kicad-lib-committers team mailing list archive

[Rene Pöschl <poeschlr@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 02/10/2018 16:24, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
> I was playing around with the FCAD script generator project[1] in a
> failed attempt to generate a 3D model for a DC to DC converter that I am
> creating for a project at work and intent to push to the kicad
> libraries.  Are these scripts still being used to create 3D models for
> KiCad because I cannot get anything to work correctly using the supplied
> documentation.  If someone could point me in the right direction, I
> would appreciate it.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Wayne
You did not provide the link for your [1]


We currently use freecad plus cadquerry for scripting. (We no longer use 
Wings3d) The scripts can be found here under [1]

The scripts require FreeCad 0.17 or newer. (If you disable geometry 
checks then you can also use 0.15 and 0.16)  Plus the cadquerry module 
[2] version 0.5.2 (If i remember correctly then version 1 had problems 
with the "selectors". I have not worked with these scripts for a while 
and there are newer releases of cadquerry so it might be that the 
problem has been fixed.)

All of these are called from the commandline something similar to 
FreeCad script_name.py parameters.

Scripts that i designed are also directly loadable in the cadquerry 
workbench. (Examples are the molex scripts. There is a subdirectory 
cq_models. Load the script via the menu item CadQuerry -> Open Script. 
This way it is a lot easier to develop the script it self.) The main 
script in such cases only takes care of creating all (selected) variants 
and the export process (including the addition of colours.)

The best place to get further help is via an issue at that repo or on 
the user forum.

---

Another maybe easier option is to design your 3d file using freecad and 
then use kicad stepup to export the resulting file for kicad. (It will 
automatically generate the wrl and step files in the correct scaling and 
if you choose also with our standard colour scheme.)

The third option is to use whatever 3d modeling program you like (Catia, 
Siemens NX, Creo, ...), export step, import that step file into freecad 
and then use stepup to get the wrl/step pair for kicad. Or use the 
generated step file directly. (The same works with manufacturer supplied 
3d models. Here you might need to take a close look at the license of 
such models.)

For stepup the best place to get more info is the user forum. But i 
would guess also via an issue over at its github repo: [3] Stepup can be 
directly installed using the Addon Manager of freecad (tools -> Addon 
Manager) A cheatsheet can be found under [4]

---

[1]: 
https://github.com/easyw/kicad-3d-models-in-freecad/tree/master/cadquery/FCAD_script_generator

[2]: https://github.com/jmwright/cadquery-freecad-module

[3]: https://github.com/easyw/kicadStepUpMod

[4]: 
https://github.com/easyw/kicadStepUpMod/raw/master/demo/kicadStepUp-cheat-sheet.pdf