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Re: Stable release 5 road map.

 

I'm fine with this.  Please create pull request against the current
documentation.
I will
I'm sure our doc devs would be happy to help you.  I'm
not sure which section of the documentation this should go into.  There
is a scripting section in the Pcbnew so that may work.
I don't know if that could be in something like
http://kicad-pcb.org/help/documentation/
   external tools
      STEP external exporter tool
beside
      KiCost
as in the kicad-pcb site

I am fully aware of how KiCad StepUp works.  I use it myself and it
works very well.
thanks
I would prefer that we integrate the StepUp functionality into KiCad so
the user could just click export and save the model to their preferred
file format.
that would be an easier approach I would consider too
at the same time StepUp is offering many MCAD option (i.e. interference checking etc) that are not available internally in ECAD environment

Initially would be just fine with STEP but if we use OCE
we should support all of the exporters that it provides at some point.
Consider that OCE is the FreeCAD MCAD kernel, so anything you can do in OCE, you can do in FC Moreover in FC you may test if your models are geometrically fine and fully compliant with OCE kernel, before exporting or using them (that is exactly what I did when I created the 3D MCAD library) OCE kernel has some odd behavior (as many/all other commercial kernels have), so it is useful to have a direct feedback in FreeCAD

Thanks
Maurice

On 7/5/2016 11:34 AM, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
On 7/5/2016 5:23 AM, easyw wrote:
Hi Wayne,

I think it would be nice to have also a note on KiCad user manual about
the external kicad StepUp exporter.

I'm fine with this.  Please create pull request against the current
documentation.  I'm sure our doc devs would be happy to help you.  I'm
not sure which section of the documentation this should go into.  There
is a scripting section in the Pcbnew so that may work.


Please consider that to use this exporter, the users would need just a
stable version of FreCAD (>=0.15) and a single python file ...
Everything is based on an assembler macro that can assembly STEP/IGES 3D
models and the KiCad pcb board.
It can convert KiCad boards, with 3D wrl models, but it also support the
conversion if the board has directly STEP models inside using the new
OCE plugin.

I am fully aware of how KiCad StepUp works.  I use it myself and it
works very well.  However, the typical EDA user does not want or expect
to have to run an external script to generate the board/component model.
  I would prefer that we integrate the StepUp functionality into KiCad so
the user could just click export and save the model to their preferred
file format.  Initially would be just fine with STEP but if we use OCE
we should support all of the exporters that it provides at some point.

Cheers,

Wayne


I know that is an external solution to KiCad, but since one year from
its first public release, many people (more than 8500) have downloaded
and used it with very little issues.
Moreover it is usable also with KiCad 4.02 stable release, without any
need to build from source.
Please have a look at this small video, to see how easy is to convert a
KiCad board to STEP model
https://youtu.be/h6wMU3lE_sA
The demo project is a self contained KiCad project and can be tested
just out of the box... unique requirement is a recent version of FreeCAD
installed in Linux, Windows and OSX environments
https://sourceforge.net/projects/kicadstepup/files/latest/download

I have done also a quite big library of 3D parametric models that can be
used directly as KiCAD 3D libraries
https://github.com/easyw/kicad-3d-mcad-models

I would be very pleased if my exporter would get a mention on the KiCad
user manual as an external open source solution to MCAD conversion...

Please let me know if you may need any further details or info about
this MCAD exporter

Thank you
Maurice

On 7/5/2016 10:13 AM, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
Funny you should ask Cirilo since your name came up about the 3D model
plugins.  The current road map version 5 is published as part of the
developer documentation which is available on the KiCad website.  In the
road map there is mention of support for exporting to STEP and/or IGES.
Any chance that you could provide a plugin for either one of these or
both by FOSDEM 2017?  It would be a nice feature for users to directly
export boards and footprint models to a format that can be used directly
by FreeCAD and less than free CAD tools for mechanical design.  Maybe
you could get some help from Mario and Maurice.  If you don't think this
is possible, please let me know so I can update the road map.

Cheers,

Wayne

On 7/5/2016 4:07 AM, Cirilo Bernardo wrote:
Is there a pre-commit version somewhere where we can see what's
on the roadmap?

I want to work on a PCB API so that pcbnew importers/exporters
can be turned into plugins and I can add an MCAD exporter, but
given my free time and the size of the job I wouldn't expect it to
be ready for FOSDEM 2017.

- Cirilo

On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 5:55 PM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

      I spent much of yesterday discussing and finalizing the stable
version 5
      road map with everyone here at CERN.  I will be committing the
revised
      road map soon.  Before I do, I want to make sure no one is
working on
      anything outside the road map that I do not know about.  If you are
      working on new features that are not in the version 5 road map,
please
      inform me of what you working on and whether or not it will be
ready to
      release by FOSDEM 2017.  If it will not be ready by then, please
do not
      commit it to the product branch and keep your changes in you own
      development branch until after I create the stable release 5
branch on
      launchpad.

      Cheers,

      Wayne

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