Feasibility and Approach for Opening GDSII Files in KLayout via Plugin

simransingh14

Hi Team,

We have a requirement where a GDSII file is stored in our application, and the file needs to be opened in KLayout directly.

Our approach is to develop a KLayout plugin that will:

1. Authenticate and create a session with the application via REST APIs.

2. Download the GDSII file locally.

3. Programmatically load the file into KLayout.

Please let us know:

1. If this use case is supported via KLayout plugins.

2. Any recommended guidelines or steps for implementing this integration.

Thanks,
Simran

Matthias

Hi Simran,

I think you need to be more specific. What is the requirement UI-wise and what are the details?

Basically, KLayout can download from HTTP(S), but authentication supports Basic only, is per-session and requires the user to enter a password into a form.

You can do the download approach you mentioned by using third-party clients such as curl. You do not necessarily need to download as KLayout supports pseudo-paths with the "pipe" scheme:

pipe: curl https://www.klayout.org/klayout-pypi/samples/basic.gds

With curl, you can many more authentication options. If you REST API supports token-based authentication, you can include the token in the curl call using additional header fields for example.

Also, KLayout includes a binding to Qt's QNetwork module. This gives you a lot of flexibility, but it's kind of low-level and implementation of the authentication process may be tedious.

Matthias