Hi, I am extremely new to KiCad and EDA software in general. I am running KiCad in Linux Mint 19.3 which I know is not officially supported but I’m sure the issue I’m facing is just me doing something wrong rather than an issue with the OS.
So I have a PCB layout setup in Pcbnew which is a simple single layer, single sided PCB with a silk screen layer on the top surface. The 3d view looks good and I have confirmed that the copper tracks and pads are on the B.Cu layer and the silk screen is on the F.SilkS layer.
The problem I have is when I try to export the B.Cu layer to SVG format to import into Incscape. The exported file has a low res preview of the copper tracks embedded in it but when I open the file up in Inkscape there is no vector image, the page is blank. However if I export the F.SilkS layer to SVG then this opens up in Inkscape fine.
I have also tried using the ‘Plot’ function instead of ‘Export’ but I get the same result.
I know the SVG export works in general because the other layers export fine. It is just the B.Cu layer that I’m having issues with.
Any help on this would be extremely welcome, thanks.
My first thought was “svgtoshenzhen”, but that project is apparently for the other way around, importing SVG graphics in KiCad.
Just as a test I took a random project, and exported the Front copper layer as SVG and opened it in Inkscape. It’s just a normal .SVG file. Then I re-read your post and did the same with bottom copper, and that also worked normally for me.
I currently run the same KiCad version. Also on Mint 19.3
There may be some “weird” item on your PCB that *&^%$#@! with the export.
There are also 2 different ways to make .svg files from KiCad:
Pcbnew / File / Export / SVG …
Pcbnew / File / Plot / Plot Format: SVG.
Alternatively, you could try some other formats, such as Postscript or DXF or even PDF.
I know hardly anything about Inkscape, but I think all of those formats can be imported in Inkscape.
Some think PDF is not fit for accurate graphics, but PDF is some variant of postscript and a whole vector language in itself and should also be able to give fairly accurate results. (Although mabye not the nano meter accuracy of KiCad itself).
Thanks for the responses guys, much appreciated. I’ve slept on it and attacked it anew this morning and I can report the following:
If I either ‘Export’ or ‘Plot’ the bottom copper layer as an SVG file then it will not display in Inkscape. However if I ‘Plot’ as either ‘PS’ or ‘PDF’ then these will open up in Inkscape as a vector image absolutely fine. So at least I now have a solution to get the bottom copper layer into Inkscape.
Just another quick update, I have just installed the nightly build of KiCad as suggested by davidsrsb and the SVG files created by both ‘Export’ and ‘Plot’ both open up in Inkscape absolutely fine. So maybe there was a bug in the release version somewhere although paulvdh is running the same KiCad version on the same OS without this issue so I don’t know.
I think I’ll put it down to one of life’s mysteries and not worry about it. I now have various options to get around the problem.
To be clear, I recommend “testing nightlies” which are currently 5.1.6 rc1
Nightly tends to mean “Master nightlies”, which are aka 5.99 and are currently not safe for serious work.
You are right, the version I have installed is 5.99.
I couldn’t find a PPA for ‘testing nightlies’, I could only find the PPA for ‘nightly development builds’.
5.99 is a testing version, which is almost certainly to have varying bugs and also has an incompatible file format with previous versions, so once you saved your project in V5.99 it’s difficult to go back to a stable version.
It’s of course great if you want to help testing and debugging the latest and newest KiCad version, but be aware of these limitations.
