Thanks. Yes, I considered this, but this has not the same effect, because a keepout area warns you if you are trying to put a via inside, whereas a cutout in a zone does not. I found a solution to the problem, so it is fine. I just thought that for the future, it might be an interesting addition to add either a checkbox to allow copper filling inside, but not from outside; or to add a priority level to keepouts. See:
Then you can use both: cutout to get rid of copper pour, and keepout to prevent VIAs (but with no restriction on copper fills).
I have another situation where the copper pour does not fill, but I do not find out why. I do not see that these zones are inside any other keepout as in the previous situations, so I am confused as for the reason now. @slc @paulvdh any ideas? Board is attached here GR106772-A.kicad_pcb.zip (3.0 MB) . I have tried setting high priority, but still not.
They are these two regions here on F.Cu:
plus a small one in the corner:
I got them filled, 5.1.6rc1.
Why the other zones are so weird shaped, with perimeter built around the pads and other items? Is it imported from some other CAD?
Hmm weird, and thanks for finding out. This might be then a bug from the kicad-python. Because the last thing I do in my script is:
filler = pcbnew.ZONE_FILLER(board)
zones = board.Zones()
filler.Fill(zones)
How is the script-filler supposed to be different from pressing ‘B’ ? I mean, the filler is working because some zones are filled. Also, I do not see why setting or not priority in this regions should affect because they do not intersect with each other.
Note: I confirm that pressing B also solves it for me. So the question is… how do I press ‘B’ in my script? hehe
@fred4u it is imported from Zuken CR5000 ASCII 3.0
In those files, they report the resulting polygons with holes, rather than the original zones. So I transform those into zones and keepouts. I know it is not ideal, but that’s as much as I can do.
This brings up a memory of your previous “problem”.
After I fiddled with KiCad settings for the keepout area, KiCad took a bit of time to redo the zones (outlines or filling? I don’t know) but I saw no visible change, but after pressing b the changed I thought I had made were reflected in the PCB.
Maybe the b key updates some kind of index of the zones before it starts filling, but it’s just a guess.
Edit: Oops wrong name.
@fred4u rc1?
This morning I updated my PC and it also updated KiCad to:
Version: 5.1.6-c6e7f7d~86~ubuntu18.04.1, release build
IMO it would be better to use one big simple-shaped GND zone (around board perimeter), then the cutout where there should be no fill.
Your +5, +10 zones set higher priority and they will separate nicely.
This way the board will be much more friendly for further edits.
Thanks fred, yes, I agree with you.
But for the moment, we are just trying to reproduce the exact original Gerbers for this project: http://openventilator.gitlab.io/
so we prefer to convert things 1:1 and ideally do no edits, as we are just reproducing a final product.
But yes, if later on some changes are needed, a big zone and one or two cutouts would do a great job. 
EDIT:
The issue with the Python script filler not giving the same result as pressing B in the GUI is now solved:
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