GERBER FEATURES ON KICAD V8
• Panelization (v-cut , mouse bite )
• Edge rails, bad board marker, impedance test coupon, test stack, tooling holes, fiducial marker
• Render (3D view, top view, bottom view)
• Editing (move layer, copying layer, delete element, add text, add hole, resize track or line)
• Stencil, BOM, centroid files
Release date : 2026
Hi guys it’s just for fun, this is my hopes or wish list only 
I love KiCad, thanks to all contributors
It would be great if the KiCad’s gerber viewer would be a full-blown editor, but unfortunately the development resources are limited and the wishes are practically impossible. All the work must go to the actual design editors. A gerber editor would be a totally new project, and not a small one.
I don’t know if the current gerber viewer implementation would be a good starting point for an editor. Editing gerbers is so much different than viewing them. The first obstacle is that there’s no standard representation format for the features – I mean changeless reading → writing cycle. I once tried some editor and it totally restructured and rewrote the file. An editor would probably need a completely new engine first.
IMO a great step in this direction would be to implement proper Panel design into Board editor.
Such Panel editor could take existing “single” board design and manipulate it (as a whole).
into Panel layout. Once original design will be updated, such change could propagate into the Panel.
Such feature was built into Diptrace, I don’t know their implementation quality, but it is there.
2026 would be V10 on the annual release cycle. I hope we stick with manageable annual changes
I took the liberty to change your title from “Roadmap” to “Wishlist”. “Roadmap” sounds too official and suggest these wishes are really planned.
We are not planning to expand into a gerber editor and it’s very unlikely to happen. It’s a need that’s way too niche and only really PCBAs would need it in any real daily use.
And why not make in the form of a plugin or add a module? For example, gerbv GitHub - gerbv/gerbv: Maintained fork of gerbv, carrying mostly bugfixes
It would be great to be able to open multiple kicad instances with different projects at the same time.
I seen no advantage to a gerber editor
This is already possible. Copy & paste between different projects/schematics/boards too. Or is this limited on specific OS?
The panelization and fabrication related features can already be provided by external utilities and plugins; in particular: GitHub - yaqwsx/KiKit: Automation tools for KiCAD
Having an external tool create the fab files has many advantages. I quite like to have a script that provides repeatable results, and editing that script is much easier than diving into the KiCad internals.
Gerber editor is dangerous. If you edit a gerber, your PCB is out off sync, how you update your PCB file then.
But perhaps Gerber editor has some uses, if there is something you can’t do with PCB editor…
A lot of applications ranging from editing the file stencil to changing the shape of the site and removing double shapes… You need to look wider)) and not rely on the fact that pressing one button the manufacturer will do everything for you)))
At least for me in Linux if I try to open the kicad for a second time, it will just show the previously opened kicad instance instead of opening the second one. So I do not know how to have multiple kicad instances open at the same time on Linux.
Like this?
3DConnexion is already supported in v7-rc, but with their own driver. You could file an issue for libspacenav which is more generic if I have understood correctly. Maybe it would be relatively simple to implement the support when one 3D mouse support is already there?
Or is it only an Open Source alternative for the proprietary driver?
This is mentioned in Development Highlight: February Update | KiCad EDA. I don’t know the state of Linux support.
IMHO a stencil editor is part of a CAM tool, not a CAD tool. KiCad cannot be all things to all people. One has to choose priorities.
As for double shapes, they should not be there in the first place.
