Good idea!
I’ll verify that way.
Just looked over the Altium project I imported.
I only needed to do the following:
#1. Change the copper zone clearance from 20 mil to 10mil. I’m assuming KiCad defaults to 20 mils.
#2. I had to remove the artwork text and artwork that I didn’t need which was most of it.
The part ID text was fine.
Those were both easy quick fixes.
The Altium Kicad import function just saved me TON’s of time. I was dreading having to build this out from scratch.
Thanks to who ever made this possible.
The Kicad Nightly software has a lot of upgrades which look good too me also.
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Really good to know this!
I’m sure some Evaluation Boards I work with in the future will have this format available.
Regarding the Altium import feature?
I suspect Kiadem was a spammer, the user doesn’t seem to exist.
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Or they have “Hide my public profile and presence features” turned on in their profile settings?
That user is suspended.
Application: KiCad Version: (5.99.0-8400-gffdff21f45), release build
Tried to import one of my Altium Designs.
Got a ton of problems and errors.
Say my padstack is to complex or something.
No planes - copper pours where transferred.
No board outline was transferred.
My paste mask ended up in the corner far away from the board (see arrow)
Tracks and silkscreen looks ok but all 3D features where lost as well.
Can you share your design?
Padstacks are not supported by KiCad, as well as Planes. So no wonder that they are not fully imported. The paste mask issue looks weird. 3D models should be imported, as long as they are embedded into the file.
I only had 2 parts where the pad mask was way off to the side like his. All other parts were good.
Sorry I am not allowed to share that one at the moment.
I fixed with the settings and now the 3D is imported as well.
Seems only one part 100 pin BGA has paste mask outside.
The pattern are not included in the round pads but are separate features on the mask layer.
How did you get the 3D files to import?
If you can make a minimal example with only the footprint, this should be sufficient as well.
Seems the importer extracts all 3 models in one sub directory.
See so you have 3D models in view options ticked.
Just worked 2nd time for me.
First time 3D models was not extracted.
I updated to latest version last night.
The paste mask should be fixed by: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/commit/9f24ea0bb71ef3986a1718281e71ef422c724e9d
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Will you get this in the nightly build or something else have to be done?
Impressive work. Have you reverse engineered the hole Altium binary format?
It’s in the official master branch and should be in the next (Windows) nightly build. You can find some information about the format and implementation details in Work in progress: Native Altium Importer.
Confirmed, it looks ok now.
No paste mask outside the board any longer.
Board outline is not imported.
johannespfister wrote:
… there are some things messed up, for example some of the text is centered when it should be left aligned and there is a mess with different units (some of them are mm others are in mil).
The text issues are not surprising, Altium has trouble with text when opening an old design. If you open an existing Altium design in a newer version of Altium (for example, I’ve seen text problems for 17 ->18, 19, or 20; 18 -> 19 or 20, or 19 -> 20). Text would frequently be rotated after opening in the newer version.
This was in the schematic, as we would be modifying the old design, so schematic changes were necessary. Since the schematic was changing, rotated text in the PCB was not a significant issue as PCB silk was changing anyway and the design starts in the schematic.
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