Components not showing on 3D Viewer [KiCad 8]

Layout 3D Models
1

I am a complete beginner in KiCad, and I follow tutorials. It happens when I’m assigning footprints and want to view 3d:

Assign Footprints > (on Assign Footprints Window ) selecting any components > View Selected Footprints > (on Footprint window) 3D Viewer
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the board shows with holes and everything except for the components themselves.

there seems to not be much thing to do on 3D Viewer window. I have toggled between on/off in Through-Hole Models, SMD Models, Virtual Models, Models not in POS file. I have also tried ray-tracing. none.

This has also happened before when I used KiCad 7.0.11 (installed on Ubuntu 24.04 using sudo apt install kicad) so I thought it has something to do with dependency or version. I installed again using sudo snap install kicad but now I’m here, problem persists.

KiCad 8.0.6 Ubuntu 24.04

2

I think snap packages don’t come with 3D models included. Since you are on Ubuntu 24, you should install the KiCad provided packages from here:

3

If 3D models are missing from all the footprints first check if you have the 3D models installed.

If they are installed then check the path variable. For example on one of the footprints properties you can see:

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Then under Preferences / Configure Paths it should be set to the location where your 3D models are installed.

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4

thanks all, finally working!
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I have installed using

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad

instead of using apt-get alone or snap.

The size of the installation was quite big (gigabytes) this time, while previously it was ‘only’ 600+MB. I suppose, kicad-3dpackages was missing before.

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