kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Tomasz Wlostowski <tomasz.wlostowski@xxxxxxx>]

On 14.06.2015 13:35, jp charras wrote:
> Le 14/06/2015 12:01, Tomasz Wlostowski a écrit :
>> On 14.06.2015 02:35, Cirilo Bernardo wrote:
>>> 7. STEP: (future plans) the plugin will only provide an Export
>>
>> I'd also like to add STEP visualization in the near future (post-stable ofc)
>>
>> Tom
>>
>> PS. It is possible to export a hierarchical assembly in STEP from OCC.
>> No need to write a special library for that.
> 
> We all agree (at least guys like me who make designs with very strong
> mechanical constraints) step import/export is a major feature.
> 
> However, OCC is a very heavy dependency for Kicad.
> I am not especially thrilled by OCC dependency.
Jean-Pierre,

OCC is at least a complete thing. It can read/write STEP, provides all
boundary representation algorithms we need for making a PCB model from
layout (extrusion, boolean ops, chamfering/filleting) and can
triangulate BRep items for rendering purposes. Moreover, OCC despite
being big is pretty self-contained, it brings no additional dependencies.
> 
> If stepcode is usable, this is a (by far) preferable dependency, even it
> is not perfect.

The above is not true for stepcode - AFAIK it only reads/writes STEP,
but has no geometry algorithms which we would need to take from other
libraries.

Best,
Tom