I have a board outline that is only made up of straight lines, and 90degree circular arcs.
I was hoping to be able to export the board outline to .DXF. But it don’t think its possible, so I exported it to SVG, then imported it to freecad. Unfortunately the simple arcs are converted to B-splines. I think it is coming from KiCAD which B-splines (If I open the SVG in inkscape the arcs are not arcs, but b-splines). This makes working with it in FreeCAD very buggy, it keeps freezing and crashing, and generally just not working. After trying to replace the b-splines with arcs in freeCAD, I can’t continue.
How does one export the board outline to .DXF or SVG without b-splines?
I know about kicad stepup, but I wish to make a reference sketch in freecad due to the topological naming issue. Would be nice to just use the step file, but then if I make a change the things blows up (see TPI issue).
I don’t know about 5.99, I use 5.10 so, perhaps this part not relevant:
To get .DXF out from Kicad 5.10 and earilier, you use the Plot feature (click the Plot Icon and set the desired items).
Re: FreeCAD
How FreeCAD imports .DXF depends on the Pref’s you set. I’ll leave exploring the details to you but, the hint is below and you can see the difference in imported results…
NOTE: Look for Duplicates of the dxf lines. You can Delete them as they will confuse most following operations… Use the Visibility On/Off to help assess them.
One graphic shows Correct settings and reduced line quantity, the other shows many lines.
I did Not bother to delete the extra lines for this post…
EDIT - to complete the story… you can also change Kicads Pref’s for the Plot such as to output Full Lines, rather than segments (this will make it more useful and help eliminate duplicate lines…) The last Two images below…
Also Added Usage of the ‘More Useful’ approach by loading it into FreeCAD and, using Draft Workbench, Converting ‘Bi-Directional Lines to Sketch’ (there’s an Icon for it). Then, using it in the TechDraw Workbench to add Dimensions… Last Image…
