kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[easyw <easyw@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> What you are asking for is a single line outline of the board.
not really...
typically when you have designed your pcb edge with i.e. push buttons 
etc.. you need to design also a front panel that has to be mechanical 
produced i.e. in aluminum

so my path was to draw the front panel in pcbnew, using the board and 
parts as mechanical references, on drawing layer
then on comment layer I put dimensions
Once it worked, I plotted the DXF of Drawing Layer and Comment Layer to 
send the DXF to the mechanical manufacturer
They could import directly DXF to produce the mechanical front panel 
without any human reworking

Now this is unusable because of the DXF out which doesn't have a single 
line for the drawing outline

Maurice



On 12/04/2016 00.51, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
> I wasn't following correctly.  What you are asking for is a single line
> outline of the board.  To my knowledge, the DXF plotting never worked
> this way.  It originally drew and outline of the board outline segments
> so the board outline had width with intersecting rounded ends except
> arcs which where drawn as a single line so it had many issues.  We could
> provide this if someone has the time to code it but it must be
> implemented as an option so the current DXF plot behavior can be maintained.
>
> On 4/11/2016 5:10 PM, easyw 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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