kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[easyw <easyw@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

have a look here
https://youtu.be/kIkx86l5s_M

if you change
SolidWorks with FreeCAD
Altium with KiCad

and add StepUp tools to link STEP (MCAD) and VRML (ECAD) models
you can do a similar video with same result :)

and all in open source environment ;)

Maurice

On 25/02/2016 16.49, Mário Luzeiro wrote:
> Hi Maurice,
>
> It sounds a bit tricky (however sounds a possible ..tricky way.. of using kicad features.. and there is no imposition on how the users use the features! )
> How does the other ECAD deal with that case scenarios? (with the process you describe to align the model?)
>
> Mario
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Kicad-developers [kicad-developers-bounces+mrluzeiro=ua.pt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] on behalf of easyw [easyw@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 25 February 2016 15:17
> To: Wayne Stambaugh; kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Kicad-developers] VRML export
>
> > Creating a footprint with no pads,
> > silkscreens, and/or text and only a 3D model seems a bit
> > counter-intuitive to me.
> I normally use anchor pad (which correspond to anchor of the enclosure)
> and I set it as Virtual module attribute
> Then in 3D-viewer you see your pad with Cu and Silk
> That pad has also a 3D model associated, which is i.e. the enclosure
> When I model the 3D enclosure, I load the pad footprint in FreeCAD with
> kicad StepUp and I align the 3D model to the pad, then I export the
> enclosure VRML model to be displayed in pcbnew 3d-viewer
> Enabling or not the Virtual 3D models you will see or not the enclosure
> just beside your pcb artwork
> the result is like this
> https://kicad-info.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/original/2X/0/0b70db5f2bd661b6417bd086cf45035a5fa263ff.gif
>
> Or you can build a model with just an alignment cross in i.e. F.Fab or
> F.Silks and Hide reference and value, and assign to it the 3D model with
> virtual attrib
>
>
> both procedure can co-exist with the actual kicad format and will give
> the tool a nice mechanical feature
>
> Thank you
> Maurice