Plane via control in Blazerouter?

[jdupre]

Is there a way to control when blazerouter drops a via to a plane versus running a trace to the nearest pad of the same net?

When I use blazerouter it appears to prefer running rather long power and ground connections rather than just dropping a via. These needlessly long traces often screw up other routes and take up valuable surface area. So I find myself having to manually route power and ground connections on dense boards.

It seems to me that there should be some sort of length control that specifies how long a trace can be before blaze just drops a via to the respective plane.

- Joe

[David Ricketts]

In Blaze, go to PROPERTIES/FANOUT

[jdupre]

The fanout setting only applies to the fanout operation apparently. Under a normal routing or optimize the fanout length setting is ignored, and Blaze seems to prefer long traces to plane vias.

I'd use the fanout tool, but in my experience it does a pretty sloppy job, often placing two vias of the same net right next to each-other, or dropping vias where they block pins.

If you want someting done right, you've got to do it yourself...

- Joe