kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo <miguelangel@xxxxxxx>]

I have an idea. may be simpler,

If we keep freecad as a dependency, they have python too, so we could call
python "freecad" to build the model as we want, and save it as we desire.
We would become brothers with freecad, but isn't it free software too? :)



2013/5/5 Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

> People keep asking about this... at the moment DXF is the only useful
> way to export a board to a 3D mcad (then you estrude it 1,6mm, usually,
> but you don't have component boundaries and stuff).
>
> IDF3 *is* plausible to make, but does actually someone want it? In
> SolidWorks AFAIK you have to buy a special purpose module to import it
> (strange thing: while IDF3 is designed to go both ways, it seems that
> only the ECAD->MCAD route is used). IDF4 exists but AFAIK nobody uses it
> (like IPC356B!)
>
> General consensus is that STEP is the desiderable format (too bad IGES
> went out of popularity... it was freely documented and it's the
> precursor of STEP). However it's huge, no, bigger than huge, it's
> ISO-committee-designed. I have found this old message around, for more
> information:
>
> https://www.email-lists.org/pipermail/freearchitecture/2006-May/000079.html
>
> The only STEP toolkit available for open source is the one in
> OpenCASCADE. The zipped tar is more than 110MB (it's a whole geometry
> engine for cad...), I feel it's a little big as a dependency :D It seems
> that freecad uses it.
>
> I tried to look inside a STEP file. It's quite readable actually, *if*
> you have the schema to cross reference with. Too bad you have to pay,
> a lot, for that. And extremely verbose; it's actually a dump of a graph
> database (a good idea for a cad format IMHO). Too bad that for
> describing a parallelepiped geometry the ST-Developer kit (commercial)
> uses no less than 215 object (*two hundred fifteen* objects). And that
> using the AP-203 (the entry level schema). I reordered and indented the
> thing, it's quite obvious what is going on. I'll try to add a hole in
> that box to see what infernal representation it spawns:D
>
> However it seems feasible to reverse engineer the format for generating
> at least something like the IDF3 representation: board shape and prisms
> for component shapes. Not exactly like having the 'perfect' model, but
> beats extruding the board profile from the dxf at least.
>
> Any ideas on this? IIRC there were some people interested in this kind
> of thing.
>
> --
> Lorenzo Marcantonio
> Logos Srl
>
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-- 

Miguel Angel Ajo Pelayo
http://www.nbee.es
+34 636 52 25 69
skype: ajoajoajo