-10-03 at 15:16 -0800, Britton Kerin
(britton DOT kerin AT gmail DOT com) [via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote:
> How is your work on the topo router coming?  I have a good blob of
> free time
> coming soon and I'm planning to spend it on router.
> 
> It looks like your router does the layer part, and what's left is the
> the
> interlayer
> stuff?  Are there still crashers in the intra-layer part?

I have worked only in 2013 on that router. Was much fun and I was
impressed by the results. But there was nearly no interest by others, I
think here on the list was one moderately positive comment, and in a
German forum where I mentioned the router there was no reaction at all.
People seem to prefer manually routing, and many seem to not like
curved traces.

I do not really understand your term "intra-layer". My router is using
arbitrary numbers of layers, and it connect the layers with
automatically placed vias. Testing was done with two layers. I have
some problems remembering details, have not touched it for more than
too years. I think no crashes. The problem is, that there can remain
unrouted traces due to space constraints. So some user interaction
would be needed, for example for moving parts. Coding that part would
be the fastest way to make that router useful, but coding that part is
not really much fun and take some time. And when no one is interested
at all? Making the router working without user interaction may be more
interesting, that would include moving components. But that is more
difficult and would need some time for coding. 

But I think I will continue at some time. The code is easy, short, and
mostly based on that PhD thesis. But I have never cleaned it up
unfortunately, and for latest CGAL and Ruby 2.2 some fixes may be
necessary. Porting to Nim would be nice, but for that I would have to
create bindings for CGAL first. Porting to C++ would be an option too
of course, then I need no CGAL bindings, and integration in PCB program
is easier. But that would be no fun for me.

Have you ever looked at the code of Anthony's toporouter? I tried a few
hours in 2012 and early 2013, but really understood nearly nothing.
Maybe you can -- there may exists some really smart ideas in his code.
And the advantage of his code was that it works inside of PCB program
already.

When you are generally interested in routing, you may consider the
router of Alfons Wirts. Was something like freerouting.com, lately with
copyright trouble but KiCad support, I have never really followed that
project.