kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Mário Luzeiro <mrluzeiro@xxxxx>]

Hello all


> No need to change file format.
> ..

I vote for this idea from JP.
Also, we cannot assume that the scale form the models are just in mm or inch.. it could be anything. (mm, m, km, inchs, mils,... Xunities) so in the end, if the 3d model dont fit the component footprint, you have to scale it.
I had a look in other EDA softwares, and they are doing it more interactive, i.e.: show the footprint+3dmodel + slides to adjust in real time the scale ... until it looks good to your eyes.
Hope that will be possible in future to do with kicad also ...



>It could be worth also to display offset values according to the units
>selected in pcbnew (inch/mm).

I vote on this too.



>  Historically the scaling allowed users to reuse similar models if they didn't already have a suitable model, for example grow or shrink a THT 0.25W resistor to pretend it's a 0.5/1.0/2.0W type or a small glass-encapsulated diode.
...
> I propose to handle these by having an orientation file which sits alongside
> the model file - let's call it a ".cod" (component orientation data) file. The cod file
> gives the required scaling, 3D rotation, and offset required to put the component
> into a reference orientation suitable for KiCad;

This can be already archived using VRML2 files that Kicad, 3d-viewer can read. It should support by now "inline url"syntax so it can include external files.
So it should be possible to do something like:

Original file:
THT_0_25W.WRL

Scaled version:
THT_0_50W.WRL

Transform {
   translation 0 0 -1
   scale 2 2 2
   children [
      Inline { url "THT_0_25W.WRL" }
     ]
}

The current VRML2 parser is only at moment open other VRML2 URL files, but it can be changed in future to handle the generic file format.
We may have a look in future on this file formats (VRML2/X3D) they could be useful to create new features based on their capabilities without need to change or add anything new to the current kicad file format.


Regards,
Mario Luzeiro