kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 7/5/2016 7:22 AM, easyw wrote:
>> I'm fine with this.  Please create pull request against the current
>> documentation.
> I will

Maybe a better idea would be mention StepUp in the Pcbnew documentation
and just provide a link to your documentation.  This way you don't need
to maintain your documentation in two places.

>> 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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>>>>
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