I have imported a number of 3D models into my KiCad board designs by downloading the component from 3D Content Central in .STEP format, and using freeCAD to convert to WRL.
However, this does not always appear to work.
In particular, I have been trying to import some Arduino Nano V3 models into KiCad. 3D ContentCentral generates the .STEP file, and freeCAD will import this and render it correctly.
However, when I export from freeCAD as a VRML 2.0 file (.wrl), when I associate it with the footprint in PCBNew and render using the 3D Viewer, nothing displays.
I can get them to render by downloading from 3D Content Central in the .STL format, and using Wings3D to convert to .WRL, but this loses the texture / colour information.
Does anybody have any suggestions as to what might be going wrong?
When exporting from freeCAD, you can select which elements to include in the export. As it is quite a complex model, there are well over 100 elements - here I have selected just the first 10 elements to include in the VRML 2.0 export:
If I export just a few elements, the resulting .WRL file will render those elements correctly in KiCad’s 3D Viewer:
Looking at the size of the .WRL file, as I include more elementrs in the export, the file size continues to grow until it reaches about 4.2Mb and then, as I select another element to include in the export, the resulting .WRL file size drops to around 400k, and fails to render in KiCad’s 3D Viewer.
So, it looks like there is some sort of complexity limit after which freeCAD fails to export correctly.
By choosing just certain elements to export, I can get a model that looks good enough for my purposes, but it would be interesting to know if there is another, more reliable way of converting a whole model from STEP to WRL?
@maui, I downloaded StepUp, but it wasn’t obvious how to do a STEP to WRL conversion - it seemed more aimed at the other way round - exporting boards in .STEP format? I will give it another try.
By Selecting just the visible elements from the top surface, I can get something that is good enough for my current purposes and @Rene_Poschl I will run it through the Model Checker too.
It still looks as though you are expecting freeCAD to export as .WRL and it is this that doesn’t work as soon as the complexity of the model increases? It is the step highlighted in Yellow which is not working unless I select just a few elements