I’ve wondered about this also ie if you create a new custom schematic symbol you can add a footprint to it. If you can add a footprint it seems logical to me that you should also be able to add a 3D model to it, since they’re both representations of the physical device.
I assume the answer is along the lines of “because the footprint library is where all that stuff happens”. All well and good however say you assign your new custom symbol a system footprint that doesn’t have a 3D model (many dont), you dont get a 3D model in your PCB. Nor can you add one because the system footprints are read only. To get one you have to edit each of your parts in the PCB. This can be tedious, trust me I know as I use 3D export with every PCB.
Maybe the answer is to duplicate the system footprint to a custom one and add the 3D model there. All seems a bit complicated and would be easier if you could just add the 3D model to the custom schematic symbol I think.
As a matter of interest, because I’ve had to do this quite a bit I find the quickest way is to take a screen grab of the the first item you edit showing all the XYZ rotations/offsets/scales etc, then it’s easy to duplicate as you edit each one, reading from the screen grab. Luckily when you open the “file manager” to point it to your new 3D file, the file manager opens to where you loaded it last time, which saves a few clicks.
I get photo-like view of each my PCB, but I have never edited any part at my PCB. If you do it for each PCB than I’m very surprised you don’t prefer to do it only once.
When in 2017 I moved to KiCad (4.0.7) I noticed 3D exists (never used 3D before) and decided to expand my documentations with PCB 3D view (just for fun).
So first what I have done (before designing my first KiCad PCB) was to make my symbol and footprint libraries. Each my symbol has footprint attached, each my footprint have 3D model attached. So I have never run through the step of footprint assigning in schematic and all footprints at my PCBs get 3D model automatically.
Soon I found that I want to use diode bridge that have no 3D model in KiCad (others had, but this (MBS) didn’t). So to make this model I learned FreeCAD to the enough level to be able to design 3D models.
Here is first 3D model I have done:
Linking 3D model to symbol has no sense, I think. Many IC symbols can use the same (like DIP14) footprint and 3D model once attached to this footprint will work for all of them. It is true until you don’t want to have 3D models with IC names written at their top, but this would probably be an exaggeration.
To say you truth I have a problem to imagine what are you writing here about. I probably newer been in those KiCad regions.
All my models are such defined that all rotations and offsets are 0.
You can create a local symbol and footprint library and re-map both .sch & .pcb to use these locations. Why has the KiCad team left out 3d models. The plugin does work properly in this version.
It seems if you can re-map the others, why not copy these over as well and add a link under project to the copied models ?
Create [“Foldername”]3D
Add 3D STP & WRL FILES to ['Foldername"]3D
Copy ['Foldername"]3D
To —>
%UserProfile%\Documents\KiCad\VER#.0\3dmodels
==========
==========
ADD PCB MODEL FOOTPRINT LIBRARIES TO SHARE\KICAD\FOOTPRINTS
Create [“Foldername”].pretty
Add [“3DModel.kicad.mod”] Footprints for 3D Models to Folder
Copy ['Foldername"].pretty:
To —>
%UserProfile%\Documents\KiCad\VER#.0\footprints\
ADD FOOTPRINT LIBRARIES TO KICAD THRU MAIN GLOBAL INTERFACE
Open the Main ‘Global’ Interface —>
‘Click On’ Footprint Editor
Select Top Menu Far Left Tab ‘File’ —>
In Drop Down Box Select ‘Add Library…’
BROWSE TO —>
%UserProfile%\Documents\KiCad\VER#.0\footprints
Add [“Foldername”].pretty
@invntefx please consider removing this post. As dsa-t pointed out it is bad advice and people following it will lose their work. Those folders are read-only for a reason.
I found the option and you can embed the file. Note: It would have to be done on each instance of the footprint occurrence within the design (time consuming). Due to the size of 3d models, they should really remain separate from the .pcb file (IMHO). I’m not sure if loading the .pcb also loads all 3d models. Bloating the .pcb file “may” drastically increase load time.
The symbol and footprints are automatically embedded (pretty small in size) so that’s nice for archiving. There was a plugin to extract these and place them into a directory along with changing the 3d model path, but it’s not working (I’ve filed a bug).
My original quest was to archive the design quickly and be able to send it off to the customer. This process would include just those 3d models within the design. I like the plugins functionality, but they can break. If it was part of the application, that would be less likely to happen.
