"Fillet Tracks" feature in 5.99

[Scott_Cox]

I have just come to find that the DRC appears to be broken…
I have unconnected tracks that go undetected.

[Scott_Cox]

And as another note…

Performing the ‘cleanup’ of tracks, nearly every track showed errors and was erased.

[Qbort]

@Scott_Cox

Here is an example that could pose problems…
Normally this junction is a T junction and following using the fillet command, it has broken one side of the T. You can also see how part of the track was unable to perform the fillet. For that part, I would imagine that the fillet tool could interpret how much fillet that that section can handle and do that automatically, rather than having to guess and step down the dimension until it works manually.

I am already fixing this with MR 514 (https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/merge_requests/514)

For your other issues with DRC and the differential tracks tool, could you open issues in Gitlab so we can track them?

Thanks

[Qbort]

@StefanHamminga, @Scott_Cox a few fixes have been recently applied that address some or all of the issues mentioned in this thread. Could you try the very latest nightly version and see if you still notice any issues?

Thanks

[StefanHamminga]

I’ll make a new nightly and give it a try. Could be Monday before I can properly test it though.

[StefanHamminga]

In case anyone wants to try today’s build for Arch Linux:

https://rbts.co/download/kicad-git-5.99.0~7123.gf130970469-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
https://rbts.co/download/kicad-git-5.99.0~7123.gf130970469-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst.sig

[StefanHamminga]

Using build 7129.

So far the DRC works for me, that’s great!

The length matching tool still results in the fillet tracks being replaced by straight segments:

[Qbort]

@StefanHamminga thanks for checking. That will be an issue with the interactive router and / or length matching tool in that case.

Would you be able to open an issue in Gitlab with this so it can be tracked for v6 release? https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues

Curved tracks are quite a new feature in KiCad and the Fillet Tracks tool is just a way of creating them. However, it looks like the tool is helping to find if anything else is broken related to the curved tracks

[StefanHamminga]

Using the differential pair skew tuning tool (9) replaces curved tracks by...

Done!

[Scott_Cox]

Thank you

I haven’t had much time lately to play around with it, but I will get back to you

S

[Russ]

@Qbort, the interactive filleting tool you are working on, as shown in your video, looks great. Now I do look forward to version 6! Keep up the good work.

[StefanHamminga]

@Qbort Would it be possible to use your tool for board edges as well? That would be a great time-saver for corners that aren’t simple right-angle.

[eelik]

Arcs are coming to polygons in 5.99, and in general it would be useful to handle all arcs somewhat similarly if possible.

[Qbort]

@Russ

the interactive filleting tool you are working on, as shown in your video, looks great. Now I do look forward to version 6!

The video was showing how this works in another EDA just for illustration of what I was hoping to achieve but I am nowhere near that

To be honest I don’t think it will make it into v6 as I still haven’t got my head around how the PNS dragger works internally and there are a lot of bugs to fix before the release.

@StefanHamminga

Would it be possible to use your tool for board edges as well?

It would need to be a new tool as the track arcs and graphical arcs are separate objects internally.

Not sure if this would be accepted for v6 since we are in feature freeze but maybe one of the lead developers can comment?

@eelik

in general it would be useful to handle all arcs somewhat similarly if possible.

Don’t disagree but there is also the issue of delaying v6 release longer than necessary.

Arc tracks are different objects internally

[eelik]

@Qbort

Don’t disagree but there is also the issue of delaying v6 release longer than necessary.

Yes, that was more like a general remark.

@Qbort

Arc tracks are different objects internally

It doesn’t automatically mean the UI couldn’t be the same. Especially fillets in polygons and fillets in traces are identical from end user’s point of view, they continue from two other lines using their tangents and radius.

[Russ]

@eelik

Arcs are coming to polygons in 5.99, and in general it would be useful to handle all arcs somewhat similarly if possible.

By arcs do you mean sections of circles or splines ?

[eelik]

Most probably sections of circles, at least in the UI level. KiCad supports bezier curves, too, but it’s not possible to create them with the UI.

EDIT: I have thought about if it would be possible to support bezier curves in tracks, too, but I guess it’s too complicated and of little value.

[elekgeek]

Thank you for this new feature, really appreciated, I can’t deny it is handy as it has implied real changes to how tracks are being handled in KiCAD, it is really nice, really, thank you again. I also do hope we can get the ability to draw these curved tracks as well, this will come pretty handy, especially if the radius cab be defined for these drawable curved tracks too. Another thing is to be able to define the radius for cornered tracks, this is also another good feature to be considered by the valuable developers here.

I have inspected the Gerber files track fillet feature, there are still some imperfections in the drawing:

[paulvdh]

I experimented a bit with circular tracks in an attempt to help David Bleeker in:

Curved tracks / free form drawing

I am new to KiCad born from the fact that I need a flexible PCB to repair a lens. I have drawn the board and added footprints but somehow I cannot draw tracks. For one I cannot find how to draw round tracks. even when I start drawing from the 10 pin connector at the bottom of the board the line does not even keep straight but jumps all over the place. The narrow part is only 5.5mm wide. The layout a super simple! I could draw the tracks in any program but need a format I can send to OSH Park… …

And it was a quite *&^%$#@! experience to try to do such a PCB in KiCad.

@eelik

EDIT: I have thought about if it would be possible to support bezier curves in tracks, too, but I guess it’s too complicated and of little value.

I have a quite dislike for bezier curves. I never understood their popularity. A long time ago (In the Dos Age) I had a CAD program that could use Bi-Arc’s for generating curves. A bi-arc is a curve win which there are 2 arc segments between control points. I find these vastly superior to Bezier curves for CAD purposes. Firstly, they go through the control points instead of “somewhere towards” them. The result is also just circular arc segments which are easy to draw, store in CAD files and translate directly to simple G-Code.

Biarc