kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo_bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

 I did a VRML export lately and found a bug: an oval slot in a module is not correctly rendered when the pad has an angular offset.

 While looking at the code I thought of a few more possible improvements; if the ideas are acceptable I'll proceed with coding the proposed changes.

1. center the board on (0, 0, 0) in the VRML world. The Transform{} section which was obviously intended to do this doesn't give the desired result in all VRML viewers so we may as well cut it out; this also makes task (5) a little easier.

2. remove rendering of features on all but the top and bottom layers.

3. add options to suppress rendering of copper, silk, vias; this will allow people who are interested in VRML export primarily for obtaining a 3D mechanical model to cut out unnecessary bits.

4. add an option to export the assembly as a single VRML file which is compatible with the built-in 3D viewer.  This will allow users to export a board which can be used as a module on a second board. This also allows the easy sharing of the output file since there is only one file to send.

5. render the board surfaces (I'll see how this was accomplished in the 3D viewer)

6. for holes (pads, vias), render the hole in the copper track.  This would be a fairly low priority for me although I'd probably implement it early on since it's not difficult. The trickier part will be rendering the tracks correctly so that they don't overlap and obscure the hole.

Any comments?

- Cirilo