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Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:43:04 +0100
Message-ID: <CA+cauMDEm+z+2OLtua03grWa2OBZMdhLFdabHD+fzrWo1dQ4LA@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [geda-user] 3D View in PCB
From: Alexis Phoenix <alexis DOT happyphoenix AT gmail DOT com>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
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I suspect the best you are going to get is isometric views here. It
would be handy to help visualise distance to panels and things though.

Even just being able to obtain board clearance could be useful. 3D
views take a lot of extra number crunching though - maybe some
coordinates could be produced to put into an actual 3D graphics
program which would fill in the rest?

Your idea for a simple scheme sounds grand, but how do you deal with
complex shapes like switches - a simple pushbutton requires a
rectangle/square and cylinder at least.

It has to be said most people are familiar with the size and shape of
the components they are working with so wouldn't gain much value from
this. I like it though :-)

Just my 2p's worth.

On 28 March 2012 08:05, Anand P. Paralkar <anand DOT paralkar AT anutan DOT net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have been a gEDA user for a couple of months now and I want to say a
> sincere "thank you" to all the volunteers working on the gEDA projects.
>
> I would like to suggest the following feature for the PCB tool:
>
> The footprint file could optionally contain a field that captures the
> component in all the three dimensions.  So a component footprint could have
> entries like:
>
>   a. Shape: Cuboid, Cylinder, .....
>   b. Dimensions: Length = lll, Height = hhh, Radius = rrr, .....
>   c. Colour : ccc
>
> The PCB tool could then generate (under "Export layout...") a three
> dimensional snapshot view of the populated PCB.  (I don't know anything in
> graphics, but I am tempted to suggest "SVG" as a format for the exported
> file.)  Alternatively, the PCB tool could have a built-in 3D viewer which
> could also help the user to see the populated board from different angles.
>
> I think this would be a really cool feature to have and would add immense
> value and pleasure to the "placement" step of a board design flow.  (What if
> the gEDA-PCB project can pull-in people from Inkscape? - Wow!)
>
> Thanks once again for your brilliant efforts,
> Anand
>
>