DSI - interfacing with design systems afterword.

Very soon after I wrote about the Capital and Capital H Design System Interface (.dsi) format standard  I was passing by the desk of a co-worker in the Detroit office and saw a magazine. I borrowed the magazine and read an article and learned that the DSI three letter acronym has another meaning.  The publication was  aei Technology Report  and the author Terry Costlow: the article “Consortium promotes new airbag standard.”  

The standard  is for linking airbag sensors and controllers. An industry alliance has devised and named it DSI  - see  http://www.dsiconsortium.org/about.php . This standard describes a 2-wire bus-powered master/slave full duplex communication network. Not a file format for interfacing between applications. A different sort of protocol. 

When it comes to the a design-to-physical implementation of this standard the proliferation of sensors in modern vehicles makes the wiring more complicated,  then you face a problem which Capital helps with. In Capital Integrator there is functionality which specifically address the challenges of network wiring as you route signals through the automobile. The wires are twisted pair multicores which are modeled in all parts of the Capital data flow.  

Preparing Recommendations

This  DSI is an example of a collbaration on a standard by vendors. Collaboration by a membership of a body drawn and funded from  industry (Mentor Graphics included) and containing academic resources also characterized the development of ISO10303 Part28.2 AP212 and data interchange using KBL harness standard. Capital incidentally supports KBL format exchanges.  Has done for a while.

http://www.mentor.com/products/cabling_harness/news/mentor-graphics-provides-on-kbl-and-collaborative-design-management-with-latest-Capital-release

But this coincidence of finding another standard named  “DSI” led me to have a quick look at a couple of the various acronym collections on the internet. One source listed 69 technology-related definitions for DSI and another one a more modest 21. Neither list had the Mentor Graphics DSI or anything to do with harnesses or twisted pair multicore circuits and electro-magnetic interference (EMI - another one three letter acronym!).  I live and learn. So if you are reading this blog post because of the .dsi tag and mistakenly thought it was one the other cases then thanks for reading, enjoy the pictures and it wasn’t my intention to drag you here by misleading you. Goodbye and good luck. 

Still here my cable and wiring comrades? Good.

KBL incidentally is nothing to do as mentioned here with a keyboard layout.

It is about this.

Capital Harness Bridge - Bridge in KBL format

 …. and the result looks something like this …

KBL Format harness file visualized in- Capital Harness Bridge Viewer

Standards improve efficiency in engineering electrical interconnect systems. Standards governing the interchange of data assist the interoperability of tools.  

If this is your belief then .dsi format is like a shrine with a distinguished history of devotees. New shrines have been constructed and will be constructed in the future to attract supplicants.

As with any interfacing standards the idea occurrs - what if you can contain all data progressions within a single environment? Fewest possible in and out steps. To eliminate process inefficiency - have a one-stop, front-to-back, soup-to-nuts design to manufacturing environment drawing from the master data. Authoring and amending facilitated by pulling from the same source captured in a database, the application collaboration-ready and changes nicely controlled. 

Well, that’s what Capital is built to do.