kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[easyw <easyw@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Mario,
> How does blender fits to create CAD parts? (as blender is not develop for CAD design)
please have a look at the mail that Ton sent referring to Google Summer Code
Google Summer of Code 2016 - Adding CAD functionality to Blender
https://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2016-March/046945.html
> It's well possible to draw a line between what's CAD and what's 3D modeling and visualization (and animation etc). We can make sure our programs work well together, rather than having Blender to add a CAD module that makes you to not need to learn or support FreeCAD.

Blender is a fantastic 3D modeler, but its main purpose is not a 
mechanical CAD... for CAD I would suggest FreeCAD as a powerful and 
reliable open source tool
Anyway Blender is much better than Wings3D, moreover it is scriptable :)

Going back to the ability to create CAD parts, the best option IMO to 
have MCAD models in kicad, at the moment, is to follow this path:
1) create the model in MCAD (I would suggest FreeCAD)
2) export the model to STEP and VRML (possibly adding materials to VRML, 
I would suggest kicd StepUp)
3) render VRML in kicad (I would suggest to try the kicad_new3d-viewer 
with raytracing option :D )
4) assembly STEP models in MCAD (I would suggest to use kicad StepUp)
5) export the all assembly to VRML by kicad to have even more option to 
render the assembly (I would suggest to import VRML in Blender to play 
with all its 3D modelling power)

Maurice

On 30/04/2016 20.10, Mário Luzeiro wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
>
> It may be useful for users to know about it, eg: on https://forum.kicad.info
> Also you may check with kicad webpage maintainers if they would like to add it as an external tool.
>
> Maurice did a similar (propose) exporter for FreeCAD,
> https://forum.kicad.info/t/kicad-stepup-new-exporter-for-3d-mcad-feedbacks-are-welcome/1048
> you may have a look on the VRML output it generates to get some ideas, if you want to optimize your (generated VRML file) size.
>
> "KiCad's rendering of some parts made by me"
> How did you develop that parts on blender? I mean, did you use for kind of (script?) automation or was manual work?
> How does blender fits to create CAD parts? (as blender is not develop for CAD design)
>
> On the other side, if you find any VRML files that KiCad is not capable of reading,
> you could test my branch: https://code.launchpad.net/~mrluzeiro/kicad/kicad_new3d-viewer
> and see if any broken models are parsed and render correctly on this new 3d plugins / 3d-viewer source code.
>
>
> Regards,
> Mario Luzeiro
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Kicad-developers [kicad-developers-bounces+mrluzeiro=ua.pt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] on behalf of Andrew Zabolotny [zapparello@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 30 April 2016 10:59
> To: kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Kicad-developers] Blender to KiCAD export addon
>
> Hello!
>
> I've made a Blender addon which can be used to export Blender objects to *.WRL files understood by KiCad.
>
> In fact, I took the original VRML2 export plugin and changed it to make its output undistinguishable (for KiCad) from the Wings3D output.
>
> The result is quite good and the addon is very easy to use. I've made a few parts in Blender which can be found here:
> http://cs.ozerki.net/zap/pub/kicad-blender/
>
> KiCad's rendering of some parts made by me:
> http://cs.ozerki.net/zap/pub/kicad-blender/sample.jpg
>
> The plugin can be downloaded from here:
> https://github.com/anpaza/kicad-libs/tree/master/io_scene_kicad
>
> There's also a short instruction, should be enough to get you going.
>
> --
> Andrew
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> Post to     : kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp