kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been trying use Pcbnew the VRML export for a board a work and
discovered some serious design issues with the way file names are
manipulated which broke exporting the model files on windows.  I fixed
those and while digging around in the VRML export code, I noticed a few
things that didn't make any sense to me.  Why are only .x3d file names
embedded inside the board VRML file and not .wrl files?  Why are the
.x3d file names embedded even when they are copied to the 3D model path?
 Why wouldn't you either embed all the footprint models in the board
file or copy all of the footprint model files to the 3D model path?  It
seems to me it should be one or the other not both.  The use relative
paths in the board VRML file option does nothing as far as I can tell.
I'm willing to fix this but we need to define what this behavior should
be because what we have now is rather chaotic.  My initial feeling is
that the embedded code should be removed until we can embed all
supported 3D model file formats.  Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

One more note.  Please use wxFileName instead of wxString when
manipulating file names and paths.  I've probably fixed a dozen or so
places over the years where this same wxString path manipulation code
has been used and has caused nothing but grief.  Please keep in mind
that we are a cross platform application.  If you need Posix path
separators for saving paths and/or file name in files, use
wxFileName::GetFullPath(wxPATH_UNIX).  This will convert the separators
from \ to / and still allow you to use native paths for file operations
internally which is more reliable.

Thanks,

Wayne