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Wiring Studio Docs

Wiring View

The Wiring View is the electrical diagram editor where you define and visualize pin-to-pin wire connections. While the Design View handles the physical layout, the Wiring View focuses on electrical connectivity — which pins connect to which, through which wires, with what color codes.

The Wiring View showing connectors with labeled cavities and wire connections routed between them

Canvas Navigation

The Wiring View canvas uses the same navigation controls as the Design View.

  • Pan — Click and drag on an empty area to move the viewport
  • Zoom — Scroll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out (0.1x to 10x range)
  • Inverted zoom — Hold Ctrl while scrolling to reverse zoom direction
  • Grid — A 20px background grid provides visual reference
  • Deselect — Click on an empty canvas area to deselect all elements

Info

Canvas dragging is disabled while auto-routing is in progress. An overlay blocks interaction until routing completes. See the Auto-Routing section below for details.

Connector and Component Rendering

The Wiring View displays all connectors and components from your design. Each component renders with its cavity labels visible, making it easy to identify specific pins.

  • Cavity labels — Displayed as alphabetic (A, B, C...), numeric (1, 2, 3...), or custom labels depending on the connector's label type setting in the Parts Library
  • Position and rotation — Inherited from the Design View canvas layout
  • Hidden components — Components without any wiring connections are hidden to reduce visual clutter

Rendering Order

The Wiring View layers elements in a specific order for clarity:

  1. 1

    Non-splice nodes — Background layer (behind all edges)

  2. 2

    Non-selected edges — Standard wire connections

  3. 3

    Splice nodes — Above edges but below selected elements

  4. 4

    Selected edges — Always rendered on top for visibility

This layering ensures that selected wires and splice points remain visible even in dense harness diagrams.

Pin-to-Pin Wire Routing

Each wire connection in the Wiring View links a specific source cavity to a specific target cavity. You can create connections in two ways: through the Pin Configuration dialog, or by routing directly on the canvas.

Wire Edge Data

Every wire connection carries the following data:

  • Source — The source component and cavity number
  • Target — The target component and cavity number
  • Wire — The wire part from the Parts Library (gauge, color, type)
  • Color code — Array of heat shrink color markers for wire identification
  • Group — Twisted pair group assignment (ID and display color)
  • Shielded cable — Reference to a multicore shielded cable configuration
  • Control points — Polyline vertices that define the wire path on the canvas
A wire connection between two connector cavities with cavity labels and wire color visible

Polyline Control Points

Wire paths are rendered as polylines — a series of connected line segments. Each wire has an array of control points (x, y coordinates in world space) that define its path.

  • Drag control points — Click and drag any control point to adjust the wire routing
  • Add points — Right-click on a wire segment to add a new control point
  • Remove points — Right-click an existing control point to remove it
  • Persistence — Control point positions are saved to the database automatically

Adjusting control points lets you create clean, readable wiring diagrams with organized wire routing. Avoid crossing wires where possible for clarity.

A wire with multiple control points being dragged to adjust the routing path

Twisted Pairs

Twisted pairs group two or more wires that are physically twisted together in the harness. The Wiring View provides tools to create and manage twisted pair groups.

Creating a Twisted Pair

  1. 1

    Select two or more wire connections on the canvas

  2. 2

    Right-click and select Twist

  3. 3

    The wires are grouped and assigned a random color from the palette

The twist palette includes 10 colors: red, teal, blue, green, yellow, plum, mint, gold, purple, and light blue. Grouped wires share a visual color indicator on the canvas.

Twist Logic

The twist action handles several scenarios:

  • All ungrouped — Creates a new twisted pair group with all selected wires
  • One existing group + ungrouped wires — Adds the ungrouped wires to the existing group
  • Multiple different groups — Merges all selected wires into a single new group, cleaning up the old groups

Ungrouping

Select grouped wires, right-click, and select Ungroup to remove them from the twisted pair group. If ungrouping leaves a group with only one wire, that orphaned group is automatically cleaned up.

Tip

You can also manage twisted pairs from the Pin Configuration dialog using the checkbox column and the twist/ungroup toolbar.

Three wires grouped as a twisted pair, shown with a shared color indicator

Shielded and Multicore Cables

Shielded cables contain multiple inner conductors (strands) within a shared electromagnetic shield. The Wiring View supports full multicore cable configuration.

Requirements

  • The wire part must have isShielded set to true in the Parts Library
  • The wire part must have a strandsCount defining the number of inner conductors

Configuration

Shielded cables are configured through the Pin Configuration dialog using the Add Shielded Cable button. Each strand maps to a source and destination cavity, and shield terminations connect to ground points.

  • Strand wires — Rendered individually with their assigned routing
  • Shield connections — Displayed with a distinct visual style, using the special cavity -1
  • Control points — Work the same as regular wire connections

See the Cable Shielding guide for a complete walkthrough of multicore cable setup.

Auto-Routing (AI)

The Wiring View includes an AI-powered auto-routing feature that generates wire paths for all connections on the current sheet.

Using Auto-Route

  1. 1

    Right-click on the canvas and select Auto Route

  2. 2

    A confirmation dialog shows the number of edges that will be routed

  3. 3

    Click Confirm to start the process

  4. 4

    An overlay blocks canvas interaction during routing

  5. 5

    The AI generates optimized polyline control points for each wire

Auto-routing sends node positions and edge connection data to an AI model, which calculates clean, non-overlapping wire paths. The result replaces any existing control points on the affected edges.

The auto-routing confirmation dialog showing the edge count
The Wiring View after auto-routing with organized, non-overlapping wire paths

Info

Auto-routing requires a Lite, Pro, or Team plan. The feature is not available on the Free tier. See Pricing and Plans for details.

Wiring View and Other Views

The Wiring View is tightly connected to other parts of the application:

  • Design View — Component positions and cable lengths flow from design to wiring
  • Pin Configuration — Wire assignments, contacts, and color codes are defined in pin config and rendered in the wiring view
  • BOM — All wire parts, contacts, seals, and color codes from wiring connections appear in the bill of materials
  • Cut List — Wire lengths from the design, combined with wiring edge data, generate cut list entries

Changes in the Wiring View (control point adjustments, twist groups) are applied immediately. There is no undo/redo in this view — use the Pin Configuration dialog for connection changes.