kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

If your workaround uses the IDF data then there is nothing wrong with it
since arcs will be true arcs; in fact since the IDF export code does some
checking you can be sure the loop is closed and all MCAD software will be
happy with it.

For this specific issue it's probably better to add an "idf2dxf" tool or
some such thing rather than touch kicad's plot code. Since there is a 1:1
mapping between IDF outlines and DXF lwpolyline, any board shape that can
be described in kicad can be converted to a DXF lwpolyline. The question
then is what features do the users want in the conversion, and is a
lwpolyline acceptable in their work?

- Cirilo


On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 7:10 AM, easyw <easyw@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Wayne & Nick,
> that was me that 2 years ago that opened that bug 1360790...
> I didn't know that this was discussed so deeply, I just noticed there were
> no reply at all ...
>
> If you design some mechanical parts inside pcbnew (i.e. an enclosure for
> the board) it is necessary to export this draw to DXF as a single line to
> send this to mechanical production...
> I still consider this a very useful feature missing in KiCAD but available
> in most ECADs...
>
> Still I have some hope that could be revived ...
>
> Anyway @ Nick, if you can reach the person who needs this feature, you can
> tell him/her to contact me... I have some workaround to export pcbnew
> drawings to DXF; moreover my kicad StepUp script could be slighty modified
> to import the drawings in FreeCAD and the directly manipulate those or
> export to DXF...
> but those are just workaround
>
> Regards
> Maurice
>
>
> On 11/04/2016 19.42, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
>
>> This has already been discussed.  The decision to change from the line
>> drawing to the polygon outlines was at my request.  JP graciously
>> changed the DXF line drawings to the actual polygon shapes generated by
>> the intersection of the line output.  I requested this because the line
>> drawings required massive amounts of effort to convert to polygons.  I
>> will not ask JP to change it back or add an option to use the line
>> drawings.  If someone is willing to step up to the plate and
>> re-implement the line drawing dxf output, I'm OK with that as long as
>> it's optional and the polygon output is kept in tact.
>>
>> On 4/11/2016 6:30 AM, Nick Østergaard wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> Someone on IRC just asked about being able to export DXF as the line
>>> type and I found this thread via google, which I will revive. Since it
>>> describes the problem pretty well with the attached images.
>>>
>>> So is this by intention or not that one can not use the plot mode
>>> combobox now? I just tested in 6673 on windows.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Nick Østergaard
>>>
>>> 2015-06-19 12:37 GMT+02:00 easyw <easyw@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>> I'm plotting some mechanical parts using pcbnew
>>>>
>>>> in old stable release (4022) it was possible to plot DXF with the option
>>>> Mode:Line
>>>> then the mechanical DXF exported was fine with single Line objects
>>>>
>>>> now (5785) it is not possible anymore ... it seems that the Line mode
>>>> option
>>>> is gone...
>>>> the result is an object  double lined as in the attached images...
>>>>
>>>> I tried to just enable 'm_plotModeOpt->Enable( true );' and adding
>>>> choice
>>>> Line to the form, but it is not enough...
>>>>
>>>> could someone help me in finding where I should search to add this
>>>> option?
>>>>
>>>> I think that for exporting mechanical parts (related to the pcb board)
>>>> it is
>>>> useful to have Line mode available...
>>>>
>>>> thanks
>>>> Maurice
>>>>
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