kicad-lib-committers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo_bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

 With the recent switch to fp-libtables and the removal of the locally stored libraries, I was thinking now may be a good time to copy the 3D (VRML) models from the 'modules' section in the legacy kicad-library. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. there is no reason for the 3d models to be in the now deprecated 'modules' directory, especially since this directory will eventually be removed.

2. 3D export is currently somewhat broken; some more thought needs to go into how this will be ultimately handled, but I believe the best solution is to use a scheme similar to the fp-libtables + github plugin. In the meantime it may be worthwhile to create a patch to provide a temporary quick fix. Whatever the solution used, we should no longer use the 'modules' directory.

3. Eventually we will have other 3D models of various types.  There is already a basic IDFv3 board export and the next step is to work on providing IDFv3 component footprints. As support is added in the future for the creation of a STEP mechanical assembly we will have even more types of models, most of which are incompatible with all others. For users who wish to have a local copy of models, it makes sense to put these models in a directory structure which has a top level directory with a name like "kicad3d" and a next level directory with a name indicating the class of model (vrml, idf3, step, whatever).


So, I propose copying the packages3d directory and creating a github repository named kicad3d-vrml.

In a similar manner, I think it would make sense to copy the schematic symbols to a new repository. These symbols will not be deprecated until substantial changes are made to eeschema. Users are likely to want a local copy of the schematic symbols, possibly a local copy of the 3D models, but they will not want the deprecated footprints unless they are converting old projects (in which case they can clone the whole kicad-library repository). Splitting the legacy library this way will allow people to continue to contribute to the schematic symbols and 3d library while ensuring the legacy information remains untouched, which is important for people converting old projects.

Any comments/suggestions?

- Cirilo