LibrePCB – Create electronics the easy way

Re:LibrePCB – Create electronics the easy way by Findecanor on Thursday September 28, 2023 @05:39PM (#37696258)

> DXF is for mechanical CAD. You can't import a board layout or schematic that way.

There have been times I have wished that I could import DXF as footprints in Kicad because it was easier to draw complex shapes in QCad or Inkscape. I think it could also be useful to import object placement/orientation data from a DXF file and snap to those when placing components.

For the latter use-case, I have instead written placements by hand as code in a Python script and made that output both DXF and Kicad files.

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Re:LibrePCB – Create electronics the easy way by SV_BubbleTime on Thursday September 28, 2023 @06:39PM (#37696855)

You kind of can in KiCAD. You import to a footprint, and change the lines to the type you want (courtyard, silkscreen, front copper, etc), and for things like pads you can use DXF for reference and centerpoints then put your pads in.

The CAD tools inside KiCAD could be a lot better (esp since it’s using FreeCAD under the hood and the tools should be there) but it’s OKAY as is.

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