kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Carl Poirier <carl.poirier.2@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

I'm forwarding from the kicad-lib-committers mailing list to here a message
from Mario Luzeiro in the hope of gathering more interest.

My opinion on the matter is it would be great to commit the STEP models
directly to the kicad-library. Maybe in the process we could separate the
formers from the latter? I mean having a repository only for 3D models
instead of being part of kicad-library. We could set the 3D repo as a
submodule to the kicad-library to ease transition. Then, we could get the
right people onboard a new team, the 3D team, to fill this new repository.

As for the improper material values, I guess we could fix most of them
using scripts like we did for the symbols in kicad-library.

Regards,

Carl


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mário Luzeiro <mrluzeiro@xxxxx>
Date: Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 5:36 AM
Subject: [Kicad-lib-committers] Quality on current 3D models and MCAD
formats on KiCad
To: "kicad-lib-committers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <
kicad-lib-committers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


Hello all,

Thanks for Carl Poirier to add me here to the mailing list.

I am Mario Luzeiro, I am contributing in last years to the KiCad 3D-Viewer.
I am recently working in the 3D-Viewer refactor with Cirilo (3D plugins for
load 3d files)
https://code.launchpad.net/~mrluzeiro/kicad/kicad_new3d-viewer


There are two points I was looking to discuss hopping that we can have a
better 3d (default) library on Kicad.

The first point is about the "quality" of the 3d model files (VRML models)

One of the most important are the (bad) materials that are assigned in the
VRML files.
I made recently a tutorial where I explain some of this issues in the
models and how to assigned proper material values:
https://forum.kicad.info/t/tutorial-and-guidelines-for-better-materials-on-3d-models/2321
Basically, they have improper values for "emissive", "shininess", etc..
Some also may have a bad normals in the models and would be better that
kicad calculate it the normals by itself.


The second point is that I found an increase for the use of MCAD (eg: STEP
format) models that can be used later for mechanical validation.
I know that there are some authors that are develop some models in STEP and
then export for the VRML format that kicad can support.
They have interest in add their contributions for the kicad library:
https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-library/issues/186
So this proposal would be to accept still the VRML file but with other
(other than WINGs) formats that can be used for MCAD proposes.


This two points together could contribute for a better quality and support
of the kicad 3D default library,
so it could be used with 3rd part softwars for mechanical validation (the
VRML format is not proper for mechanical validation since there are no
units )

Are you open to discuss some of this points and if we can do something to
improve the 3D model library of KiCad ?

I am available to give some help or guidance in order to see this points
improved on KiCad.
Since I am working in a new 3D-Viewer render, the quality of models will
have a high importance to get good looking renders. So in order to see my
work to shine, the models have to be shining too! ;)

Regards,
Mario Luzeiro
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