DXF to board tracks?

Hello! I’ve got this curvy board to fit into an enclosure, i would like to route the power rail along the edge with 0.5mm offset. ive created the dxf with hopes to convert it to an actual track but kicad doesnt let me. it lets me import it to a graphical layer which is no use to me. is there a work around for this?

It’s… complicated.

You can move graphics to a copper layer by editing it’s properties, bit it still remains graphics.

It is possible to make a footprint with a “complex pad” which is a combination of graphics and a pad in the footprint editor. This is mainly used for stuff like PCB antenna’s, net-ties, and some other special cases. I do not know if tyis can be adopted to your wishes.

Another way is to just draw a big copper zone around your PCB and then let the zone be clipped by your PCB outline. The PCB outlines on Edge.Cuts are treated as “tracks” for calculating the clearance for the zone, so you can make the clearance bigger by using fatter lines on Edge.Cuts.

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@paulvdh
thank you very much for the detailed response i could use it for another board. What i ended up doing was traced small sections and pushed them around with shortcut ‘G’. its not perfect but its somewhat acceptable to my eyes :slight_smile:
also i found this plug-in https://github.com/mitxela/kicad-round-tracks it does a very good job at smoothing every single corner so i guess it will only get better.

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