PCB design often require a lot of exchange with mechanical CAD softwares especially when the mechanical integration has a lot of constraints. Today, most of the time, the ECAD/MCAD collaboration is done through STEP, DXF, SVG, or other file formats, and usually a combination of several of them.

The IDX protocols aims at using a single protocol, that will keep tracks of the changes incrementally as the design goes on, and even use a shared library of components, bridging the gap between the electrical and the mechanical worlds.

Implemented in KiCad at first, it will allow interfacing with most commercial MCAD softwares used in the industry, and certainly pave the way for the open source ones.