Note that I’m releasing new docker images containing Blender 3.5.1, pcb2blender 2.6 and KiCad 7.0.7 on top of Debian 12.1.
So now the code in the dev branch can be used with pcb2blender 2.1 (Blender 3.4.1) and 2.6 (Blender 3.5.1)
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The KiCad file format isn’t the most pleasant to parse out of the box on any language, so that plugin is basically converting the in-memory board objects to another format for itself to pass to the blender side. Looks fine to me.
The import side of the plugin is not only reading that format but also applying all the shaders you would be stuck applying manually to each pin if you were using a “3d export” from kicad instead.
I mentioned that KiBot has blender output via pcb2blender.
And I was also confused that there are two plugins. KiBot made me a blender file, so I installed blender and opened it. It seemed to work somehow but was not rendering ok, etc. And then I realized that the blender plugin also does shaders, materials, etc… And that is why you need two plugins…
Maybe I just don’t understand then - looking at the PCB2Blender link you provided in your OP, I don’t see how that has anything to do with KiBot; it looks like a standalone KiCad plugin…
Yes, you are right. PCB2Blender is standalone KiCad plugin. Same as Interactive HTML BOM, OpenSCAD or KiKit.
However KiBot is a tool for automating many KiCad outputs and so it has support for KiKit, OpenSCAD, Interactive HTML BOM or PCB2Blender. And because I am using KiBot for automating my exports from git (git is also standalone program btw) I noticed that they’ve added support for PCB2Blender. And I decided to try it. I mentioned KiBot because it saved me the hassle of setting and configuring the PCB2Blender plugin for KiCad and produced blender file - and even the complete render as png.
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I see, thanks… I’ve used KiBot myself in the past to automate generation of output files, so maybe blender output will be of benefit to me in the future as well…
Ok, here we go … quick hack using KiBot:
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But the output is in Blender or Kicad?
But you don’t need to install Blender, you can use a docker image in a workflow at GitHub/GitLab
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