KiCad v7 viewer transparency, new behavior

[craigarno]

I’m just now transitioning from KiCad 6 to KiCad 7 and noticed transparency picked up a few glitches in Windows 11.
Here is the KiCad6 viewer representation

and ray tracing looks great

Here is the same view in KiCad7

and with Ray Tracing

Any ideas why the viewer model doesn’t show up in KiCad7 until Ray Tracing is enabled? (New feature?, or bug?)

I’m not very far into it, but KiCad7 is looking pretty good so far. This is good because I’m on an urgent project (unrelated to transparency) using KiCad7.

Application: KiCad 3D Viewer x64 on x64

Version: 7.0.9, release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.3
FreeType 2.12.1
HarfBuzz 8.2.1
FontConfig 2.14.2
libcurl/8.4.0-DEV Schannel zlib/1.3

Platform: Windows 11 (build 22631), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW

Build Info:
Date: Nov 5 2023 19:26:40
wxWidgets: 3.2.3 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.83.0
OCC: 7.7.1
Curl: 8.4.0-DEV
ngspice: 41
Compiler: Visual C++ 1936 without C++ ABI

Build settings:
KICAD_SPICE=ON

================================

Application: KiCad 3D Viewer (64-bit)

Version: (6.0.11), release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.1
libcurl/7.83.1-DEV Schannel zlib/1.2.13

Platform: Windows 11 (build 22631), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW

Build Info:
Date: Jan 26 2023 07:02:30
wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.80.0
OCC: 7.6.2
Curl: 7.83.1-DEV
ngspice: 38
Compiler: Visual C++ 1934 without C++ ABI

Build settings:
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON

[David_Roy]

Hello. If I understand the screenshots correctly, it looks like the the Opacity setting on the Footprint Properties dialog, under the 3D Model(s) tab may be set too close to “0”.

I am new to KiCad, myself, but through experimentation I have found that if an imported STEP file is opaque on import, and set to under 100% opaque on this tab, the entire STEP file becomes transparent. This includes all elements of that STEP file, pins, conductors, etc.

I think, from looking at your screenshots, that the component is a light pipe with no parts opaque. The reason the part becomes most visible on the ray traced image is that the refraction results of ray tracing accentuates the components appearance. If this is correct, increasing the opacity a few notches would make the component visible in the non-raytraced views.

[jmk]

Hi @craigarno

Would your problem have anything to do with this thread from a few days ago?

[craigarno]

@jmk
I looked in my files and since STEP files are usually text based, I opened mine up and found:

ISO-10303-21;
HEADER;
FILE_DESCRIPTION((‘FreeCAD Model’),‘2;1’);
FILE_NAME(‘Open CASCADE Shape Model’,‘2022-12-13T15:28:09’,(‘’),(‘’),
‘Open CASCADE STEP processor 7.6’,‘FreeCAD’,‘Unknown’);

I’m guessing I had trouble with the STEP I downloaded and found FreeCAD didn’t, so I probably converted.

The most likely sources in order of how likely:

1. SLP3-150-250-F | Bivar (most likely tried STEP 214)
2. https://www.snapeda.com/parts/SLP3-150-250-F/Bivar%20Inc./view-part/?ref=rs%20components&t=SLP3-150-250-F&con_ref=None

I should add, the STEP file I’m using works in KiCad6.

[craigarno]

@David_Roy - Good guess, but no, I have transparency set to 35%. I also tried 95% and 100%. None of these settings made a difference in KiCad 7.0.9. And you’re right, it is a light pipe made 100% of the same clear plastic. 35% setting gave me the best rendering appearance in KiCad6.

There was trouble with transparency in KiCAD6, and when I brought it up, KiCad developers were able to isolate the problem and fix it. The working properly screen shots in this submittal came from KiCad6.

3D Viewer not respect opacity (#11641) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab Is my prior KiCad6 submittal.

The KiCad team is great, they just need clear detailed information about where to look, and sometimes they let me know there are a few additional things they need to isolate the issue. I don’t always get it right either.

[craigarno]

Short version: Transparency functions as expected in KiCad 7.10 and 8.0.0-rc2.

I downloaded the STEP 2.14 from SLP3-150-250-F | Bivar and replaced the version I’d earlier modified using FreeCAD when earlier versions of KiCad were experiencing problems.

And now behavior in the latest versions of KiCad v7 and v8 work as expected;
100% is opaque, 50% is semi transparent using the manufacturer’s STEP file produced from SolidWorks

Screenshot from 8.0.0-rc2 “Footprint Properties” dialog, looks the same as v7.10 dialog.

STEP File Header

ISO-10303-21;
HEADER;
FILE_DESCRIPTION (( ‘STEP AP214’ ),
‘1’ );
FILE_NAME (‘BIVAR__INC_SLP3-150-250-F.step’,
‘2020-09-17T15:29:52’,
( ‘EC2’ ),
( ‘Amazon.com’ ),
‘SwSTEP 2.0’,
‘SolidWorks 2020’,
‘’ );
FILE_SCHEMA (( ‘AUTOMOTIVE_DESIGN’ ));