Please check these:
Imported vs Original
SVG in PCBNew by Import > Graphics
PNG imported with Image Converter by KiCAD
Very not precise.I refused to manually retouch because it’s small and it’s not a big issue, but there is
I’m confused (could be my old, old age)…
But, when imported into Kicad, you have Horrible results. So, “perfectly usable is not true”.
Horrible PNG and SVG’s with missing/hollow zones isn’t perfectly usable (to me)…
If you post your Perfect SVG and Perfect PNG, I’ll look at them. Otherwise, there’s nothing left for me to comment on (already said it all).
The PNG have hollow zones. Only the SVG not.
I can’t post logos of third parties here. Sorry.
It doesn’t need to be the original but something which shows the problem in exactly the same way. I would like to see an svg.
Ok I will do then. Tomorrow I will prepare something easy and I will post it
Look at this: The labels remain (on top of the images). I think you need to move your labels away from the image…
I have been using the hotkey delete for such purpose and functions. Just hoover over the area you want to delete and hit the hotkey DELETE then see what happens
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There is kind of bug on 6.0.1 not present on 5.1.12
On 5.1.2
The labels are placed where it should be, and not any interference with the image itself.
On 6.0.1
The labels (in this case LOGO and G***) are into the same layer of the picture.
Not possible to delete them on any way.
I had to manually edit them in FootPrint Editor, change their layer, and hide them.
On my Logo.
It was made on KiCAD 5.1.12 and it worked fine.You see them only because I left the layers ON.
I’ve found a .SVG on my pc and it looks good in Inkscape:
However, when imported in Pcbnew it looks like:
When I enter the group in PCB Editor then I can see all vectors are present, but the “openings” in the text are rendered in the same color. Could it be that a layer of “transparency” is smeared over the text where holes should be?
The file used:
cc.svg.zip (35.6 KB)
I had to zip this .SVG file, because otherwise this forum software complains that it does not recognize the image and refuses to upload the file.
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Another experiment:
- Open bCNC, import cc.svg and save as cc_bCNC.DXF
- Open KiCad / Footprint Editor
- Open some footprint.
- Footprint Editor / Import / Graphics (and import the .DXF).
cc_bCNC.DXF.zip (752.9 KB)
Unfortunately I have sever doubts this is a good method for two reasons.
First, bCNC is a bit of a weird program. I think it refuses to work if you do not have a GRBL compatible CNC controller present (Apparently work is being done on “emulation”).
The exported file is over 5MB, inflated by a factor of 100 compared to the original cc.svg.
Converting between bitmap and vectors is a horrible process. Some graphic software can do this apparently quite well but I assume they use some magic algorithms. I think your best route is to find a program that can convert your .SVG file to .DXF in a reasonable way.
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I could also import cc.svg into FreeCAD, and export again as .DXF
And it’s a nice small file:
cc_FreeCAD.dxf (8.0 KB)
Unfortunately KiCad fails to import it:
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Exactly! Right. And when you try to delete the openings, hoping the hole will be opened, in the reality it doesn’t
I repeated the test using a screenshot of paulvdh’s image as source:
does importing in SVG format allow for resizing in KiCad ?
no, it doesn’t enable resize once imported.
You can approximately resize from the importing window.
If the resize is wrong, you have to repeat each time the import.
Very cumbersome
Aye, indeed.
KiCad is quite good for designing PCB’s but it’s quite weak in mechanical CAD or frivoulous images.
Some time ago though, the ability to import and scale JPG images was added to Eeschema.
Scalable JPG images in Pcbnew would also be very useful for reverse engineering. Having a picture of a PCB (Or several, front, back, footprints) as a background during reverse-engineering of a PCB makes this a lot quicker.
Things like this will probably be implemented in due time. At the moment there are still more important things to add to KiCad.
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@paulvdh See this post with my approach. Fidelity of Image and Scale are simple after spending 15 minutes figuring what works for specific images…
Ok, I’ll bite…
I did not have the Creative commons logo yet as a bitmap, so I just exported it to a .png from gimp.
Then used the bitmap to component converter to turn it into a KiCad thing.
The good news is, it works.
The bad news is, it looks atrocious.
The Ugly thing is that I do not like the idea of turning a vector image into a bitmap, and then converting that bitmap into vectors that hopefully resemble the original in some fashion much.
My first choice would always be some program that converts the vectors of a .SVG into vectors that KiCad can understand.
Here is what the “Bitmap to Component converter” made from it in my first try:
If you ask me, it’s recognizable, but it looks atrocious.
But now I know that the Bitmap to Component does re-trace the image in vectors, it should be able to do better with higher resolution input, so I’ll give that a try.
So on my second try I added a generous two zero’s to the resolution when exporting from Gimp.
The 30300 by 7200 picture is close to 2MB on disk.
BMP → Component chokes on it. On closer examination I find that other programs also can not read it, although Gimp can still read it. I suspect I exported it in the wrong format. Try again…
On the Third attempt I did a re-export from gimp, again in 30300 by 7200 resolution. This time I could see it in some other picture viewer, but BMP->Component choked on it again. Fair enough, it is a bit of a ridicilous resolution.
So the forth attempt I bumped the resolution only by a factor of ten with a result of 3030 by 720 pixels.
BMP → Component can make something out of it that looks quite decent when you only look at it superficially. I do admit it’s usable for this icon.
On closer inspection though, it is able to recognize some of the straight lines, but not all of them. For example, when I zoom in on the dot if the “i” in “creative”, then it should be a simple rectangle while in reality it looks like:
Closer inspection of the orignal .SVG shows that the orignal dot on the “i” consisted of a 5 corner polygon, 4 straight lines and the fifth point very close or at the lower right corner, It may be an artifact.
So in the end, the conversion to bitmap and back to vectors made a quite horrible mess of things. Turning a single line segment into some 8 vectors is barely acceptable if you want to use it “as is”, and is just plain horrible when you want to do further editing.
So I agree with tormyvancool:
Indeed. Vectors should just be kept as vectors.
KiCad can import the .SVG directly, but it chokes on the open area’s in the letters.
KiCad can not import it when converted to DXF. It chokes on something with the generated bezier curves.
Both problems could be bugs, or something else. I’m not good with this graphical stuff and I’m not afraid to admit that.
The best advise I can give as a current solution / workaround is to find some kind of program that can can convert the SVG vectors to .DXF vectors, maybe simplify bezier curves and then export it in a format that is compatible with the .DXF import of KiCad. But as I wrote before, I’m not very good at this image stuff and not afraid to admit it.
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I tried with high resolution input. It still atrocious.
I can’t understand why all these turns of bad conversions, when just t will be great to get the SVG and to be able also to scale it down.
At the end, we are not the only ones are putting Logos. But KiCAD is way behind the time, in this
FreeCAD can import the SVG and make a sketch out of it (using the KSU workbench, but probably it is also possible natively), then there is another command to simplify the sketch to arcs and circles (no Beziers), then the sketch can be exported as DXF and imported in KiCad.
using as source the SVG that you shared before:
Unfortunately, only the outline is imported in FreeCAD, the filling is somehow lost …
EDIT: On further testing, I used Inkscape to export the SVG to a .png (to avoid the pixelation shown in @tormyvancool’s picture) using 600 dpi, then I used the KiCad’s “Bitmap to component converter” to get it into the PCB, it is not perfect, but it won’t be pixel perfect anyway on the silkscreen.
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