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From:	Kai-Martin Knaak <knaak AT iqo DOT uni-hannover DOT de>
Subject:	Re: [geda-user] 3D view
Date:	Sat, 28 Mar 2015 01:35:48 +0100
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Peter Clifton wrote:

> Out of curiosity, what is your need / requirement for the 3D view? There
> are many possible reasons and I'm curious what people actually want.
> 
Well, you certainly know what I want: A reliable way to communicate pcb 
data to my 3D CAD application and back. This should include positions and 
orientation of components. The use case is straight forward -- make sure 
that the end product fits into its enclosure.
In this scenario a nice 3D preview comes almost automatically as a bonus.

I'd rather not put 3D models in the realm of pcb. An UI infrastructure to 
design in 3D is far beyond the scope of a EDA layout application. But even 
a good render engine is non trivial. These are tasks that are better 
relegated to 3D CAD applications and specialized render engines. 

With these considerations in mind I still think that communication to and 
from freecad would be advantageous. freecad can read python code natively 
and interpret it as a geometrical data. I haven't looked into it in 
detail. But I bet, it is possible to pass position and orientation of 
components in this python code. Even if it isn't, the devs are probably 
happy to add support for it.
See the freecad python topological scripting manual for details:
http://freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Topological_data_scripting

Once in freecad, the road is open to STEP, IGES or VRML. So you could turn 
to blender or povray for polished rendering. Or you could do your actual 
3D design in solidworks or inventor. Since freecad is fully scriptable, 
this would not need to involve starting the freecad UI.

---<)kaimartin(>---
PS: I can't help to note the coherent style and readability of their 
documentation. You may also take a look at the start page
	http://www.freecadweb.org/
IMHO, the mix of presentation and documentation is exemplary in many ways.
-- 
Kai-Martin Knaak                                  tel: +49-511-762-2895
Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik      fax: +49-511-762-2211	
Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover           http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de
GPG key:    http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmk&op=get

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