kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Bernhard Stegmaier <stegmaier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It should also look in the user plugin folders.
At least it did when I made the 3d plugins work on OSX before the first
merge some while back.

Regards,
Bernhard

> On 16 Aug 2016, at 02:05, Simon Wells <swel024@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Does your/the plugin handler just search for plugins in system dirs or
> does it also look in user-based plugin directories?
> 
> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 11:45 AM, Cirilo Bernardo
> <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Hi Wayne,
>> 
>> There are 2 parts to this:
>> 
>> 1. Have a suitable OCE build on Windows and OSX that we can put the
>> 3D OCE plugin into the main branch. This plugin will always be a
>> conditional compile of course since there is no sense in forcing all
>> users to have OCE if they don't need it. The reason for putting the
>> 3D OCE plugin into the main branch is so that it doesn't remain just a
>> little-known third party add-on. From the installer point of view, we can
>> provide general users with a second installer which would install OCE
>> and the plugin so anyone who needs it can simply add it on.
>> 
>> 2. STEP export. I imagine a large number of professional users will
>> require STEP export, so we need it at some stage in the future.
>> I imagine it would only take me a few days to add code to pcbnew
>> to provide an Export function. The reason I haven't done this is that
>> we cannot do this in a modular fashion at the moment. If someone
>> wants STEP export then they will have to recompile KiCad with that
>> option. On our end we would have to provide 2 KiCad installers: one with
>> OCE and the STEP export and one without. If the export tool can be
>> kept separate, as in a dynamically loaded plugin, then users can add
>> STEP export when they need it via a much smaller installer.
>> 
>> There is one compromise I can think of which would allow us to
>> add STEP export in the short term. I can add code to search for
>> the STEP conversion tool when pcbnew starts; if it is found then
>> a menu item is added and if the tool isn't found then no menu item
>> is created. This would make it possible to install OCE and the
>> export tool using a second installer without installing a specially
>> compiled version of KiCad. In this situation the export tool can also
>> be moved into the KiCad main branch and can be distributed in
>> the same installer as the 3D OCE plugin. That way anyone who
>> requires MCAD can simply download and run this installer. For
>> people who build from source, all these tools will be available
>> once they install OCE and compile kicad with a flag to build
>> the components which depend on OCE.
>> 
>> - Cirilo
>> 
>> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 3:52 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Cirilo,
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure what you are asking.  Ideally, any conversion tool such as
>>> STEP would be part of Pcbnew where a simple export->step menu entry
>>> would be available.  Users generally prefer this to running and external
>>> tool.  What is the end goal of this?
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> 
>>> Wayne
>>> 
>>> On 8/14/2016 11:45 PM, Cirilo Bernardo wrote:
>>>> Hi Folks,
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks mostly to nickoe we have been able to build the
>>>> OCE-based 3D plugin for visualization of STEP (and IGES) files on
>>>> Windows. I believe that regardless of the availability of some form
>>>> of OCE on Windows, it is best if we distribute a known good version
>>>> of OCE which has been built with gcc.
>>>> 
>>>> Back in May I also received some tips on building the plugin for
>>>> OSX: https://github.com/cbernardo/kicad_oce_3D/issues/1
>>>> 
>>>> However I have been advised that, as in the case of Windows, it
>>>> is probably best if we provide our own OCE as part of the
>>>> installer.
>>>> 
>>>> There is still some cleaning up to do with regards to getting a
>>>> Windows build but I believe Nick has sorted out all the biggest
>>>> problems.
>>>> 
>>>> We still need a volunteer to do some work to get an OSX build
>>>> of OCE and the 3D plugin, and from there I can put the 3D plugin
>>>> *and* a kicad_pcb to STEP converter into KiCad. (Any
>>>> volunteers?)
>>>> 
>>>> Currently the 3D plugin can be found here:
>>>> https://github.com/cbernardo/kicad_oce_3D
>>>> 
>>>> The kicad_pcb to STEP converter is here:
>>>> https://github.com/cbernardo/kicad2mcad
>>>> 
>>>> The PCB to STEP converter is currently a stand-alone tool
>>>> since integration as a plugin to KiCad requires the implementation
>>>> of a PCB API and I just haven't got time to work on that at the
>>>> moment.
>>>> 
>>>> - Cirilo
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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