PCB-Blender
Blender addon for visualization of printed circuit board (PCB) projects created in Gerber (RS-274X) and Excellon format. Developed as part of my Master Thesis at University of Gdańsk (PL, ENG (to be added))
Links to .blend model packages:
All packages stored on My Google Drive Folder
Full credit:
- Models taken from:
- KiCad - sources3d (.wrl)
- majenkotech - PCB-Blend (.blend)
- hyOzd - pcb2blender (.blend)
Potential additional functionalities that can be included in the project to improve the user experience and increase the program's capabilities:
For .wrl importer
- Decrease filezise by instanced mesh (a lot of models have multiple repeating elements), potential solutions (in regards to model 3D database creation):
- a lot of manual work;
- super smart importer that recognizes similarities;
- array modifier (e.g. PinSocket 1x1 multiplied to create all other same-type sockets)
For PCB-Blender
- Rendering any number of layers (the ability to select any number of files and the order in which they are rendered)
- Append more regular expressions (detecting and correctly classifying more extensions and file names)
- Define other palettes and color schemes for PCB images renders
- Support for other project file formats (the pcb-tools module announces in its description that they planned support for IPC-2581, ODB ++ and other (source)
- Creation of subsequent model bases based on components from other design programs (e.g FreeCAD)
- Create a dictionary of model names so that many names can point to one model
Known Bugs and Limitations:
- [Windows] To remove addon, close Blender, navigate to addons ("Blender/2.8x/scripts/addons") and remove PCB_Blender folder. As long as Python interpreter embedded in Blender is still running, it still has the .pyd or .dll file open, and Windows doesn’t let you remove the file.
- Project uses embedded cairocffi library compiled with Python 3.7