autocad and libre cad are 2d.
Eagle and altium are as 2d as kicad is
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Personally I can work with any version.
Even Y coming towards me, X being up and Z going left if you really want to go nuts there 
That being said… KiCAD going ever more mainstream brings with it ever more people being confused by this.
Normal expectation is Y up and X to the right and Z towards you.
For the user in the layout/schematic tools to make this conversation is a sensible approach.
It makes KiCAD less of a struggle and work more along the lines of ‘that’s what I expected, this is familiar’.
For anyone then being confused about what is actually in the files/etc. is a problem that most peolpe who actually look at the files will and should be able to deal with.
Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.
So +1 from me on giving the user a Y-up, X-right coordinate system for the GUI that works everywhere where coordinates are involved.
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Same here. I have worked with KiCad’s (and other EDA) without complaint. But if anyone is willing to make this change, I’d welcome it.
I develop software also and am very used to the Y-axis downward is positive “thing”. But in general, as a user, one is most familiar with Y-axis positive. KiCAD is not the only tool I use that creates an axis system I have to deal with. And I suspect many of us work in multiple worlds with different standards and preferences for the same thing that are by themselves not difficult to deal with but … why should we? It introduces errors and mistakes. So if we can make KiCAD more conform what is the common format (across all systems and softwares, not just EDA), I think it will be the better for it. Also, lets not compair KiCAD too much with existing tools and history afterall we want improvements, no?
Anyway, I am kicking in an open door, I know. I will welcome this change/pref setting when it happens.
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In the only CAD program I am using the Y coordinate is up. It is Protel from 1997 year. I don’y know if never versions follow the rule for computers.
In gerber files genereted from KiCad without setting the reference all Y are negative so in gerber Y is up. I don’t give my head for it - i don’t look into gerbers. I just remember then when an year ago I gave gerbers from KiCad to my brother to check (we always do that) he just asked why I work at negative Y region.
I think that allowing to:
- move the origin of working area,
- show/read all Y as its negative.
Will solve the problem without changing file format allowing to work with Y-up or Y-down as anyone wonts.
My main experience with other packages recently is ExpressPCB which also has Y increasing downwards. I have wondered about the reason for this but as inconveniences go it is a small one. What trips me up more often is the seeming variation in precise keystroke-mouse click sequence needed to initiate a command. For example, to place a symbol on a schematic, I always expect to choose the symbol before clicking on the schematic. But noooo… I first say that I want to place a symbol, then click on the schematic, then choose the symbol. If I want to move a symbol, it seems like I need to select the symbol pin rather than the symbol itself. Even the way block selection works seems strange. KiCad is full of other examples. None are show stoppers, but they do waste time especially at first.
I have to agree, to me up is + on the Y axis, and right is + on the X axis. this is pretty basic math, I cannot imagine any really compelling argument for any other approach. every program I have used (other than Kicad) over 30+ years has the origin at the lower left.
Just my $0.02 worth on this topic.
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Is anyone already registered with the Developers Mailing List willing to provide this information to the Developers?
ON EDIT: IGNORE THIS POST. The idea won’t work.
As I just found out, the correlation between the two axis matters.They need to be both positive moving in the NE quadrant for a frame shift to work; otherwise it breaks the polarity of the other axis.
The current implementation only supports X-axis: left/right and Y-axis: up/down. It doesn’t support the Z-axis at all, as I haven’t yet come across code that handles 3D coordinates. But if I do, I’ll probably “go nuts”. 
How about the 3d viewer? x2
I’m holding by breath, waiting for being able to edit the layout in the 3D view… then it will need coordinate flip.
This! Raster-scan always had 0,0 in the upper left. Isn’t it interesting how old hardware limitations project forward in to unexpected side-effects!
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One thing at a time, Rene! I’m still trying to find all the places coordinates are displayed in Pcbnew. I think I found all of them in dialog boxes. The “info lines” in the status window at the bottom of the screen require a different approach than dialog boxes but I’m making progress on those… DRC dialog box items are more like “info lines” but are still on the to-do list.
I want to get Pcbnew done and the patches merged into v6 before I start on anything else like the footprint editor. Eeschema could be done, though there’s less return on the investment there.
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I kind of assumed you where less than serious which means my answer was not really meant to be taken serious as well.
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Ummm . . . . like, how the Gerber file format - originally developed in the 1960’s, with absolutely no thought to PCB layout - is still the standard way to communicate PCB fabrication info?
Dale
P.S. - Yes, I know that the current Gerber format is significantly expanded from the files that drove graphics-industry photoplotters made by Gerber Scientific. But the syntax and structure of the current format still point to the format’s origins.
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That will be very useful when designing with twisted chip resistors and capacitors to fit onto a warped pcb.
Honestly, this coordinate business has been the biggest issue I’ve had using KiCad. It’s simply daft. Every other cad system, mechanical and electrical, in the world operates in the first quadrant (origin lower left, y axis increases upward x axis to the right). Who gives a rats which way the computer paints the screen? That’s leftover kruft from the earliest days of television. The second beef I have is every time I start pcbnew I have to reset the relative coordinates for the board I’m working on. There should be a way to set the board’s origin and that would be fixed unless moved again.
If that are your biggest issues then you either have strange priorities or did not work long with the software. Or kicad is quite good already such that these small annoyances are really the biggest problem with them. (I would guess it is more likely that it is one of the things that annoys you right now and you just wanted to complain about soothing. Especially out of place in the thread where it is already hinted at the fact that future versions of kicad will have quite powerful ways to control the coordinate system.)
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Well… I’ve been using PCB EDA systems for over 30 years, and I’m really rooting for KiCad because there are a lot of things I like about it and I want to see it succeed as a general purpose PCB cad tool. When creating real boards, and not just one off hobbyist pcb’s, it’s important to be able to accurately locate components, mounting holes and the like, and not to have to constantly mess with the calculator to translate coordinates from one system to another. That’s how ugly mistakes happen. The library system, or rather, lack of a library system is another shortcoming. Again, if you are making more than one or two boards, you live and die by your cad library. What we have now in KiCad works, but not for multiple projects. Right now I have my own private symbol libraries, and each ‘symbol’ is actually a ‘part’ because there are various fields on the symbol that further define it as a part, such as manufacturer’s part number, data sheet url, footprint, second sources, parameter values, etc. A ‘part’ should really be just a spreadsheet or database entry that has all that stuff, including references to symbols and footprints. This would make managing large numbers of ‘parts’ much less tedious.
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I also have been using CAD and computer graphics for 35 years and have come across several examples of top left origin.
V6 will allow flexibility to a user origin for those bothered by it.
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