kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 12/12/2015 8:17 AM, easyw wrote:
> Hi Wayne,
> 
> following your previously mail
>> I haven't had a chance to use this yet but it sounds really interesting
>> so it will be near the top of my list of things to include during the
>> next development cycle.
> https://lists.launchpad.net/kicad-developers/msg20210.html
> 
> do you think it could be more space on the official page to let the
> users know that the option to export board and parts to mechanical
> environment is available for kicad?

What did you have in mind?  I'm fine with giving external KiCad
utilities some better exposure rather than a simple link.  Would the
website devs please help Maurice (and other external tool projects) out?
 @Marice, please let the website devs know what your are looking for.
As long as it's not a huge burden on the website devs, I'm sure they
will be willing to help out.  You could also send them a patch of what
you're looking for to website dev team.

> 
> please have a look at a recent comment in the forum
>> @maui, you are doing fantastically useful work, thank you!
>> I hope some (or all) of what you are building will get pulled into
>> KiCad, so that we can all just click "Export STEP" and be done with it.
> https://forum.kicad.info/t/trouble-importing-full-3d-pcb-into-solidworks/569/32
> 
> 
> I'm thinking that it would be a useful tool for kicad users, in awaiting
> of the new 3d refactoring and STEP support.
> 
> Consider I'm also building a library of 3D models in VRML and STEP to be
> used with kicad .pretty module libraries
> 
> Please let me know your opinion.

STEP import may be a ways down the road in terms of development but I
don't have an issues.  Ideally, the model file format shouldn't matter.
 As long as there is a plugin in the 3D viewer that supports importing
that format it should work.  The same goes for exporting.  You should
work with the library devs when this gets implemented in source.

> 
> Thank you and best regards
> Maurice