I didn’t think Kicad supported Panels.
This example appears to look like a panel.
Yes indeed.
As a comparison, I also opened the Olinuxino A64-Rev C (Available on github). This is a smaller 6-layer PCB and it has 18447 “items” (so twice as many). and it renders a lot quicker during moves of the whole PCB.
So basically, @m852 is attempting to use Kicad for a purpose it is not intended!
This means this thread is a total waste of members time and effort.
I also see some ratsnest joining each panel. Is the rats nest being recalculated at every move?
Mostly, yes.
I sometimes move a whole PCB too, but it’s usually to correct some mistake I made earlier, and it’s very rare to do that more then once or twice in a whole project. For me it would not matter much wheter this takes 20ms or 20s. If rendering really was an Issue, I would use someting like the “Move Exactly” function instead of a mouse drag (that is probably a better method anyway).
The same problem will occur when opening a really large single board (not a panel) and selecting everything
yes, this is a feature.
Live ratsnest during a move and drag is indeed most often a useful feature.
I have also experimented with turning off ratsnest and other items, and when you turn off more layers, it gets quicker, but those layers also do not move. Just turning off the ratsnest has a negligible performance difference.
OK, so:
How long does it take to create a 10,000 item PCB, and then how long does it take to move that PCB 10cm across the screen.
Does the extra time really matter?
Are changes to the Kicad structure worth the effort to save .5 sec over a total time of 3(maybe) months???
As an Altium user, I haven’t seen such a slowdown for a very long time on weaker machines. Therefore, I was a little surprised by this behavior on powerful hardware with an ordinary, not very large panel… In principle, this is not critical; panels can be done bypassing them, but complex multilayer boards are already appearing discomfort IMHO
It doesn’t support it itself, but there are workarounds: plugins and drawing the panel as a single board
For kicad, there are a lot of panelization plugins, both official and not so, if this is not a use, why do you allow them?))
KiCad does not have “official” plugins, just because plugins are available in Plugin & Content Manager does not mean they are more official than other plugins or endorsed in some way. The main requirement is that they be open-source.
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KiCad is an Open Source project. Anyone can add plugins, and there are no artificial barriers in KiCad. There just is no one to “disallow” anything in KiCad.
(Note: Some see the 32 copper layers as a limit, and there has been a request (although maybe not officially on gitlab) for more copper layers.
My whole criticism of this thread, @m852, is, YET AGAIN, you have opened a derogatorily titled thread complaining about Kicad and praising Altium over a feature that is almost irrelevant.
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here the question is not so much the number of layers as on these layers of elements… I just reported the presence of such a problem and whoever is ready to work on a large board with brakes, let him work, I have nothing against… not all developers, as you can see, perceive this normally … one calmly answered that there are such restrictions, another user immediately began to look for a catch in my panel) that it was non-standard and that it was my fault that it was slowing down). The project will continue to develop… thank you all for your help!
you were already answered above that this is a problem with any large board and not just the panel
Does hiding the rats nest disable the recalculation or is there another way to stop this? This board panel has a LOT of them.
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