Installing PhotoCAD

System Requirement

PhotoCAD is written in the Python language and needs to be used in the Python IDE, so the requirements for the hardware and software systems come from the Python IDE requirements for the hardware and software systems. The following configuration list is for reference only.

	Minimum	Recommend
RAM	4GB RAM	16GB RAM
CPU	Main Stream CPU	Multi-core CPU
SSD	3GB	5GB
Display	1024x768	1920x1080
Operating System	Windows 10/ macOS 10.13/ Linux with Gnome/KDE	Latest 64-bit OS: Windows/ macOS/ Linux with Gnome/KDE

PhotoCAD is written in Python3 and needs to run on a 64-bit operating system. It is recommended to use Python 3.8 or higher as the interpreter.

Install Python IDE and Python package

It is recommended that users use PyCharm as the IDE for PhotoCAD, which is available in the free Community Edition of PyCharm. This manual example and software interface is based on PyCharm 2022.2 (Communication Edition) for Windows 11, which can be downloaded from its official website: https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm

Install PhotoCAD

Once Python and Pycharm are installed, you can follow the steps in the Quick Start to install and license fnpcell. After installation, we will find the completed fnpcell and gpdk packages in Lib>site-packages. fnpcell is the main package of PhotoCAD, which is used for parametric layout component scripts and layout routing scripts. gpdk is a collection of all parametric layout design scripts in PhotoCAD. It contains both component cell layout scripts and other design templates based on parametric component cells.

PhotoCAD file structure

The PhotoCAD platform installation package has the following contents:

layout01: This folder is used to save project development files.
fnpcell-x.x.x-cp38-cp38-win_amd64.whl: Function module installation package in PhotoCAD.
gpdk-x.x.x-py3-none-any.whl: PCell package in PhotoCAD.
requirements.txt: Dependency package script for unified installation of PhotoCAD dependency packages.