kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Jonathan Friedman, PhD" <jf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Any ideas on this? IIRC there were some people interested in this kind of thing.

Hey guys, greetings from CircuitHub.

Since you asked... ;-) ...here's what we're thinking in the 3D space:

We're about to preview release 2D KiCAD support (symbols and
footprints). We're also working on a 3D solution. You can see an
example part (a Blackfin processor) here to get an idea of what we're
trying:

https://circuithub.com/parts/AD/ADSP-BF526BBCZ-3A/components

We have a 3D editor (webGL-based) that works in the browser to create
3D chip models by specification. We then export these to various tool
formats and include them in your library.

For MCAD integration, we are thinking that we could just take the
KiCAD board file (or Gerbers) and render a complete 3D outline for
MCAD that would alleviate the huge dependency and complexity of
bringing that capability directly inside KiCAD itself.

1. The library contains the ID of the part (included when placing
parts from the CircuitHub library),
2. the 3D model is linked to the part (as you saw in the link above),
3. export could be handled by our server farm,
4. and executed automatically via a KiCAD plugin.

Just to be clear, this is a free service.

If you have any feedback for me, you can write me directly
(jf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) to avoid bothering the list, unless it's
appropriate for the list (I apologize, but I don't know the protocol
here).

In any case, THANK YOU ALL so much for your work on this tool. The
world needs you.

Cheers,
-Jonathan

---
Jonathan Friedman, PhD
Co-founder, CircuitHub
https://circuithub.com
The world's free universal parts library