kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Recently a user was asking about aligning the origin of a DXF import to the
pcbnew grid. I played with the import options a little in default and OpenGL
views and found:

1. default: except for "center on page" which seems to place the DXF origin
at the center of the page and aligned to the grid, the other import options
don't make sense to me.

2. OpenGL: the different import options only seem to affect the point
which is selected as the reference point for moving the DXF outline.

In the first case I guess the user could always select "center on page",
but what if the user doesn't want the outline centered on the page?
In the second case while it is nice to set the reference point where you
want, the user has no control of what the reference point is and most
likely will be interested at placing the DXF origin at a specified point
on the page. Since the location of the chosen reference point for moving
the outline is not necessarily an integral number of grid divisions in
X and Y relative to the DXF origin, it can be impossible to place the
DXF origin where the user desires.

So, for consistency and greater flexibility, what do people think about
specifying the grid point at which to locate the DXF origin? We can
remove the positioning options in the DXF import dialog and replace
them with a dialog specifying UNIT (mm, inch) and X, Y position on the
page. There may be no need to allow for the option to drag the
outline immediately after the import as is currently done in OpenGL.

- Cirilo