kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(I reopened https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/3453 )

I personally think the best tool we could create is one that allows you to
take a closed shape drawn on a board layer and extrude that by a given
height to create a model that can then be exported as a STEP along with the
rest of the board.
If we did that, we would not need any specific tools for creating boxes or
cylinders.

I think this is somewhat independent from the topic of what to do about
VRML scaling.

-Jon

On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 6:17 PM Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> HI Mario,
>
>  Maybe I could make a small tool to allow you to create different
> sized/colored boxes and cylinders
> in VRML format. Would that be helpful to you? We could possibly even
> add other basic shapes.
> I'd like to help users move away from scaling (it's something I always
> wished I could get rid of).
> Unfortunately I see no way we can do this without causing a lot of
> pain to all users who currently
> have scaled VRML models.
>
> Cirilo
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2020 at 4:51 AM Mário Luzeiro <mrluzeiro@xxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > From my user experience: I use the 3 scale values on my projects.
> > I created unit solids (eg: 1mm cube, 1mm cylinder radius / thickness,
> etc) and then I use it to quickly create shapes (by adjusting X,Y,Z scale)
> to populate the board if I don't have the proper STEP model.
> > This is helpful to create round buttons, push buttons switch house
> packages, displays (attached is an example I made just using 1mm cubes)
> > I'm using WRL but I believe it should work if I had used STEP scaled and
> then export it for CAD purposes.
> >
> > If you remove scale at all, I will need to learn and use a new CAD
> software :/ :)
> >
> > My suggestion is keep the scale but hide (or disable) it by default on
> the UI and it should only be enabled by clicking on some checkbox, at that
> time, displaying some message to the user "this is not a good idea for
> CAD.."
> >
> >
> > > I'm not sure the history of why VRML was chosen as the first model
> type that was supported
> >
> > Maybe at that time it was created was a very time consuming thing to
> implement.
> > For STEP we need a 3rd part library (as it is very complex format).
> > On the current 3D-Viewer implementation, Cirilo worked alone on the
> model importer code alone and it took some months of work..
> >
> > Mario
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: Kicad-developers <kicad-developers-bounces+mrluzeiro=
> ua.pt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Seth Hillbrand <seth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > Sent: 29 September 2020 19:01
> > To: Jon Evans
> > Cc: kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: [Kicad-developers] 3D-Viewer: limit scale to positive
> values?
> >
> > I've never seen another package use VRML.  Everyone uses STEP.  I
> suspect if we were implementing this today, we would look at the tradeoff
> on support/benefit for VRML and limit ourselves to STEP as well.
> >
> > I like Ian's suggestion for unit options.
> >
> > -Seth
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 10:22 AM Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:
> jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> > Do other EDA tools allow model scaling?  Altium doesn't even allow VRML
> import in the first place.
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 1:10 PM Seth Hillbrand <seth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:seth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> > Well, we've backed ourselves into a bit of a corner.  VRML is specified
> in meters, so if we're assuming inches, we're a bit off in left field.  But
> do we need three separate scale parameters?  We could reduce to 1, correct?
> >
> > In the official footprint library, we have 7 footprints that specify
> non-unity scaling. (Banana_Jack_[1-3], NS-Tech_Grove_1x04, Fuse_Blade_ATO,
> Fuse_Blad_Mini, Oscillator_SMD_TXC0_G158).
> >
> > -Seth
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 9:30 AM Ian McInerney <Ian.S.McInerney@xxxxxxxx
> <mailto:Ian.S.McInerney@xxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> > We can't remove the scaling option until we make the VRML importer
> handle proper unit selection. I have routinely run into the case where I go
> OpenSCAD -> Wings3D -> KiCad and design a model using mm in OpenSCAD
> because it makes for easier computations (all the datasheet values are
> nicely given in mm) and then have to apply a scaling factor of 0.3937 to
> all the axes in KiCad to make it the proper size because we seem to have a
> hardcoded assumption about what unit system the VRML file is in.
> >
> > In fact, the KLC says: WRL files do not specify absolute dimensions.
> KiCad normalizes model parameters to units of inches and the internal units
> (dimensionless) of the WRL model must be scaled accordingly.
> >
> > -Ian
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 4:50 PM Seth Hillbrand <seth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:seth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> > There has been some discussion to removing the scale option here
> altogether.  The logic being that if you need the model scaled, you should
> be doing this in your solid CAD not in your electronic CAD.  I have come
> around to this idea and it might be worth implementing rather than doing
> the scale limiting.
> >
> > -Seth
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 4:52 AM Mário Luzeiro <mrluzeiro@xxxxx<mailto:
> mrluzeiro@xxxxx>> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm wondering if it is safe to limit the scale of shapes to be positive
> values?
> >
> > Applying negative scales will cause inverted shapes and render issues on
> the models.
> >
> > Could be that anyone in the world is using negative scale values?
> > or should be safe to limit it?
> >
> > This is related with this issues:
> > https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/5817
> >
> > Mario
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> >
> > --
> > [KiCad Services Corporation Logo]
> > Seth Hillbrand
> > Lead Developer
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> > Seth Hillbrand
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> > --
> > [KiCad Services Corporation Logo]
> > Seth Hillbrand
> > Lead Developer
> > +1-530-302-5483‬<tel:+12126039372>
> > Davis, CA
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